urban priestess

Biting the hand that feeds you

2011-09-21T05:11:00.000+10:00

Recently I had a struggle. It was a few days after working with a new client and she was very angry with me. Actually she never said it outright but the amount of negative energy she was directing my way made it extremely obvious. The curt emails she sent to me felt like they were seething with rage.

I had given her guidance which at the time she received gratefully. Some days afterwards however she began to realise what following this guidance, if she chose to do so, would actually ask of her. In short, lots of change! Some of which was scary to her. The more the energy of the session moved through her, the more old negativity surfaced and the more she didn’t seem to know what to do with it! So she directed it towards me.

I began to worry that I had been too open with her about what I felt and saw. I seek to cultivate compassion with my clients, gentleness and kindness, and I am also as truthful as I can be because sometimes what people need to hear from me is what they know in their hearts but haven’t admitted to themselves consciously as yet.

I sat with this experience for a while. I wondered whether my own energetic input needed to be dialed back a bit. My inner guidance was that I had served with compassion and she was so entrenched in toxic dynamics that she couldn’t receive it without biting the hand that fed her. Yet the intensity of her negativity towards me had surprised me and I needed guidance too!

So I asked for a healing on it this morning. A few minutes later an unexpected email from another client arrived. This client had received guidance from me in a similar way – it asked her to change. A lot. The difference was that she took this in and took responsibility for what she wanted to do with what came up in her sessions. Her email was grateful, affirming and loving. I was touched and I realised the healing that I asked for some minutes earlier had arrived at the perfect time. This client apologized for not having emailed me sooner, and yet it was perfection itself.

I was so grateful for it. The rest of today I have spent doing readings for others and their feedback has been so loving and affirming, when I have not asked for it, it has been given. Even more than usual, as though the Universe is affirming me and encouraging me to trust and honour myself more deeply than ever before.

This client’s anger forced me to accept the power that I bring to a session and to love and honour the work that I do in service. What is done with what I offer is up to each individual. There was my healing, as requested. I didn’t know how it would come, but the answer was swift and loving. May your healings be equally compassionate.

woman power (more than wielding a sword) ...

2011-09-02T21:24:00.000+10:00

I am woman hear me roar (and OM) …

As you may know, I have been sashaying about Holland lately, mostly for work, but I manage to get in a little exploration time too. Whilst out and about recently, waiting for a street light to flash green to walk, I noticed instead of the usual man, there was a woman, complete with pony-tail.

I then heard a story about another Dutch street light with a somewhat more surprising depiction. Apparently that was short lived as people kept pressing the street light to see it, causing traffic to slow down and more than a few car accidents with people being rear-ended (coinciding with the image on the infamous traffic light actually, further evidence that our chosen symbols do condition our reality).

Then I was reading a Dutch youth magazine that discussed the new (and apparently improved) role of Maid Marian, played by Cate Blanchett in yet another movie version of Robin Hood. The magazine contrasted a fierce Cate with sword with what was considered a more passive history of Maid Marian characters in film.

Of course, demonstrations of physical strength have their place, and can be inspiring, but we would be selling feminine power short if we were to decide that women being able to fight was an expression of feminine empowerment.

A woman, or a man, can choose to play by the rules of the system in which they are operating, or they can become energetically larger than it and begin to grow it into more consciousness. It takes strength of spirit and an ability to align with greater forces spiritually than oneself to activate this potential feminine power within us.

Saints, sages and spiritual masters over the ages, male and female, have had strong repositories of feminine power because it emerges through unity. Feminine power is the ocean that moves the wave. The force of the wave doesn’t come from the individual droplets, it comes from their oneness with the ocean. Unity, connection and relationship brings us potency. It can be so much more than an exercise in human resources. It can become humans flowing in alignment with each other and with the Source. You can’t get more power than that!

So whilst I am all for surprising Dutch street lights (with public safety in mind) and for women owning their physical strength and power, I invite you to ask yourself if you would like to live with the miraculous rather than the strenuous? We don’t have to wilt like dry daisies, but we can let go of some of the fight and align, allow ourselves to be moved and our actions to gain more efficacy in the world because of it. It is the power of synergy, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. This is feminine power in action. When you add spiritual awareness and energy to it, we have the miraculous becoming possible right before our eyes.

Sounds good? It is! And whilst I am in Holland, there are plenty of workshops (feasts) and mini-workshops (snacks) to help you find your way there (with others). You can find out more at www.alanafairchild.com

Love to come but can't get your body there? Join us in Spirit with a beautiful divinely feminine empowering meditation with Mother Mary...

From New Holland to Holland

2011-08-31T00:25:00.000+10:00

Strolling around Holland this afternoon on my own and I realised two things – one, it can be great to explore a new place on your own, to really soak it in, and two, there are languages that are universal.

I don’t speak a word of Dutch. It has taken me days (how embarrassing!) to learn how to pronounce the street that I am living on (the Zijlweg, “zel wecht”, to be said with gusto). Wandering about the marketplace in Haarlem, I couldn’t rely on my native language to communicate. Most people speak English which makes life considerably easier, but there are times when of course people want to, and do, speak Dutch.

So there are those times when I had to rely on a more universal language to be able to communicate. Fortunately I already speak some universal languages. “Angel” is the same no matter what country you are in. The language of “cat” seems pretty universal also. Nature just speaks.

So does math (apparently, though sometimes for me the conversation can be a bit awkward). My favourite expression of math is when it blends with emotion and becomes music – another medium that can helps us connect and relate to each other despite cultural difference. The universal languages of emotion and symbolism express themselves through fashion too. Fashionistas adopt their uniform of sorts and communicate their identity through granny-chic lace camisoles teamed with soft knits and tough leather in Holland just as they do in Sydney.

And then there is intuition. Although there are times when I am definitely lost in translation, there have been several experiences where the energy field of a person, conversation or even a written article, is so strong that I can translate with accuracy the details of what is being said, quite surprising my Dutch companions. I experienced first hand that an ability to read energy can help lift us to a place of greater connection and unity in a very pragmatic physical way. Being able to read energy can help us just ‘get’ each other at a deeper level, move into more unity and as a species, learn to find peace with each other.

A nice little realization from a short stroll to the charming Dutch marketplace in Haarlem.

If you want to build your intuition (handy for travelling!) my guided meditations help you do so (and feel amazing).

Change can be a sticky process ...

2011-08-27T20:27:00.000+10:00

A few days ago I started a journey. I flew to the other side of the world, to the land of clogs, tulips and charming woodlands, gorgeous Holland.

It was a long haul flight from Sydney, Australia and during the process, being blessed (though it sometimes doesn’t feel like such a blessing) with a highly attuned sensitivity to my energy field, I noticed something odd.

Context first.

Before I left, my Guidance said that my return to Sydney would mark the beginning of a new cycle for me. I got very excited, choosing to forget the old saying ‘what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly’.

As an aside, I also had Archangel Michael rock on up to my room the night before I left letting me know he would be with me on the journey and I would be safe. Cue to a vision I had whilst in the half-asleep, half-awake, can’t sleep in this plane seat state, of a massive angel pushing the plane from behind.

Both legs of the 20 hour plus journey ended with the same announcement from the pilot, “we have had strong winds from the south and we have arrived ahead of schedule”. Well, I thought to myself, the south is the direction associated with Archangel Michael, and thanks for flying angel airlines.

So, context for the journey, imminent new life cycle, spiritually supported, though caterpillar self might not be so enthused.

Cut to me landing in Holland and realizing that they astral field is completely different here! Charming. Quirky. Unique. I love it, but it isn’t what my body is used to in Sydney. A bit like eating a particular diet and then suddenly eating something else. It might be yummy, but if you aren’t used to it, there can be an adjustment period.

I will be away for six weeks which is long enough that I cannot continue to be plugged into my old home base energetically, I actually have to unplug and ground here to function well, which means navigating a new astral field too. The energies and thoughtforms of the community in Sydney that I would normally plug in to (without being so aware that I did it until I really had to unhook during the flight over here) are just not available to me.

It has been a type of shock energetically to my system, despite my meditation being focused on really grounding to the energy field here, I find myself psychically in a limbo – can’t connect to my old astral reality, and haven’t built my new astral reality here as yet, yet my astral body wants to hold on to what has been familiar in the past. It is like trying to separate two pieces of paper with glue still in between them - the glue pulls and holds even as the separation takes place. The paper might need to be moved to another scrapbook, but that glue is holding on for dear life!

Spiritually, I feel the same (because spirit is beyond time and space) but energetically in terms of my thoughtforms and beliefs, or in other words, my astral field, I am being given the opportunity through forced detachment to experience something new. Yet the process is sticky to say the least. There is an innate gravity towards that which is familiar which is very strong (and which may also explain a phenomenon which I have never been able to understand, which we can just call "why would you go to Egypt on Holiday and choose to eat at McDonalds?"). Astral gravity or glue - the phenomena that despite opportunity and effort, can pull you towards what is known rather than into the unknown towards something new.

So you could say that I am having an experience, somewhat unexpectedly, of the stickiness of the astral plane where our maya or chosen illusions – beliefs – thoughtforms about life grow and create the film through which our soul light is projected into the world. No wonder it can be hard work to transform ourselves, not only on the inside, but the actual physical quality of our life experience. We have to be able to dissolve our current films, made up of our personal beliefs about what is and is not possible, and if we want transformation beyond the cultural matrix in which we live, then those have to be transcended too, and it can give rise to an energetic experience of separation anxiety.

