Somewhere Along the Way

Somewhere along the way I grew jaded. I mean that has to be the reason right? The reason I am questioning so much after spending so much of my time in this way of thinking. That I would devote so much time and energy into the thought and lifestyle of “following my bliss”. I curated the thoughts in my head, I used mantras, I cut out people from my life, and even would steer away from friends who had gotten sick because they must not have been aligned for something to go wrong, right?

I’ve always been an optimistic person and I’ve always been one to dive right in, and this stage of my life was no different. I had been living in Brazil and was totally lost, I knew I wasn’t where I needed to be and was searching for clarity. I was trying anything and everything and even fasted for about a month on just water with alternating days where I would drink some coconut water or some sugar cane juiced with lime. I taught myself to meditate and would create art for arts sake to see what was going on. This was all back in 2007-2008 and the internet was really just starting to kick off there weren’t a lot of resources like you can find now about all of these topics, so I just kinda figured it out as I went along. A sort of friend of mine said that he had been reading Joseph Campbell and in a short email exchanged mentioned the term “follow your bliss” and I grabbed ahold of it with all of my might.

I made posters with that wonderful phrase and hung them on my dingy apartment wall overlooking one of the busiest street intersections in Sao Paolo. I scribbled in my journals, and I meditated with it in mind, hoping to figure out what that actually meant and how I could use it to help my situation. One day at a friends ranch in the countryside, we ate some “Hawaiian babies” which were seeds from one of the plants in the yard. I had broken my fast by taking them and drinking watermelon blended up, a strange way of ending it, but I got the clarity I needed. I wasn’t a very good guest that weekend, I scribbled in my journal, I drew the fabulous magical plants around me and I came to realise that for me to follow my bliss meant that at any given time I needed to do what felt best to me, even if that meant being anti-social and completely doing my own thing, which I did. I had so many realisations that weekend while I was off my head and it certainly was an awakening of sorts.

Eventually after I was back in the US after my escape from Brazil, yes it was like an escape, but I’ll write more about that later, but after I was back in my home country I was even more lost than before. Familiar people, familiar places, familiar smells, but none of it felt fully like home. Yes I snuggled and cried and danced and swam and stomped through the snow in my beloved Yosemite, and did think about returning for another round, but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t the same, I was a different persona and I needed more than I knew how to get there. I continued to listen to the writing on the wall or take tips from people to heart, and one gave me a tip about a meditation centre nearby, one that had been there the entire time I lived in Yosemite but never knew about.

I spent time at this meditation centre and there’s more to this story too, but I’ll share more about that later. I will say that it was another one of those times where I met the right people at the right time, and forged friendships that would definitely support that stage of my life. I had learned about the power of manifesting along the way by writing down what I wanted and watching it unfold. I noticed this happen again and again and again. I also felt like it was contrived and I came to the point where I actually wanted to be surprised and let go of trying to be the master of my universe. I have still used that over the years though because I know the power of my words and the strength of my mind can cause tremendous change in my life and those around me. It sounds like a god complex kind of thing but it wasn’t, or maybe it was? Is this the heaven on earth scenario just a bit manufactured? Who knows. There are always questions.

So fast forward and I got into head on collision and I was fully into that mode of thought of Law of Attraction where what I think becomes, and was certain that I had created this crazy accident in some far-fetched way because I wasn’t on the path I needed to be on, so the Universe not so gently helped me correct course. Okay, I accepted that and it made sense. Maybe that’s the biggest part of all of this line of thinking, we always want everything to make sense, I always want to put everything into some neat little informational package so that all the pieces fit together, to tie up loose ends and ensure that it all flows so I can continue moving on to the next thing.

When my very complicated pregnancy came around, I did try to change my thoughts, I did try to manage my vibration but sure enough I couldn’t do it well enough, if looking through that lens, and had extended hospital stays, prescribed pain killers, and an emergency cesarean of my baby two months too soon, followed by an intense section of life of the emotional hell that is the NICU. I felt embarrassed that I wasn’t strong enough to handle the way it happened. I felt that I had failed in my own way of thinking and had surmised to this weaker state of mind which allowed all of the heartache and pain to happen. I didn’t want to share pictures of my child that would normally be joyous of his first days because to me he looked like an alien in a clear box with all kinds of tubes and wires hanging off of him, I had failed to create this birth for both of us, for all of us. Whoa it’s hard to confront this truth and I’m getting emotional typing it. I really felt like I had failed and let myself, my new son, my husband, and every other person I have every talked to about the power of thoughts, down. Like going through seeing your child like that and dealing with my own pain wasn’t enough, that feeling of failure was absolutely soul crushing. How could I have not been able to practice what I have preached and been able to do again and again in my own personal life before then? Oh boy it was a hard time.

