Love Your Discomfort – Its Helping You Grow!

I was given a pair of bright pink thongs (flip-flops to some) for Christmas. Now, as an adult, I am not one who usually wears this great iconic summer footwear, so decided to step outside my comfort zone (couldn’t resist this one!) and give the thongs a go. Little did I know I was embarking on a daily adventure in embracing discomfort!

When I was child, thongs were made of soft, squishy, sponge-like rubber. These new pink thongs certainly looked soft and squishy but when I put them on and walked a few steps, it felt like I was walking on sharp stones. The little plugs underneath that hold the straps in place are made of hard, solid plastic (not soft rubber) so each time I put my weight on them, they hurt my feet! I considered relegating them to the back of the wardrobe and resorting to my oh, so, comfy Crocs when I realised that these thongs presented me with an opportunity to learn how I respond (and react) to being uncomfortable!

So for the past few weeks I have worn my thongs every chance I get. I wear them outside and inside, to the beach and just walking around. And I have been acutely aware not only of my physical discomfort but also my mental and emotional discomfort that certainly exacerbates the physical pain. And I have noticed the many and varied ways I have of avoiding, managing and resisting being uncomfortable. When I agree with my head chatter that says it’s too hard to wear these thongs, they hurt etc, etc, I find the experience almost unbearable. Yet when I remember that I am choosing to wear them, that I have many other choices available to me and yet I still put these things on my feet each morning, I find myself relaxing into the thongs, allowing myself to feel and be with the experience and the pain simply disappears.

There you have it. A simple little lesson in being with what is so, taking responsibility for ALL my choices and allowing myself to fully experience all that I have chosen. When I do this, everything is easier and more flowing and I find my comfort zone expands.

As I sit here, wearing my pink thongs I am reminded not to underestimate how the little things in life can be such powerful catalysts for personal growth.

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"Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value,
for it is the representative of a whole eternity."

Goethe

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