When I was in my early 20’s fresh out of university I had a strong sense that that conventional workforce wasn’t a place for me. It felt so rigid, inhuman even, a form of paid slavery that doesn’t respect the nature of the human being. But there weren’t many alternative options.
I spent so many nights lying awake in my bed wishing for some kind of miracle. An answer to my question: how could bring my love to the world? How could I get paid for bringing the gifts I, as an individual with a specific coding of life experiences and karma unique to each of us, have to offer?
Living in the Gothic quarter of Barcelona in a boatshed-turned-illegal apartment with 4 others at the time, we were subsisting off bags of discounted vegetables from our local Chinese grocery store, hopes, dreams and a belief that love is all that mattered.
One day, walking beside my best friend, tired of feeling so limited, like I had to trade all my precious time for money doing things I didn’t believe in, just to live a life of modest affluence I remember lamenting to her. I wish I could create a job where I would get paid for being myself.
But I didn’t know where to begin. I was afraid that I had nothing of real value to offer and fearful that I would be viewed as a fraud. I believed that anything I could come up with would be judged as too unconventional and not beneficial enough. I shut myself down before I even began.
Years passed and I found ways to make money that conceded a certain degree of freedom. I found my love for writing and I started sharing stories. First, in monthly group emails to my burgeoning friends’ list from my continuous travels that I sent via my Hotmail account. Later, in a blog. Finally, it turned into a business. Work I do, which is an extension of who I am, that I get paid for.
There are a few things that helped me close the gap from wishing to living this notion. 5 ways to bring your love to the world.
1. Choose your purpose.
There a lot of misconception around what purpose really is. A lot of people think that one day it’s just going to fall into your lap, this sense of knowing around what you are supposed to do with your life. I was one of those people. Now I know that purpose is really the way that you embody your values.
2. Know what your unique gifts are.
Your gifts are practical, tangible things that you do in your everyday life that you might not realise that other people don’t do or can’t do or that it doesn’t occur to them. Gifts remain the same. Job titles change. The things that you are passionate about are the very things that are going to lead you to your dream life.
3. Decide how you can help others.
We get waaaay too complicated and overthink this part and completely lose the sense of how simply sharing ourselves in a real, relatable way is often all that others need from us to continue on their journey. Take your gifts, and start sharing them in the simplest way you can. That’s how you help others.
4. Value yourself.
You can make it all up as you go along and still be a raging success. It’s time that we normalised valuing everything we do and realising that when we live out our gifts and bring our unique principles of love into the world we deserve to be remunerated for it in an abundant way.
5. Keep going.
You just have to put one foot in front of the other without limiting or trying to control where it leads you. Life will carry you to unexpected places and heights that you will have never conceived of for yourself. Just because you can’t see how yet doesn’t mean it’s not true.
10 years ago when I was still trying to make my way in the world and figure out what my value-add was and how I could help I looked to the spiritual and personal development and psychology worlds to guide me but there wasn’t any tangible advice on ‘how to be yourself and make money from it‘. I vowed to myself that when I figure it out I would share it in a practical and understandable way.
Once again, I have partnered with my brilliant friend Claire Baker (author and menstrual health coach extraordinaire) to create a step by step structure on how we do two things:
Years ago, when I was nursing myself out of one of my most violent heartbreaks, I documented how I was feeling and what was happening each day. There is a month that I have saved in a Pages document ~ I must have been between journals of which all have since been burned ~ that I revisited today searching for some clues on my romantic patterns. Re-reading those words I wish I had been more detailed not in what I was feeling but what the pragmatic events that were making me feel this way were.
Love is and perhaps always will be a prevalent topic for me. Familial love. Romantic love. The love between friends. Spiritual love. The love for an animal. Self-love. Love is also my most ubiquitous teacher. My relationship with love is steeped in passion, mystery and suffering followed ultimately by transcendence and growth. It is my greatest pain and my deepest pleasure. Perhaps that is the cause of my fascination.
When I think about love, I think about how love is not just words or kindness. It’s also respect, boundaries, care, consent, consistency, communication, vulnerability, honesty and so much more. The need to have messy compassion for myself and others as we waveringly walk our individual journies of life beside one another. It is the legacy we all leave behind through our daily words, actions and choices. It is the presence that we bring and the work that we do. Ultimately, love is everything.
