the first gift

I remember reading the story of how Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len cured a whole ward full of mental patients without even seeing a single one of them. He worked at the hospital for two years and using a version of an ancient Hawaiian practice called Hooponopono he managed to cure the majority of the patients which evetually led to the hospital being closed down. Dr Len would go to his office and sit with the patients' files and one by one he would heal them through this cleansing process. I was intrigued by the story and immediately began to include the practice of Hooponopono into my everyday rituals. It is a very simple process really.

The premise is you can heal the world by healing yourself. It is an idea that I have come across in so many different teachings and totally resonated with. The healing process is simpler still.

Saying the words:

"I love you" "I'm sorry" "Please forgive me" "Thank You"

That's it. Over and over again.

Like many practices I have picked up I don't feel like I have used it to the best of my ability though.

Especially on myself.

I love myself, and I love my body. Lately I have taken to doing it deliberately. Loving myself, on purpose. I take care of so many aspects of myself. I exercise and eat right and everyday in some way I try to say I love you. There are some parts of me though that I have neglected. Parts that I totally ignored and even in some ways despised. Parts that I complained about and always tried to fix.

Our bodies are amazing, they have an intelligence that science is yet to discover and prove. They have a remarkable ability to heal and they respond to exactly what we tell them to. This is the power of prayer or practices such as Hooponopono. Our bodies talk to us all the time and more than that, they listen to us. The hear us when we complain, they hear us when we rant, they hear us when we celebrate, they hear us when we love and they respond accordingly. They respond to love by blossoming and glowing and respond to negativity by dis-ease. This is their way of speaking to us.

They listen to the words, but more than that they listen to our vibration, our feelings, our actions. They are so sensitive, so intuitive, so responsive. I wish I could say the same for myself. Yesterday I learnt how little I listened to myself. I learned just how much more I had to learn about loving myself. My body to spoke to me and I didn't listen. I had to hear the words from someone else so I could pay attention. I pride myself in my deep self knowledge and sense of self-love I didn't realise that out of careless habit, I was leaving parts of myself behind.

I'm wide awake and I'm listening now. And more than that, I'm taking it a step further, I'm watching what I say. I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.

I started yesterday (actually it was more like early this morning) and already I can see the difference. The interesting thing about life is that patterns play out all around us. As above, so below, as within, so without. Healing our insides, we heal our outsides. The people in our lives just like our bodies, blossom when we love and wilt when we don't.

There are so many layers to this gift that I keep unravelling.

Speak up. I'm listening.

gift on my doorstep

I have recently met someone who is such a wonderful mirror . He has an uncanny ability to take clear snaposhots of me and reflect them back to me so that I can see myself in ways I hadn't thought to look before.

Yesterday he reflected something I wasn't too happy to see. At first. It took me a little by surprise. My first instinct was to thank him. My second was to run away and be by myself and take time to make sense of it. I have learnt that in life gifts show up in the most unexpected places and sometimes it is difficult to know what the gift is until you take time to unwrap the layers that conceal it. When something breaks through my veneer of calm and shakes me, I know that I have received a wonderful gift even if it is not clear at that moment, and appreciating it for what it is allows me to unwrap my gift and discover the treasures within.

The problem with people who haven't known you for a long time is that they don't always stick to your script. They have a way of crossing the lines and venturing into unexplored territory.

I ran away to be by myself. He followed me. I couldn't shake him off. I guessed he still had more gifts to give.

He did.

He told me a story, another reflection, of who I am. Every morning, he said, I built a wall around myself, brick by brick and went out into the world. And I came across all sorts of people and experiences and I let them come close, but now too close. I stood behind my wall the whole entire time. The interesting thing about me though was that while my wall kept people at a distance, he had learned that if he left a gift by my doorstep, I would eventually at some point during the day, get out from behind my wall and open it, and I would take what I wanted and leave the rest behind.

I loved that story. That is so me.

So now I have two gifts.

Thank you S.

watching grass grow

I'm rediscovering the value of patience. Actually, maybe rediscovering is not the word. I have never really been what you would describe as patient. Patience has always been something that has been imposed on me. Be patient. Hang on. Wait. Be still will you?

I prefered to move. Fast. Like my mind did. As soon as a person began speaking I would already see where they were heading and skip right to the end. In school I would spend most of my time in my classes doing something other than listen to the teacher drone on and on. I was always doodling or reading a novel hidden in my text book or taking flights of fancy in my imagination. I would set the scene by being the model student for the first few minutes of the lesson. Put my hand up and answer all the questions correctly for the first few minutes until the teacher would smile at me and ask me to give the others a chance, that was my cue, from that moment I knew I'd become invisible and I could do whatever I wanted.

I suppose I always found a way to make less pleasant aspects of my life, fly past. I would always whizz by to what I wanted. Fast. Just like my mind. My amazing brain would come up with a myriad of schemes to keep others occupied or manipulate them into getting what I wanted. Fast.