Fortunately for me, the same astrological ascendant that connects my energy body very strongly to the physical and emotional environment that I live in (Taurus) also gives me the insight to know what is happening (in esoteric astrology, Taurus becomes the illumined eye of the Buddha, clear vision or clairvoyance – lovely, yes?) and the sheer stubbornness and patience required to stay with it and honour the transformation in process.

I know that it is the light of the Soul that is the ultimate cleansing agent, even of super-sticky-astral-maya, a bit like easy-off bam for the energy body. So whilst I am being cleansed, it is time to be open to new and improved maya (if we are going to live in a world of illusion, we might as well choose our illusions to be as enjoyable and interesting as possible when we get the opportunity to do so).

May you and I rise up, connect with our highest divine essence and be gifted with the energy required to dissolve old attachments that no longer serve us, and experience a miracle of manifestation that once upon a time we would have though only possible in a fantasy. May we become the gorgeous butterflies we are meant to be, and remind ourselves, during our caterpillar moments, that it’s all a necessary part of growth.

Let’s choose well and allow our soul to do the rest… shine on beloveds.

This goddess is cranky!

2011-03-29T15:04:00.000+11:00

I was asked to endorse someone's work, yet I have never been a client or a colleague of theirs (nor have any of my clients)! This is not the first time this has happened.

Testimonials of my work and also that I have given are real and I am very grateful for them. When did endorsements become about exchanging favors instead of genuinely being about the work?

Mostly I'll just laugh at what I consider ridiculous situations like this, but sometimes the fire in the belly of the goddess rises up and I get mad about it. Like today. I was so pissed off that this person even asked me. Of course people can ask and I can say no. Which is what will happen here.

Yet even with that in mind, I still don't get it. It just seems like being asked to lie in return for a favor and it cheapens the process for me. Have we forgotten that our word is meant to mean something genuine?

That is what made me mad. It can be tricky enough to find honour and integrity in business, especially in a spiritual vocation, but in this case, it seemed to have just flown out of the window altogether with an icky 'you scratch my back and i'll scratch yours' scenario. No! No! No!

So to find some inner peace around this, I need to find the shadow in me, where I am either doing this (even if it is with the volume turned right down so to speak) or where it represents a shadow opposite in me (ie that maybe I need to be more assertive in my marketing process - to which my inner child goes "ahhh, noooooo! i hate that stuff!!). Not a good mindset for someone who works in the public eye to some extent to have going on.

How can I love the unloveable in this? Working on that one, still. Current take on it all? The Universe is telling me to not be afraid to put myself out there more. I won't sell my soul because there is a part of me that finds lack of integrity too enraging. It's safe to venture out a little more and trust that I'll honour my values.

Hmmm. Feels a little better already. But I am still not doing that endorsement! I can just stop judging the person who asked and have more compassion for us both. Phew!

Image rights - The Goddess of Wrath (c) 2007 Spiffyiffic (Ashley) on Flickr - Yahoo

Special thanks - to the person who requested the endorsement and inspired this blog - love to you and thanks for teaching me to love more!

In honour of putting myself out there more ... you might just fall in love with my meditation CD as many have done before you! Shine on x

Shine On, Party People

2010-12-09T16:23:00.000+11:00

Hey party people! Your base chakra wants to boogie! You are invited to a galactic dance-off in 2012. Be there or be fear ... (doesn't rhyme with square, but helps me express my point!)

There is a desire within every Old Soul to attain and live out a high spiritual destiny this lifetime. This is the best possible version of you and your life.

For example, if you are here to heal your heart chakra ("ahem, who me?"), you could do it by attracting betrayal after betrayal and refusing to forgive anyone thereby creating lots of opportunities for you learn about the heart chakra later on in life (or in future lives, as the Soul has a VERY GOOD MEMORY), perhaps via heart disease or becoming a bitter lonely old grump throwing rocks at children who walk past your porch each evening for entertainment) ... OR (oh good, an alternative! yay!) you could connect with Universal Love become a healer and help millions of people by shining your loving heart for all to experience and lifting yourself up into divine bliss in the process. Yum!

These are two examples of essentially the same soul journey, lived at different vibrations, varying according to the capacity, intention and willingness of the being in question.

Our high spiritual destiny is the highest vibration that we are capable of embodying this lifetime, sort of like being able to grow into our best Self where there is the most conscious experience of love, abundance, peace and joy … certainly I would describe this as a preferable experience to a lower vibrational existence, but to each their own, of course.

In the lead up to 2012 (which I like to refer to as the cosmic dance party of love which will be taking place at 11.11 at the December Solstice of 2012), many beings are helping with party preparations across our galaxy and here on Earth too.

In the lead up to a party, we might take a nap and then put on the music to get in the mood to get ready to shine our most fabulous selves. So it is with the 2012 love-fest. We will need to have our pre-party rests and when we are ready (which should be pretty soon as the gang is arriving to set up the venue as we speak) it’s a matter of getting our party vibe going to be able to go with the flow and not feel bamboozled by all the energy and excitement.

If you missed your invite previously, then consider this to be it! You can RSVP to the Universe in this way “Hey there, my beloved Higher Self and Highest Spiritual Guidance, I would love to shine forth with more love, light, divine power and protection, I am open to release my beliefs in fear and condition myself to be a shiny bright instrument of love – so yes, I am ready to rock on!”

In RSVPing to the cosmic gathering, you are signing up to receive more spiritual energy, and for many of us, it started some time ago, perhaps with agitation that eventually shifted to realization that we were being asked to really grow, glow, let go (you know?!).

This can be a great and wonderful thing if we deal with it consciously, or if we are being caught unawares, it can also feel a bit like being ambushed by God.

If we are not really paying attention to the fact that our energy is growing stronger, and intending to use our powers for good (the greatest good is best, but let’s just start with some basic positive thinking instead of gossip, bitching or judging, for example), then we can end up causing more dramas and more intensity than we need in our lives, even if we do this unintentionally, it will be just as revolting as if we were intentionally up to no good. Even a good bull in a china shop causes damage! We need to be careful of our power to create during such influxes of higher energies.

As I am an advocate of experiencing only the most strictly necessary pain for growth, and the rest of my growth can be fun and joyful, I have written this blog as a little memo for those planning on being up on the podium with me, dancing at this cosmic love parade in 2012 (I’ll be the one waving my arms about, undoubtedly bejeweled in something gold and shiny), so we can get on with the party preparation with as little fuss and as much fun as possible.

Perhaps you have RSVP'd already and forgotten about it – here are some symptoms that will help you realise that you have already agreed to attend the big event (and the many boundless after parties!) and are getting into party mode, so to speak.

- Your energies are more intense.

- Your spiritual centres (esp heart, crown and third eye) are more activated and sometimes feel more congested.

- If your base chakra is not being regularly cleansed (and especially cleared of old beliefs in fear and lack) you can feel unbalanced, overloaded and fatigued and seemingly stuck in old patterns

- If you have been doing energy clearing, you will find it increasingly effortless to let go of old patterns and be open to healing miracles in your life supporting by the intensification of spiritual energy available to us at this time (and it’s just going to keep on increasing – hooray for endless supply!)

The more spiritual energy that comes in, the more your base chakra needs some good loving gold light and grounding to the earth star chakra deep in the earth to allow the energy to flow through you and not get stuck, leaving you feeling a bit worse for wear!

The more energy you bring through, the more powerful your creative manifestation process, so bin the news for a while, if it tends to create negative thoughts in your mind (and hey, that’s not so unlikely!) and instead focus on the positive, sunshine, and help lift the psychic climate on the planet (I promise if you need to know something in world events, you’ll find out anyway and you’ll feel more empowered doing something good for yourself and the world rather than consuming psychic rubbish).

Signs and symptoms that your base chakra needs a big fat blessing of divine love from you and your guidance (or a good healer who knows how to pack a punch with a lovely juicy blessing of abundance and peace)?

Similar to the signs above that it needs a cleanse - fatigue, fear (nay terror!) and financial problems, family dramas, abandonment fears and pretty much any anxiety about survival, and feelings of being disconnected from the world and others (I’ve been there in the past, it’s not so much fun!).

So now what?

A Base Chakra Blessing for Abundance, Peace and Getting in the Party Mood ...

To receive a blessing, start by drawing spiritual energy down from the crown of the head (drawing in energy from as high a source as you can possibly imagine) and let it move down your spine, into the earth all the way to your lovely earth star chakra, connecting you to Mother Gaia.

Draw up her beautiful golden light towards your heart and then say aloud a prayer which is essentially you stating your intention here and now to clear and release all of that which minimizes earth connection (eg vows of poverty from past lives, fear of lack from this lifetime – perhaps inherited from your family no matter what their financial wealth may have been, they have been very fearful and poor in spirit, and even a special forgiveness release for those who truly, truly drive you crazy).

Intend that you do this through all dimensions of your being and all of your lifetimes. Then breathe in that good yummy energy from heaven and earth and breathe out, releasing old obstructions. Imagine the Violet Flame cleansing your released energy and a lovely blue and violet light stabilizing and protecting your newly refreshed energy field.

Repeat it a few times if you like remembering that the more you let go of, the less baggage you have weighing you down in your ascension to higher levels of vibration – and therefore you are able to reach more love, happiness and peace, joining the cosmic conga to 2012 in a far more enjoyable manner.

