DAY SOMETHING: CHALLENGES, YOU FOUND ME!

For all the braying and bleating I normally do about being positive and being in control of your life, I've been a little challenged in the last few weeks. I have to admit that I've been reduced to tears on more than a number of occasions and felt terribly inadequate, lost and insecure and had doubts about everything I had established internally.

I don't need to go into detail - they're not as important as me having to recalibrate my internal monitor. During those overwhelming moments, I lost track a little and focussed on the things that were derailing me. I lost faith in myself and became momentarily disillusioned about my own strength, my resilience and my courage.......my ability to face those challenges instead of running away from them.

However, time and focus has brought me back to the middle and those things that seemed insurmountable are now a little more manageable and, one small bite at a time, I'll have this apple eaten.

I guess it proves that life's road always has speed humps and it's how you handle those bumps that determine how the rest of your journey is going to be.

I thought that once you had a handle on life and the Universe, none of those things would resurface to challenge you again - more fool me! They do come back.....if for nothing else than to test you out, to make sure you've progressed and evolved enough to cope.

It's a good feeling of peace you get when the penny drops again.........

DAY 226: Barter

Photo by Eddie Soloway

Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Sarah Teasdale

Photo by Eddie Soloway

DAY 224: New Chapters (Long Blog, this one)

And so here I am, 4 days into my new job and I'm still quite awed and amazed at the turns my life has taken, all for the positive.

The thing that is thrilling me the most, right at this moment, are the comments I have received, especially recently, at how inspiring I've been to others regarding me taking all the steps I needed to take and commit to in order to have made these changes actually happen for me. I never set out to inspire, to tell you the truth, but that this is one of the results, for taking the lead reigns and making my life BE what I want it to be, is so unexpectedly EXCITING! Who knew??? Who knew I could actually make this happen.....and it's only just started for me.

See.......I now believe (REALLY BELIEVE) that every single one of us has the capacity and capability to change our lives to be what we want it to be or, if you're happy where you are, to maintain that for your future. I never used to believe that - I used to be skeptical and quite cynical of this positive and empowering attitude. And aren't there plenty of those cynical attitudes out there?

However, I sat back and watched and studied the people whom I admired the most (still do) - not just your Oprahs and Mahatma Gandhis and Richard Bransons, but ordinary people too - people who I personally know who make things happen for themselves. People who DO, they don't watch and criticise others - they actually go out there and DO. I studied their behaviour, their attitudes, their resilience and, most of all, their courage and I wanted to be more like them!!! There is a huge difference between those people and the rest .....

It's the way they carry themselves; it's the way they are focused; it's their positivity which appears to be irritating to some (and if you're one of those people who seem to be irritated by these 'positive' people, it's time to examine why that is, my suggestion); it's the way they get back up when they're knocked down; it's what they do when things go pear-shaped; it's all the tangibles and intangibles that make them who they are.......and I was drawn to them!! Like a moth to a flame...

But you know what I admired the most about these people? GOOD THINGS always happened to them!!! They weren't the "Why does this happen to everyone else?" people - they ARE the people that good things happen to. They attracted the energy that they put out there. It's the one single thing they all had in common. They weren't faking happiness - they really ARE happy!

Now I don't care what vehicle you choose to get to this place - just get there! You can read The Secret or Dr. Phil's books;  you can watch and subscribe to Oprah.com; you can subscribe to conventional religion or you can try something alternative - it really doesn't matter to me. That's a personal choice that I respect and won't judge or question.

What matters to me is that you are doing something positive to create positive things around you. Why? Because you CAN!!

I'm not at my destination yet but I KNOW that I've set myself on the road to reach it and that is what makes all the difference to the life I now lead compared to the life I have led in the past.

If I have inspired you in any way, shape or form, then that's the key to knowing that YOU can do it too. It isn't rocket science. I just found something that works for me. Well, I found a few things - not just one - that works for me.

Surrounding myself with really positive, supportive, loving people was a good start. I don't need to have a bazillion friends/acquaintances/mates/pals. I just need a few GOOD friends (and one awesome sister) that inspire and motivate me; that understand me; that love me unconditionally; that just get me.....and I am certainly blessed to have those.

So this law of attraction? It works!! My new job? I am surrounded by loving, thoughtful, caring, supportive, SAFE, honest people and I know - at my core - that I have attracted them into my life and that I am meant to be working with them. I have so much to learn from them and that is so evident already. Sure, I'm the new girl and everyone's being nice but I wasn't born yesterday.

I have been blessed with a good instinctive gut feeling about people and these people are GOOD people!! No tall poppy syndromes here, no jealousies, no back stabbers, no manipulators. They're just pure, good, honest people who want to do a GREAT job, with honesty and integrity......AND HUMOUR. (They're not reading this as they have no idea about this blog).

