What Are You Grateful For?

Well here we are again, another year has flown by and what a year it has been! Kevin said “Sorry”, Barack stepped up and made history, Morris stepped down, action on climate change was once again relegated to the back burner as the financial crisis took hold across the globe, and people everywhere started to become acutely aware of and really FEEL the insanity of the fear driven context that continues to inform our world experience.

And through it all how have you been responding (or reacting)? Who are you being right now in relationship to all the “stuff” that’s been occurring inside and outside you? What have you been making things mean and how can you remain peaceful and joyful on the roller-coaster ride of life?

Well again it’s a simple choice - Love or Fear ...

There has never been a better time to let go of fear and remember that LOVE is always the answer, no matter what the question. It’s the biggest opportunity you have ever created to truly embrace the paradigm of LOVE and everything it means moment by moment, to remember that you are powerful and valuable and able….able to choose in every moment who you are BEING in relationship to whatever is happening.

My choice is to be grateful. That’s right, grateful… I am grateful for all the stuff that keeps happening, all the “good’ and all the “bad”, for all the feelings I feel and all the thoughts I think and I am grateful for being who I am, here and now, because everything that is occurring is simply showing me where I still fear, where I still stop myself and where I still avoid being responsible, truly response-able for what I am experiencing.

As this year ends and I get ready to celebrate the holidays with my family and friends, I am grateful for being able to choose how I show up each and every moment. And I am grateful for my loving family and fabulous friends, clients, mentors, healers and wonderful, glorious people like you, continually showing me who I am and what’s possible when love is the main game.

My wish for you over this season of yuletide joy is that you remember to choose to be the grandest version of the greatest vision you can have of yourself, to love all of you and be grateful that you are. And enjoy!

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The quote goes: "Love thy neighbour AS thyself" not instead of thyself, or before thyself, or rather than thyself, but AS THYSELF!

There Is Enough!

There is enough of everything. There is enough air to breathe and food to feed every single person on this planet and then some. There is enough space for everyone to have somewhere to settle and be at peace. There is enough of everything to ensure everyone’s wellbeing for a long, long time so what’s going on? Why do we act like there is not enough? Why do we hold on and over consume and dread the loss of what we have accumulated?

Think about it. I bet you could go to your fridge right now and feed more people than you realise. And when you go to your wardrobe, how many people could you clothe? And what about everything else you have? If you shared with others, how far would it go? What are you willing to share?

Now I am not suggesting you go out right now and give away all your stuff – you could and that would certainly be an experience that would blow your mind! – I am suggesting you wake up! And get conscious of how much you actually have, right now, and realise you have enough. If you have been feeling any anxiety about the world’s current economic maelstrom, you have bought into the pervasive and causative mindset that there is never enough and that no matter how much you have, more is better. This mindset is the path to hell.

The path to peace is to remember you are enough. That you have enough and no matter what you think you have, it’s only temporary. When you remember that you are infinitely creative and powerful, then you realise there is no need to accumulate or hang onto anything. When you realise that everything is energy (it just keeps changing form) and when you freely and unconditionally share your energy (in all its forms), everything flows and peace is assured.

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"There is enough of everything ... there is."

What Have You Been Investing In?

You’d have to be living under a rock in a cave in the wilderness to be unaware of the “financial market meltdown” now being talked about in the developed world. The news is full of stories using language like, “turmoil”, “crisis”, “market in freefall” and “meltdown”. And people all over the country are wondering what’s going to happen to their investments, their superannuation, their future security?

Well, believe it or not, you do have a choice. A choice about whether you invest in love or fear. A choice about whether you scare yourself with the news and become stuck in a mindset of anxiety or whether you remember you create the whole of your own reality, you are a powerful, magnificent creator and you always have a choice about how to respond. Your choice depends largely on what you have been investing in…

If you have been investing in knowing who you really are, exploring your self-made internal representations of the world and choosing to align yourself with peace and love and joy, you’ll know that whatever is happening is simply a manifestation of the collective consciousness of the world. You’ll recognise your own choice to agree with the fear or not. If you have been investing in becoming aware of what’s really going on, beneath the surface of what appears to be so, you’ll remember that everything is energy – you are energy, money is energy, life is energy. When the energy shifts occurring in the world are driven by fear, more fear is the inevitable result. And the cycle continues.

