Posts

Showing posts with the label empowerment

What am I doing here, on this blog?

Image
This week, I've been contemplating what I want to do with this blog. Moving house naturally invokes the process of life review. Mostly, I'm pleased with the writer's life I have built for myself; and will be carrying it forward into my new home. But it seems like good time to review this blog. The main energy I wish to invoke into my new life is that of ease and peace. So this blog needs to reflect that. It's a place where everything needs to come together into something cohesive. Something that makes sense. Something that reflects all that I do and plan to do in a way that makes it easy for people to find. My energy can be spread so thin sometimes that it disappears into a tendril without solidity. It means that I skim over the top of too many tasks, and discover things later than I could. Like the comments section on this blog. I knew it was there, but I had never incorporated its management into my regular work habits. Today, as I procrastinated starting this blog po

Psychic Development Initiation Poem - Immediate Awakening!

Image
An excerpt from book The Love of the Universe . Read it slowly, feeling the meaning of each word with each of your senses.  The power isn't in the words, but how you use them; let them settle—opening your mind towards extraordinary sensing.  Remember to practice your new craft, so that it grows stronger. An eg: With eyes closed, practice reaching into a bag of M&Ms, pick one and guess what colour you might have in your hand.  The results might surprise you, but if you are too sceptical, the activation of your left brain will distract from the right hemisphere. So please approach this exercise with an open, relaxed mind.  Page 206: Psychic Development Contemplation Poem  'See with your mind Hear with your mind Feel and touch with mind.  Feel with your hands See with your hands Hear and receive with hands. Hear with your ears Feel with your ears See and imagine with ears. See with your eyes hear with your eyes Feel and perceive with eyes. Listen with your skin Sense with your

My Medicine Box - Finding Resilience in Challenge

Image
Anyone who read my very first blog post on this site back in 2014, will know that I had some trouble adapting to apartment life. Readers may have wondered whether I would be able to sustain it. Well, I did—for a while. In fact, I lasted seven years—a lot longer than I thought I would.  Seven is a mystical number that expresses the energy of learning through experience. This kind of learning isn't always comfortable, and often involves sacrifice. It took time for me to grow comfortable with the idea of relinquishing the family home, and all the stuff I'd accumulated. I grieved for my big house, even though I knew intuitively that I was moving forward. As I reduced my physical load to a density that my new apartment could hold, my spirit expanded. I felt free enough from domestic distractions to be able to focus on my creative work, and my healing from PTSD; which I felt were inextricably linked.  But when I realised how noisy my new home was, I wondered if I could focus. Relucta

A Hopeful Spring Equinox of Peace and Planning

Image
The world has grown noisier since Melbourne's long lockdown began. It shouldn't—the roads are generally more quiet. But major railway construction is taking place a few blocks away, diverting traffic up my street; bringing more noise into my world. Another growth opportunity—yay! Sensitivity to noise is one of my more visible anxiety symptoms. It's visible by my posts on social media, by my hands over my ears as loud cars drive by, and by the 'conversations' I've had with my neighbour over their distressed dog. Otherwise, I keep these signs to myself; mostly anyway. Social sensitivity is another. I take on people's stuff too much and allow it to affect my sense of peace. Not as much as I used to—I'm more aware now! But enough that social interactions can sometimes leave me overstimulated or exhausted. So the social isolation of being in lockdown isn't as unpleasant as it could be. And besides—people are pretty passionate at the moment! I'm replen

I've Hired a Digital Manager

Image
Is anyone else experiencing an acceleration of time? Maybe it's just middle-age catching up with me, but this year seems to have marched by quicker than most.  Back in May, my last blog post actually, I decided to take a break from memoir writing. Now, here we are in July—and I've only just started again. Has it really been five months? At least I'm working again, and I've recruited a 'manager.' I'm not talking about a human manager. Instead I've recruited the services of Apple Reminders, and Google Tasks. I should add that they're not paying me. I just like their apps. In the past, I'd resisted the urge toward evolving from my paper diary to a slightly less visual form; where appointments and tasks get tucked away inside a phone app—never to be tapped on again! But Apple upgraded their app, and I upgraded too. So my simple three lists for: shopping, books and movies, has grown somewhat. I now maintain seventeen task lists, some with subtasks. I

7 Ways to Action The Law of Attraction, In Consideration of All

Image
There's a stereotypical practitioner of the Law of Attraction: hippie types, sitting in lotus pose, visualising their dreams into being. But there's a lot of action in the power of attraction.  First, let's summarise what is meant by the Law of Attraction. You may have read the book or seen the movie The Secret . Although none of the ideas were new, the author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne, popularised the ideas; so that The Secret became a commonly known piece of work. She taught us that what we think, specifically our beliefs around our own potentials, impact our ability to manifest those potentials. It means that if we think we can't do something, we probably won't be able to do it. It also means that if we can maintain hope and focus, we can create the best chance of bringing our potentials into being. Some of us, including those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), can find it difficult to maintain a persistent positive attitude. The world is teeming with

If You Believe in Someone, Tell Them.

