If you don’t own it - your life, your past, your story - it will own you.
The messiest times in life are often, looking back, the most interesting and nearly always a source of growth. Hold your nerve, stay the course. Trust it will all work out.
A life filled with magic, adventure and fun does not just happen. You have to make the choice to cultivate those things in your life, every single day.
Playing small doesn’t serve you, only the people around you who want you to stay that way.
“See what happens” is not a cop-out, it’s a way of taking the pressure off. Letting things evolve naturally is a lesson in grace and patience.
You can't change anyone. People only change because they want to and there’s got to be something in it for them to do it.
We all have a choice in how we want to live - the trick is to make conscious choices rather than unconscious ones.
Tables always turn.
It is possible to be strong and fragile at the same time. Both are courageous.
Change is what it is. It’s all about how you negotiate it.
Anyone who believes gossip and lies about you before hearing your side of the story was already looking for a reason to be against you. Let them go.
Protect your mental health and inner peace by any means necessary. You never have to apologise for protecting yourself.
Old ways will rarely open new doors.
Perspective is everything (thank you Sandi Sieger).
Your passions are not accidents. They are the clues to where you will find meaning in life. Embrace them. Follow them.
Three things always come out - the sun, the moon, and the truth.
You have to go out on a limb in life, because that’s where the fruit is. Corny but true!
There are many universal needs that human beings have - one of them is to feel appreciated. Showing gratitude, for others and for life, as often as you can is an instant mood lifter.
Love will never feel like love unless you also love yourself.
Comparison is the quickest route to despair.
No is a complete sentence. And you can say it - just do it politely and fast.
Most people deserve a second chance. But no one deserves a third (see point 12).
Likes and follows are empty calories that never satisfy. Find what really feeds you instead.
There is no shinier, more successful, more likeable, more accomplished, more together you waiting in the future. You are only you, now. You are only ever here. Accepting that will make life so much easier, and sweeter.
Confidence doesn’t come from achievements, it comes when you decide to have it. Confidence is a choice.
So is self-pity.
You are the only one who can give yourself what you’re seeking from others.
When change comes, it’s likely that opportunity will also knock at the door. Keep an ear out.
Nothing is forever - pain or joy.
Boundaries will protect you, and allow you to love and give more freely. Without them, you will be constantly resentful and disappointed.
It’s amazing what can happen when you drop all your expectations and attachment to an outcome.
Continuing to choose joy in the face of adversity is an act of courage and resistance (thank you Holly Ringland).
Meanings of words change all the time. “Success” is probably the most mercurial. You do not have to hold yourself hostage to past definitions if they no longer serve you.
You can endure a lot more than you think you can.
If it makes you happy, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.
Slow progress is still progress.
It is possible to one day laugh in places where you used to cry. Know that you can always change the story.
Failure and defeat are better judges of character than success.
Fighting ageing is a battle no one has ever won, and getting older is a privilege denied to so many. Look forwards, not backwards.
When in doubt, be bold, generous, loving and unafraid.
deep breaths
I’m not usually awake before the alarm (or Tom) but I was today. I left my phone where it was, charging in my study.
I went straight outside to my garden and meditated, without the app, without the timer. Deep breaths.
I did my morning pages. Had a coffee and watered the garden. Marvelled at the new leaves and pods that two days of heat has produced in my garden. No podcast, no music, no distractions. Just the relative peace of my street waking up for the day. Birds cackling to themselves in the trees. Deep breaths.
I just wanted to savour whatever window of time I could snatch where I didn’t know what had happened and anything could still be possible.
I think I’d like to start every day like this. Only without the gut-churning anxiety!
Sending a huge hug to everyone who needs one today.
seeds of spring
It is officially spring here now, which means it’s time to start planting my garden again!
Over the last 18 months I’ve had to relearn Tasmanian seasons, soils and planting calendars - it shouldn’t have surprised me that crops I had great success with in London were not as good here but, equally, things that failed miserably in London grow beautifully here! In London with only a little garden, I found I didn’t have to be as methodical or organised. Here, I have to study the sun, prepare soil and get things in the ground within a certain window of time if they’re going to reach their full potential.
Growing things has become a great passion of mine. Books take years to come to fruition, but gardening can give you gratifying results from your efforts in mere months. Though, of course, you have to play the long game with gardening as well. The very act reminds me that if I plant seeds and tend them with care, the end result can be something to be very proud of.
But equally, sometimes things won’t go to plan, despite all your careful planning and reading and tending. Perhaps the weather will be bad or the caterpillars will swarm in biblical proportions over your kale and cabbages, and there won’t be much you can do about it but learn from it and try again.
When I was a child I never used to understand why my parents were such keen gardeners but I do now. It’s meditative, it’s physical (so important when you spend so much time in your head and/or sitting down), it’s rewarding, and you’re creating something beautiful.
Most of all, gardening has taught me so much about life. That it’s better when you work in harmony with nature. That you can plan and invest time, money and energy in having a garden that makes you proud and happy, and should luck be on your side, fantastic. But ultimately, you have to relinquish control and let things be what they are.
When the Stay At Home order was in full force here in March, April and May, it was deeply comforting to be able to walk a few metres outside to my garden and pick vegetables for our meals rather than have to face the supermarket. COVID or no COVID, there’s nothing better than creating a meal where all the ingredients have been grown by your own hand.
I am looking forward to an abundant spring, summer and autumn, regardless of what’s going on outside of my own backyard!
a little nostalgia
I realised this morning that today was the day back in 2005 that I created a blogger account, selected this cutesy pink colour scheme and wrote my first ever blog post. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. That small action changed my life forever, in numerous ways.