Finally draw in divine love through the crown of your head and imagine it flowing down to the base of your spine and into your base chakra, and bless your base chakra with some yummy good intentions for peace, prosperity, security and wonderful tribal connections with like-minded Souls on this planet at this time whom you can support and who will support you unconditionally!

Your base chakra can gobble this up, growing fat and happy like a big Buddha, connecting you more strongly and cleanly to the Earth and all the goodness that she wants to share with you.

Recently I did an energy rebalance in a similar way with a very old soul. She has an incredible energy field, vast with extraordinary capacity for spiritual love and healing to flow through her, and she is at a point where she has conquered so many fears about the nature of being alive on this planet, and because of this, she is fast approaching a ‘final hurdle’ between her and her highest spiritual destiny. Phew!

The session was extremely powerful and the base chakra, in particular, had a massive release of fear, which literally felt like someone had taken an air conditioner on super-cold-power and was blasting cold energy out of the bottom of her spine. The cold energy released just like a deflated balloon, yet her base chakra grew stronger and more able to connect and ground her tremendous higher consciousness as the fear was released.

This amazing human being (and I suspect that you are amazing, just like she is) actually has a great power to attract what she needs in her life and is very abundant and supported on our planet – like so many of us, she sometimes just needs to realise this and in doing so become aware of her innate spiritual power, which in turn helps one feel safer and so on. It is a positive ‘downward’ spiral of our spirit into our base chakra and then into the Earth.

May you all have such spirals towards prosperity, love, healthy human connection and peace. May you release the fears that would hold you back from fully being here now and living the amazing life, full of extraordinary encounters, that you are absolutely destined to live – your highest spiritual destiny. Look forward to seeing your shining self at the 2012 dance-a-thon. Keep shining!

Need some help polishing up those chakras, doing a cleanse and shining on? Enjoy the Violet Flame meditation and more on my meditation CD just for you : )

Giving + the Law of Attraction = Get ready to Receive!

2010-11-24T10:34:00.000+11:00

Giving + the Law of Attraction = Get ready to Receive!

Most of us give because we love it. It feels good, natural, to honour that part of us that wishes to serve the greater good, so we do it as best we can. Sometimes we even need to learn how to receive. This can be especially so for healers. As author Nancy Garen puts it “an empty cup cannot quench anyone’s thirst” (right on, Sister!).

But there are also times when fear gets a grip on this planet, and people start to hold back and a chain reaction of delay and fear starts to trickle into your life. If you are running a business it might be delays in your payments, for example, which then makes it hard for you to honour your financial commitments to others and so delay, fear and stepping away from divine flow (and inner peace) can take hold.

This is where those who are bold of heart are so needed to rise above what is transpiring instead of collapsing into it as a victim of circumstance (yes, I see you there, bold hearted-ones, shining away as you read this little blog!). The GFC might better stand for the Global Fear Challenge, and whilst we have managed to pull ourselves to the other side of it in many ways, there is still plenty of fear around survival and finances wafting about the collective human mind.

So how does one, so blessed with spiritual boldness that s(he) desires to make a bright, healing contribution to the collective, then take a stand against fear and towards anchoring love and peace on this beautiful mad planet of ours?

Well, fear is a sticky energy and if you are by some chance feeling a bit of a pinch financially, or in any fear-inducing way, then you might have got a bit stuck (happens to us all sometimes, forgive yourself, let it be and plant a radical intention to move back into Love now …). As Caroline Myss has said, it is easier to be grateful during a feast than a famine. If you are fearing that you are being drawn into the energy of lack it is time to buck the unconscious system and be a spiritual star and defy that fear of lack and instead, GIVE from a place of Love.

Betsy Thompson has written a book called “Walking through Illusion” which is like over-hearing a conversation between her and Jesus, or like Jesus was being interviewed on the Oprah show about his teachings and ideas. There were a few things that I liked about reviewing this book, the first one being that Betsy shared a Christian mysticism that was inclusive of all faiths, which to me really signifies it as a teaching of love rather than fear. What I also loved was the underlying message that we can create our lives by sharing with others what we would have them share with us, or in other words, give what you want to get (my less eloquent, but straight to the point summation). Her message is so good for the Soul and it is echoed by another spiritual radical full of bold defiance, the beautiful Mahatma Gandhi who taught us to ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’.

So when the sticky fear monster (he could be a character on Sesame Street to help new generations become conscious from a young age how to deal with this energy … perhaps yellow fur with black spots? Just a thought …) starts to paw his yellow-furry limbs at your energy field, recognise it so you can do a little energy shift. You can start with singing the Beatles classic in your head (or aloud, all the better if in public if you like to stir the pot a little), “Love, Love, Love, it’s easy!” and then a little of that catchy 90’s pop anthem by the New Radicals “you only get what you give” … “this world is gonna pull through, don’t give up, you’ve got a reason to live, can’t forget we only get what we give …”

Then make a little donation of some money, love, kindness, a smile or a loving thought (or even better, all of the above) and start the currents of consciousness heading back to Love! You’ll help more than just yourself doing this, it can feel like utter bliss, like munching up the fear energy and pulsing out love. Ah, what clever spiritual alchemists we can be when we remember to give ourselves permission to do what we are capable of doing!

So beauties, I ask for an abundance of blessings from the Divine for you now, may you be granted all spiritual assistance that you may require, may you have the protection, boldness and courage of the Divine in its most sassiest of forms (I am thinking the Lion-headed, Lion-hearted Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet here, but Archangel Michael, and Hindu Goddesses Durga and Kali are known for serious fear-munching abilities). May you be gifted with the ability and willingness to turn any current of fear in your life, any form of lack, into love, abundance, bliss and a sense of your own mastery and ability to be the change you want to see in the world.

Shine on!

Need some more help? You might enjoy my love-fest, fear-dissolving meditations available now just for your own beautiful Soul to feel healed, whole and ready to kick some furry-yellow fear-monster butt. Go you good thing!

And why is that?

2010-11-10T10:17:00.000+11:00

Why?

Opening the heart when there is much suffering in the world can give rise to feelings of overwhelm and confusion. Before we can experience the fountain of sweet nectar that blissfully gurgles away in a clear and open heart chakra (sounds good, yes?), we often have to make peace with the world.

We intuitively begin this process when as we ask the question “why is the world the way that it is?”.

In response we may wonder about the nature of God’s mercy, or despair over human nature, but eventually, if we contemplate more deeply, something blessed occurs.

We can ask "why?" from a place of judgment, where we assume something is wrong and things should be different.

Or we can ask it from a place of curiosity where we imagine that although hidden from view at present, there is a spiritual grace underneath what is transpiring, if only we were willing to suspend judgment and cultivate the gentle curious awareness necessary to witness it. Where judgment blocks new awareness, curiosity allows for understanding, delight and peace to emerge.

When I am doing a reading for someone and I see a behaviour pattern that ‘doesn’t make sense’ on the surface (perhaps the client says that they want something, yet behaves in a manner that is guaranteed to keep that desire far from reach) I very calmly ask to see why this behaviour occurring.

I don’t assume that the client is a fool (not a very healing stance for a spiritual guide to take!) nor do I assume that their behaviour is just wrong (which is a judgment that blocks understanding). Instead I remain open, curious and willing to understand.

Asking “why” has prompted many a secret wound to surface in a client’s awareness, where they can let it go and realise that they are now free. The healing this brings is often deep, surprising and inspired. It has been said that God works in mysterious ways. Asking “why” from a place of curiosity rather than judgment helps us get closer to those divine workings in our lives and restores peace to our hearts.

I remember working with a lovely client with a passion for conscious parenting. She wished to raise her children in an empowered way that would give them the best start in life that was possible. Yet despite wanting her children to feel confident and loved, her children were so clingy and fearful to leave her side, demanding constant attention from her, that she wondered what on earth was going on!

She wanted to know how she could help them gain confidence and feel safer in the world. After sharing with her that children often act out our subconscious fears, I asked her what was happening for her at the times of birth, or in her past, that had her feeling the insecurities and fears that her children seemed to be expressing. Instantly a light switched on inside of her. She had suffered miscarriages in her past. She had been through so much to get to this precious family that she had now that she was scared to relax and trust that it would be alright. With this realization she let go and found confidence to enjoy Life more boldly, as did her children.

With curious non-judgment, you can come to see that the biggest mess in your life has the potential to be the most precious healing gift unfolding right before your eyes.

May you be unburdened by judgment that would blind you to divine grace and be blessed to witness the miracles happening in your Life right now. Peace to your hearts, dear ones.

Need some help getting to that clear heart chakra? I have created a healing meditation CD just for you. Shine on lovelies!

Ouch! And yet I still find "Believe" to be a beautiful word ...

2010-09-27T16:23:00.000+10:00

Recently a young woman on my Facebook page made a remark that is very true though perhaps a little controversial. She expressed her struggles with what she considered might be a contradiction inherent in new age spirituality – that getting on the Path, so to speak, makes you happier and helps you get what you want. The law of attraction has translated into many sales (how attractive!) through modern spiritual teachers offering guidance in ‘how to manifest’, in an effort perhaps to help us become more conscious of what we already do on a daily basis, and to therefore gain more choice and less unconscious reaction in what we are bringing into our lives, the theory being that if we choose something, we will like how it comes into our lives too – you probably get my implied point here, but more on that in a moment.

