I’m writing this in real time .. post posting ..as I explore different ways of writing and sharing.
I love to write and it wasn’t until the end of 2015 that I started a practice of sharing my writing publicly via my website blog and then Facebook/Instagram and Medium. When I fall into a hole of feeling like the world is completely fucked and there is no point and no hope, it is writing that brings me back and gives me a sense of meaning. As a ‘creator’ archetype, I get a sense of meaning and purpose through the act of creation. This is where I can shift from victim into hero and begin to take action to change my life.
It’s interesting how, after breaking free of a tunnel of doom I am currently still aware of the desperate feeling while starting to find some glimmers of meaning and hope. For one I am conscious of the visceral experience of being alive and as I tell myself – I am a spiritual being here having a human experience, and I’M HERE FOR IT (as much as I sometimes don’t want to be).
Anyway – basically my writing and offering is to share the many, many paths I have been down on my incessant journey of searching for meaning and purpose in my life. Maybe I can show you some paths you might not otherwise discover, and help you to choose your own adventure in your life.
This blog has been one of my paths toward finding clarity for moving forward. And the path continues. You are welcome to join me on my adventure.
Buckle in for the ride. Anything could happen. Let’s go!
This lesson comes from my aikido practice but it is true for many things in life. So, when I am practicing a technique in aikido against a person who is using some resistance, if I am not correctly aligned, responding to their action will be difficult and require me to use strength. It is one of the advantages of being a female aikidoka. Males, being generally stronger, can often use strength to get techniques to work, and consequently not take advantage of the full magic of the practice.
One of my favourite experiences during training is when I am struggling to do a technique, and then the tiniest, subtle adjustment can shift things from feeling really hard, to completely effortless. This is the magic of aikido. This can also be true for life — which I’m in the process of making happen. There are a lot more variables in life, but the principle is the same. I’ll let you know when I get there :).
ai — harmony
ki — spirit
do — way/path
The way of harmony with spirit. The way of effortless action. I believe this experience of the ‘sweet spot’ demonstrates the essence of aikido.
This lesson comes out of the book ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers, though I’ve heard many variations saying the same thing.
Saying ‘Yes’ to your universe invites you to not only accept everything that happens to you, but to welcome it. It requires you to trust that you live in a loving universe.
In a similar vein is the idea of ‘loving the ropes’ — the ropes being those things that you feel are restricting you or causing you pain. When you ‘love the ropes’ they disappear.
Essentially, this all points to the power of our mind in how we experience any situation. Byron Katie’s book ‘Loving What Is’ and practice of ‘The Work’ gives a structured approach for turning around your thoughts and seeing what feels like your reality differently.
“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”
As we move toward a more healthily balanced society (as opposed to the imbalances of the patriarchy) I am seeing, particularly with women, how as we lift up others, we all rise. Many women have grown up not trusting other women and experiencing jealousy, comparison and destructive competition. Perhaps it goes back to the times of witch burnings where women were encouraged to dob in each other, or maybe it goes back even further to women being all but written out of sacred texts such as the bible. Female genital mutilation is still today done by females. Women can be vicious with each other. But this is an old paradigm that is finally starting to fade. It is time to lift up our sisters and celebrate their success, rather than see them as a threat or competition.
This support and uprising of women offers hope for both humanity and the planet.
Doing the Wealth Dynamics quiz I came out as a Dynamo / Creator type. This process was very validating and inspiring to me as I had done so many jobs that did not use my strengths. This test has helped me to to focus more on my strengths and to see the jobs that are out of alignment.
Wealth Dynamics (AKA Talent Dynamics) is a system that shows you where your natural talents lie. When you are operating from your natural talents you are able to be in flow which is where you are able to have the biggest impact, feel the most joy, and experience ‘wealth’.
This system overlays many different systems including the I-Ching, the seasons, the five Chinese elements, and much more.
Apart from describing where your strengths lie, it also describes the two other profiles you need on your team to operate most successfully.
I highly recommend this system to understand yourself better.
In 2014 I was early in my journey of setting up a business, but I was struggling. I came across a free ebook that described the nine personality types of the Enneagram in terms of being a business person. I printed off the ebook and started reading through the descriptions starting with ‘type 1′. When I got to ‘type 5’ — the investigator — I was blown away. I read about aspects of myself that i had felt were what was wrong with me — the things I’d felt ashamed of, like holding back, being a loner, endlessly studying and searching .. and realised I wasn’t alone — that there were huge numbers of people who thought and felt like I did.