It’s Thursday evening here in my little flat by the seaside, past 7 pm with the sun still high in the sky beckoning the summer days ahead. I’m sitting on the sofa, winding down, writing these words to you, noticing that my body feels tired. It’s more than physical tiredness. It feels like a resetting of my bones. I have changed.
The past year has offered me a respite from the external world in a way that I did not know I needed and now that I have tasted it I want more. Day by day I am unravelling and relearning how to create a life outside the standardised systems we exist in and instead allowing the soft, gentle nature of my being to guide me into a life that is truly my own.
One of the ways I am doing this is with the Her Way ~ Cocoon: a praxis for women who are disillusioned by the old paradigm, structures, stories and narratives and willingly offer themselves over to something greater to unfold through their work. For ourselves and others. Deconstructing. Remembering. Unfolding. This cocoon is an anthropological experiment. There are a few spaces left and if you feel compelled and drawn in, I’d love to invite you to join us. Doors close at midnight tomorrow. 17 hours from now. Learn more and register here.
Another way I am doing this is with Plannher, my timeless and undated planner-and-journal-in-one. Plannher is designed to help you let go of the rigidity of traditional diaries and invite your intuition to step into your journey. It is about organising yourself while feeling your own flow, the flow of life ~ for life has a lot to offer when we take action but also get out of her way ~ so she can show us her magic. It’s about knowing when to engage & when to give her space to surprise us. The new collection and its new home went live today and I am so proud. Please, allow me to introduce you to Honey and Natural.
The rest I am experimenting with quietly in the background, on my own. It’s not about being perfect, but about softly nudging my way back home. I hope the weekend ahead brings you pockets of peace and joy, and most significantly love that reminds you of who you really are.
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When I was a little girl I used to voraciously devour books as fast as I could, losing myself in their fantasy worlds to escape the seeming mundanity of my own. I couldn’t wait to become a grown-up so I could read all the books in the world. Over the years my reading changed from fantastical to educational and I rarely let myself loose myself in the inspired world of an imaginary land. And then 2020 happened, the country I lived in went into lockdown for 3 months, and I suddenly had long stretches of time to immerse myself in any genre of reading that warmed my heart. These are the 9 books that allowed me to traverse universes and inquiry beyond the 4 walls of my little seaside flat.
NORMAL PEOPLE Normal People has been lavished with praise from critics, longlisted for the Man Booker prize and turned into a television series that I inhaled weeks after reading the book. Sally Rooney writes with such precision that leaves you feeling raw, touched, vulnerable, seen and slightly uncomfortable all at the same time. A tale of a modern-day romance with all the awkwardness and confusion and sensitivity of two people willing to share their hearts with one another. I love the way that the entire novel runs in a fluid way with no quotation marks when characters speak so you have to use your own judgement between their thoughts and the words that are spoken out loud. I personally loved and could fully relate.
THE MOON SISTER
There’s this dreamy, ethereal quality to The Moon Sister that completely captivated me. In some ways, I felt like Lucinda Riley was writing my own story and history. Adopted by one man – Pa Salt – and raised together as sisters, each book focuses on one of the girls as they discover their ancestry and what part of the world they came from. The Moon Sister is Tiggy’s story. You’ll go from Geneva to Scotland to Spain with Tiggy as she discovers her heritage. It’s a very light and playful read that offers true escapism.
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
I think this is the best fiction book I’ve picked up due to raving recommendations and read in years, so much so I sent a copy of it to my best friend who doesn’t read much but devoured Where The Crawdads Sing. It was the first few pages, where my heart falls in love with that little 4-year-old, abandoned by her mother as she walks down that dusty road, that captured me. I had to know what happens to that little girl. She of course turns into a beautiful woman, entirely led by and in tune with the natural world around her, astounding in her astuteness who falls in love with the boy who taught her to read. And then… unexpectedly ends up on trial for murder. I wish I could unread it and read it again. It’s that good.
MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING
I had been meaning to read Man’s Search For Meaning to learn and understand trauma and how we navigate severe trials in life from a psychological perspective for a while and then decided it was the perfect audiobook to accompany me on my lengthy pandemic-inspired walks during the lockdown. It was better than I expected. The personal story of Victor Frankl is completely captivating as is the observational and almost detached perspective he tells it from narrating descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and giving lessons for spiritual survival. It turns out that the desire we all have to give things meaning is precisely what allows us to survive and even thrive our way out of tragic experiences. If you enjoy really good storytelling, combined with psychology, spirituality and human behaviour it’s such a valuable insight into actively choosing your own perspective and meaning in life.