I remember hearing Caroline Myss once remark that many who sought the spiritual path for personal growth were expecting that it would honour them with some sort payback in the form of a Life akin to a spiritual pleasure cruise, and all their worries would be over. It is perhaps needless to say that she scoffed at the idea of this, and many in the audience chuckled too with a sort of “oh, yes, how ridiculous to think that” agreement, whilst I silently considered that was actually one of my expectations of it all at the time (ah, I was young, but I still harbour a rampant optimist within, so consider yourself warned).

Her remark reminded me of a comment made in an interview with an enigmatic Indian man known as UG, interviewed by a Professor HSK in an article called “the Mystique of Enlightenment”. To UG, enlightenment ain’t so mystical. His experience of it, he said, is a realization of impermanence and unreality of what we consider to be reality. Because he considered that many people search for enlightenment as a way to permanent bliss, UG remarks that if they knew what it was (for him), they wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot barge pole!

There is a place to dwell somewhere in the middle of these extremes of plunging head-first into an imagined pleasure-fest and according new age promises with as much believability as a TV infomercial.

In this middle-place, spiritual growth doesn’t promise that we can mould the world as though we were the supreme creator, yet it does acknowledge our current role as co-creators of our world, through how we choose to be within ourselves and how we choose to live, according to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. It doesn’t offer us a fantasy escape, but it does offer us the courage to dream of living our truths and the boldness to believe that this dream is within our grasp. It doesn’t promise dreamy outcomes, but it does genuinely assure us that what we are seeking, we will find, if only we are open to it. Sometimes that will be even more dreamy than we imagined for ourselves and sometimes it will be much more down to earth. Whatever will best serve you is what comes to you, even if you don’t realise it straight away. The Universe loves you. It serves your growth always.

Your part is to be open to the manifestation of your prayers or dreams, even if it isn’t happening in a way that you expected (and when is Life that predictable, really?). What you pray for, from deep in your being, comes to you. It may take lifetimes if you have a lot to work through to get to a place where you can allow it. For some it might take about fifteen minutes. It really depends on what it is that you are seeking and how deep your journey is to get there. The sweetest fruit is at the top of the tree, so sometimes having a bit further to climb makes the attaining of the goal that much more delicious. There are other times when we are ready to have a quicker awakening, sort of like ripping off that band-aid rather than tugging at it slowly.

Here’s a snappy little story that I like. It’s a Buddhist proverb about a woman called Enyadatti.

Enyadatti is convinced that she has lost her head. People are shocked by her statement and her passionate and consuming search. Yet they cannot reason with her that she has lost nothing at all! One day Enyadatti is walking down the street, anxious and obsessive in her search when she is spotted by an old friend called Tara. Tara notices her friend’s anxiety and asks her what she is doing. Enyadatti says “I have lost my head and so I am trying to find it!”. Instantly Tara smacks Enyadatti right in the centre of her forehead with great force causing Enyadatti to cry out in pain. “There’s your head, Enyadatti,” Tara says to her friend, “it’s right on top of your neck!”. Enyadatti held on to her aching head and mumbled her thanks.

Even that which would appear to be striking us down, can be an ally to us if we so choose it. If our inner victim takes over, we may feel martyred or unfairly treated by life. If our inner hero or warrior takes over, we can instead choose to rally our forces and become clever little minxes, seeking the healing possibilities hiding in our pain (perhaps realizing that we do have a head after all – or what it symbolizes, perhaps wisdom, a mind of our own) and finding a way to turn what was once adversity into an advanced spiritual growth experience, emerging stronger and with less inner obstacles to manifesting our truths than ever before.

This is what can bring peace and happiness. Not changing life with it’s inevitable pains and disappointments, but changing how we respond and interact with Life. Neither expecting it to always be miserable, nor to always be blissful. This is where we can ironically enough find the peace we were seeking through trying to change Life in the first place. To arm ourselves with the knowledge that even an occasional thump on the head is offered with Love, to help us find that which we have sought so passionately, can help us relax and roll with the punches (or thumps). I can tell you from past experiences, that the kicks up the bum that I have received from the Universe brought me answers that I had sought (and one my backside stopped smarting I was grateful for the help).

My wish for you is that any kicks up the behind that you receive from Life may be swift, illuminating and not too shocking, and that when you are awakened, you find that whatever your heart was seeking, dear one, is actually right there in front of you, within you, or at the very least, not too far out of reach and soon to be yours for the taking.

Why women go gaga for "Twilight" (or The Perfect Man)

2010-08-05T14:22:00.000+10:00

The Perfect Man. He is a rare breed born of many a woman’s fantasy.

He loves one woman with complete adoration, loyalty, and enduring passionate desire. He is possessive and jealous to only a complimentary degree (never dysfunctional and ignoring a woman’s right to self-possession) and will fight for her to the death (yet never dies, because that would be abandonment and the perfect male will not sink to such lows).

If he does leave her, it is somehow for the woman’s own good. This allows him to be the bad-boy who leaves and the good-guy who takes care of her all at once. Clever! Of course his pure intentions towards his lover are unveiled upon his return because the Perfect Man always returns to his true love, with some fabulous excuse that renders him even more wonderful.

He will also provide security (perhaps emotional, perhaps financial or perhaps both) and will have some kind of excellent physical features – perhaps really great hair.

Women in stupendous numbers have seen a psychological fantasy that they were not-quite-conscious-of come to life in Stephanie Meyer’s vampire novels and movies through the lead character of Edward. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that Meyer says the character of Edward came to her in a dream …

Edward is a hot, young, rich and kind vampire (he chooses not to drink human blood which is rather kind of him, yes?). He is wise because he is very old (but looks very young, being undead is the ultimate in anti-ageing it seems) and has enough passion to be driven to near insanity with (blood) lust, and yet restrains himself from acting on it by being mean and distant to his true love, thereby being both good guy and moody bad guy all at once (see? Clever!).

So Edward has it going on, at least according to his true love, Bella. Edward fights his urge to kill Bella and turn her into a vampire because he loves her. With more angst than even the most hormonal teenager could summon, he manages not to kill his girlfriend for a while. The dark twist is that he ends up drinking his true love’s blood and turning her into a vampire along with him, but there were extenuating circumstances which apparently made this alright.

Bella’s vampirification (is that a word?) by Edward allows her to (un)live with him forever. An extreme case, it seems, of being loved to death.

At a logical level, the massive response of women fans yearning for a vampire lover of their very own to love them to death (literally) seems bizarre.

There have been studies done lately that show women’s dissatisfaction in their relationships have come to the fore, as women can now show just how little their own partners can live up to their ideal lover, Edward.

It seems that something unconscious in women, this romantic hero fantasy taken to an extreme, has been triggered and is fast translating into ticket sales for the latest movie, and perhaps also couples counselling.

It also seems nothing can breed dissatisfaction for a woman in a relationship faster than believing your man could or should measure up to a fictional character …

If your fantasy becomes so strong it clouds your connection to reality, it will end up killing your relationship bit by bit (as love and expectation of perfection aren’t so compatible) which will eventually leave you free to pursue fantasy (rather than real) relationship as much as you like.

A joke doing the rounds by email at the moment illustrates that the Edward phenomenon isn’t so new at all. It’s called “The Frank Feldman Story” …

A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by.
He gets into the taxi and the cabbie says: 'Perfect timing. You're just like Frank.'

Passenger:'Who?'

Cabbie: 'Frank Feldman. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time.'

Passenger: 'There are always a few clouds over everybody.'

Cabbie: 'Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won
the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy.'

Passenger: 'Sounds like he was something really special'.

Cabbie: 'There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman, could do everything right.

Passenger: 'Wow, some guy then.'

Cabbie: 'He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too - He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman.'

Passenger: 'An amazing fellow. How did you meet him?'

Cabbie: 'Well, I never actually met Frank. He died and I married his bloody widow'.

In psychology, both Frank Feldman and the Edward character would be described as the demon lover or ghost lover.

This is a psychological energy that can capture a woman’s psyche, holding her hostage to an impossible desire for perfection.

The demon lover within her own psyche may be directed towards herself, with demands that her body be perfect (and if severe enough, can lure her into anorexia and exercise bulimia) or projected outwards onto others who are deemed never good enough for her.

The demon lover is not about having healthy standards and self-esteem, it is about unrealistic perfection and it can make a woman’s life a breeding ground for personal insecurity, emotional despair and deep loneliness.

A woman captured by her ghost lover is having a dysfunctional relationship with her own psyche, not really connecting with or being able to give and receive love with those around her. It is a painful state to be in, and very painful for those on the receiving end of her distorted judgments that they are ‘not enough’.

A woman’s “Edward” may be a man (living or fictional) that she is obsessed with, or an addiction that pulls her away from her genuine feelings and body – such as anorexia or drug addiction, or her “Edward” may be the voice in her head that tells her each man she meets is never quite up to her level, and therefore should be cast aside (or criticized continually as she tries to change him to become what she wants him to be in her own head, rather than loving who is actually is) to allow for a more perfect soulmate to appear.

Men can suffer just as much from this process of seeking an ideal rather than finding and sharing love and acceptance in their human relationships.

Rather than taking a woman closer to what she is seeking through her ghost lover, which is someone who really loves, treasures and accepts her, helping her move through the pain she has suffered in the past (perhaps being abandoned, rejected, judged or criticized for who she is), it ensures that she will never really have what her heart desires, except in her fantasies.