This was the start of a deep journey in which I learnt about all of the types and for the first time I started to understand people. As I lay in bed at night, thinking about all these types, and piecing together a lifetime of interactions and confusion, I felt like my life was a massive puzzle that was falling into place.
One of the biggest gifts of learning about the Enneagram was that, in understanding myself and others more clearly, I could feel love and appreciation for what each person, including myself, was experiencing.
What followed was a journey back to the world, as I had removed myself from the world and ‘society’ to an extreme degree.
The best way to learn about the Enneagram is, much like I did, to read the descriptions of each of the types and to see what resonates.
The Enneagram describes a path of spiritual evolution.
In the past year I have started to learn a completely different way of understanding the Enneagram that precedes the personality structure approach. This is Fourth Way teachings and the Enneagram describes a process of evolution which I am beginning to study as ‘an objective way of awakening’.
This ancient symbol has a lot of depth and is something I expect I will be studying my whole life.
Anyway, this is a very simple (overly simple) introduction. I LOVE the Enneagram and I recommend it as a powerful tool for self awareness and guidance.
I used to be really rigid when it came to decisions. I valued reliability and liked to see myself as reliable. When i made a decision I would stick with it, regardless of the pain or the clear signs to stop or change direction.
In some ways this served me. I stuck with things until I learnt the lesson, allowing me to experience completion. But mostly it served to keep me stuck. It also contributed to a fear of commitment and a difficulty with making decisions.
I’ve learnt over the past couple of years in particular, and particularly thanks to two of my teachers, that not only is changing my mind okay, it can in fact be admirable. We risk being judged, feeling stupid, wasting time or money, disappointing other people, and taking responsibility for our life when we make a decision and change our mind.
Changing our mind means feeling into what is right for us, and adjusting accordingly. My tenacity and unwillingness to let go of an idea / decision in the past was because I was living mostly in my head. My decisions were generally a response to thinking and not feeling. I didn’t even know HOW to feel for most of my life. Bringing consciousness to my feelings is something I now practice every day. It is an important part of my process of awakening.
What about you? What is something you have ‘decided’ to do (or not do). Can you entertain the opposite? And when you make a decision, how much do your feelings play a part?
At the start of this year I set myself a challenge to get me up and running. I committed to ‘A lesson a day’ (though I didn’t set for how long) and for the first two months I did just that. But then I got a new job and other parts of my life needed attention so I let myself off the hook, and have been doing them sporadically now.
One thing I was happy to discover through this practice is that I have enough lessons to last a lifetime .. particularly considering I continue to learn every day.
I’ve been writing my lessons on the Medium platform which I love for the ease of both writing and publishing and subsequent editing. But in the meantime my blog has been languishing and my friends who want to hear what I have to say get locked out from my account after a while unless they sign up.
So it’s time for me to start sharing my lessons here on my blog (as well as Medium).
I wrote and sent this to my email list (and Medium) so I am putting it up here rather belatedly since it sets the scene of what is to come.
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We’re ticking over. The big clock is shifting from 2021 to 2022. Numbers feel significant to me. They mark a passage .. make a stamp. Each year I choose a word which forms a framework for that year. It creates a significance. We create our meaning. It becomes an exploration through all aspects of life. A focus. A holding space.
This year my word was determined as I drove north for a holiday with my sister and sister-in-law .. our ritual connection, debrief and dreaming time of magical creation .. and a word I have had some resistance to became my focus — GODDESS. 2021 has been my year of the GODDESS which included the appreciation of the many amazing women in my life, both near and far. The goddesses of this world give me hope. Living into Goddess felt like living into abundance and creation and possibility. It felt like a healthy sense of empowerment and lifting each other up. It felt like an uprising. As we click over into 2022 I am considering the word to carry my through next year. I don’t have to make any definite decisions, but it feels good to consider.
Right now I’m sitting with AWAKEN. I love this in lots of ways. It feels like an opportunity to feel more alive, to be more present, to become more conscious, to rise up, to fully embody my life. And to share all the things I’ve been studying (SO MUCH!) these past few years.
I’m thinking of doing a #365day challenge of A Lesson A Day, where I share something I’ve learnt every day. It can be like a ‘decluttering’ so that I can get clarity on my lessons and share them as a gift to others.
I start tomorrow. Eek!
I’m preparing to share a ’system of evolution’ that I have created. I am calling it a Framework for Creative Evolution and it contains five elements that together form a catalyst that can help you get unstuck and rise up in your life.
Sharing this system, my creative work and holding mastermind groups for inspiration, motivation and connection is part of a multi-dimensional transformational journey.
Jump on board and I will support you on your own transformational journey.
