Real life… august 16, 2013

Living the law of attraction… imagining your ideal reality and breathing it into life.  Visualize it, live it like it’s already true and feel it fully and the universe shall unfold as such.

This was my yesterday.  This was how my day unfolded and resulted in a spur of the moment beach vacation that starts in a mere 8 days.

I’ve done crazier things in my life but this is fairly high up on the list as well.  Funny though how of that list of life events most of them revolve around adventure and plane rides.   Yesterday morning I had no intention of a vacation anywhere on the horizon – short of mentioning the need for a plane ride somewhere to my best friend earlier in the week, the thought of a trip hadn’t even entered my mind but how quickly that all changed.

My friend outlined his vacation plans – the destination a welcoming world of clear blue oceans, tiny islands and remoteness so complete it beckoned to me.  I felt the warmth of sun on my body, the heat enveloping me in a blissful peace.  I saw myself – or rather I saw through my eyes – me sitting on a towel on the beach, book in hand.  I felt being there completely – in this place I’d never been and I wanted it and it went from there.

While waiting on the details – the specifics and whether my friend would appreciate this crashing of his solo time I felt it all happening.  With the assurance of my coworker and a deeped seeded feeling within my bones I knew it was going to happen.  I actually wrote out what I wanted.

Sitting on a brilliant white beach feet warm in the sand as the clear blue ocean sparkles in front of me – sunlight bouncing off the ripples.  I am feeling relaxed and at peace – under a palm tree reading my book – large beach towel beneath me.  I am savoring the warmth as beads of sweat form around my neck and roll slowly down my chest – I feel strong and sexy in my bikini – sun turning my skin a golden brown, the red shining out of my hair.  He is on his kite out there somewhere in the middle of this ocean and rarely crosses my mind as I enjoy this moment, solo.   We reconnect at the end of his day when he comes to find me.

…

The cool ocean breeze of the evening feels fresh and vibrant.  My skirt is rippling around my legs, my white tank showing off my strong arms, sun kissed skin.  We stroll along the quiet beach, peaceful under a brilliant moon, hearing music in the distance from the beach bar we are walking towards.  We stop in for beers, food.  We are interacting with the locals – shots of alcohol, a hazy evening full of huge smiles and laughing.  Conversing and just simple island living.

…

The moon is high and mostly full as we stumble back to the house – still laughing and full of the energy of the evening.  A glorious day spent easily in each other’s company – independent and sharing.  Friendship forming.  A day that I want to last forever – escaping reality so blissfully enchanting.

I got the details, the dates.  Then the go ahead from him though I’m not too sure he thought I was serious.  I was.  I found flights to match and then the search for accommodation started – though the island seemed fully booked up.  Still I didn’t doubt.   I sent an email to the place he was boarding at – a place that said that they were already full – heart full of hope and trust in the universe that this would all work out – I wrote:

I will have a bed at [the place he is staying] – nothing fancy but the owners are finding a spot for me to fit in and I spend the week stand up paddling while he is kiting.  I am having long conversations in the quiet of the afternoons with many of the people staying there, attracting them to me easily and opening.  Learning about each and every one of them, hearing their stories.

And I left it at that.  Closed my book and waited.  Peacefully.  Trusting.  I knew that what was meant to be would be and I placed no expectation on the outcome though still in my mind I saw myself seated at that small table, shorts and tank covering my body and I could feel the depth of the conversations, the revealing and knew I would be there.  I felt this and then let it go out into the world.

The final pieces all came together this morning – just as H felt they would, just as I visualized.  I got an email from the place he’s staying – the can fit me in, no worries.  Island life.  And it was that simple.  A few deep breaths, a quick call to my best friend asking her if I was crazy – she said probably but then asked me what did I have to worry about.  She just kept asking if I was going to go and though I was hesitating I knew before I called her that I was – new that in calling her she’d just back up the feeling I already had deep inside – that extra push. 