You can respond to this cycle of fear in yourself and in the world by challenging your own fearful thinking, by not agreeing with anxiety that is prevalent in our world today and by remembering that everything is perfect even if it doesn’t look how you think it should. When you let go of your attachment to how things “should be” and instead accept the perfection in each and every moment, you’ll discover the inherent peace and joy that lives beneath the surface of your mind. When you invest in being fully present in each moment of now, your fear about the future dissolves and you experience real security – the security of knowing who you really are – Love.

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"Know thyself - and thou shall know all the mysteries of the gods and of the universe"

Inscribed above the Temple of Apollo in Delphi

Mind Your Head!

You see your head is where all your thinking takes place, all the analysis paralysis that many of you engage in on a daily basis is a function of your thinking mind running on and on and on in an unconscious context of fear. And often without much consistent direction or conscious input from you.

You can release yourself from the tyranny of your fearful thinking by choosing to remember that you are not your mind, or your thoughts or your feelings or your body or any of your stuff. You are magnificent, creative, loving being and thinking and feeling are things you do. If you are the one doing those things then you can do something else if you choose.

And there’s the rub. What to choose? What’s the right choice? And where do you look to find your own answers?

Simple. You go within.

Stop for a moment ... close your eyes and breathe ... Notice where your attention is located and bring it back to your breath and your body sitting in your chair ... notice what’s going on inside and outside you ... observe without getting involved in the mind chatter that is occurring ... notice what you are feeling ... in your body ... and emotionally ... breathe and listen ... sit and breathe without needing to avoid anything, or make anything happen ... focus on your breath ...

Once you are in a state of being present in your body, in this moment, right here, right now, the whole of who you are is available to respond to whatever is present. It’s only ever one moment of now.

So when you find yourself stuck in your fearful, anxious, distracted thinking, stop and breathe. And mind your head!

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"Stay present and continue to observe what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the (thoughts and feelings) but also of “the one who observes”, the silent watcher. This is the power of NOW, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens."

Eckhart Tolle

Do You Sweat The Small Stuff?

I hope so.

Contrary to popular sentiment, I actually think it’s important to take care of the small stuff in life. For it’s only in the small stuff that the bigger issues can be resolved.

While enjoying coffee with my gym buddies the other day, we talked about how each of us personally felt about what we see happening in the world today particularly in relation to Zimbabwe, Tibet, Climate Change (all news makers these past few weeks). We agreed that man’s inhumanity to man is quite obvious in how many of our fellow human beings are behaving even though many will justify, excuse or endorse such things. We agreed that it’s terrible and awful and none of us like it, yet … what to do? Is there anything we can do that will make a sustainable difference in our world?

A few days later, while at the gym, I became acutely aware of how I could make a difference after going into the bathroom to wash my hands. There was water everywhere, all over the sink and surrounding vanity. My initial response was one of frustration: how could anyone just leave all this mess? I pondered this while washing my hands and as I was about to finish, I realised I was also in danger of just leaving this mess. After all, it wasn’t my mess per se, I wasn’t the one who splashed the water everywhere, I was just the person who came upon it this way. Then I realised – I am here and it is this way and I can do something about it right now. I saw that it cost me nothing to simply take my towel and mop up the water – so I did - and it took about 10 seconds. I got (again) the transformation that occurs when I take full responsibility for the whole of what is occurring in this moment.

So, you want to make a difference to the way your world is? The answer lies not only in the big dramas but in the small stuff that occurs every day, the stuff that you can respond to right here, right now. What are you waiting for?

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"From little things, big things grow ..."

Paul Kelly

I Create The (W)hole Of My Own Reality

So where do you sit in relationship to this fundamental paradigm of ultimate cause? Are you firmly and unhesitatingly anchored in the position that says “I create the WHOLE of my own reality” or do you dip in and out, sometimes “yes”, sometimes “no” depending on how you feel - the “I create the HOLE of my own reality” position?

Lots of people ask me “How do I live this new paradigm?” And my answer is simply this: Fully accept and embrace the whole paradigm and the notion that you in fact are the cause of EVERYTHING, the whole, the all. You don’t need to believe in it, agree with it, prove it or understand it. You just need to take that position in relationship to everyone and everything that’s happening, all the time. It’s quite simple really and not so easy, particularly when you are judging everything that occurs and judging yourself in the process.

When you take the position that you only create some of what is happening and not all, you are creating a "hole" in the Whole of your own reality. Anything that you refuse to be response-able for, anything that you decide is happening to you, you have no power to change. You get stuck and you have to wait for whatever or whomever is causing it to cause something else. This is a big black hole you fall into and it can take ages to get out!