Anyway .. the Green Goddess is inspiring me right now. I am facing a fear and practicing one of the 5 elements in my system — Courage — taking the leap so to speak. I’ll never get this right and if I hold onto it it would never get finished. I know that I kill things when I edit .. and turn them from vibrancy to a dull order.
This is my new challenge. (maybe ..) A post a day. The thought terrifies me. I can see the exposure, the pressure, the shame.
It’s almost midnight. 11.26pm as I type, here in Sydney time. At 4.00am in the mountains of the U.S one of my favourite goddesses is holding a ‘Rebirth’ call. I’ve been in lots of magical spaces that she has held for the past few years — not all of them in real time — and she has inspired and delighted me on my journey of rising up.
It feels perfect timing for being in the Rebirth Portal right now.
The planet is awakening. The goddess is stepping up. This is such a privilege.
I wrote the following poem at the start of this year .. a stream of consciousness exploration. After randomly clicking on it I decided to read it to my writing group, intending first to tidy it. As it happened I couldn’t bring myself to even look at it before our meeting, and jumped into the vulnerable sharing of it in its imperfection and despite the fact that one of our group members features in the poem.
Acting despite my fears, walking into the fire so to speak, is something I’m finding is liberating and expansive and it is how I am currently approaching life. My desire is to continue to bust through my fears and expand in my experience of life. And with that said, here is my poem.
12 January Eight years since Ian died Waking up to strange dreams A group of us in Bellingen The ‘rescuers’ taking over Mum driving my car too fast and off the road Kathy taking charge of dinner plans I got quite annoyed with the game last night. Apparently we’re playing tonight But I didn’t agree to that And Vanessa agreed to the opposite She specifically said ‘one night only’ And I’m with that Drinking and playing card games If fun for some Let them have their fun Even though they will think the more the merrier This ‘rescuer’ dynamic is toxic Or at least unpleasant It creates a victim Fuck that Bloody James Bond Got me angry the other night And dreaming of snakes He’s a snake. I’m losing interest in Peter more and more Which is quite a release I meant to say relief But it is a letting go It is a relief It’s the pattern I grew up in Learning to give up my power In exchange for being rescued This victim creation .. the helpless, hopeless, confused, Defenceless, surrendered creature Was the result Reliant on my captor for help and support Until I broke free on my own But I still couldn’t function In ‘normal’ circumstances I’m seeing it more and more clearly And still, she tries to win me over To buy her way into my affections To be needed and for me to need her But I’m getting stronger The rescuers can take their big capacity They can take their desire to jump in They can take their bullying tactics Disguised as love But the love is not love It’s an unconscious pattern A desire to receive love
I will only disappoint a rescuer When I reject his desire to help Because it puts me down And assumes I can’t do it myself So what do I do To meet someone I desire Without the pattern being activated. It wasn’t activated with Ian Perhaps we were both victims Who had turned into loners Rejecting the desires of others To take control and be our hero. Instead we became each others hero With neither the victim And neither the judge And both accepting of both the other And the self We did it. It worked. We slipped out of that dynamic. But I fell into the hole with Peter For way too many years, Prepared to give up everything To be his slave and disciple In return for love. I made it back to me Back to Goddess To Earth Mother. Which is where I am now., Yes, I’m back to the Goddess This is where I needed to be Not wanting rescuing From a snaky spy Or a capacious and distracted Uncommitted and unfaithful Self centred and rejecting Lover For that is no lover at all I would have been miserable It took me so long to see it. But it’s getting clearer.
And I now see the guilt And where it comes from For all I gave to you Feeling obliged and dutiful To my rescuer Feeling resentful and rejecting Of my captor For where is the love When we become a possession Where is the love When we aren’t truly free Yet she’s done so well She insists that she loves me Even when I’m not the obedient servant Even when I free myself Does she understand what I write Does she reflect Does she have regrets She was acting on autopilot She believed she was doing good Just as I did also when I let Joey make decisions That were not his to make Turned him into my rescuer And my judge Can I make amends Now as I step out of the victim role And rewrite my life Now as my life Begins again.
And as for tonight My final night in this house Before a new life begins
I still have the decision Do I perform my duty Or do my own thing The jury needs a voice It needs an answer Does Joey need me there? Or can I tell him of my experience That might be more an education I’ll write out the two lists And get clear on my answer. Do I dare Disturb the Universe. Rescuers be damned We’re all in this together And now I’ve written And gotten some clarity And I’m feeling a bit better And my poem is very long.
Time to finish my email And send it out Onwards and upwards I join the Goddess And save first my own life And then the world. Amen.