THE MAGDALENE MANUSCRIPT
I’ve mentioned The Magdalene Manuscript previously in this voice note I recorded on sacred sex etc… and with all this extra time on my hands decided to revisit it. Reading the story of Magdalene from the perspective of her being a high priestess who offered men an opportunity to activate and connect with their own spiritual depth through sexual intimacy while I myself was exploring those aspects of myself felt profound. It’s one of those books that must call to you and draw you in but if you feel it’s for you, it has treasures, wisdom and insights beyond any I’ve found in more conventional books on sex, intimacy and the spiritual depths we can reach in union with another.
THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE
I love The Body Keeps The Score because it affirms so many of my own experiences, observations with clients and hunches yet I’ve never completed reading it so I started again this year. I must confess, I still haven’t finished it (still) but some books, like this one, you are meant to taste, savour and integrate slowly. The subject of embodied trauma and how we can heal it carries tremendous amounts of depth and can be triggering for all of us, so it takes time to move through the molasses of emotions and responses to rise up in response to this smart, inclusive and well-researched body of work.
THE POWER OF NOW
I first picked up this book when I was 24, over 10 years ago, when I was going through an inner transformation and awakening that I thought no one could understand. Until I read The Power Of Now and everything finally made sense. Reading it again during lockdown felt like slipping into a warm, comfortable bath and offered me a contrasting insight into the woman I was when I first read the book and how I have grown and gained self-confidence in my inner wisdom since. A practical handbook to living a spiritual life deeply seated in the present moment, with truly simple guidelines I think this should be required reading for anyone wanting to access and anchor themselves in the now.
CITY OF GIRLS
Another audiobook designated for long walks along the sea or up into the hills of Brighton’s hinterland I literally couldn’t get enough. “Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are.” City Of Girls is told via 95-year-old Vivian’s life story. She says she is good at two things in life and that’s sex and sewing. The rest is a colourful life in New York filled with all the adventures a young woman can muster amid showgirls and theatre personalities. The audiobook narrator Blair Brown is incredible in her ability to do all the voices and personalities. I would listen to it again on a long road trip as it is light enough to leave you feeling carefree with enough detail to captivate.
OPEN BOOK
While I have never been a fan of Jessica Simpson I was certainly curious what she could possibly write about her life in a way that would have my good friend and incredible journalist Rosie, recommend it to me. Open Book turns out to be an endearingly vulnerable memoir about the challenges of life, family, fame, beauty and body image, and everything else you can imagine a woman in her position experiencing. I expected to endure it but actually loved it and laughed out loud many times as I listened to her narrate her story on Audible.
Plus 3 books I read or tried to read but couldn’t: Dune which is coming out as a film (thank the gods) later this year because even though I love science fiction, this was really, really hard to get through even the first 100 pages so I gave up, The Signature Of All Things that I feel like should have been good because Elizabeth Gilbert is a genius but was painful and I just couldn’t relate to an old, ugly virgin and Untamed that I bought upon a recommendation from a friend but feel repelled by every time I pick it up so haven’t even read the first page of it.
