Hello,

My intention is to paint a bit of a picture of my life’s journey, as I traverse it.  I’ve seen my whole life as an exploration toward understanding what life is about and why we are here.  And lately I’ve been making some big discoveries and shifting my experience of the world in some big ways.

So I will start, in this moment, a warm spring day that is my first day of ‘stopping’ after being on ‘go’ for way too long.  And as fortune would have it I’ve had a massage which has loosened lots of knots and eased a lot of tension.

And now I have this time to write.

And for the hell of it I’m going to start to tell my story .. which I’m working out as I go.  And perhaps some of my breakthroughs could help others to break through their own barriers.

It is a sign of how far I have come that I can be prepared to share my view of the world, as I see it, without fear of hurting of offending .. or perhaps being hurt or offended.  I have gotten to a rather liberating realisation of the truth of life as I see it, and have confidence enough to speak up and risk sounding stupid, but knowing that it’s the speaking up that matters.  Because speaking opens up the world.

‘Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind’.

– attributed to Dr Seuss – apparently wrongly – but I’m sure he would agree.

Feelings

I started this year stepping into a new paradigm as part of a yearlong online course I am doing.  The approach included checking into the body to observe feelings – particularly around money.  And I discovered that I was really out of touch with my feelings.  As I started to reconnect with my feelings I felt like I started to come back to life and it was an amazing experience of reconnection.  But the connection led to a plummeting back to earth and to feelings of pain.  But overall, joy or pain, it was an experience of being alive and was like a re-awakening.

Cutting a long story short, this year I have explored feelings, felt into feelings, and started a process of releasing with feelings.  And a big part of this has come about through my ‘speaking out’.

My big latest breakthrough is discovering an explanation for why I have felt the confusion and lostness and endless searching unease my whole life.  It comes down to an early decision to cut off from my feelings.  The explanation for this is ’emotional invalidation’ (more below).  This is such a breakthrough to me because I see a pathway to recovering from my ‘craziness’ .. now that I see the cause.

Right now I’m in the middle of a crazy tumultuous time of trying to do too many things – which leads me into overwhelm.  But ’emotional invalidation’ also explains my tendency to get caught in overwhelm .. so there is hope.  In a sort of cauldron of intensity I have been trying to do way too much in the past year and things are approaching high intensity with some full time work experience for one of my courses coming up in just over a week.  So I’m currently getting my life sorted, and my head sorted, my house sorted, my garden sorted .. getting a grip on what my priorities are and doing a major overhaul.

#365days

For two years I did a challenge of taking and sharing #365days of photos on Instagram.  I did a nosedive with that early this year.  Life felt too raw.  But I am preparing to start again.  It feels very vulnerable to put photos of my life onto the internet.  But it’s good too.  A healthy challenge. Courage will prevail.

Circles of Life

I am due to officially launch my ‘Circles of Life’ (words for the journey) rings on 11/11 .. with butterfly tattoos being printed right now.  I plan to start simply with a Paypal button on this website.  An Etsy shop is also underway.  I’m making a short video to share the concept and the journey.

Clarity

I feel like I am becoming so much clearer in my understanding of the world lately.  Like stepping through a threshold.  I’ve been quite obsessed with clarity for a long time.  I see how I have wanted it in every area of my life .. in a desperate attempt to deal with the minutia of life.  Without letting go of thoughts, ideas or things, (but careful selection) my life has been a process of increasing clutter with random glimpse of clarity.  I am finally starting the process of letting go.

In the last couple of months I discovered and was inspired by the Konmari method of clearing space by keeping only those things that ‘spark joy’.  This is a breakthrough concept for me for where I am at in life right now.  I’ve started with my clothes and felt a profound SHIFT.  Books are next.  I’ve started by emptying out all my books from the top floor and started to categorise them.  It is an interesting insight into what inspires me most.

This is the beginning of sorting my books .. a drop in the ocean – but a definite path to clarity

Confusion

My life has felt like a rather crazy journey to find the meaning of life.  I have lived in a state of openness to all possibilities and explored with bold and solitary determination.

It has been an uphill battle for quite a while,and the journey has involved lots of wandering around in circles.  I haven’t even been sure of what I was seeking.

But I feel like I’ve sighted the summit.  I’ve shifted things in such a way that I’ve created a way I can exist happily, and connect with the world, and use my gifts, and finally be at peace.

And as I sight the summit I see a reason for my wandering around in circles .. and it has come in part from my disconnection with my feelings.