Save first my own life For I had given it up It was no longer mine It’s time to take it back To not allow the ‘boss’ to feel He is doing me a service For this is my life And I rescue myself I’m obliged to no-one. The judges can judge. It step out of the triangle And become the witness.
“I feel like I’m turning a corner” I said to my friend on our coffee date .. realising as I said it that I’d said it before. I was following a new teacher, studying something inspiring, FEELING like I was evolving.
I’d been on a mission to improve my life for years with constant learning and studying .. getting glimmers of hope through the process. And yet, I still seemed to be ‘stuck’. As we chatted, one of us had the thought .. yes, I WAS turning a corner .. because I was going round in circles. My ego had outsmarted me. While my soul was striving for expansion, my ego was helping me FEEL like I was expanding, but I was in my comfortable old pattern of gathering information, with dopamine hits from each spark of insight. This was how I’d always been .. a lover of learning .. my ego was smack bang in it’s happy place.
The battle between the soul and the ego
Your soul desires evolution But your ego wants nothing to change. Your soul desires freedom. Your ego desires safety. Your soul operates on love. Your ego operates on fear.
This is the push-pull of life as a human.
A matter of life or death
So what does it take to expand into our potential? How do we break free of the limitations of our thinking and our past patterns? How do we transcend our everyday reality.
The answer is simple (but not easy). We need to LEAP.
The big leap
The soul’s expansion feels like death to the ego .. a break from the way things have ‘always’ been. But being caught in the web of attachments and patterns created by the ego is like death to the spirit. So .. how do we break free of the clutches of ego, of the old patterns? It takes leaping into the unknown .. listening to the nudges of the spirit .. and TRUSTING that you will be okay .. a ‘leap of faith’.
The hero’s journey
Most book and movie plots revolve around this leap into the unknown and the transformation that comes out of it. Following the spirit’s ‘call to adventure’, the ‘hero’ of the story at first refuses the call (our ego knows it isn’t ‘safe’ and resists). In life that’s often where the story ends and we go back to doing the same old same old. But if we follow the call, and jump into the unknown, now we’re on our ‘hero’s journey’.
My latest leap
Just over two months ago, determined to find clarity, direction and focus in my business ventures, I set a ‘launch’ date, and announced it to my coaching group and on my Instagram feed.
I chose the full moon two months ahead as my date. This made sense since I’ve been using the new moon each month to set intentions and reflect on that month’s progress. I figured two months would give me time to really dive into creating and exploring in order to develop my mould making skills and produce some pieces before I needed to get serious about how to make money.
Enter the free fall
Setting the date was a leap into the unknown with the fear and exhiliration of the free fall but at that point plenty of time before I would ‘hit’ the end. What I’d given myself, and my spirit, was SPACE and PERMISSION.
I set to creating without regard to sale-ability or practicality. Starting with tiny pieces and low risk I built up in size and complexity as the weeks went on. With YouTube as my teacher, Spotify as my inspiration and my credit card as my funder I gave my spirit full rein.
As the deadline drew closer the pressure intensified and my ego which had thrived a lifetime on the identity of ‘not knowing’ was being challenged by the threat of having to ‘make a decision’ .. I felt like an alarm was going off inside me.
The day before my ‘launch’ date was the deadline for entries in a small sculpture prize exhibition. I’d only just (thanks to my deadline) completed a piece that I felt symbolises my ‘message’: Sprite — spirit of play, a maquette for a play sculpture. Inspired by my sculpture buddy’s entering two pieces in the competition I also submitted an actual ‘play sculpture’: Fingerboard Park, in it’s unfinished state.
The process of creating and considering the desired purpose of my work brought the clarity I had hoped for, as I started to consider the saleability of pieces and potential for making a living, in alignment with my top values of curiosity, connection and creativity. Public Play Sculpture had long been my big dream, but now I could see a clearer path to making it happen.
Breaking the circle
The universe is always sending us messages, and on the day of launching a strange thing happened. My nephew had been trying on some rings I’d made the night before, and one became stuck on his finger. The fire and rescue was called in to help and, using a saw and leverage, cut through the ring and opened it. Given the timing and circumstances this felt like more than just a bizarre coincidence.
From my old desire to ‘close circles’ — sealing off circles in handwriting, changing my name from C to O, and constantly needing to understand things — to the feeling of being stuck in a loop .. this broken circle felt significant. One message I take from it is that, by choosing and taking action, I break out of the loop.
Enter freedom
When we leap into the unknown we open up space for spirit to enter and support us.
What is your soul calling you to do? Is there something that feel right (but scary)?
Maybe it’s time to leap?