By the time H responded to my text of the same – asking me to name 5 reasons why I shouldn’t go - I’d already booked.  I laughed.  It was all happening and I felt – still feel – elated.  It all played out so easily, fell together so fast and simply that I knew it was the right choice to make.  The universe unfolded before me, opened up my options exactly as I breathed them into life – felt them within me.  And I am at peace, this is right for no other reason than I deserve it, that I made it happen.  He will be there doing his thing, I’ll be doing mine and we’ll hang out of that I have no doubt and in my heart I see a beautiful friendship resulting from all of this  - some random connection that can only be formed in the middle of an ocean, on a small island cut off from reality.  It will be honest and awesome and full of stories to tell.  I can’t wait.

Oh, and I’m putting it out there – I’ll be handstanding on a SUP before I come back.  Count on it.

Real life... august 7, 2013

What a difference a day makes.  A season.  A reason.  Acknowledgement.  Acceptance.  Words needing to be heard finally said.  Honest texts and open hearts.  Hugs.  A small step back in the right direction.  The universe unfolding before my eyes.  Astonishing.  Amusing.  Absolutely whole.  Letting go and gaining more.  Stressing less.  Breath – unobstructed.  Reaching deep within my body.  My soul.  Nourishing, giving life.  My spirit awakening to the beauty all around me.  The outpouring of love – give a little, get a lot.  Unselfish.  Unconditional.  Full.  A small seed, a gesture perpetuating.  So many more.  Growth.  Glow.  A ball of energy from my heart, a direct link – to him, to them.  To everyone in the world.  Open.  Opulent.  Precious and perfect.  So simple and yet years in the making.  In the understanding.  I made it though.  To this day.  This moment in my life.  And I am  completely in love with it.

Letters to you… ‘whose life am I living?’

This morning on my drive to work, sipping my coffee – I found myself laughing at how thoroughly I spilled the same hot brown liquid all over me on Sunday – head to toe, literally.  I thought of how you’d have laughed at me too, shook your head at my amazing abilities.  How I finally had to wash the scent of you off the scarf I’ve claimed as my own, the scarf that  you hold so dear, the scarf that I still wear every single day.  The one you noticed me wearing randomly over coffee last week and didn’t ask for it back, didn’t even mention it.  The one that held that drop of coffee. 

It was the link between you and this scarf – the scarf that is full of travels and memories for you –and the link between a passage I read yesterday and you that bound themselves in my mind, formed words and thoughts that needed to escape.  The passage – ‘whose life am I living?’ resonated so dearly with me, to you.  Conversations we’ve had before.  Transitions and choices, becoming who you want to be in this instant – a decision, a shift.

Whose life am I living?

Are you living your life, or are you living a version of your life that you hope will please everyone else?

The honest answer to that question is important if you’re truly going to walk your own path.

In my mind I could see the picture of you in Brazil, scarf round your neck – happy and full of life and love.  Radiating in all that surrounded you – new and unknown, vibrant and absorbing everything in that moment.  Awake and aware.   A period of time where you were just living – experiencing it all, fully.  Blissfully.  The fresh and unfamiliar transition that only a new city can provide.  The transition that I’ve experienced myself now – twice.  Vancouver.  Perth.  A chance for reinvention, for leaving the past far behind and being fully in that moment the person who we most want ourselves to be.  A new identity all at once.  Free.

I see myself breaching the rocky mountains – the first time.  Feel like I’ve made my escape – the fearful and tough 26 year old that I was, running from a past of shattered hearts and monsters unleashed.  Starting over.  Alone again.  Lonely, but surviving.  Independent.  Finding my feet in those solid eight years I spent in that city – friendships formed, brief romances, a complete contentedness created.  Growing into a woman fully.  Learning to love me outside any previous expectations or constructs.  A new beginning.  Redefined. 