ON LOVE + RELATIONSHIPS
And when you appear all the rivers sound in my body, bells shake the sky, and a hymn fills the world. | PABLO NERUDA
The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along. | RUMI
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess. | RAINER MARIA RILKE
Love – not dim and blind but so far-seeing that it can glimpse around corners, around bends and twists and illusion; instead of overlooking faults love sees through them to the secret inside. | VERA NAZARIAN
We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present. | MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. | HENRI J.M. NOUWEN
Love brings you face to face with your self. It’s impossible to love another if you cannot love yourself. | JOHN PIERRAKOS
When I’m being love, I don’t get drained, and I don’t need people to behave a certain way in order to feel cared for or to share my magnificence with them. They’re automatically getting my love as a result of me being my true self. | ANITA MORJANI
Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us. | MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind.The other is an outpouring of everything good in you – of kindness and consideration and respect – not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had. | JOHN STEINBECK
The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realisation is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvellous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky. | RAINER MARIA RILKE
Each time something in our life ends, it creates room for a new experience. Within each new experience is a stepping-stone. Some are little tiny pebbles and others are big boulders. Some are fun and some are exhausting but with each passing day we learn why we are here, what our mission is and why different individuals come in and out of our lives. Each time a relationship ends or we leave a relationship we must examine ourselves, our hearts, our souls. What brought us to this person to begin with? How did we attract them into our lives? How did they bring us into their reality and why? Each step is part of the journey to going within and finding out who we really are, why we were brought here, and why we go through misery and pain sometimes. We must first work on the inside and the outside will follow. Think about it? What is truly your life’s mission? Do all that you can to create it. It’s a journey… take the adventure. You have gone through many rough periods in your life and many wonderful times too. You’ve helped people through their rough periods. You know what to do. Focus on the solutions always. Stay focused on what you want, not what you don’t want. You have hurt others as they did you. You are a spiritual being who has not yet come into her own. You keep on getting right to the finish line and then you stop. Keep going this time, cross that line. You are deserving, capable and able. Sometimes if we just work on getting rid of anger, everything else will flow. You are loved, dear one. This is the beginning of a beautiful future filled with abundance. Someone loves you and will be there for you…always remember that. We are never alone! | MARION LICCHIELLO
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” | ORIAH
You and I are in a relationship, which I value and want to keep. Yet each of us is a separate person with unique needs and the right to meet those needs. When you are having problems meeting your needs I will listen with genuine acceptance so as to facilitate your finding your own solutions instead of depending on mine. I also will respect your right to choose your own beliefs and develop your own values, different though they may be from mine. However, when your behaviour interferes with what I must do to get my own needs met, I will tell you openly and honestly how your behaviour affects me, trusting that you respect my needs and feelings enough to try to change the behaviour that is unacceptable to me. Also, whenever some behaviour of mine is unacceptable to you, I hope you will tell me openly and honestly so I can change my behaviour. At those times when one of us cannot change to meet the other’s needs, let us acknowledge that we have a conflict and commit ourselves to resolve each such conflict without either of us resorting to the use of power to win at the expense of the other’s losing. I respect your needs, but I also must respect my own. So let us always strive to search for a solution that will be acceptable to both of us. Your needs will be met, and so will mine – neither will lose, both will win. In this way, you can continue to develop as a person through satisfying your needs, and so can I. Thus, ours can be a healthy relationship in which both of us can strive to become what we are capable of being. And we can continue to relate to each other with mutual respect, love and peace. | Dr. THOMAS GORDON
To ‘let go’ does not mean to stop caring;
it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To ‘let go’ is not to cut myself off;
it is the realisation that
I must not control another.
To ‘let go’ is not to fix;
but to be supportive.
To ‘let go’ is not to be in the middle
arranging all the outcomes;
but to allow others to effect their destinies.
To ‘let go’ is not to be protective;
it is to permit another to face reality.
To ‘let go’ is not to regret the past;
but to grow and live for the future.
To ‘let go’ is to fear less
and love more.” | ANON
ON LIFE When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world. | MARY OLIVER
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. | STEVE JOBS
Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always. | RAINER MARIA RILKE
Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond. | MARK NEPO
Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something. | H. JACKSON BROWN JR.
Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. | RAINER MARIA RILKE
The bad news: there is no key to the universe. The good news: it was never locked. | SWAMI BEYONDANANDA
Don’t step into lives that aren’t yours, make choices that aren’t nourishing, or dance stiffly for years with the wrong partner, or parts of yourself. | SARK
To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. | MARY OLIVER
We convince ourselves that life will be better once we are married, have a baby, then another. Then we get frustrated because our children are not old enough, and that all will be well when they are older. Then we are frustrated because they reach adolescence and we must deal with them. Surely we’ll be happier when they grow out of the teen years. We tell ourselves our life will be better when our spouse gets his/her act together, when we have a nicer car when we can take a vacation when we finally retire. The truth is that there is no better time to be happy than right now. If not, then when?
Your life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and to decide to be happy in spite of it all. For the longest time, it seemed that life was about to start. Real life.
But there was always some obstacle along the way, an ordeal to get through, some work to be finished, some time to be given, a bill to be paid. Then life would start. I finally came to understand that those obstacles were life. That point of view helped me see that there isn’t any road to happiness. Happiness IS the road. So, enjoy every moment.
