Anything can be a cage.

Especially your mind. I had a mad dream yesterday – it felt completely real- and it reminded me of something I’ve been trying to ignore for ages.

No wonder I woke up swollen and feeling defensive. Every time I come up against a belief like this I have this random physical reaction. I wake up swollen and sore and tired. It’s a defence mechanism, like I’m cushioning myself against the world.

I felt hopeless in the face of my belief. Like a failure. Like coming so far and then falling in a giant ditch.

Caged by my own mind.

Man I hate that. If I know one thing though, I know trying to hammer a belief into submission will only exhaust me and result in more misery. I can’t fight my way out of this little cage of mine. So instead I said yes.

I didn’t particularly want to say yes to this experience but there was no other way. I like the idea of saying yes* to the good and feral experiences in our life. It’s a good way to acknowledge what’s happening. Right now though it.just.sucks. I feel like I’ve rolled around in an ant’s nest and now I’m uncomfortable and miserable and want to cry with frustration.

It’s such a beautiful morning here and today I can’t really feel it. Winter light in Sydney is amber on a blue sky day like this but everything feels sepia to me.

The way I feel is just a placeholder for whatever comes next, whatever this yes leads to. I know that. The thing is some days I feel like I’m drawn in charcoal and not ink. Like I’m easily smudged and blurred and today is one of those days. A fragile day :)

*Credit where credit is due, the idea of saying yes isn’t mine, it came from the Daily Om here :)

Grey.

It’s getting harder to stay still. I’m restless. My life’s just not fitting me as well as it did a year ago.

I keep expanding what makes sense to me. I think I’m becoming grey. Sigh. Nothing feels like an absolute. If something doesn’t work out, I cry and I’m unhappy and I hurt and then on I go.
My life isn’t as black and white as it once was. It’s not I don’t care. I just don’t feel polarised by life anymore. Lol have I given up controlling everything? Who is this girl?

I want to say it’s all falling apart but it sounds so negative. It’s not. Not at all. I mean it in the sense we fall apart to construct ourselves. Falling can be a gentle thing if we know it’s coming. We can sidle up to it, like patting a timid calf, and gently reach out to it. No one has to be scared and lol hopefully no one will get bitten.

It’s the funny little quirky things which help me realise I’m on a new path. I used to loathe dance music and now I listen to Swedish djs who do just that, as often as I listen to live acoustic and 70s stuff and my grungy gods and sexy Ben (Harper that is). I don’t remember the last time I wore jeans and these days I’m a little grumpy if I can’t ride my bike everyday. I feel like a kid who’s been grounded. Today I spent the day at work in flat shoes. Uh what?! This is the woman who thought 7inch heels were low. The books I always reread when I’m a bit stressed have no appeal. The stories seem too fluffy and not quite right.

For the last few weeks it’s like the world has dawned on me. I wake up or at odd moments think I live here, this is my life. So, this is what waking up is. Looking around me and actually seeing what my life is about. Being present. It’s the strangest thing. Lol though not in a best-see-a-therapist pronto kind of way. More like I’ve just worked out I made my life. I make my life.

I think this is why it’s harder to stay still. I’ve been taking the time to really look around and see my world. It’s been awesome and a bit…well cool..to see what I’ve created – the good and the feral. All up it’s quite hilarious given I could be the most uncool girl on the planet to think things are cool :) Now, it’s like I can see I’ve this bit exactly right, so what’s the next adventure? The next experiment?

I’m not planning to implode my life. I like where I live and I’m not sure I need any big gestures. I’ve done the whole imploding thing and I know how heavy it can be. It’s why you always know when it’s warranted. It’s not warranted for me now. Not to say something epic won’t happen, only it won’t be such hard work. It doesn’t need to be because right now, I’ve nothing to prove.

It’s like my soul has cartwheeled into another space and my head is having trouble catching up. It’s tugging at my hand saying come on!! much like me running down to the sea for a swim.

Lol and the song I’m obsessed with at the moment and no it’s not a DJ. It’s a cover of Only You by Mat McHugh and the Blackbird. It’s not about the lyrics, it’s a love song about a break up, but it’s the gentlest music with a voice which simply soothes. It’s the the perfect soundtrack for me now. Mesmerising.