A sense of hope

The myriad windy paths feel like they are starting to converge.  There are still too many of them, but they are feeling aligned.

And so I feel hope that my life is shifting to a better place.  Yet each tiny step helps.  And today, my rather big step is to set up my new washing line so I can finally have an easy and efficient way for hanging out washing and life can start to feel easier.

Hopelessness, about the world and my ability to be in it, has long held me back from expressing myself.

Hopelessness?

‘Emotional invalidation’

Emotional invalidation happens when feelings or emotions are made to feel wrong.  A sensitive child whose emotions are invalidated becomes confused and begins to distrust their own emotions. Confident and healthy use of the emotional brain becomes stunted and to adapt to this unhealthy and disfunctional environment, the relationship between thoughts and feeling becomes twisted.  Emotional development is impaired.  Invalidating or denying emotions leads to psychological distress, anxiety and depression.  Rejecting feelings is rejecting reality.  It is to fight nature.

For me, I think it happened quite innocently.  My mum is distressed by emotional pain, and in order to keep the peace and not inflict pain I decided that I would simply cut off from feelings.  But that one bold decision has led to a life of indecision and feeling lost and on guard.  So the peace pact turned the war to within me.

I feel so validated reading some symptoms of emotional invalidation.  I’m not crazy after all.  Just disconnected.

• hypervigilence
• ambivalence over emotional expression
• thought suppression
• avoidant stress response
• feeling overwhelmed by decision making or just overwhelmed in your ability to function in daily life
• sets us up for a disconnected relationship with who we really are
• disconnection with needs
• feeling emotions as ‘wrong’
• distrust own feelings
• significant predictor of depression and anxiety symptoms
• doubt ourselves
• dismiss or minimise our true feelings
• constantly question ourselves
• operates to block our true feelings, self and needs
• addictions to ease the pain we feel when we are disconnected from who we really are

Halleluja!

My life has felt like an infinite puzzle.  But some major pieces are falling into place.

Speaking up

Another big discovery I made about 1 3/4 years ago, was that I need to speak up.  I had gotten so used to battening down the hatches and keeping to myself and endlessly thinking without speaking, that I started to drive myself crazy.

I discovered that my being quiet wasn’t serving me, and wasn’t serving the world either.  This blog is a part of that journey.

Being

My lesson right now is on ‘being’ .. coming down to earth, being in my body, feeling whatever comes up as part of being alive and breathing into it .. not trying to escape it.  And of course, pushing through the unpleasantness.

Baby steps

And slowly .. my life is evolving ..

This post is another step in my journey.

Ulysses

Welcome to Ulysses, part of the beauty, joy and expression I am sharing as part of my own journey.

Ever onwards!

I have so much I’ve been thinking about and wanting to write about.  And my life has been in a slight state of craziness with too many plans and projects on the go .. too many pots on the boil so to speak.  But amidst all the craziness have been some huge realisations that are liberating me from a cage I’d created for myself within my mind.

I’ve started this ‘post’ in my head, onto paper and into the computer multiple times.  I’m constantly writing down thoughts but they don’t usually make it to the public eye.  But I’m letting go of a lot of my concern around saying something stupid.  I don’t pretend to be any expert.  I’m simply expressing the truth of my life as I see it – with the intention of liberation, and minimal harm.  But since fears about hurting feelings or offending people were part of my reason for almost complete non expression – I won’t promise to not hurt feelings or offend – since I can’t control how others react – but I will write with honesty and respect.

I am somewhere beyond the middle of three quite intensive courses at the moment : Shine Your Light, The Art of Money and Certificate 3 in Individual Support (Aged care) .. and all three are helping me to look at my life in different ways.  So I’m in the middle of an inside out job of turning my life around .. redirecting the Titanic of my life.  And I’m doing psychological explorations and making exciting discoveries such as how I silenced myself as a form of freedom and ended up becoming trapped.

The importance of boundaries has come up as a really important tool to cope with life.  I’m learning about healthy boundaries and a big part of that is simply speaking up rather than avoiding.  So particularly in the sphere of aikido, I am setting some boundaries that I can live with, reinforcing the structure and the discipline that is fundamental to martial arts.  And in doing this yesterday, my message in terms of what I want to teach when it comes to aikido, is that it’s about feeling, and blending, and respect.  And the overly analytical and oppositional approaches can have a rest within the structure of the classes.  This is what I love about aikido and this is what I want others to experience.  It is the freedom that comes within boundaries – since there needs to be an understanding that we want to help the other person in order for trust to be present.