The sad thing is that if she was willing to face the pain that comes with moving from fantasy-relationship to a human relationship (which means realizing that sometimes you will be hurt and experience loss, but you have to risk that in order to share genuine love, kindness and happiness with another), she would be in a position to give to herself what she really wanted, just perhaps in a different way to how she thought she wanted it! Human love is not perfect, but it is quite wonderful. It is a healing balm to soothe our loneliness and learn that we, and others, have such value, just as we are.

So perhaps we can recognise the Perfect Man for what he is, a fantasy that is often born out of our deepest insecurities and just like Edward himself, lifeless and cold, especially on a cool night when we want to feel warmth of life flowing through our human body, and if we are lucky enough, the human body of our beloved laying next to us (even if there is an occasional belch or snore or whatever else it is that let’s you know you have a real man or woman beside you, not a stone cold vampire).

So the antidote to going gaga for Twilight? A bit of love for the human self, snoring, sweaty palms and all. After all, if you have to be dead to enjoy your ideal vampire love, then it seems that the Perfect man is something of a passion-killer!

Life - it's gonna happen!

2010-06-30T11:42:00.000+10:00

One of my Bikram yoga instructors Denise, of an indeterminate age and yet a sprightly sassy lady, shared a joke with us in class recently.

Three men went into the woods and realised that they had to cross a raging river. It was a terrifying feat!

The first man prayed to God, he said “God, please give me the strength to cross this river!”

God responded instantly with puff of smoke “POUF!” and the man had super-strong arms and legs and swam across the river. It took him four hours, but he did it.

The second man prayed, “God, please give me the strength and the tools I need to cross this river!”

In an instant, God responded with another puff of divine smoke and “POUF!” the man had super strong arms and legs AND a rowboat and he crossed the river. It took him three hours, but he did it.

The third man prayed to God saying, “God, please give me the strength, the tools and the intelligence to cross this river!”

Instantly with a great “POUF!” of smoke, the man was turned into a woman, given a map which guided her to walk a few meters around a corner, up the river to where there was a bridge, and crossed it. It took her five minutes.

Well there were many chuckles in the class to this, especially when dear Denise begged of the males in the class to not think badly of her for sharing such a joke. She then revealed that in a previous class, when she had told this story, a young man came up to her after class and said, “I am not upset with you for sharing this joke, Denise, I was the man that built that bridge three years ago!”

The point of this story? There are boundless to be many interpretations, but there is some lovely guidance that I take from this silly little story, that reveals the wisdom underneath the humor.

First, when you pray, pray for the right thing!

As my first spiritual teacher said to me over fifteen years ago, don’t pray for your challenges to be taken away, they are your learning, your opportunity for growth, instead pray to have the strength to move through them.

I practiced that guidance on a daily basis and since then have learned so much more. So to this wisdom, I suggest even more so, that you pray for Divine Grace. Grace is the realization that there is a bridge already built to cross the hazards.

I do accept that sometimes struggle is useful and necessary to growth. To be able to remain true to yourself during such times generates tremendous strength in the Soul.

Yet there are more times than we often realise where it is simply not as necessary or ultimately helpful as we would imagine.

So whilst struggle can yield benefit and growth, so to can we thrive when we become able to simply let the struggle fall away, to be open to a path of less resistance as it is presented. This is more than growth, this is a way to practice wisdom.

Not sure if this is for you? Well, as I say often to my clients, “Life has a habit of working itself out”, so if you are not sure, why not engage with a practice of faith, letting the Universe do its thing and seeing how and where it leads you. Yes, you need to meet your destiny, and do your part, of course. Sometimes that simply means getting out of the way and letting your Soul and Life happen!

Why not simply be curious and see if indeed you can let yourself and your Life grow and evolve out of drama and difficulty more naturally into flow. Sometimes simply refraining from adding fuel to the fire of a ‘problem’ is enough to let it unwind and resolve.

Perhaps a mantra to begin with today? Life Happens – and so do I!

If you want rebirth, you have to go in for the kill ...

2010-05-24T16:09:00.002+10:00

In times of stress and strain, we can find our inner truths emerging, sometimes with blinding clarity. Sometimes during spiritual counselling sessions I have clients who worry about how they will manage if this or that occurs. I have often said to them ‘you will likely be surprised at the strength and capacity you have within you when you are in a situation where you need to drawn upon it, have some faith in yourself!”

My weekly struggle, consciously chosen, has been my hot yoga class in the Bikram style. The room is heated to 40 degrees and then a series of sometimes quite challenging postures is assumed for an hour and a half. It is referred to as a 90 minute open-eye meditation. What I love about this class, that keeps me going back, is the balance that it brings to myself and to my week.

I can easily spend much of my week in spiritual reverie of various kinds and to have a practice that forces my attention deep into my body, where I am in such struggle that I don’t have the mental energy to let my mind wander off, and instead have to remain in the present moment, and ride the breath in the now (or quite simply, fall over, pass out or just find the class too overwhelming and have to lie down or leave altogether!) is a gift. It is also as a dear friend commented, heaven and hell in the one instance.

The instructors keep up a regular chatter in the class, quite possibly so that your own mental chatter (why the hell am I doing this? Oh my god, I am going to be sick/faint/break my hamstring (insert appropriate thought here) and then what?) is replaced by theirs and they constantly check, correct and bring you back to the postures.

The result is that you are encouraged to stay present. It works quite profoundly and I find after a class, that I have discharged plenty of physical, emotional and mental stress and once I have had some time to replenish myself, feel very centred, grounded and peaceful – in a way that is much more connected with my body than I would feel without the practice.

During my class this morning, there were some lovely nuggets of wisdom from our beautiful teacher Denise. She must be sixty if she is a day, and prances around the room with humor, love and skimpy outfits that would challenge even the confidence of a lithe teenager.

My favourite comment from class this morning came in the midst of triangle posture. This posture stretches the body in all directions, upper and lower, simultaneously and is a great (or hideous depending on whether you are doing the posture or have just finished it!) workout for the heart muscle. In short, if you are doing it right you will feel like you are going to drop dead any second and yet energized and full of life, sweating more than you probably ever had and attempting to breathe normally through your nose. You can probably see why there isn’t any energy left over to worry about your life dramas in that moment. It’s a great way to pull back perspective and interestingly enough, it tends to remain after class.

This is what happens when you consistently give yourself the opportunity to step back from your drama. You get the chance to reframe and have a different perspective – whether that is through yoga, running, writing in your journal or just giving yourself the opportunity to let it go. My mother would do this by saying “I’ll just think about that tomorrow” and a friend of mine would instead say “I’ll leave that on the worry tree”. What works for me is the realization that there is nothing to worry about, its just anxiety and you can stop feeding it by stepping into deeper presence (which yoga is great for, as are other forms of meditation and time spent in nature or having a good laugh with a friend) and letting yourself just be.

Anyway so there we were in triangle pose when our dear, slightly zany teacher announces that she can see we are all struggling and this is great, the more we struggle here in the room, the more we can leave our struggle there and not take it out into our lives, and that if you want rebirth, you have to go in for the kill.

I loved this comment (hence the title of this blog). It reminded me of one of my favourite proverbs that goes like this ‘what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls butterfly’.

So whatever is coming to a close in your life at the moment, whatever seems to be falling away and dying, even if it is infact an illness that is leaving you, an old belief system that just isn’t doing it for you anymore, honour the fact that even though it may both excite and scare you witless, bring up old fears (oh no! I am going to end up living on the street in a box!) let yourself go and trust that Life, your own Self, is just doing what it does best – being alive!

May Life take you to great places inside of yourself and beyond.

sometimes the answer is simpler than the question ...

2010-05-11T09:36:00.002+10:00

We all have our mysteries. The questions we wish we could answer, the issues that we struggle to ever really resolve, and the enigmas we crave to unravel. Sometimes we need to endure the not knowing. Its been said that Zen monks meditate for twenty years to become comfortable with this process. Yet there are other times when the answers are more available to us than we might at first realise.

There is an old Arabian foklore character called Joha. He is a wise fool, a trickster, teacher and guide who lives through Arab culture in stories of his sometimes crazy antics that are said to help us find wisdom.

One Joha story starts with him in dire financial straits. He has no job and yet he seems to be prospering. Every week, he travels into town with a hay-laden donkey. The police use every way possible to thoroughly search the bundles of hay, attempting to find what it is that he is smuggling in to town that is making him so wealthy! Every week, they fail to find it and every week, Joha becomes more prosperous. Sometimes the police even confiscate the hay, burning it in the hope that they shall resolve the mystery, but to no avail. Joha’s wealth grows and the police captain becomes tired of the frustration and eventually gives up the search. Years later, when the captain is very old, he sees Joha on the street. He goes up to him and says “some time ago, before you were the wealthy man you are now, we tried to find what you were smuggling into the town that made you so much wealth!”. Joha laughed and replied, “Donkeys. I was smuggling donkeys!”

Joha tales can be interpreted on many levels, just like a dream, and can have many meanings.

What really spoke to me from this tale is that sometimes a situation is much simpler and more obvious than we make it out to be and the thing we are looking for is right in front of us.

When I was at law school, there was a joke that used to circulate amongst students, often first heard from lecturers, that lawyers are trained to create mountains out of molehills, or find problems where there are none. We all used to find this hilarious and those of us with more of a social conscience, slightly disturbing.