Lately though, I've been getting out of my head more and flowing. Not much mind work in flowing. More about being still and centred in self and trusting that life is taking you to where you want to go. For the first time though, my super quick mind has been slow to catch on.

Patience has always been something to avoid, to circumvent, to get rid of. Why wait, when we can do it. Fast. Why wait?

Why wait? Why wait?

I'm not too sure why, but I know that I want to. For the first time I find myself in a self imposed state of patience. More willing to slow down and savour every moment. More willing to trust and let go. More willing to just flow.

Why wait? Because words do not make sense without the spaces in between. Why wait? Because a song would not be as beautiful if there was only sound and no silence. Why wait? Because most things worth having, are worth waiting for. Why wait? Because life is a journey and we are in one eternal process of getting to our destination.

Its not about the destination, it's getting there. It's the ebb and the flow. It's the space in between. That is what life is all about.

Think about it. Birth-Death. Life is the hyphen.

Makes sense to slow down and savour it a little don't you think?

going with the flow

Wow. I came across a wonderful delightful AHA! realisation today. It is so big my life will never be the same again. I know I always say this and it is always true. My life is never the same from one day to the next. Everyday I know more, I become more, I choose new thoughts and I become an entirely new person. It is the flow of life. No two days are the same, no two moments either and knowing this is so wonderfully liberating. Life becomes a new adventure and people in my life play ever changing roles and every day, every moment feels so bright and shiny and new.

I love water. There is something about it that is so cleansing. Sun-shower combines two of my most favourite things in the world. Light and water. In many ways light is like water because once you shine a light on something it is changed, it is new, it is cleansed. Knowledge is like that light. When put to its proper use it cannot leave you unchanged. You may choose to act as if things are the same but something's different and you can't run from it. You can try to fight it, you can try to paddle against the current that is carrying you, has always carried you towards change towards adventure towards a series of ever changing moments, but it will still carry you anyway. So much better to let go and go with the flow.

Going with the flow, so deliciously divine. Trusting that the stream of life is carrying you to where you want to be and letting go. Nice.

I had for a while resisted the idea of going with the flow. Something to do with control, but the basis of this quest for control is mistrust. Once I got the trust issue covered and realised that everything is working out in my favour I found myself going with the flow more. It is easy with the little things. To relax, chill out and just let go.

A little harder with the big things. Then the old fears came back. Should I leave this person? Should I quit this job? Am I on the right path? Can I afford this? Where will the money come from? What if I make a mistake? When faced with the bigger decisions, it wasn't so easy to just flow. Some parts of me were saying, Hey this is important! This could change your life. Pay attention! Do something!

Something other than flow.

Then today I came across something that changed the whole way I looked at life. There are no big decisions, just a series of little ones. No big decisions. No big decisions. No big decisions. Just little ones. Should I mail this letter? Should I return that call? Should I buy this? Will I enjoy this experience? Does this taste good? Am I hungry? Easy little ones. And if I can make the right little decisions then the big things take care of themselves. And making the right little decision is easy. Go with the flow. Do what feels right. Relax. Chill out.

Easy peasy.

Life is supposed to be fun.

And knowing what I know now, it truly is.

the modern fairy tale

I'm growing up. I'm growing older. This truly hit home when I went to watch Sex and the City the movie two nights ago. I have been excitedly waiting for this film since I first heard about it early last year and finally there I was with a bunch of friends seeing all of it unfold.

The first thing I noticed was everyone was noticeably older. I was a little thrown that even with the magic of Holywood they still looked much older. Yet the story was still the same in some ways though different. It still had that delightful fairy tale quality that I loved, the characters are at once relatable and yet somehow unreal. I loved the movie. Loved the story, and loved the happily ever after ending.

Later when I left I was surprised by how moved I was by the film. It came to me in huge blocks of emotion, which took me by surprise until I realised that I was letting go, releasing the old fairy tale where the princess meets and falls in love with a handsome prince and after being rescued from some misfortune that seeks to keep them apart, she marries her prince and lives happily ever after. It was like a computer upgrade. I had received new software and now I had to uninstall fairy tale number one and reinstall fairy tale number two. It felt like I was losing something that I had had for as long as I can remember and as always with loss comes the fear of the unknown, but today, my sun is back and with it a wonderful new story where the princess meets and falls in love with her true self and lives happily ever after. Like software upgrade the new version usually does all the things the old one used to do, only better.

The princess still lives happily ever after.

And happily ever after as I have come to realise, can mean finding love in your own backyard after going away in search of it, choosing to forgive imperfection in your self and others and realising that the true beauty lies in the imperfection, or letting go of relationships and ideas that were no longer serving your self, and facing our fears and choosing love. Always choosing love. The love of one's Self.

I'd love to see that in a children's book. Once a upon a time there lived four princesses....

Fun movie.

Thank you Uni.