Not all fear is real.

Fuck fear is hard work.

We’re all so hung up on it. It permeates so much of what I read and understand. It’s not just the news, it’s not only the war in Syria or JP Morgan going pear-shaped and austerity in the EU, it’s on blogs I read and in poetry. It’s seems all the world is talking about it or behaving from a place of fear. I’m not talking about real physical fear, not like that dude is about to put a cap in my ass yo!, I’m talking about the fears in our heads. The ones the media seems to play upon and the ones we perpetuate.

It’s like none of us can envision a life without fear. I’m pretty fearless these days when it comes to the physical stuff and I’m not too bad about the ordinary fears either but I’m still roped up in double knots by some things.

Grrrr…..

Seriously fucking grrrr.

I’m furious (hence the swearing, lol sometimes a well placed fuck is the best thing ever). It’s utterly ridiculous to allow concepts we create in our minds to constrain us. We create our own fears and it’s all make-believe. Technicolor prisons, which most of the time we can’t even see are there, binding us to irrationality and a life half lived. I want to cry with the horror of it.

Oh holy man…who made this story up?

How did we get from paleo human, designed not to fear anything more real than a sabre tooth tiger, a lack of food and a busted limb, to this socially evolved human so focused on the individual experience in society, we believe we have no choice but to create our own fears. We fear we’re not good enough, perfect enough, thin enough, smart enough. We fear based on comparison with others and we think it’s ok.

Omg it’s not.

Let’s get real about what fear is.  Fear is not worry. Worrying is concern about a future outcome, but it never prevents us from understanding life will continue to unfold as it will. Worrying doesn’t mean we stop. Fear does. It’s paralysing. It’s stops us and keeps us in our cage.

I want a world where what we fear are those things real enough to threaten the very breath in our body. The fears helping us to physically survive.  For example if I’m a baby and I’m left alone and I think my parents aren’t coming back? That’s a real physical fear because I’m helpless. Worrying about breaking my leg because I’m jumping off a cliff?  Fair enough. These types of  fears have a real physical element because there is an inherent risk to our survival. Fearing it’s not ok to speak my mind? Or I’m not thin enough? Are you kidding me? ! These aren’t fears, these are bloody indulgences. So what if you talk to a girl in the bar and she thinks you’re a douche. Far out, whatever. It happened once it’s not a fear. I promise you’ll survive. Same as public speaking. It’s a talk in front of some other humans and if it all turns to toast what’s the worst that could happen? Nothing threatening my survival. I can’t die from a red face and clammy hands, much as I may have thought so :) Stuff like this doesn’t deserve the status of fear. It’s not so fucking special.

I could say we need to know fear to know safety but frankly fuck that too. Safety is another comfort zone and, if we let it be, it’s another virtual prison for our souls.  I don’t want either fear or safety. I don’t want black and white, two sides of a dubious coin with only two outcomes and a 50/50 chance of one or the other. I want a pure open heart where the only thing I fear is a threat to my physical existence or any other living creatures, and where I feel safe because whatever happens, I trust me.

I want to recognise what I fear emotionally and then I want to confront it – preferably softly, gently and with a little persuasion – but I want it all in front of me. I want to see the opponent I call fear and the stories I’ve built around it, then I want to let it all go. I’ve a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger on my fridge with the word conquer written on it. I want to stand there like Arnie, arms open to victory, knowing my ability to manifest these types of fears is conquered. I want this for all of us.

I don’t ever want to see another situation in my life messed up by some Jane-created fear I have. I don’t want to pay lip service to something I want, knowing a fear I made up will hold me back. I want to wear all my wounds in the moment and move on. I don’t want to drag these into the future, turning these into something to fear. Something happened to us once and we’re so arrogant as to think it will happen again- so we decide we’ve something to fear?  Arghhh…

If we don’t try to understand what fears we’ve created, if I don’t, I’ll end up regretting what I could have done. And that regret? It won’t be because I didn’t have the money, time, whatever. Horrendously, I’d be telling myself I regretted it because of fear. How fucking heartbreaking would that be?  A life lived with regret because I feared things I made up in my mind?  What a senseless waste of the potential of a human life.