I’m may keep adding to this .. but am publishing as I go ..

Lately I have been exploring butterflies and fine tuning my direction.

I’ve been throwing myself into things and submitting to ‘the thrash’, shifting focus, releasing fears, taking action amidst chaos.

I am starting to care less about what others think which is a huge breakthrough.

On the surface my life seems to be moving like molasses, but thankfully there are shifts happening at a deeper level.   I’m starting to direct the ship of my life after a lifetime of random explorations of uncharted territories.  I’m starting to see life with more clarity.  I’ve been on a tumbleweed adventure and I’m starting to put down roots in order to thrive.

I had a lot I intended to write .. the journey .. the circles .. society .. letting go .. opening up ..

But it’s late.  And I want this blog post released.

Vive l’aventure!

Things have shifted.

I feel like I’ve landed.

I’ve been free-falling for a long time.

A door has opened and I’m stepping through, into a new and different world.

I see a path.

Adventures await.

I’m entering society.

I’m excited to begin the ‘Circle of Life’ rings.

I’m brimming with ideas.

I’m grateful to have finally found a way I can be in the world.

It has been a really long journey to get here.

I’m beginning to relax.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.

– R. Buckminster Fuller

I am going to pour out into this post many of the thoughts and ideas that have been running through my head .. knowing that this isn’t the proper format for a neat, concise and actionable blog post .. but also knowing that noone that I know of reads these posts anyway .. and if you do, then I’d love to hear any feedback.  Because the way I get myself caught and stuck is thinking too much and getting stuck in overwhelm.  And the lesson I need to keep on getting is that taking action, even misguided action, is how I get myself unstuck.

Action is the antidote to despair

So where do I start?  Anywhere I suppose.  I’ll start with this website and the idea of branding which I discussed with a friend recently.  I could do with some outside help in this since I’m a bit too close to it all.  My thinking has been that if I had a clear idea of my ‘brand’ .. of my particular ‘flavour’ that I would have an easier time with writing blog posts, because I would have a framework to hang my thinking on, and there would be some sense of thread to my thoughts that would make it easier for people who come to the website to know if they resonate with what I’m working towards.

Here are some words that came up as I brainstormed this idea:

• fresh perspectives
• the journey
• inspiration
• transformation
• adventure
• simplicity
• circle
• cycles
• action
• connection
• play

A theme that resonates when I look at this list is the cyclical journey from idea to completion, which is a journey of transformation and of seeing things from different perspectives.  And the quote that has been inspiring me for a while now is Joseph Campbell’s:

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure

Treating the journey as an adventure, with ups and downs, takes some of the sting out of the downs since the vision is toward something bigger.  My recurring problem is finding myself totally lost to the point of losing track of what I’m moving towards.

I wrote a post a while back exploring My Why, though reading that again I see I didn’t actually get to a clear answer with that post.  I think there are clues in each of my posts so maybe I would do well to read back and find the thread that links them.  Certainly, journeying and adventure, and the wisdom that comes from experience are threads in my life.  And this website and blog is part of my adventure, and in particular, my challenge of ‘speaking out’ and ‘finding my voice’.  So in that sense, this blog post DOES represent my ‘brand’ .. it is a process of exploring in the public eye.

But all of this starts to become overrun by what seems to be an even bigger challenge in my life .. that of ‘making money’.  But the two are connected, since I have tended to live a life of asceticism, borne of my tendency to withdraw and do things on my own.  This has had a shrinking effect on both my finances and my life, and in turn my energy and confidence.  A vicious cycle of a negative kind.

For years I have been brainstorming ideas for things I could do or create to contribute to the world and support myself in the process.  I’ve been trying to find something special I can offer.  Here are my favourite ideas:

• interactive sculptures for public spaces
• children’s picture books
• hand stamped ‘circle of life’ rings with inspirational words/messages/symbols
• a course / ebook / program for DIY house plans for council
• products on the theme of writing & journalling : journals, letter writing sets, rubber stamps, note pads

Years ago I came up with the ‘Why’ of:

‘Inspiring evolution with clarity in action‘.