Speak it out loud. Make the commitment .. and then .. JUMP!
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. – T.S.Eliot
Hi and welcome to the Quantum! It’s a place I’ve begun exploring, where anything and everything is possible. How is your 2021 going so far? Have you noticed any shifts?
What is the Quantum?
One of my teacher says “What is, is, all else is quantum”. It’s taken a bit for me to get my head around this, but essentially, the Quantum is everything that doesn’t ‘exist’ (in 3D) right now but exists in the infinite possibilities. Just because something exists in our experienced reality doesn’t negate everything else. It could all be happening side by side. As I see it, stepping in the Quantum is stepping out of limited thinking and into the realms of infinite possibility. In the past this would have felt daunting to me, but right now it’s beginning to feel expansive and exciting.
We shall not cease from exploration
With curiosity as one of my top three values, exploration is an essential part of my existence. And perhaps for that reason, I have tended to be drawn to things I didn’t understand. Confusion was also a natural state for me. But happy to say I am finally shifting from confusion to clarity in multiple areas of my life and, rather than spinning my wheels, I’m finally making progress.
The end of all our exploring
I see life as a spiral process of evolution, where we return to the same lessons but each time with a new level of understanding. In this way the process becomes meaningful and purposeful. Perhaps its that flash of deeper insight that feels so nourishing and makes the travails seem worth it.
Three weeks ago I had a profound experience of this, when I attended a ‘Mould Making and Casting’ workshop as part of Bellingen Shire’s Arts Week.
To arrive where we started
Over the years I have done a lot of ‘model-making’ in all sorts of materials and sizes. But apart from (and perhaps due to) an unsatisfying experience in year 12, I have not used rubber moulds. Now, looking back, it’s like I went ‘off track’ at that point in year 12. I remember the moment .. standing outside my art room at high school and a friend mentioning she had put down architecture as her top preference. I’d never even thought of architecture but it struck me as fascinating. It was the mysterious and esoteric quality of it that drew me in. That was 33 years ago.
At the time I was creating a sculpture out of clay for my HSC art project. I couldn’t fire it because of the wire armature, so I had to create a rubber mould and plaster sleeve in order to cast it in resin. I remember ringing around Sydney to find the ingredients, muddling my way through the process, with little guidance, and ending up with a disappointing result. The sculpture was of a naked female rising in ecstasy and representing the state of enlightenment. I saw it as a maquette for a larger than life size piece. That was my vision.
And know the place for the first time
And so, three weeks ago, in the midst of a lot happening and very little forethought, I went along to the workshop with artist Jim Hood. Jim created a sculpture I fell in love with and purchased three months ago, and it turns out he lives in the same street as me but I’d never met him. I was so blown away by the techniques he shared and the possibilities I could see that my journey suddenly started to make sense. And the workshop space I’d created under my house before I moved up to Fernmount, with my vision of working from home creating sculptures, suddenly started to feel like a possibility.
The end of all our exploring
And so it is that tomorrow I begin a new journey as I start the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS) program and begin to put together a business plan for this new iteration of my business.
My plan is to create moulds and replicas of my sculpture pieces, and to offer this as a service to others. And I’ll continue to work towards the first (and subsequent) Cloudscape sculptures.
The peace of clarity
Searching for work I could do that felt inspiring and aligned and that I could do until I die has been a mission of mine for most of my life. And I feel like I have found it. The peace that comes from this ‘no longer searching’ is huge. Finally, the energy I’ve spent searching can be put into creation. I feel as though I can finally relax – and this makes possible so much else in my life. Thank you Universe!!
Magical journeys
There’s more I could share about various other journeys I’ve been on lately including Quantum Magic, Money Manifestation Magic, and Lifebook – all three of which have been powerful, mind-blowing and inspiring. But this ‘arrival’ of sorts in terms of my career is the biggest breakthrough by far, so I will leave it at that for now.
How about you? Have you had any big shifts? Is there anything you like to share? I’d love to hear from you.
I help creative entrepreneurs (and curious explorers) who feel stuck, confused or disconnected, to find clarity, take action, and fall in love with life.
Your presence is needed. Your voice is important. Things will get better.
With a journey through the Enneagram and a project you want to complete you will start to see your blocks, break through and into action, enjoy the satisfaction and learn the lessons that project taught you.
Your learnings then take you through into your next project.
About me
Orly Grace
Writer, Sculptor, Guide.
I share lessons from my quest to find clarity and meaning in life.
I use the Enneagram as a system of divine transformation that shows you your lessons and helps you to see your aligned path forward.
Choose your project to get started. You can do my free QUIZ.
