Another Full Moon and the Reminder it Brings

"I'm going away to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name,
and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart." - Colette

Seventeen years ago, the girl I once was sat on this bench under the full moon. I was far away from where used to be called home, perched up there on a windswept clifftop, with the ocean raging below. It was toward the end of a life changing Summer, one spent close to the beach. My only personal possessions - a few clothes.

Home for those months was a tiny 10 foot caravan and the whole of a new and beautiful part of the country to explore. The coastline was wild and rugged, the sea by turns tumultous and then calm as a lake, mirrored my emotions.

"Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines,
your refrigerator full of food, your closet full of clothes - with all this taken away,
you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably
makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. "

- Michael Crichton

I was empty - stripped of what I thought I was.
I hadn't realised how far what I had believed constituted 'me' had stretched - out into my art, my possessions, my home, my friends and my environment - until it was all gone and there was just me.

I discovered, I stopped at my skin.

Detoxed and purged by the waterfalls of tears that had washed me clean, I was healed and opened up by living so close to the forces of nature. And there, sitting under that full Moon,
I felt I had been reborn.

I felt whole and grounded.
I was finally calm within my own skin.

I knew that it didn't matter what I had or didn't have, or who others thought I was.
I knew who I was, and I realised that that was what was truly important.

I understood that home was inside me, that 'things' didn't matter, and that the things we fear losing, are the shackles that keep us chained.

I knew that from that day on, whenever I saw the full moon I would be reminded of those things, and that everything else is just icing on the cake.

Doing What You've Always Done

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten" - Anthony Robbins

If you really think about this quote, you will realise how deeply profound this simple statement is . . .

if we do what we always do -
we will get what we've always got!

That's wonderful if what we've got is good and makes us content and happy, it is a really great blueprint for keeping the good things in your life going well - just keep doing what you are doing, it's working!

But if there are areas in our lives we recognise as not working as well as they could, then perhaps we have to recognise the truth of that statement and move out of our habitual way of doing certain things.

If we want different results, we have to try doing things a little differently and be prepared to face the sometimes scary and uncomfortable feelings that come from stepping outside of our comfort zone.

I see it as steering a car, if we constantly bump the curb, then just by making little adjustments on the steering wheel we can correct our course. If we have always wanted to see what the scenery is like over there, then we have to indicate and make a turn, or we will continue on the same road.

What a powerful realisation that is! Once you are conscious of the fact that you have a choice and that it is YOU steering the car, you just have to decide - now, where do I want to go.

"You cannot surpass the current paradigm from within the current paradigm. You must discover a greater paradigm and expand into it." - Alan Cohen

Many Selves - An Inner Choir

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." - Anaïs Nin

There are moments when a chance meeting will spark up something inside of us, a stream of thought, a deep realisation that uncovers something within ourself, something intrinsic.

It happened to me yesterday . . .

It held a mirror up to my deeper self and I saw a vital part of me reflected. That recognition 'shuffled me' on an inner level, bringing a part of me that had taken a background role and planting it firmly there in the foreground. As I felt the jolt and reabsorbed that almost forgotten energy, I mused how had it had taken such a back seat and I wondered, when had it moved out of my everyday life?

I decided (too quickly) that over the years my outward self had become a diluted version of my essence. Like a voice that naturally sings bass, learning to sing soprano to harmonise with those around so they can hear what I am singing. I had tempered my expression of me, so much that it had become habitual - it was in fact now. . . me.

"There are so many separate selves;
no one who writes creatively hasn't felt that."
- Jeanette Winterson

Then, I thought further and knew that yes, that may seem to be the case but also something much bigger was going on here. I looked back and understood that all throughout my life there has been a shifting of these internal players, my very own choir! Always singing together, some are singing harmony, some descant and at certain times one steps forward to sing a solo. That is what had happened.

Different parts of me have taken centre stage over the years, depending I now realise, on what I at a core level need to learn or express right now. The assets and skills of each of these players are kept and contribute to the whole but step forward when needed.

So yesterday, a part of me that I hadn't expressed outwardly for such a long while stepped forward - and she's ready to sing a solo.

Very interesting! it looks like a new phase is about to begin.

Gone But Not Always Forgotton

"The scars you can't see are the hardest to heal." - Astrid Alauda

Sometimes we can find ourselves having reactions to things that seem to make no logical sense to us. Things 'press our buttons' or leave us feeling uncomfortable and no amount of rationalising seems to help, in extreme cases it can lead to anxiety and phobias.

It is easy to forget, that as we move through life, that everything we see, hear and experience is being logged, only a little of it makes its way into our conscious mind as the rest is discarded and dumped into our subconscious mind - gone but not always forgotton, it can still cause a reaction.

I'd like to share a story that illustrates this -

My Mother has had a lifelong fear of the sounds of church bells ringing, she gets a really panicky anxious feeling and feels real fear - she has no conscious reason for this.

She investigated all sorts, even thinking that maybe it was a 'past life' memory. Nothing helped.

She was born at the beginning of 1939 the year the war broke out, and a while ago I happened to catch a TV programme talking about England and WW2.

I was half watching while doing something else, when all of a sudden my ears pricked up as they said a very interesting thing! I don't think was common knowledge, as no one I have spoke to had heard it before.


They said that when the war started they silenced the Church bells all over the county. - It was decreed that they were only to be rung in a real emergency, as in the case of the country being invaded, when they would be rung everywhere to warn people.

They then went on to say that they were actually rung just once in 1940, as they thought invasion was imminant!

There it was - the bells! - Can you imagine the fear of the people, with a country at war and the bells ringing! I am sure my Mother picked up on the fear and anxiety that all her family and the people around must have had when they heard bells ringing!

Of course a baby is too young to rationalise but the sound of the bells and the feelings of fear from those around was logged and internalised and then replayed whenever she heard church bells.

I couldn't wait to share this with my Mum and she was so glad to have finally solved the mystery and understood "why".

I wonder how many things we have internalised and forgotten that are perhaps influencing us, our reactions and our behaviour?

Just a Reminder . . .

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live."
- Flora Whittemore

"Life is the sum of all your choices." - Albert Camus