Actually, it was my list of ‘desired feelings’ inspired by Danielle La Porte’s ‘desire mapping’ .. even though only two of the four words were even close to being ‘feelings’ (which says something) i.e. ‘inspiration’ and ‘clarity’.  But looking at that now, the part that seems to have driven my life is the need for ‘evolution’ .. for a sense of moving forward, learning and growing.  And that is part of journeying, and learning .. it is an opportunity to evolve.  Clarity is what I’ve always strived for, and also what I’ve struggled with given I seem to have a mind that can never settle on a single answer but needs to find out every possible answer to any question.  Which then leads me into a mass of confusion and inaction.  Inspiration is a blessing that seems to only come from action.  But my ultimate goal is to keep evolving.  So long as I am learning I am generally happy.  But I’ve started to see that this is a constant ‘future’ thinking rather than being in the present.

My big breakthrough this year has been an opening up to emotions.  I feel like this journey started with my joining the Art of Money yearlong course with Bari Tessler Linden.  Bari’s teaching has a foundation in somatic psychology, and one of the fundamental practices in the course is that of body check ins, getting present to feelings.  This sparked a number of other somatic explorations, and I was woken up to how removed from feelings I had been throughout my life .. almost living a disembodied existence.  That sparked an opening up and expression of feelings that lead to a rollercoaster of highs and lows.  I’m still on the low but I’ve learnt about the highs, and though it has made the low harder, it certainly has opened up my world.  A gift in the journey toward love and away from fear has been my discovery of a book, explaining the Isha system of meditation.  The book is ‘Why walk when you can fly : soar beyond your fears and love yourself and others unconditionally’ by Isha.  I’m trusting, and sensing, that this meditation practice can shift my perspective on life and in particular my lifetime practice of withdrawing from people.  Things certainly seem very stirred up at the moment but perhaps that is a sign of progress.

On the topic of people, the word that jumps to my mind when I think of people is ‘obligation’ .. which for me is an offspring of ‘guilt’.  I’ve been really conscious lately how much ‘guilt’ runs my life.  There is a knot I need to untangle there, because it seems my natural tendency to want to spend time alone has been warped by expectations to be social as a child, and so my relations with people have become something that I feel I ‘have’ to do rather than what I ‘choose’ to do – even though of course connections with others can be fun and joyful – yet in my growing up the joy of connection got lost in my desperation to be alone, and I judged myself as though there was something wrong with me.  Consequently I have a deeply ingrained need to be alone even when it isn’t the best thing for me.  And a heart that has spent a long time shut down and separate.

And talking of connection brings me to the subject of mastermind groups – which is a personal passion of mine.  One thing I love about mastermind groups are the deep connections formed over time and the space and focus for supporting each person’s evolution.  I always struggled with superficial interactions because I saw them as a time wasting distraction, and a challenge.  My warped sense of obligation meant that interactions weighed me down and exhausted me.  So I liked my interactions to be quality rather than quantity.  The intensity of focus and the clarity of purpose in a mastermind group that meets periodically and shares successes and challenges is really inspiring for me.

I will finish this post with a bit of where I’m at in general.  The purpose of this post was to get my thoughts out in order to move forward.  I have been inching forward on my 1:20 scale model of Cloudscape .. and as usually happens once I take action, I see why I have been procrastinating.  The job is bigger than I had envisaged.  But as I take action it is sparking ideas, and if I can let go of the timing, and keep taking baby steps, I know it will be worth it.  I’ve also been in a process of sorting through a huge and oppressive number of books (hundreds) and struggling with the decision making and letting go process.  I thought it would take a few days, but it is taking much longer, so I lost momentum partway through.  But having written this I will keep plugging away.  And one day I will be able to write a blog post having finished these two processes and my life will have moved forward to a better place.

Finally, in line with my theme of the journey of transformation, I will begin a story of a journey that I have taken to some sort of completion, with the idea that this could be a theme for future posts ..

Actually, no, instead I will make a list of possible stories:

• time in Japan
• architectural journey
• motorbike trip around Australia
• bushwalking adventures
• my journey with Ian
• journey of Vortex
• search for enlightenment
• martial arts journey
• Artistry in Play journey
• Cloudscape journey
• finding myself

And now .. I will press publish .. knowing that I can return to this later .. and life can move on .. and slowly I am moving toward a life that is more of my choosing and less of a reaction.

The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.

– Steve Maraboli

Doing ‘the dab’ .. even though I didn’t know what ‘the dab’ was ..

It’s been a time of change

Of shifting boundaries

Painful realignment

Taking action

Completing

Reassessing

Letting go

Returning to earth

Broken open

Releasing

Reenvisioning

Celebrating

New beginnings