I see how “thought leaders” in this industry of selling the thought that you have control over everything in your life attribute being poor with not being spiritual. I see them also attribute not being healthy or having an illness as not being spiritual, that you can just turn it around with your thoughts. I think it’s all a big pile of bullshit these days. I believe in optimism and I believe in setting goals and doing your best every moment and really finding the goodness in life, but everyone has the path they need to walk and to justify it one way or another is just making a huge pile of excuses and it may sell books or speaking gigs or classes, but I don’t subscribe to this thought any more and it feels like I am breaking up with it.

I do however still believe that my thoughts influence my life, absolutely. I absolutely believe that being optimistic can bring sunshine into the gloomiest of areas and help a person get out of situations to where they really do have more sun in the sky than rain, metaphorically speaking. I’m just dropping the judgemental part of it. We all get a starting point where we are, and sure enough we can do whatever we can with it, and that’s great, that is fine, that is enough, and things happen in life, it is our attitude that helps guide us through the process but that still doesn’t justify why there are kids who starve to death, or young people who get cancer or other atrocities like this, it’s not because they aren’t spiritual enough, it’s just the hand they have been dealt and that’s it.

I’m still holding onto the need for joy and laughter and fun and time off in my life. I am still holding onto the need for beauty and smiles and healthy living. I am still holding onto the fact that loving someone else and feeling that love back is one of the most precious gifts in human existence. I am still holding onto my way of being that likes to see the bright side. I am still holding onto my understanding that we aren’t really all created equally and that we all don’t have equal ways to get ahead or to progress and I have compassion for this. I am holding onto my belief that I still get to choose in every moment who I get to be and can be that person and allowing change to happen this way in my life now. I still believe that if you surround yourself with things/people/environment that make you feel inspired to be your best self, then its a hell of a lot easier to do so. I am still in total belief that I am here to make a positive impact upon the world and will continue to do so, even if with only my smile as I pass a stranger. I will continue to share love and be love because I can.

Birthday Expectations

I was married on my birthday. Unusual, yes, but it’s true. Two of the biggest days of my life are on the same date, and on the same day of the week even.

When deciding on the day to get married, I really wanted it to be on an equinox or a solstice for the symbolic reason of change, of balance, and of the newness that comes with the changing of the seasons. My first choice was not my birthday however, my first choice was the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere in September, but due to my finals at Uni falling exactly amidst that timeframe, it was out. We chose to go with my birthday instead, which in the southern hemisphere is the autumnal equinox.

It was symbolic on many levels, of night and day being in balance, of my own personal rebirth, of this new life beginning on the day that I first took air in this body, of the commitment that it would no longer just be me alone in my journey. Along with this, the more practical thought was that it would be easy to remember, and would give reason for a bigger celebration because the two were merged into one.

It’s a funny thing when birthdays come around, and major holidays for that matter too. It’s like we’ve been preprogrammed, or have been advertised so much to expect a lot on these days, like a grand celebration must occur in order to have happiness in life. Almost due to this weird programming, I’ve bucked the trend and haven’t really celebrated major holidays or my birthday, not really, in quite a while. I wonder now if it’s also due to feeling like I didn’t want to be disappointed if I wasn’t able to afford a celebration that I would consider to be good. As much as I try my best not to compare, it is hard for me not to when everyone around also celebrates and the common question after is “so what did you get?”. This has always been weird for me anyway because I grew up in a family who didn’t have very many financial resources, so our holidays were always a bit slim on gifts, but we always had plenty of food, enough to invite others along who didn’t have someplace to go or something to eat.

So I wonder now, if I subconsciously wanted to have my birthday and wedding anniversary on the same date, to help me avoid feeling at a loss of what my expectations were or are. Perhaps due to my constant pushing back of it saying that I don’t really celebrate is a way to protect myself from feeling less than, of feeling unimportant, of feeling that I didn’t get what I wanted.

Sure, I can go and buy what I want for myself, and honestly I think that way about most things from day to day life, like buying myself flowers so that any additional flowers I get are just an added bonus. However, I feel like I want someone to fuss over me now, to feel special, to feel celebrated.