However, when you take the position that you do create THE WHOLE of your own reality, you get to choose what happens next, you get to choose how to respond, you get to choose again and again and again. You get to choose the whole without the holes.

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"I create the hole of my own reality"

Amala

The Waiting Game

For the past few weeks, I have been waiting for some inspiration so I could write the May newsletter for you. And so far, I have come up dry. I have lots of ideas swarming around in my head and in my psyche and yet every time I sit down to write, nothing seems to click, nada, zilch and zip.

I have been thinking “I must get this newsletter out before May 31st, everyone is expecting it, I can’t miss a month, I have never missed a month, what will it say about me if I don’t get it out in time..” and blah, blah, blah. I would then tell myself “it’s ok, you’ll get inspired, you always have before, it will come” and I would calm down for a while. Then the whole cycle would start again. I realised that the more I engage in the “woulda-coulda-shoulda, someday-oneday-when” conversation, the more unsettled and anxious I feel and nothing gets done!

So this morning I stopped the conversation (and the anxiety) by choosing to embrace what was happening. I chose to let go of needing to write this newsletter by any particular time. By choosing what I was already experiencing, I let go of my self-imposed “have to’s” and decided that I am where I am, things are how they are and I am ok whether I do it or not. Whew! Such a relief.

As soon as I let go, I was inspired to write what I have been experiencing throughout this process! This always happens when I let go, energy flows and things clear up in the process of life itself without any “have-to” or “must-make-it-happen” energy from me.

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"You do not need to leave your room...
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be quiet, still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

Franz Kafka

Pay Attention!

What do the words “pay” and “attention’ have to do with each other? And why do we say “pay attention” when we mean “be present” and “be here now”?

When someone does something or says something you don’t agree with, the whole truth is it is ok for them to have a different opinion or perception of the world we share. Yet sometimes you are tempted to react, to take it personally and judge, defend or attack. When you let that happen, when you find yourself enmeshed in the feeling and emotion of your button-pushed reaction, notice your energy is invested what’s going on outside you and doing what you can to make it different/go away or change. You are paying attention to what’s happening outside because you don’t want to be present with what’s happening inside.

That’s where it gets messy. Whenever you invest your energy - pay attention - mainly to what’s occurring outside you i.e. what was said or done, you only get part of the information you need to respond and make another choice. When you forget to go inside first, to breathe and be with your own feelings, thoughts and energy inside you, when you forget that you are the source of all that is occurring, the cause of everything that is occurring both outside and inside, then you are caught up in feeling at the effect of whatever is happening. And the game continues.

Start paying attention to what’s happening inside you first. Be present with yourself and your thoughts and feelings about whatever is occurring moment by moment. Remember that you get to decide what things mean and when you pay attention to what you are making things mean, you have a choice about the next moment.

When you invest your energy in being the most loving, peaceful and joyful you can be, the dividends are huge. You experience more love, more peace and more joy no matter what is happening. When love is your main investment strategy the rewards are immense, for you and everyone else.

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"All we need is love"

The Beatles

The Truth About Your Judgements!

There seems to be some confusion regarding the difference between acknowledgment – telling the truth – and expressing your judgements. Some people seem to think that expressing a “negative” or “critical” truth is judgement and therefore not appropriate to express. Not so. What determines whether you are judging is whether or not you believe that whatever is occurring (or whomever is involved) is right or wrong; good or bad; negative or positive; better or worse. Judgement is the polarising value we place on whatever is occurring, not the thing itself. It’s a context that we come from and is largely based in fear, not love.

The net result of judging everything that occurs is that you create a polarised position in relation to that which you are judging. That very polarity creates tension and ultimately the whole attack/defend pendulum gets set in motion.

For example: If I have arranged to meet someone at midday and they show up at 2pm, telling the truth to that person could go something like: “We agreed to meet at midday and you are 2 hours late. I feel disappointed and frustrated right now.”

The judgement piece comes in when you believe that it is wrong for someone to show up late and they are wrong for doing that.

For example: “We agreed to meet at midday and you are 2 hours late. What’s wrong with you that you can’t keep a simple appointment? It’s not ok for you to do this to me. Blah, blah, blah… " (you know the drill!).