I'm meant to be here. I'm grateful today for so many things that have come my way. Some have been unexpected gifts from the Universe and some I've made concentrated efforts to attract.

Day 192: Opening New Doors

So today I resigned from my job at Telstra Super Financial Planning and a myriad of emotions I didn't expect to feel have surfaced. Sadness being the primary one today.

I'm not a good one for goodbyes. You only need to look at my house to see all the things that I horde because I simply can't part with anything. Everything I do and have has an emotional significance or attachment to it so I do my best to avoid saying goodbye.

So today, that awkward discomfort is sitting on my chest and I have a heavy heart. Sure, I have fabulous new horizons and challenges ahead of me and THAT is very exciting, no doubt about that. But for today, I feel like I'm losing a very precious friend. Like someone I love is going overseas for a long time? You know that feeling when you know it isn't goodbye forever but I don't know when I'll see you next?? That feeling.

I have loved working for this organisation. It has been the BEST job I've ever had (so far) so leaving it has been a huge decision to make, for me. It would be so easy to stay, safe in my comfort zone, but that isn't what life is about, is it? It isn't about retreating into your cave, safe in the knowledge that there is a big world out there but you're in here.....safe.

I'm at that age and stage in my life where what I do for a living has to be meaningful. It can't be about the $$$ or about the safety net or the comfort. I have felt like a genie  locked in a bottle and it's time to release this genie. When my children were younger, my priority was to educate them and give them a safe and stable home-life and I have done that and I feel VERY proud of myself that, with some help from my beautiful husband, Grant - I have provided all that for my children.

But they're adults now and have lives of their own. Doesn't mean that I'm not a part of it but now, my priorities turn to me and doing what makes me happy.  I have meaningful relationships that I have cultivated and nurtured in other areas of my life and now it's time to create something BIG and BRIGHT and COLOURFUL with my professional life! Something that reflects who I am at my core and not someone who I have to be or am trying to be. Something that fits better with my personality and that has all the possibilities of taking my natural skillset and launching it to the big, bright, beautiful world out there!!!

But saying goodbye is, right now, shadowing all that excitement and joy I feel for newer opportunities and prospects because I have LOVED working for this place. In its own way, that's a good feeling to have because it means that this job has held a lot of value and meaning to me.

Day 176: Come On Baby, Light My Fire

Today is a GREAT day! It has been one of the most brilliant and happiest days I've had for a while and all because I attended my photography studies class and we started studying Design Theory. It was magical and moving and confirmed so much to me.

It seems that, as the class progressed, all the things that have been whirring inside me had finally found a landing, a nest to make a home. All the intense feelings I have when I look at art, when I want to create, when I listen to my music, when I experience from within? They all have a tangible home! The poetry I read that moves me......the images that stir my emotions? THEY all have a blessed tangible home....

Today we talked about form and design and content and I got whisked away into another world. A world that feels like a second skin, a world that is pure and beautiful.  It felt like I was Dorothy and this wasn't Kansas anymore....and that I had entered Narnia through my own special wardrobe. The language, the feelings it evoked. I must have looked 'special', sitting there with a stupid grin from ear-to-ear.

I felt like my brain and my heart was doing it's own interpretive dance to music it had never heard before. The language of art and what art is (to me). I seriously had emotional moments when the tutor was talking about things that I only talk to with very few people. It's like she understood and was doing a slow dancing tango with me, with my class....

A voice inside kept whispering "Don't stop, please don't stop. I don't want this night to end. Don't throw me out into THAT world. Keep me safe and warm and cocooned in THIS one" and as sensual as this sounds, I think that's how it really felt for me.

So, I'm happy and 'happy' is an understatement. As Steve Martin as Navin Johnson exclaims in The Jerk "I'VE FOUND MY SPECIAL PURPOSE!!!!"

Now leave me be as I roll around in post-euphoric bliss and lick all the surfaces of this magical place so I don't waste a single skerrick or morsel. Oh come quickly next Tuesday evening!!

Day 169: Windowlickers

You know we take our lives so seriously that, every now and then, little gems show up in our day-to-day that make us stop, take stock and, if we're lucky enough.... LAUGH!

So there I was, nervously taking the train home after a lovely evening spent catching up with an old friend, Garry Hallett, from my Contiki tour of 1986 (GE606) - G.I.D.....Give It Death (or dith as the Kiwis said) who was in town. I'd just finished telling Gaz that I didn't want to stay out too late as all the Windowlickers are out late at night and they're all on my trainline, for some reason.