Stop waiting for school to end, for a return to school, to lose ten pounds, to gain ten pounds, for work to begin, to get married, for Friday evening, for Sunday morning, waiting for a new car, for your mortgage to be paid off, for spring, for summer, for fall, for winter, for the first or the fifteenth of the month, for your song to be played on the radio, to die, to be reborn… before deciding to be happy. Happiness is a voyage, not a destination. There is no better time to be happy than… NOW! Live and enjoy the moment. | ANON
May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you’re meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just as you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. — UNKNOWN
ON TRUTH, BEAUTY + EMPOWERMENT
Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. | ALLEN GINSBERG
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. | MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. | PEMA CHODRON
Whatever truth we feel compelled to withhold, no matter how unthinkable it is to imagine ourselves telling it, not to is a way of spiritually holding our breath. You can only do it for so long. | MARK NEPO
I can’t stop pointing to the beauty. | RUMI
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. | MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you. | RAINER MARIA RILKE
Mysteriously, as elusive as it is, this moment – where the eye is what it sees, where the heart is what it feels – this moment shows us that what is real is sacred. | MARK NEPO
A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble. | MAHATMA GANDHI
Everyone has this giant, luminous being that is their true self… Everyone is a sleeping giant, so to speak, waiting to hear the call, waiting to surrender to it, waiting to act on it. We’ve gotten caught up in thinking we are what we look like, the physical, the exterior. We think we’re the lamp shade. We’ve forgotten that we are the light—the electricity and the luminosity that lights up every man, woman, and child. The light is who we truly are. | MICHAEL BERNARD BECKWITH
Nourish your eye and spirit with inspiring things. They will bloom with your tending. | SARK
There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I’m going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts. | ELIZABETH GILBERT
There comes a time in your life when you finally get it … When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out “ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on.” And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes, you begin to look at the world from a new perspective.
……….This is your awakening.
You realize that it is time to stop hoping and waiting for something or someone to change, or for happiness safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that there aren’t always fairytale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you. Then a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.
So you begin making your way through the “reality of today” rather than holding out for the “promise of tomorrow.” You realize that much of who you are and the way you navigate through life is, in great part, a result of all the social conditioning you’ve received over the course of a lifetime. And you begin to sift through all the nonsense you were taught about :
– how you should look and how much you should weigh,
– what you should wear and where you should shop,
– where you should live or what type of car you should drive,
– who you should sleep with and how you should behave,
– who you should marry and why you should stay,
– the importance of bearing children or what you owe your family,
Slowly you begin to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And you begin re-assessing and re-defining who you are and what you really believe in. And you begin to discard the doctrines you have outgrown, or should never have practised, to begin with.
You accept the fact that you are not perfect, and that not everyone will love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are… and that’s OK… they are entitled to their own views and opinions. And, you come to terms with the fact that you will never be a size 5 or a “perfect 10″… Or a perfect human being for that matter… and you stop trying to compete with the image inside your head or agonizing over how you compare. And, you take a long look at yourself in the mirror and you make a promise to give yourself the same unconditional love and support you give so freely to others. Then a sense of confidence is born of self-approval.
And, you stop manoeuvring through life merely as a “consumer” hungry for your next fix, a new dress, another pair of shoes or looks of approval and admiration from family, friends or even strangers who pass by. Then you discover that it is truly in “giving” that we receive, and that the joy and abundance you seek grows out of the giving. And you recognize the importance of “creating” and “contributing” rather than “obtaining” and “accumulating.”
And you give thanks for the simple things you’ve been blessed with, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about – a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, the freedom of choice and the opportunity to pursue your own dreams.
And you begin to love and to care for yourself. You stop engaging in self-destructive behaviours, including participating in dysfunctional relationships. You begin eating a balanced diet, drinking more water and exercising. And because you’ve learned that fatigue drains the spirit and creates doubt and fear, you give yourself permission to rest. And just as food is fuel for the body, laughter is fuel for the spirit and so you make it a point to create time for play.
Then you learn about love and relationships – how to love, how much to give in love, when to stop giving, and when to walk away. And you allow only the hands of a lover who truly loves and respects you to glorify you with his touch. You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say, intentionally or unintentionally, and that not everyone will always come through… and interestingly enough, it’s not always about you. So, you stop lashing out and pointing fingers or looking to place blame for the things that were done to you or weren’t done for you. And you learn to keep your Ego in check and to acknowledge and redirect the destructive emotions it spawns – anger, jealousy and resentment.