And don’t get me started on the “No judgement but…” conversation. That’s just a sleazy way of making others wrong while appearing to be “enlightened” and detached. Yeah, right. If you think saying “no judgement but…” gives you licence to dump your judgemental “truth” all over someone else, think again. The most powerful thing you can do when you find yourself judging is to acknowledge it eg: “I am judging (you/me/what’s occurring) right now and I am feeling upset/angry/frustrated (whatever it is). Then choose how you want to respond rather than go looking for agreement about your judgements.

The truth is, you judge, I judge, everybody judges. We judge everyday in many ways - both large and small, covert and overt, extreme and subtle. Recognise that you do judge and rather than judge yourself for that, love yourself, tell the truth and be responsible for your truth and your judgements.

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"Today I will judge nothing that occurs."

A Course in Miracles

Let The Healing Begin

On Wednesday, February 13, 2008, I like millions of Australians witnessed history being made when our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stood up in Federal Parliament and said “sorry”. As I sat and watched with tears streaming down my face, I was moved by his open, honest and heart-felt acknowledgement. I knew that a profound and powerful healing had begun not just for all Australians, but for all humanity. Later in the day I received the following email from my beautiful business partner and dear friend, Peter Sheldon and I want to share it with you:

“Today was the 42nd opening of parliament and the day that the prime minister, Kevin Rudd kept his word and delivered an apology to the indigenous people of Australia. Rudd’s speech, the emotional and spiritual responses in the parliament and particularly the gallery were evidence, along with the deep feelings in my own heart and soul, that we were witnessing the fundamental commencement of a deep healing, not only for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but for everyone who resonated with the pain of separation, the release of genuine acknowledgement and the possibilities for creating anew.

It has long been my own feeling that we have been blessed to have in our consciousness (though often denied), the continued (though tenuous) presence of a people whose profoundly deep feeling of connection with the land and model for connection through spirit is a reminder of where and how we have separated from our own spirit and from each other as a people.

In many ways, I feel the consequences of this part of our own history, as they are demonstrated in aspects of both city and country Aboriginal communities, is the mirror of so much we haven’t been willing to acknowledge in our modern, busy living and sometimes soulless experiences. Yet how profound and painful it has had to be (for our indigenous brothers and sisters) to allow us all to get to today and the healing to begin with consciousness through this first step to reconciliation. How powerful that Rudd has brought this forward so forthrightly and in this first term of Parliament for both Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson who entered the House today as new leaders on both sides of Parliament.”

Now as we move forward in the spirit of reconciliation I ask you to look into your own heart and choose to heal your separation from your own magnificent self, from each other and from humanity as a whole. We are all one people, one whole planet, one song in the universe. Let the healing begin.

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"Today is an historic day. Through one direct act, Parliament has acknowledged the existence and the impacts of the past policies and practices of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families. And by doing so, has paid respect to the Stolen Generations. For their suffering and their loss. For their resilience. And ultimately, for their dignity"

Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

For more information: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/index.html

 

Choosing Peace

According to the Gregorian Calendar we use in our culture, it’s a “new year” and the habit of many is to make resolutions, plans, goals and lists of things to do in the coming 12 months. And as anecdotal evidence suggests, the majority of resolutions, plans and goals fall by the wayside before too long.

Some years ago, I realised I was making mostly content based resolutions every new year out of habit and a sense that “I should”. I also noticed I became very attached to them as a way of measuring my worth and value. This strategy did not ever deliver what I had hoped for which was to simply experience myself as lovable, valuable and ok, no matter what was going on.

So I decided to let go of my “lists of shoulds” and start each year by choosing a personal context that supports whatever I am choosing to do rather than focusing on all the content issues and “stuff” to resolve or do or achieve.

This year I choose the context of peace. I choose to experience deep, unshakeable inner peace no matter what’s going on inside or outside of me. What this requires is my willingness to BE peaceful, to detach from personalising everything from my ego’s view, even when there is temptation all around me to get plugged in and react. Not easy.

As the integrity of our human process dictates, as soon as I chose peace I began to experience lots of “not peace”! A friend’s dog nipped my toe; a man honked and glared at me in the traffic; the builder across the road brought in a rock-breaker going hell-for-leather hour upon hour, etc. I could react and get stressed or I could choose peace. Again, not always easy and certainly I had some moments of strong feelings and reactions, yet as soon as I reconnected with my context of peace I returned to being peaceful and things began to change without any effort or stress on my part. That’s peace.

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"I could choose peace instead of this"

A Course in Miracles