I think there is a bit of that problem-creating lawyer in many of us. Sometimes to find the answer we need to stop thinking. To let go and do our best to drop preconceived notions of how we, or anything else, should be, and just take a look at what already ‘is’. Life serves our growth and despite our common assumptions that we (or others, or the world) are all ‘messed up’ and in need of ‘fixing’, and to just accept what is right in front of us can reveal what we were looking for all along …

My wish for you is that you ‘discover’ a miraculous, wonderful solution to a mystery that has been troubling you, by letting go and realizing your answer is right there in front of your eyes.

Boys to Men

2010-03-31T10:27:00.002+11:00

I have been thinking about men. Well, masculinity to be more accurate.

In Jungian psychology, women have a masculine aspect to their psyche, just as men have a feminine aspect. What happens to those parts of us in relationship can be really interesting (or infuriating at first, then interesting later).

Sometimes rather than own that polar part of us, we can unconsciously seek it out in those of the opposite gender around us - our partners, parents, friends, colleagues and employers. In short, sometimes how we see men or women is not actually so much about how they truly are, but what our inner masculine or feminine is. If we are not conscious of this inner part of us, we see the world around us, and the people in it, through a filtered vision that can keep us trapped in patterns that aren't of our conscious choosing.

So for example, if you are an open, receptive person, and still learning who you are as a person, (that includes most of us, right?) and your partner has a particularly strong projection, you can feel hijacked by a persona that doesn’t belong to you!

A man could experience this as increased financial pressure to provide when he gets into a relationship or a woman might experience it as a pressure to run a household in a particular way when she moves in with a man, depending on how conservative the projections may be.

A dear friend of mine can lay testament to this when she witnessed me falling into a short-term obsession with cookbooks after moving in with my boyfriend earlier this year, instead of my usual fare of shoes and handbags. It was a short-lived departure from Self to performing seal (perhaps that is a bit harsh but being captivated by another’s unconscious projection stung deep and I am still recovering!).

In my own journey, I am learning much about what contemporary femininity can be. Who am I as a woman? How does this feminine body inform and guide my spiritual growth this lifetime?

This naturally leads to an inquiry about how I work with my inner masculinity, that part of me that discerns, decides and acts, because the two develop like interlocking strands of DNA – they inform and guide each other into consciousness.

I believe that part of what this new era is about on our planet, for human beings at least, is a conscious experimentation of what masculine and feminine can evolve into.

We can see it acted out, experimented with in fashion and trends, in the world of art and music (that so often mirrors our deeper collective human growth) and even in changing body shapes and sizes. My partner and his mates are especially befuddled by some of the clothing trends for young men that are more androgynous than typically masculine. Given they couldn't fit much more than their forearm into a pair of skinny jeans, they often view such fashions as questionable and have openly wondered what kind of men seek out this way of expressing themselves.

Its part of our conscious human evolution to wonder what it is to be a conscious man or woman, part of our human spiritual journey to explore gender and let it grow up and evolve into an even more beautiful, co-operative and empowered expression through our lives on this planet.

To think about how a woman can work consciously with her own masculinity so she isn’t dependent on the men around her to be conscious or to ‘wear’ her inner masculinity for her, unless she consciously chooses to enter into such a dynamic, is also a part of this. Masculinity in women gives them choices, a voice, the ability to act on her inner truth, to say "yes" or "no" and to sort out healthy from toxic lifestyle, work and relationship choices, just to name a few examples.

In considering my own inner masculinity, I started with what I wanted from a man and then progressed into how I could work this into my own inner journey.

I thought about a story shared with me by a dynamic woman who runs her own radio show in the United States.

Her son’s girlfriend rang to talk to him on a day that he was having doubts about the relationship. He wanted his mother to take care of it and tell his girlfriend that he couldn’t talk to her.

His mum got angry. It was one of the best examples of healthy constructive anger that I have ever heard, she just handled it so consciously.

She told him that his girlfriend shared her body, her time, her energy and her emotions with him, and the way he treated her was representative of the way he treated women, and did he want to disrepect her, and his mother, and his sister and every other woman in his life?

Then she asked him a powerful question, she said ‘what kind of man do you want to be?’

This is the newly evolving feminine and masculine in action together. Its an expression of the kind of femininity that I believe we are growing into as men and women. This is the part of us that holds value, truth and a sense of outrage when something is not right. Its not about judging religion, or race or political persuasion, its about fundamental values that are universal – respect, love, kindness, treating others as you would be treated, and consideration.

Its also an example of the kind of masculinity that we are developing as human beings, still learning what it is to be conscious men and women. Its certainly the type of masculinity that I want in my life, within myself and in the men around me.

Its that sort of expression that is not about the boyish demand to have the feminine as a mother-figure, taking care of his every need. It’s a more mature masculine expression of tenderness and protection, of listening to the feminine, because he gets her worth, he knows that she is wise and he wants to be the best man he can be, the better man, the more evolved human being. So he can listen to her words and do what is difficult sometimes because it is the wiser, kinder, more conscious action to take.

It can be hard for men sometimes to grow up. Hell, it can be hard for all of us. But to see the feminine as a mother-substitute, as a provider of all needs, as an object, says something about the challenge of the role of mother for a woman and the challenge of moving from a boy to a man.

In actuality as a child, the mother surrenders her body and much of her identity to that of her child, because its needed for the child’s survival. Some women have the psychic energy to maintain other identity too and some do not have that energy or the wish to do so. Whatever the path is, the path is, and each of us has our own journey.

Where the difficulty seems to lay is in later years if that child doesn’t ever come to see mother as a person, but still as an object to serve his or her needs. That depends on the actions of the mother – does she assert her individuality from the child in a healthy way as he or she grows up without letting guilt or judgment (from herself or others) suffocate her emerging expanded identity – and on the child – can they mature with or without this healthy individuation from the parent? Ideally, these elements happen together, but sometimes they don’t and so the onus is left on one party.

For a man, this transition is what enables him to become a man in his relationship, rather than a boy-man that struggles to see his partner as she really is, finding it easier to just see her as his idealized wish to meet his needs and fantasies of what she ‘should’ be like. A man gets to have a real relationship with a real woman in real time, whereas a boy-man has a pseudo-relationship with a projected image onto the woman in his life, which is largely based in the past. The latter can be a sad, frustrating, unfulfilling and lonely place to be for all involved.

It’s the same for a woman with her own inner masculinity. Can we learn who we are, in body and soul, rather than who we think we should be as women? In contemporary human culture, the challenge for women is to heal how we relate to our own femininity - own bodies, our own values (which in truth are very often going to go against popular values and culture and be quite difficult to stand true to and live consciously at times), and to protect and nurture our bodies, our values, our truths, with love, respect and courage. Sometimes this is really hard. It means we have to be vocal. Creative. Trusting of ourselves. Many times its just plain difficult, just as it can be for a man to learn how to relate to a real woman in the here and now, and not get all tangled up in his own beliefs (and often unconscious opinions) about her body and soul.

If you have ever treated your body as a whipping post, used it in addiction to placate your pain or pushed it from pillar to post to just get stuff done and not really honoured its needs for health, wellbeing, gentleness or kindness, then you, like me, are on this journey. If you are attempting to tune in and listen to your body wisdom, then you are on this journey too, learning how to best have masculine and feminine energies relate to each other within you, just as you are attempting to create a healing, conscious relationship perhaps with those around you.

What I especially loved about the response of this beautiful woman to her son, was how instinctive, from deep within, her feminine "NO!" was, and her inner masculine gave it the words, that didn’t attempt to stifle it or silence her, but made a powerful expression of her truth. In that moment, she won. And so did her son. And his girlfriend. Her speaking her feminine truth gave her son a chance to be more than a boy. He had the opportunity to make the choice to be a man. That is what conscious feminine and masculine can do together - create truth and give choice. In this instance her son chose to benefit from that empowering combo. He made a choice and grew up a little more into living as a better man.

YOU are here. No justification or explanation required!

2010-02-26T09:50:00.001+11:00

YOU are here. No justification or explanation required!

There are forces that would seek to dissuade you from your most important work this lifetime, to cultivate and make available your inner light.

Whether those forces manifest internally as self-doubt, procrastination, collapse into fear, or scattering of your focus that overwhelms and paralyzes you, or external in the guise of mirrors of judgment or simply through the issues of another, be it jealousy, lack of understanding or ridicule based on fear of your spirituality, as we become conscious of them, these forces too serve your Life’s work, giving you an opportunity to grow stronger through challenge, to seek out even deeper alliance with your spirit to nourish and shield you from those that would seek to diminish your light or have you be other than you are.

Your job is to learn to become so comfortable and accepting of your light, to develop such Trust in your own inner truth and your worth in the greater scheme of things, that you can journey from needing to justify or explain, to simply being who you are, and allowing those around you to respond or react as they choose to do so, for that is their journey.

You don’t need to apologize for who you are or justify your existence in any way. You are here. You are as you were always meant to be. Acceptance of this allows for an inner peace in a way that you may have never truly experienced before. Then you are as the Divine Child, exploring and growing through your own Life with an open heart and curious mind.

Many of you will know that spiritual truth can operate through paradox. The healing powerful rage can bring us gentle inner peace. The lies we hear from others about us can help us find our inner truth.

For some of us to be able to get to this space of acceptance within ourselves, that is so powerful in its gentleness (it seeks nothing, therefore can be denied nothing, it just is), there is a healing rage deep within. This rage sets us aflame with the ability to burn away that which has held us back from self-acceptance within.