Windowlickers? It's my term for the 'special' people in our society and was coined after a particularly interesting experience one evening, once again,when I was catching the train home late one night. A 'special' gentleman decided that I was going to be the object of his fascination on my train and spent the best part of the train trip staring (leering) at me. I did my best to ignore him but at Box Hill station, he alighted much to my relief. He then went to the window of the train where I was sitting and planted two palms on the window and in rather close proximity, proceeded to slowly lick the window. I suspect it was to show me how ravishingly desirable I was to him and I THINK I was supposed to swoon and leave my absolutely wonderful husband for him, to run away and live in post-coital bliss in a cave somewhere. I dunno........maybe I got it wrong, who knows?

Anyway, after a lovely evening spent with Gazzah, I jokingly told him about my Windowlicker experience and sure enough, I was blessed with a gift. At first, I was a bit worried/nervous as I wasn't sure if he (my Windowlicker for the evening) was harmless or not. However as time and many stations passed by, it was evident said Windowlicker was a sweet little Peckerhead that had no intentions of hurting anyone as he was enveloped in his own dancing world with matching headphones and doof doof to help him along.

I couldn't help myself because Peckerhead actually lightened my trip and made me genuinely laugh. He made all the other passengers happy as well and that was our little gift for the day.

Now in contemporary society, it is a safe thing to be cautious and wary of strangers who behave strangely in our midst. But every now and again, you come across an unaffected individual who just wants to express their joy and happiness and God Bless their little cotton shoe-shuffling socks, they spread  a little joy to our doldrum lives.

So, take a few moments out and watch my iPhone catch of Peckerhead Windowlicker, Parts 1, 2 and 3..... sit back and have a giggle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02ijo1skps&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2upWy5h2iY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bq77IyI9LU&feature=related

Enjoy!!!

DAY 161: Treating your body like the temple that it is

For years I have indulged in foods and activities (or lack of) that, up until now, I didn't realise was doing me so much damage. I LOVED sweet foods (still do....I just don't indulge that's all), rich foods, foods that are fried, quick hit foods and ....... no activity that burned all that fat that those foods built up. I guess, as I was growing up, the focus was on filling my belly with all these new foods that I was tasting in this new country of mine. My Mum has always been a healthy woman and rarely indulged in fast food or anything that wasn't good for her but she also has tremendous discipline which she didn't pass down to her progeny, obviously. My Dad.....loves the food that I love but he, too, could exercise moderation albeit his version of it.

So, fast forward to the present and all that abuse paid out it's dividends eventually. The penny didn't drop a year ago when it should have so, rather half-heartedly, I approached my diet and exercise regime and fell off that bucking horse 6 months later. No surprise really.

THIS time, the penny has dropped and you know how I know? Because I can say "No thank you" to all those foods that got me here. I can stare down chocolate and cake (my bane) and pies and pastries and cheeses (good cheese) and they will blink before I do. Sure, I have the desire, I won't deny that, but I wish I could verbalise adequately how GOOD my body feels right now.

I am treating it, metaphorically, like a luxury car. I'm only putting good things into it and it is reacting favourably by taking me places that I wouldn't normally go. I have discovered flavours that are luxurious and delicious that aren't fattening and that still give me the same pleasure as all those other foods. Only this time, I know that they're good for me. Foods like huge plump gorgeous cherries and organic avocadoes and tomatoes, home made hummus and beautiful soups made with ripe, fresh ingredients. Foods that don't taste like healthy foods. Foods that my son asks me to make for him - he's clueless as to it's nutritious quality, he just thinks they're yummy. Grant's beautiful Moroccan lamb and olive tagine with couscous..... chicken cacciatore (fat free version) made with ripe and juicy vine-ripened truss tomatoes and a handful of raw nuts eaten together with a large Bartlett pear.

Now, you may think that those ingredients sound more expensive than ye olde supermarket variety mass-produced vegetables and fruit but we went to the Queen Victoria market today and surprised the pure cotton socks out of ourselves. We not only bought produce that hadn't been cool-stored for God-knows-how-long and it was almost half the price and twice, even three times, more fresh than the stuff that is sold in most supermarkets........which meant we could afford to buy the better quality stuff like vine-ripened truss tomatoes instead of garden variety tomatoes. We still came out in front and my healthy little heart is beating like a drum with excitement about it all.

If you want your body to take you the distance, treat it like the temple that it is. It's a gift you were given and it's up to you to take care of it. If it was a Ferrari, how would you treat it? If it was a piece of Tiffany jewellery, would you store it and clean it carefully or just throw it in your top drawer?

Have a talk to it. If your body is arking up and giving you trouble, have you contributed to that in any way? Do you put stuff into it that exascerbates your issues or have you been kind and treated it with love?

Vine ripened truss tomatoes with goat's cheese feta and fresh basil! It's alllll healthy and I can eat as much of it as I want. Why would you swap this for takeaway?