Image
This post is dedicated to the women who have helped me to step towards my potential. These women believed in me when I was unable to do it for myself. I try to pay it forward to my students and friends.   As I prepare my return to teaching in 2021, I'm pausing to reflect on how I came to step into the role in the first place. I always knew I would be a writer, but my role as teacher was a surprise to me. So how did it happen? Compared to many dancers I was a late bloomer, attending my first dance class at the age of twenty-five. A year or so later my teacher asked me to teach a class of beginner dancers. I was gobsmacked. Why on earth would she pick me to teach? I'd never taught anyone anything.  Although I didn't believe in myself, I did believe in my teacher. It wasn't the first time she had invited me to step out of my comfort zone. Twice each year she would run fabulously staged dance concerts. As well as dancing, I had been invited to read tarot at these concerts.

The Parent Bird Also Flies the Nest

Image
The empty nest isn't a new thing for me. My daughter's departure from my home was complete six years ago. To be honest, at the time I didn't really suffer it. I was distracted, enjoying the financial advantages of downsizing into a new apartment. Our relationship was enriched by my capacity to go out shopping, to eat at cafes, and even go out dancing. My grown-up daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the joys of the world together, as adults. I revelled in our relationship, proud when people made a fuss that these two dancing queens were mother and daughter. It seemed like we had found our new normal, and I loved it. Me & her at Xmas Then COVID arrived and we Melbournians were locked up in our homes, unable to travel more than 5kms. This placed a prolonged physical divide between me and my daughter that felt like a hemisphere. To make matters worse, we had been processing some normal mother/daughter conflicts at the time. Conflicts which sank behind the walls of o

Cabin Fever in Melbourne Lockdown

Image
Sunday night, I sat swearing at the News. I didn't care about Trump. I didn't care about Australian politicians having intimate relationships–seriously, who does? All I wanted to see was news that we Melbournians can be released from our stage four lockdown prisons. When that news didn't arrive my resilience began to plummet. The next day, I was so distracted that I accidentally brushed my teeth with the grout-cleaning toothbrush. Although I went on to have a productive day, anxiety snapped at my heels like a feral dog. I was bitching and moaning about every little thing. It wore me down. By Tuesday, I knew as soon as I opened my eyes that it wasn't going to be a good day. Time slowed down so that one hour felt like four. Everything annoyed me. Activities which I happily enjoyed over the past week suddenly held no interest for me. I didn't want to play piano. I didn't want to go for a walk. I didn't want to do yoga or dance. I didn't even want to heat up

Evolving In 13 Ways When You're Home Alone In Lockdown

Image
So you're stuck at home in isolation, alone, unable to do life as normal, while we cycle through a collective world groundhog day. The COVID epidemic doesn't look as though it will ease this year, at least. So finding ways to amuse ourselves as days string together into months is super important. Grab a cuppa and get ready to change the world, one dimension at a time.  I believe evolution happens at levels beyond the genetic. As we adapt to outside influences we learn, grow and change, evolving toward managing our challenges more effectively. I have discerned various levels of what I call multidimensional consciousness. You can find out what I mean here . But for today's post I'm focussing on how to adapt to 2020 in particular. It begins with basic coping strategies and then steps you up, level by level, toward world healing and even world-building. Each numbered point represents a dimension of consciousness, each level rising toward greater understanding of and partici

7 Dos and Don'ts When You're Stressing Out

Image
Well Cabin Fever is setting in. Not because I'm bored or especially isolated like the elderly, but because life can contain 'issues,' and for the past couple of months several of my panic buttons have been simultaneously pressed. Some, such as job loss, relate to the Carona Virus and its effects, but others are family related. On that level - my isolation is real. So, for my benefit as much as yours, I thought it might be helpful to create a list of dos and don'ts to remember when the shit is at risk of hitting the fan. These tips can help to disperse or re-route intense emotional energy into productive, or at least not destructive, directions. 1. Don't  use social media or mobile phones in a panic. Your response might make perfect sense when you feel stressed, but later when your judgement returns you'll be scrambling to clean up your profile and will possibly be suffering from SMS-guilt. Remember - you can't delete a DM or SMS! Do keep a journal o

Trauma Rescue - What To Do When You're Freaking Out

Image
  A little over a decade ago I experienced several years of persistent loss and trauma. I was forced to pick up my broken pieces and start all over again. Previously I had been an avid reader, practitioner and even teacher within the positive thinking movement, but it was useless when I found myself in fight/flight mode, my heart racing, my thinking panicked and irrational.  Gradually over years of refinement under continuing stressful conditions, I created a set of tools that addressed not only calming the inner creature in trauma, but also transitioned that frightened creature out of terror and into empowerment.  Personally I have gained more of a sense of control over my life and my personal energy. And we know particularly during this pandemic that control is really just an idea we hold onto so we don’t fall down. But we can move ourselves out of trauma and gain more control over our own consciousness.  So here’s a step-by-step list of how I pull myself together and mak