You learn how to say “I was wrong” and to forgive people for their own human frailties. You learn to build bridges instead of walls and about the healing power of love as it is expressed through a kind word, a warm smile or a friendly gesture. And, at the same time, you eliminate any relationships that are hurtful or fail to uplift and edify you. You stop working so hard at smoothing things over and setting your needs aside. You learn that feelings of entitlement are perfectly OK and that it is your right to want or expect certain things. And you learn the importance of communicating your needs with confidence and grace. You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that eventually martyrs are burned at the stake. Then you learn to distinguish between guilt, and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to Say NO. You learn that you don’t know all the answers, it’s not your job to save the world and that sometimes you just need to Let Go.
Moreover, you learn to look at people as they really are and not as you would want them to be, and you are careful not to project your neediness or insecurities onto a relationship. You learn that you will not be more beautiful, more intelligent, more lovable or important because of the man on your arm or the child that bears your name. You learn that just as people grow and change, so it is with love and relationships, and that that not everyone can always love you the way you would want them to. So you stop appraising your worth by the measure of love you are given. And suddenly you realize that it’s wrong to demand that someone live their life or sacrifice their dreams just to serve your needs, ease your insecurities, or meet “your” standards and expectations. You learn that the only love worth giving and receiving is the love that is given freely without conditions or limitations. And you learn what it means to love. So you stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn that “alone” does not mean “lonely” and you begin to discover the joy of spending time “with yourself” and “on yourself.” Then you discover the greatest and most fulfilling love you will ever know – Self Love. And so it comes to pass that, through understanding, your heart heals; and now all new things are possible.
Moving along, you begin to avoid Toxic people and conversations. And you stop wasting time and energy rehashing your situation with family and friends. You learn that talk doesn’t change things and that unrequited wishes can only serve to keep you trapped in the past. So you stop lamenting over what could or should have been and you make a decision to leave the past behind. Then you begin to invest your time and energy to affect positive change. You take a personal inventory of all your strengths and weaknesses and the areas you need to improve in order to move ahead, you set your goals and map out a plan of action to see things through.
You learn that life isn’t always fair and you don’t always get what you think you deserve, and you stop personalizing every loss or disappointment. You learn to accept that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that these things are not an act of God… but merely a random act of fate.
And you stop looking for guarantees because you’ve learned that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected and that whatever happens, you’ll learn to deal with it. And you learn that the only thing you must truly fear is the great robber baron of all time – FEAR itself.So you learn to step right into and through your fears because to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your terms. You learn that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy and you learn to go after what you want and not to squander your life living under a cloud of indecision or feelings of impending doom.
Then, YOU LEARN ABOUT MONEY… the personal power and independence it brings and the options it creates. And you recognise the necessity to create your own personal wealth. Slowly, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never ever settle for less than your heart’s desire. And a sense of power is born of self-reliance. And you live with honour and integrity because you know that these principles are not the outdated ideals of a by-gone era but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build your life. And you make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting and to stay open to every wonderful opportunity and exciting possibility. Then you hang a wind chime outside your window to remind yourself what beauty there is in Simplicity.
Finally, with courage in your heart and with God by your side you take a stand, you TAKE a deep breath and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.
A word about the Power of Prayer: In some of my darkest, most painful and frightening hours, I have prayed, not for the answers to my prayers or for material things, but for my “God” to help me find the strength, confidence and courage to persevere; to face each day and to do what I must do.
Remember this:- You are an expression of the almighty. The spirit of God resides within you and moves through you. Open your heart, speak to that spirit and it will heal and empower you.” | SONNY CARROLL
ON FALLING DOWN…. + GETTING UP AGAIN Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. | HENRY FORD
Here’s what I think,” I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my noise like whispers of truth. “I think maybe everybody falls,” I say. “I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.”I pull on her arms gently to make sure she’s listening. “I think the asking is whether we get back up again. | PATRICK NESS
Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive and expansive… The pain leaves you healthier than it found you. | MARTHA BECK
Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others.
It is because we are different that each of us are special. Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only do what is best for you.
Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.
Don’t let life slip through your fingers by living in the past or in the future. By living one day at a time you live all days of your life.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is the fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible. The fastest way to lose love is to hold to it tightly, and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
Don’t dismiss your dreams. To be without dreams is to be without hope, to be without hope is to be without purpose.
Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savoured each step of the way.” | NANCY SIMS
ON GIVING + GRATITUDE There shall be an eternal summer in the grateful heart. | CELIA THAXTER
The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. | DALAI LAMA
Thebest way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. | MAHATMA GANDHI
Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety – best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light – good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness. | MARY OLIVER
My Dear, I am writing this to remind you of your ‘essence beauty.’ This is the part of you that has nothing to do with age, occupation, weight, history, or pain. This is the soft, untouched, indelible you. You can love yourself in this moment, no matter what you have, or haven’t done or been. See past any masks, devices, or inventions that obscure your essence. Remember your true purpose, which is only Love. If you cannot see or feel love, lie down now and cry; it will cleanse your vision and free your heart.I love you; I am you. | SARK
In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices. | ELIZABETH GILBERT
ON WRITING All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. | ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear. | STEPHEN KING
Writing brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them. Writing is still the wildest thing I know. | NATALIE GOLDBERG
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. | ANTON CHEKHOV
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship. | ANNE LAMOTT
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. | ANAIS NIN
I am sitting, cross-legged at the edge of my bed, still wearing the light vest and shorts that I fell asleep in last night, with my dusty pink kimono thrown over my shoulders. It’s 4pm and there are snotty, rolled up pieces of toilet paper all around me. I have a typical head cold and I’m feeling frustrated and sorry for myself. I’m sick again. I’ve never been sick as often as I have been since I moved to Mexico almost a year ago.
I fell asleep for a few hours and wake up to a ravishing hunger that I filled with a banana and a plain bowl of pasta, and a message asking about my favourite topic: love, from one of my favourite people, the most elegant and beautiful Laura. I have been wanting to write these words for a while now, but perhaps they needed a quiet space to come from, which I feel this afternoon.
A few months ago, I entered a new relationship. I mentioned it, briefly, but then became silent about it, because it didn’t hold the magical, romantic, enchanting love-spell that I thought necessary. It felt hard and confronting and filled with challenges right from the beginning. Instead of being in the first sweet, syrupy stage of infatuation, it skipped that essential stage of intimate relationships entirely and went directly to the second stage: the conflict and power struggle.
I’ve not written these words before because I am terrified that he will read them and take them personally and make them about himself and further confirm his subconscious belief that he is unlovable. One that he doesn’t know he has, one that so many of us walk around with, colouring our lives and having us seeking verification of our beliefs by unwittingly choosing experiences that confirm it.
For those of you who are new to this concept, it’s known as the reticular activating system. The RAS seeks information that validates your beliefs. It filters the world through the parameters you give it, and your beliefs shape those parameters kind of like a Facebook algorithm that keeps showing you the same kind of content.
Let me begin at the beginning of this story for both the love of storytelling and for context.
It was on April 10th that we first met. My friend was celebrating her 35th birthday and we all dressed up and drank tequila and danced by the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Another friend told me that she wanted to go visit her best friend who had recently opened a bar and was going through a breakup, would I come with her? I smiled ready when you are and we hitched a ride into town with another guest who was heading home. Inside the bar, she introduced me to her best friend Graham and his business partner. We spoke briefly, politely, and then found a table to sit around. I ordered mescal on the rocks and got up to dance when the music was good.
Every now and then Graham came past and we chatted about our lives, and what brought us to this part of Mexico and what we believed in. I am an emphatic and emotional oversharer, especially with strangers. I have no filter, especially when I feel safe to be myself, which I do, always, when I am around strangers. It is more that after some time of knowing them I start to clamp down, and dull the words from my heart because I learn that they are no longer safe for some.
Like Cinderella at midnight, I french exit, only to find Graham manning the door to his bar which is at capacity. He asks why I am leaving and I tell him I like to leave on a high note. I’m tipsy, I’ve had a lot of fun, and a good dance. It’s the perfect time to leave. We go to kiss goodbye as is common in Mexico, on the left cheek, and I momentarily find his lips on mine. I wonder if I have had more to drink than I thought, if my spacial judgement was that inaccurate, as I skip out into the street and glide into an Uber home.
The following weeks were a thrilling game of chase… I wasn’t interested but was enjoying the attention. This game is one of my favourite parts of life and relationships. Puerto Vallarta is a small town with a big gossip wheel and I was often stopped in the street with questions about what was going on. I always replied the same way, I was just getting to know him and at this point, there was no chemistry.
Then things started to get confusing. Freshly out of a relationship he was suddenly in many of the places I was, and while I refused to go on a date with him we often found ourselves in date-like situations. It was fun and playful and light and I wanted to keep it that way. In those meetings, I start to actually get to know him and am fascinated. He seems to have a lot of similar values that I do, has created a job that has the potential to be location independent and is smart, really smart, and interesting. And there’s a sweetness, a gentleness about him. I like that about him.