And then once more – from this solid footing, a leap of faith.  A journey half way around the world, uprooted once more. To Perth.  Evolving further still – fully now the woman I want to be.  Happy and loving.  Loved.  Fear and insecurities left behind, an ocean away.  They come back still in rare moments when I falter, the familiar feeling of comfort  that wrapping myself in them provides – a blanket that I wore for so long - but I can shake them off now, easier, easily.  I am whole here.  I have found my home.  Found me.  The world opening up to me, bringing all my dreams into reality.  It’s amusingly easy.  Bold.  Beautiful. 

I wonder then if this same freedom and transcending love was what surrounded your beauty in Brazil – new life started.  Undefined.  You weren’t your past – the drugs and bars and random beds.  You weren’t your job or your family or the expectations of your friends.  You were solely you – on your own two feet, forging your own path.  Free to connect honestly and soulfully to the new world around you.  The truest and most honest version of you.  Full of love and compassion and belief in yourself.  Supported by the people who got to know you as this man, the man newly created by you.  A new start. 

I sense that man now, still – the scarf that I now wear holds the memories, the feelings of who you were then – the travelling gypsy.   I sense it when you tell me stories of those times – it’s in how your body relaxes, how you feel so alive, awakened.  It’s in the shift in your energy, more vibrant and luminous when you transplant yourself back into that time and place – even as you convey your struggles and fears, sickness – peacefulness still radiates from within you.  You still shine.

I sit here – in this city I now call home – that is home and I know I could never go back – to either Toronto or Vancouver.  Those places will always hold the memories and stories of the girl I was, stages of my life – steps that I needed to take in my journey.  I know though if I return I won’t fit any more.  It would be easy to fall back into old friendships, old circles, old cycles but that is no longer me.  I’ve shed that skin, can’t put it back on, would never feel quite right.  Conflict and contrast.  Stuck. 

They say you can never go home again and perhaps there is more truth in that than we know.  We often try and it changes us as much as the departure does.  But it doesn’t let us fly, it pulls us back into old patterns, old ways.  I wonder if you’ve felt this since you’ve returned to Perth.  Struggled between the old and the new as you find love once more in your family and try to fit back into the folds of the life you once lived.  Is it uncomfortable like a shirt that you’ve outgrown? Only you can say for certain.   I can assume though that it isn’t easy.  New stories inside you, a world explored, held deeply within while you fall back into old friendships that have always defined you – the boy who left - a loyalty that is hard to let go.  Do they still resonate with you, your friends, this city – on a level deep within your being – the man you are now, the man you yearn to be?

The man I shared a moment of this life with – separate from the world that you’ve fallen back to - held that stillness.  Tranquility and calm exuding from within him in moments of just being who he wants to be.  But you struggled against that – worlds colliding.  The new and fresh, the old and stable.  The easier and the redefined.  Comfortable and full of possibility.  Contrasting.  Fears taking hold.  I have seen the beautiful man you are, full of confidence and love – feel his essence woven into the scarf around my neck.  The man who captured my heart fully, who still holds a piece of it.  I hope you are forming that definition of you, the authentic and powerful man that you yearn to be.  That you can honestly answer that question above – ‘whose life am I living?’ – Living your live for you.  Only you.

Resonating... whose life am I living?

Simply because you have chosen to live more authentically and powerfully inside of who you are doesn’t mean that everyone around you will see the same for you.

Remember these people are in your life because you were, up to this point, a vibrational match for them.  Now you’re changing who you are in a significant way.  You’re going through a true energetic transformation.

What you’re “putting out there” now may not resonate with the people in your life, and what’s going to show up is their stuff.

Anytime a person tells you what isn’t possible for you, keep firmly in mind that this is their stuff. They are speaking their truth, most likely about what they see as possible or not for themselves.  They’re just directing it at you.

If these people are close to us, it is going to be very easy for us to be “triggered” by familiar emotional patterns or behavioral patterns that quickly return us to our own familiar emotional responses.

Admittedly, it is not always easy to get through this time of transition.  This is why it is so important to know that the vision you’ve created for yourself leads to great rewards, unlike anything you’ve experienced before.  The vision must be able to pull you through the most difficult times, and this will be much easier for you when you’ve mastered a good releasing technique.