Rage can be the psychic momentum we need to separate and gain some detachment from dynamics within our relationships that are based on compromise of the Self (believing we have to change who we are in essence) rather than compromises by the self (making choices that are mutually enhancing wherever possible in our relationships). When we begin to detach from old dynamics and affirm that we shall be how we are and that is all there is to it, we are in an empowered position to engage in sharing the Self with others, rather than attempting to mold the Self to fit in with others’ expectations or comfort.

To become aware of what this brings up for US our fears of losing love, of being alone, cast aside or rejected in a profound way and moving through those feelings (giving them a voice – a journal is great for this) gives us the freedom to allow Love to be present in our lives in an increasingly unconditional way, within us and around us. People don’t have to understand you to love you, though it is nice when they coincide of course. But for you to be the Love that you are, you must be your Self and that requires truth and courage. You have it in abundance. Like bird leaving the nest, you may have a few bumpy attempts at first, but you have it within you, naturally, to soar. Spread those scruffy angelic wings, dear one, and let your Soul light take flight. Don’t hold back or be scared. Your bravery could be the very thing that inspires someone you didn’t even know needed your light for their own encouragement.

In truth, the lighthouse that you are is of such value to ships that have lost their way. In being your light, you assist even those that seek to dissuade you due to their own agendas. Those lost Souls can gain love from the source they are seeking to destroy, Truth, if they allow it. And as you are in this place of acceptance, you will draw to you many who affirm you and are consciously grateful to you and able to receive you, which is a lovely reward for all that inner work. And because you accept yourself you can receive their gratitude and feel the love in it without guilt or denial, just totally drinking in that loving acceptance from within and from “external” sources. Yet of course, as Life goes on this Planet, the choice either way is up to us. May your choice be one of Love.

Blessings and Namaste to you dear one, I honor the light in you, Alana

I am what I am

2010-02-17T11:12:00.002+11:00

It has been an electrical storm in Sydney tonight and as I lay in bed, the room is illuminated over and over again. I am so wired from it that I cannot sleep, so here I am, in the middle of the night with a storm raging outside, writing. How very gothic!

What has been stirred up in me is a realisation of a process that I have been sitting with, felt in some dark place of my being, rather than consciously understood for this past week.

I knew some awareness or breakthrough was brewing for me because the week has been curiously free of clients. It is unusual for there to be this sort of universe-imposed holiday, but when it happens I find that some kind of personal shift can occur if I do not fight the emptiness and fill it with worry or activity and instead allow some space for growth.

I am a mystic at heart. One that as much as breathing, needs to contemplate and understand the mysteries of life and how consciousness grows and unfolds, that is part of my reason for being, my spiritual purpose and the nature of who I am as a being. No matter whether those that live by more prosaic values tell me “not think so much”, I am what I am (thanks Popeye!).

My partner once described how he sees what I am and what I do, and how I am seeking to live, as being like an artist. This is the perfect description. As an artist who needs to paint, for example, will wither up and die inside, becoming a much smaller self if they cannot give their channel expression of the inspiration they feel, if they attempt to force themselves to live a life that works for others, but stifles their own creativity (not as some immature desire to ‘express themselves’ with little regard to any other needs – we all need to eat!) but in a deep and profound sense of needing to live as they are, be true to their own soul type, and to express it, no matter how much ridicule, judgement or misunderstanding they may encounter in doing so, in a world that doesn’t much understand what it is to be built this way, let alone support and encourage it (unless it is posthumously).

What is my art?

What is the creative part of me that demands expression either consciously or unconsciously as depression and addiction?

It is the conscious maturing and nurturing of consciousness!

It is soul gardening, it is living a conscious life of spiritual communion.

This is very different to the 9-5 world that so many people believe is the ‘real world’, yet I wonder if those same people might benefit from incorporating some of the qualities of the artists’ way into their lives?

My art demands that I have solitude and downtime, undoing or not doing rather than always doing. Many would look on and say “what on earth is that about? Drawing images from her dreams? Colouring them in?” but inner work like this, working with my dreams and visions in contemplation to better understand my own psyche and the nature of spiritual growth in me, and extrapolating that to understand human spiritual growth, is the lifeblood of my existence, my art, my passion. As silly or pointless as it may appear superficially, it keeps me alive.

All that this spiritual art entails does not distil itself solely into sitting down with a client and doing a spiritual reading or healing (although that is definitely one valuable channel for the awareness that is elucidated from my art).

This vocation, to be conscious spiritually and to live as a mystic –spiritual philosopher requires me, this lifetime at least, to live on the front line, so to speak, to be where the action is in the mass conscious physical world. And I want to be here. Life here is interesting and exciting, though fraught with conflict as the inner world that I seek to bring to engagement here used to exist only in monasteries and spiritual retreats on mountaintops!

So often, the world doesn’t get it, and there are times when I do not wish to explain it to those that cannot even begin to understand (for what purpose would I do that?) yet I need to share myself, odd and eccentric as that may seem to people at times (though I do get a lot of “oh, but you are so normal and down to earth!”) with those that may see and know Life very differently to the way that I do, as much as with those that need the affirmation that they are not the only ones seeking to live a conscious spiritual life and encountering the odd challenges that come with being open and visible in doing so in this world that is just learning about spirituality in so many ways.

What prompted this blinding clarity about my art tonight?

Friction from this physical “real world” (to use my mothers’ oft loved phrase, ie she believed I inhabited some other reality – she was right as it turns out!) which I love and relish, but find very challenging as it pushes me to articulate my difference, to not hide from it but to embrace it and seek out that which feels painful to understand such as where I don’t fit or where I am judged, ridiculed or where others, even those who truly do love and care for me, struggle to know or just accept me as I am. Ironically perhaps I am drawn to these places of pain at times for that is where I can find an even stronger sense of Self and be true to it with compassion for the struggle that same Self can encounter simply for being who she is in this world at this time.

As an aside, would I choose to be different from what I am or live in any other way? No. I love this Self and am so grateful for her.

Anyway, the discussion with my partner which fuelled the inner fire of revelation only starting to brew now, with an impulse to write so strong that I started scrawling words on a notepad in the dark, with occasional lightning bolts to illuminate that yes, the pen was actually working (!) and then led me to purge my thoughts onto my computer, though it is so late (songs in my head were helping guidance get through to me – the theme from glee “don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeling!’ and a dance track “its getting late but I don’t mind, this would be the best therapy for me!”) , I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I numbed back and tried to let this go. So often I have had a moment of such clarity in the middle of the night, seemingly so simple and I think “ah yes, of course! Wonderful!” only to wake up and not be able to recall it! Frustrating to say the least. Those moments of insight are worth recording until they become a more conscious part of me, as much as my knowledge of my own name.

So back to the discussion! My partner and I were discussing housework. Since moving in together a month ago, my housework load has easily quadrupled and I am struggling with the demand on my time and energy which takes me away from my mystic’s life. I don’t mind the work, it can be soothing and inspiring in that it engages the body but doesn’t strain the mind and I can have time in active meditation, but the activity also requires planning and focus and energy which is OK but takes away from my inner world. I don’t begrudge it, I see its value, but I struggle with accepting it sometimes without resenting the intrusion into my spiritual life. I consider this to be my task now, balancing these parts of my life. But also learning to rely on another more, instead of always doing for myself, but the inevitable came up tonight – I am home so much and he is ‘at work’ so why shouldn’t I do this work?

And the pain that this brought to me was so great. I felt so lonely and misunderstood. I felt frustration and anger. I thought you knew, I said to him. Most of the time I do, he responded, but I had a tough day at work and that’s that. Such a human encounter.

But the pain was so great I wondered if I could even begin to fathom it. And over the hours that ensued, helped by the energy of this storm, I began to realise it. More truly, it came to me in an epiphany. Of course I want him, my beloved, to understand or if not understand, then trust me enough and respect me enough to accept who I am, and my reality as having value.

I haven’t had much of this during my life, very little infact, until I learned to give this to myself (now I get so much appreciation from so many around the world – for which I am grateful indeed) but the disconnect between us was typical in that moment, unfortunately or fortunately, of what happens between me and mass society.

The gift in that moment of pain? It forced me to bring forth a statement of my truth, to reaffirm to myself what I am about and reinforce my own truth in the face of what seems to be so ordinary and inoffensive – just do the work yourself, Alana, you can make the time to do it more easily than he can. Yet that would collapse the very core of what I am about – not only freedom and equality, this is a gender issue too, but even more so what I felt was actually a spiritual issue, to be able to say “that which feeds my inner world and seems to be nothing to you I claim as essential to my being and I will tolerate great pressure from the external world if needs be in order to honour its integrity and keep my spiritual work intact.” Now that is a powerful and affirming declaration of self!

Who knew the gender issue of division of labor in the home could spark self-realisation and affirmation in such a deep and profound manner?

So here I am and I realise that this is my soul journey, my soul truth, my soul manifesto.

I seek to live a life that is an expression of my consciousness, not an act of my will. Then there is no struggle or force or imposition on Life. There is natural manifestation of that which is within. This is my soul journey.

To love Life. To seek to embrace it and live consciously with acceptance of all the seasons of my Soul. To not always have to know and to not have to attempt to control, but to enter consciously into the mystery with patience, grace and trust. That is my soul commitment.

I seek to be true to who I am and live that authentically, creating a space for it within my own Self, with acceptance and respect, as a way of birthing that awareness into the world that so needs it, one accepting day at a time.