And that means I have now been writing online for fifteen years!
I deleted my first blog a long, long time ago - but this morning I put the URL into an internet “time machine” to see if it brought it up … and it did (see screenshot above). Let that sink in, even if you deleted your website in 2007, it’s very likely that bots have crawled it and it’s saved somewhere!! Gosh, hasn’t web design come a long way since then? My first template was an SEO nightmare!
It’s really quite mind-blowing how much life has changed since that day. The 24-year-old girl who started that blog in 2005 was blissfully naive and had no idea what was coming, how hard her crash landing would be, how much courage she really had, and all the amazing experiences and people that were waiting for her.
But as she began to write and bare her soul to the world through this tiny little corner of the internet, somehow she could feel the reassuring hand of her future self on her shoulder.
when the bottle breaks
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - Andre Gide
I think we are getting a very clear message from the Universe that we need to get better at living in the moment.
When I started a daily meditation practice nearly three years ago, my aim was to get better at living in the present and meeting life on its own terms. To relinquish my need for control and simply be here now in my life instead of creating an identity out of stories, whether they were past dramas and traumas, or worries about a future that hadn’t happened yet.
I can’t say I’ve mastered it. I still get lost in drama and stories every now and then. But right now, with everything the world is facing, I am grateful for my meditation practice. For the past three years, I have been training my mind to accept every thought it has, including my deepest fears, and to listen to them with mindfulness and compassion.
And yet, until the recent pandemic crisis unfolded, I was still just as guilty as the next person of putting things off until X happens or when I’m fit enough to run a half-marathon again or when I’ve had my hair cut/brows waxed or whatever feeble excuse it might have been.
I still did this, despite having learned the lesson long ago that the present moment is all we have. A lesson which current circumstances are really hammering home.
Let me tell you a story.
A few years ago now, I was living in a tiny flat in the centre of London and I had a bottle of expensive body lotion on my dressing table. It was a Christmas gift and I'd been saving it - but for what, I'm not sure. I would occasionally put a tiny daube of it on my hands when they felt dry and I wanted them to smell nice. That's what I was doing one morning as I was about to leave the house for work, just picking up the bottle to put a tiny bit on my hands and be on my way.
I must have squeezed the bottle too tightly because the next thing I knew, the bottle had broken, with jagged pieces of sharp plastic now sticking out of the thick lotion, and it had also sprayed lotion on to the floor and the wall. Just what you want when you’re running for a train, right?
Luckily, once I had wiped up the mess and got rid of the shards, I realised that if I lay the bottle on its side, with the broken side up, I could still use what was left of the lotion. But it couldn’t be "saved" any more. I would have to use it. So I did and, for the few weeks it lasted, I smelled lovely.
Why am I telling you this? you might ask. Because, like many epiphanies, it was a very small thing that held a much larger lesson.
Once my bottle was broken, that was it. I couldn't save the body lotion for another day or once we move to the new house or whatever reason I wasn't allowing myself to just use it. I had to use it now. I had to just get on with it. The choice had been taken away from me. As it has with many far more basic everyday essentials, things we used to take for granted, now.
I don't think there is anything wrong with saving things for "best" or for a special treat. When you do indulgent things all the time, they stop becoming special and just become the norm. So I think it's important to have a balance and definitely have some things that you do save for special times to add to that sense of occasion, and truly savour them when you do.
But I'm not talking about buying a bottle of Pol Roger every weekend (though that would be amazing) and indulging in all kinds of extravagances as a distraction, although we all need those occasionally. I’m also not talking about blowing your rent money on things you don’t need or can’t afford when you need to prioritise other things at this time.
What I'm talking about are the small things that you deny yourself, or put off, or only let yourself have when you’ve “earned” them, when actually those things would add so much joy and contentment to your life right now.
It could be a mug of that gorgeous, vanilla-scented loose leaf tea you love. The expensive shower gel that makes you think of ripe pears and spring flowers. New bath towels. Using the ‘good’ wine glasses, or the pretty dinner plates that your Mum gave you once a week, not just once a year.
It might not even be a thing. It could be allowing yourself to plant a garden. Get a puppy or a kitten. Learning to knit or play the piano.
Why, before everything changed, were you denying yourself these things? Why would you not have wanted to be the happiest and most fulfilled that you could possibly be? And are those reasons still valid now? It’s worth thinking about.
You never know when the choice is going to be taken away from you or when the illusion of control will be shattered. When you realise that even the ability to put something off for another time, an undefined moment in the future, was a privilege in itself.
When we save things for "later" or "for when X happens", we’re convincing ourselves that the future is going to be somehow better than what we're experiencing right now, in the present. The truth is, the future is an illusion - it doesn't exist yet. And the past is gone. All we have is now.
So don’t put off your big dreams and your tiny joyful indulgences for another day, for a far off time where you envision you might be happier, more deserving, more accomplished, more worthy.
You are worthy of your dreams and your desires in life, right now. Just as you are.
I realise that some things you want to do or treat yourself to may not be advisable or particularly do-able right now. You’re probably prioritising the basics like food and medicine and making sure your loved ones are OK over fancy hand cream, as I am.
But things won’t always be this way.
When all of this is over, I hope you will go and do all those things you’ve put off. And in the meantime, let yourself have the small moments of happiness and pleasure in your every day, whatever they might be for you. Don't wait until the bottle breaks. Or until you’re forced to stay at home.
Tell me, how are you going to look after yourself and live in the moment today?