When people are your obstacle, it is often because you are concerned about what they will think about you should you suddenly take a new direction in life. 

At that point you have to ask yourself the all-important question:

Whose life am I living?

Are you living your life, or are you living a version of your life that you hope will please everyone else?

The honest answer to that question is important if you’re truly going to walk your own path.

It is easy to get concerned over the fear associated with relationships transforming significantly or falling away completely, but that concern is also simply a choice we are making.  Many of us have been taught that the ending of a relationship is something to be mourned.  Instead, we can celebrate every moment of every relationship for what it meant to us.  When the time comes to move on, we can do so with no hurt and no sadness, trusting that all was for the greater good, and that perhaps if appropriate, our paths will cross again.

From Follow Your Passion, Find Your Power: Everything You Need to Know about the Law of Attraction by Bob Doyle

Resonating... love hard

It’s Time to Look Stupi

The most powerful tool we posses as humans is our capacity to love.  Period.  I don’t care how much money you make or how brilliant you are. If you don’t love big, you are small.  Think about the people who have affected you the most in your life.  Your family, parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, mentors, friends?  Their love for you is what grabbed your spine.  You’ve changed because of their love.  It’s what made you want to be better.  We die for love.  It’s been this way since the beginning of time, before social pressure and fear of looking stupid.

We know this kind of love is valuable because when we lose it, nothing matters.  Nothing.  Your problems, accomplishments, dreams, are meaningless.  You rack focus and those things become a tiny blur.  If you’re recently mourning a death or an expired relationship, you know what I’m talking about.  Love is lost and it’s crushing.  Without love, we are puppets.  But here’s the thing.  God gave us the ability to love over and over again, deeper and deeper.  I believe we under use this ability.  You know how people say we only use like ten percent of our brain?  I believe it’s the same with our hearts.  Fear prevents us from loving fully.   Many have been burned so bad, they turn that faucet off.  I understand that.  But then you’re not living your full potential.  You are in fight or flight mode, protecting yourself instead of living your truth.  You are hiding.  Not living.  To live means to love.  That’s what living means, uniquely exercising the greatest power your posses.  Maybe you’re not happy because you are not choosing to exercise that muscle.  Or you’re afraid to.

You can’t love fully without being transparent.  Although we all have the ability to love, NO ONE on this planet can love the way you love.  Our love is unique, each person loves differently and that’s what makes us beautiful.  So if you’re going to love, fucking love.  Love with everything you’ve got.  Love fearlessly.  Yes, you may get hurt.  Chances are, you will.  But if you don’t fully commit, you will never know your potential and the impact you can have on another.  Many don’t love because they are angry. They have resentment.  They hold grudges.  Then it’s time to forgive.  Because the act of forgiving is actually loving.

Love doesn’t mean to just throw the word around a lot.  It doesn’t mean cards and cakes.  It’s an internal process.  You can love hard without announcing it.  Love is a choice to open your heart.  That’s all it is.  But or many, there are reasons why they can’t.  Or won’t.

I try to practice love in every aspect of my life, with my clients, friends, family, the barista at Starbucks.  And I admit, it’s difficult.  Fear creeps up.  I feel stupid.  Lame.  But I will not allow something as stupid as me feeling stupid to prevent the greatest power I posses.  You’re on this planet once.  What’s stupid is you allowing your insecurities, ego, and pride to block your greatest gift.

Love until you feel stupid.

Then push past that.

And love until you feel powerful.

Because if you do, you will.  

And it will change everything.

- Angry

http://theangrytherapist.tumblr.com/post/57195234316

Love the boy who... laughs at your puns

Love the boy who laughs at your puns... the boy who finds them 'punny' who makes up his own.  Love the boy who laughs at your puns...

Resonating... listening

“One of the true tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.”

- John O’Donohue, Anam Cara