So I say fuck it, go be fear-less, go dig around in your soul, find the bars of your cage of make-believe and smash it to bits. Just go and be all Arnold about it :)

I wrote this post last night and I’m not so angry today lol!  Less Arnie and more me. Curiously, some of my fears have already come into focus for me today. Without really consciously deciding to, I wasn’t all about confront and conquer, I just felt thankful for the knowledge and the experience and let the ideas drift away. It’s only us after all, who hold on tightly to our fears, so it’s only us who can let our hands unfurl and let our fears drift away.

Imagine.

We are in a place more beautiful than I can imagine..where every photo takes itself and every day has the potential to show us something new and unexplored.

How rock on cool is this life? :)

In my mind (Poetry)

In my mind

Feels like silken skin.

Summer days and the scent of frangipani.

The smell of spice

And clean sheets blowing in the wind.

Warm nights and twilight dusting the world in amber.

The softest light and the gentlest dream.

All blurry edges and pink skies.

Blue horizons and calm seas.

Turn up the love.

This awake vs sleep thing is still banging around in my brain. I can’t get it out of my head. Anytime I find myself doing something I always do, something that feels a bit mouse on a wheel, I’ve started questioning whether it’s an asleep or an awake moment.

It’s a good tool to work out if what fit me a month or a year ago or five years ago belongs here with me now. My job is a good example. I’ve always cruised along in my career (or I’ve neglected to give myself some credit) and kind of thought one day I’ll find what I love. Oh hello, how many ways have I been a half asleep little worker bee? I’ve learnt so much and I still learn a lot from what I do, however I lost sight of how those skills apply to not only my industry but a million others and how those skills give me the ability to work for myself. I’ve always wanted the freedom to consult, to write, be creative, interact with people and not be tied to a city and an office but I’ve narrowed my options for too long.

It’s not always easy and I don’t have an answer today about what to do. All I know is to trust my instinct and keep going hard for the next lily pad, knowing I’m always ok. Above all it’s a time to be open and not close down in fear because it all seems too hard. I know it’s time to turn up the love.

Sometimes it’s enough to just throw out the idea of something else, a different possibility. We don’t always have to know the exact outcome we want, we just have to be open to what comes up. After a while there is clarity, and the way becomes like a six lane highway. Solid and clear and marked by white lines to keep us headed in the right direction. Of course, after a time it’ll again become a kangaroo track, probably through sand dunes :) and each step will feel like a test of faith and we’ll have no idea which way is the way. It’s all good, it’s just the ebb and flow of life. A bit of uncertainty won’t break our hearts or bones and allows us to see so much more opportunity. Plus, for me, whether I acknowledge it or not, really, in my heart I know exactly what I want. So while I may seem consciously uncertain, I’m not really.

I suspect much of our lives are opportunities to wake up but we often choose not to see the opportunities. Maybe it’s because awake versus asleep requires us to be willing to be uncomfortable. I’ve a deal with myself to be willing to be uncomfortable when it happens. I don’t like being uncomfortable, none of us do, and yeh I know it’s not meant to be happiness and light but still, you know..ick. A deals a deal though.

A lot written about being uncomfortable discusses the idea of pushing through the discomfort to move forward in our lives. What I’ve read about willing to be uncomfortable (mostly ACT therapy*) however isn’t like that. It’s being willing to sit with, and acknowledge, discomfort without doing anything else. It’s not a method to move from A to B. It’s not a means to an end. It’s simply asking us to sit still and experience this moment of discomfort like any other moment we have. We can cry if we want or feel angry, shameful, embarrassed, guilty, anything, so long as we notice what comes up and immerse ourselves in it. After a while – 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, whatever it takes – eventually the discomfort disappears. It’s replaced with an expanded consciousness because we’ve move beyond our discomfort (and the moment). We’ve expanded our world and how could you not turn up the love on that?

* A good starting place is Dr Russ Harris’s The Confidence Gap. If you google his name you’ll find podcasts too. I like Dr Russ because he’s speaks from experience, doesn’t sugar coat psychology and reminds me it’s ok to stuff up quite a lot :)