Perhaps this is why most of the time when my birthday rolls around I feel a bit of a loss, and kind of sad. I haven’t wanted to share my desires for being cared for extra specially on my birthday, and in turn, I haven’t been. If I truly did not care, I wouldn’t feel this uncomfortable feeling in my throat and tears wouldn’t be streaming down my face.

I pretty much forced my husband into taking our toddler and I on his work trip abroad because the days happened to fall over my birthday and our anniversary, even though we cannot actually afford this trip at the moment. The same trip where it’s already been said that this shouldn’t have happened and we are only a couple of days into it. I must find a way for myself to not feel like a burden. I feel like I’m having a pity party for myself right now.

I feel like I need to have my own money and the freedom to spend it. I need to have my own power. I need to have my own independence and not feel limited. I need to be celebrated, and to feel loved in a celebratory way.

As I move forward, I will celebrate. I normally say that any excuse for a celebration, and I’m in, and I’m going to now include holidays and birthdays too.

On the eve of my 36th birthday I feel like I am coming clean.

The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell has inspired me and the changes I’ve made in my life. So much so that back in 2007 or so when I first heard the idea of “Follow Your Bliss” that I held onto it as tight as I possibly could and made motions in every moment to do so, which in turn totally transformed my world. I was living in Brazil at that stage and so far from where I really needed to be and it was obvious. By choosing what felt the best at any given time, I slowly but surely created lasting change in my life. Thank Goodness!

Fast forward to 2010 and I was in a major car accident. I had just moved to Australia and was stopped in my tracks, a divine intervention really. Having nothing but time and space to heal, heal is what I did. I took the time to finally really dive into my own subconscious, learn about who I was, what I was doing, where I was going. I trained myself how to lucid dream, I kept a regular dream journal and analysed my dreams. I drew, painted, wrote, and expressed myself however I could within the healing space I was in. You see I wasn’t overly mobile at that time, so I had to work with what I had! I was living in a bus on an organic banana farm in the lovely village of Whian Whian in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. The time there was right out of a storybook. Including a horse named Spirit whom I’d try to be friend while going to the nature loo, the outdoor compostable toilet which had a stunning view of The Channon area with it’s rolling hills and lushness.

Realising that I was far away from my doctors and community, I moved into the town of Lismore, after a  few months of living in Lennox Head with it’s healing Tea Tree water infused Lake Ainsworth. Lismore was fantastic. It is a creative hotbed and every walk of life can be seen there. Here I lived in a vegetarian meditation house on top of Girard’s Hill overlooking the whole town. There were koalas in the nearby lookout and it was what I needed in my next stage of healing.

In Lismore, I really dove into the Hero’s Journey. I had written it in the story arc with each stage and pasted it upon my wall. I studied it regularly. I would watch a film and dissect it based on the story steps. I noted that there always had to be a struggle that felt like against all odds it wouldn’t happen, and then a guide in some guise would appear, the struggle would have a climax and the Hero would triumphantly overcome the initial issue before returning better than ever to their regular life. I love how the story unfolded that way and I have always been keen to support the underdog.

I’m at a stage now where I am not sure if I embody the Hero’s Journey naturally and that is why I had to study it, or if I have studied it so much that my life now mirrors that. I understand the power of the thought and how it can influence and inform life in every aspect. I may naturally be the Hero, full on. With the amount of adversity and resiliency of overcoming the obstacles in my life, I sure feel like I am the Hero. Perhaps I just understand the process better and can identify it. Either way there is no coincidence that it came into my life in such a major way and that it still stays with me so strongly.

However, at this point, I’m ready to just have the easier way now. I’m ready for the smooth and easy sailing part which doesn’t have bam, bam, bam excitement left and right. Not that I’m asking for some dull ride through life, not at all. It’s just that I’m about to bring a child into this world, into my existence, and I want to just enjoy it rather than feel like I’m always overcoming some battle. This year alone has been a constant battle with major positive highlights too, like getting married; going on our lovely honeymoon at the Great Barrier Reef; conceiving a child. It’s certainly been clear that I’ve had a lot of challenges too, like setting and enforcing boundaries with joint venture partners; dealing with immigration issues between two different countries and still not having resolution; feeling every bit of joy, happiness, pain, and discomfort that comes with being pregnant in my mid-thirties, all the while creating a unique business that will solely be online to help women.

I love and admire the Hero’s Journey and I will always have my own personal stories to reflect upon. I am just ready for that feeling of “Ease” to take over, at least for a while.