I concede and we go on two dates. We sleep together on the first one. He’s disappointed when I don’t invite him home on the second. Then I leave for almost a month for a wedding and a work trip to the UK. During this time we speak on the phone almost daily, sometimes for hours. Two things happen concurrently: my heart softens and opens to him and I begin to wonder… could this be my guy?.. and I start to recount the red flags when I see them in my journal. I’ve had enough relationships and breakups to be done with “another lesson”. I want the real thing or I want nothing at all.
He makes a romantic gesture and meets me at LAX airport as I make my way back to Mexico. We hire a car and he drives us to San Diego where I get to catch up with one of my best friends on the planet Emily, and then cross the border in Tijuana to catch a flight back to Puerto Vallarta together. In those short days, in his haste to be together, we make it “official” and label ourselves as girlfriend and boyfriend. Labels mean so little to me as I experience the world as energy and feel what things feel like and while I felt we were moving in a certain direction I also didn’t want to move too fast. Concurrently I wanted him to feel happy and confident. If those labels gave him that, so be it. They mean little to me.
That first month is full of highs and lows. The highs of getting to know each other more intimately and the lows of getting to know our differences more intimately. Freedom is my highest value and my spiritual practices and beliefs precede everything else. I always come back to my 10-day meditation vipassana courses and Goenka teaching us that pure love is a one-way street.
I want more space and time, he wants to spend every moment together. He has expectations on how I should meet him in a relationship and I shatter those expectations over and over again leaving him reeling with a sense of rejection. I constantly feel triggered because, for some reason, he reminds me so much of my step-father who I had a difficult relationship with. I’ve never dated a man older than 30 until now (and he just turned 40) and, well… it’s a whole new world for me. I am compelled to do so much work around healing those parts of myself that were still hurting and broken without me knowing it. Parts of myself that I had been avoiding and ignoring for a long time. I’m grateful for the opportunity to go there now.
It all feels very, very different. We’ve already had so many of the big and important conversations, conversations I’ve never had with a man before and it’s both wonderful and terrifying. As my very wise friend Keri advised me, it’s tricky when we are wanting to undo old relationship patterns because the new, healthier ones can feel kind of off and our nervous system responds with alarm bells.
This man is consistently truly available and a beautiful person… and I feel like I’m navigating a new landscape of my own heart. But at the same time, there are things that don’t sit right with me. He means well but he is still stuck in a weird place in the traditional old paradigms of gender roles where he thinks he wants an independent, self-assured woman but doesn’t think to offer to do the dishes once. He is easily hurt and doesn’t know how to take responsibility for his emotions. When I tell him I’m selfish and I mean it in the healthy, spiritual sense he throws it back at me when I don’t meet his needs. Evoking emotional manipulation such as guilt and shame come naturally to him. It’s the way he’s been raised and while I can simply observe them and not respond, they make me want to run. Run away, as fast as I can.
I don’t always feel safe. I often feel confused.
Amongst all of this, he makes another incredibly endearing and romantic gesture. He takes us for a hike through the jungle to a beautiful private beach club where he has rented a gorgeous villa for the night. He has plans for us to get drunk that night — alcohol lubricates his heart to speak the words that lay on it — but a terrifying monsoon storm rolls in and I’m not a big drinker and just want to go to bed. Amongst the lightning and thunder tearing at the curtains hung around the glassless windows of our pretty villa he whispers that he brought me here to tell me one thing: I love you. I am relieved as I have felt those words bounce about inside my body for weeks now, but did not speak them because they mean something different to him than they do to me. Now, I get to say them when I feel to.
I have moments when I am wrapped in his arms feeling such tenderness and love for him and moments where I wonder why I am still here. The polarity of my emotions is exhausting at times and I know it can’t be any easier for him. This relationship is hard work.
Last week I sit myself down and have a long, hard talk to myself. You always have a choice, Vienda, I tell myself. You can surrender to this relationship as an opportunity to practice love, and heal and grow and see where it takes you. Or you can give it up and learn those lessons another way. I believe in personal responsibility and that how we feel is always our own choice. Feeling good is my own choice as hard is it can be to own and admit that. And with that those thoughts should I stay or should I go bouncing around my mind stills and I come into a place of peace with it all.
I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped. — Fritz Perls, “Gestalt Therapy Verbatim”, 1969