So I affirm to myself and to all Souls seeking to live their unique way in a world that prefers the apparent safety of conformity, you must serve your art, whatever it may be. Do not seek to quash it into conformity or make it comfortable for those that want to put you into a box within their own limited understanding!

The basic demands of physical life are necessary, but it is the non-rational colours of our Soul art that imbues the physical world with such depth, elevating Life from a battle to survive, to an elegant constantly evolving creation in which we can participate and thrive.

The Universe Knows What It Is Doing (Or How Not Getting What You Want Can Sometimes Be A Wonderful Thing!)

2010-02-08T11:04:00.002+11:00

The Universe Knows What it is Doing!

(or How Not Getting What you Want Can be a Wonderful Thing)

There are so many books out there teaching us how we can get what we want, with more conscious use of the law of attraction being the latest commercialized spiritual trend.

A few years back I watched an entertaining movie starring Eddie Murphy called "Holy Man" and the essence of his spiritual work in the film was attempting to facilitate happiness by helping people have what they want. The central character in the film eventually learned that happiness and getting what he thought he wanted were not necessarily the same thing at all!

I have experienced numerous moments of tremendous relief and gratitude looking back at times that the Universe did not deliver what I had desired so fervently at the time - as with the wisdom that is so much more effortless with hindsight revealed what an absolute mess it would have been for me and others had life gone in that direction!

Not only that, but I found that what Life eventually presented to me was more beautifully appropriate, wise and just plain funny, that I could ever have come up with in my small, demanding self.

It is a bit like being very hungry and seeing a McDonald's drive-thru and then being disappointed that it was closed only to arrive home a short time later to find an unexpected feast had been prepared in my absence! How unexpected and so much more wonderful that what I thought I wanted.

Of course this requires trust to be experienced with equanimity. I suspect that the Universe always brings us what we need (and that this is what we truly want in our hearts), whether we are throwing a tantrum or not, but our capacity to feel at peace when we cannot see what is happening, or understand why things don't appear to be working out as we think they should be at the time, really depends on how much we are willing to have faith.

With faith, which I call the heart's knowing, great appreciation of the beauty of Universal workings becomes possible.

You can just get a kick out of life, just laugh and know that it is brilliant, wise and funny, the eternal trickster and creative genius. And of course its so much more fun to dance with Life when you experience it in such a way - much less fun to dance with a staunch, cranky, with-holding, mean and denying Life. Bah humbug!

Once a client asked me how to trust.

After a moment of shocked silence as I contemplated this question (was there a formula I could provide for this man?) I realised that I could only provide a most unsatisfying answer - for him anyway, for me it really was the only answer I could provide truthfully.

So I told him that you just choose to do it.

It takes a right use of our personal and spiritual will to get there, to make the decision to trust and not to collapse into the fears that dominate so much of mass-consciousness of humanity (so much more evident during financial ebbs).

Trust isn't something that just happens mysteriously, we must decide, we must choose it.

Sometimes over and over again in a single hour or minute (and what a long, long minute that can be!), but it is our choice that grants us peace with our soul.

Each time we can give this gift to ourselves, life becomes more enjoyable, even if our small selves aren't absolutely convinced that its all OK, we can still have a part of us that is at peace and holds us through whatever changes or upheavals or just plain curious and strange events are taking place within and around us.

You could say that faith gives us the capacity to keep our heads, whilst all around us people are losing theirs.

As humanity as a whole is still learning how to handle the power of emotions and thoughts (sometimes we are a bit like kids playing unknowingly with potentially dangerous weapons!) this is a valuable contribution in itself.

So my wish and blessing for you is that you believe in your own courage to choose to trust and find peace and joy in that choice, opening up your heart to the Love and playfulness of Life, letting it direct your course and dance with you (without treading on your toes!).

Be the Ocean, Not the Boat (or how to go from stress to peace in less than two seconds!)

2010-02-01T14:20:00.004+11:00

Recently I found myself unintentionally cast a mediator between two mutual friends who had lost touch after a falling out. Although their friendship had brought me some personal pain in the past, I was struck by the realization that I preferred to serve love (and allow life to flow as it wanted to and in this case allowing these friends to reach towards each other indirectly through me) rather than my ego (that may have seen me shut them down, choosing not to allow their reconnection to happen through me as a sort of punishment for past hurts).

It was a bit like feeling I was entering into a river and just flowing into a lovely, refreshingly unselfish stance which didn’t eradicate my attention to my own feelings, but just allowed me to have some freedom in how I related to those feelings. I could feel them but not have to hold on to them. I could choose love, not in an airy fairy, "I don’t have any anger" nonsensical kind of way (because I admit that my feathers were momentarily ruffled with hurt pride and righteous anger), but with a sense of liberating choice from my own inner drama.

To be free of my small self, not diminished or denied, just choosing to come from a free and more impersonal space was a release. To believe that I must come from such a place as an act of will rather than choice may be more "Slave to Love" (thanks Bryan Ferry) and therefore not so liberating at all, yet I chose to be of service to Love and just to be able to make that choice, in that moment, felt like the ultimate liberation where I lost nothing but personal drama and gained personal peace.

At a recent Sunday night dinner, a friend casually mentioned that he had been daydreaming and that I had come to mind. Having decided that he wanted to experiment with his intuitive mind (being an ever-curious Gemini), rather than shutting off the train of thought he decided to go with it. He said that he saw me as a boat, on a river, cutting ties to things that had stopped the movement of the boat. Then he saw the boat moving forward and then he realized (in his lucid daydream) that I wasn’t the boat at all, I was the ocean.

I felt my heart stop for a moment at this, as everything inside of became very still. Then I felt a bit teary and emotional (my instinctive response to spiritual truth – guidance imparts something beautiful and I feeling like crying, at which point I usually imagine that they are chuckling at my contrary nature). Anyway this was probably not the response my friend imagined he would have from me, even though it was obvious that at the very least he had struck a proverbial chord within me.

I sat with the contents of his daydream for some weeks following as I relished the sense of richness and belonging that I didn’t realize I had been missing out on! What has struck me with this is how more I feel myself, truly myself in essence as an individual, unique and ordinary simultaneously, and yet at the same time more dissolved than ever into the All, in an inclusive and nurturing embrace.

This is the feeling that came through in the Golden Mother Meditation which I channeled for healing of that deep sense of emptiness that we can feel within (and leaves us feeling lonely and disconnected from life and nature). In this meditation (available on my website meditations) a feeling of being truly received by and into the Divine Mother takes me to a similar place of fullness and essence. It is what I can only describe as Love.

May such love and belonging, recognition of yourself in your individual garb and your piece of the greater puzzle of the Universe flood you with a sense of being at home! bubble up from within you this month, in the face of whatever challenges or Whatever you may be encountering I wish for it to bring you a sense of being held deeply by Life as you dance (and trip - or is that just me?) through the creative mystery of it all.

Loving the Annoying (or the Spiritual Lesson of those loud Leaf-Blower Machines)

2010-01-27T10:17:00.000+11:00

Its no secret that I believe the Universe is cheeky with a wicked sense of humour. Any of you that have had a moment of watching an episode of "The Simpsons" and finding that it triggers a spiritual epiphany will know that spiritual insight can come from the most unlikely sources at times!

Many of you would know what it is like to live in a house that is being renovated. It can be absolute chaos. You have a sense of how marvelous your home will eventually be, and yet whilst you are in the process, the chaos of upheaval can feel completely overwhelming. The more significant the renovation, the more work that is required and the greater the upheaval. You know you will enjoy the end result but during the process – well I would imagine there is a particular kind of insanity yet to be acknowledged by clinical psychologists called "Renovation Trauma Disorder" (catchy title methinks).

So it is with consciousness. When you are living in the body and building consciousness of what it is to be truly human – the union or yoga of our divine and animal selves – you are living in permanent process. The renovation never ends!

So what to do?

I had a moment the other day where I came to terms with the leaf-blower man who blasts a few leaves with a machine that makes so much noise he has to wear industrial-strength ear protection (but sadly I don’t have any such paraphernalia laying around my home) to use the machine. It is ridiculously loud and compared to what it does (blowing leaves around – it may just be the witch in me, but what’s wrong with a broom?) it has been something that I have found irritating to the point that when I see the poor man on my street I have to try to ignore him for fear that I will go all Medusa on him and petrify him a vitriolic stare!

So what changed? Not the leaf blower man or his actions. Nor the fact that he does this on a Sunday morning around the time when I usually meditate (no coincidence right?) and I realised something profound that liberated me.

I had a greater need and love for meditation in that moment than I did for the anger and frustration I felt for the leaf blower and his leaf blowing machine.

This awareness freed me up to be able to sink into one of my most peaceful meditations of that week whilst all chaos, noise (add screaming children and all sorts of things which I cannot recall exactly now as I eventually didn’t notice them) throbbed around me.

I remember hearing Caroline Myss say once that if you needed a quiet room to meditate, then the room was meditating for you. What I realised in that moment was that sometimes you can allow a choice to come through that honours your soul, rather than feeding a wound that you have (in my case throwing a right hissy-fit because the world wasn’t surrendering to my desire to have peace and quiet at that exact moment) and it can feel good to let it go. Perhaps you can find more empowerment in making a choice to accept a situation and then find a freedom to approach it differently, than in attempting to bend the world according to your will.