Make your own way.

I love the story of Chris McCandless. If you’ve ever read the book Into the Wild or seen the movie, that’s his story.

I love he went his own way. He followed a totally different way of being perfectly him. He made choices which to most of us, would look dubious. I’m not here to judge his choices or the heartbreak he would have caused his family, this isn’t about that. I admire how he continued on the path he’d chosen. How more than that, he seemed to embrace discontent and discomfort as part of his way and he doggedly kept on.

I feel like we spend so much time wondering what everyone else is doing or thinking, we forget to make our own way.

We react, when we can act.

I spent some horrible years being part of some heavy situations both at work and at home, which left me kind of stamped on. I had a manager who was a bully – to many people, not just me – who used to say horrible, personal things. Never work related. It was like his whole direction in life was to (try) and keep small anyone different to him, happier than him, braver than him, younger than him, etc etc etc.  His relationship with himself was directed by what he thought everyone else was thinking or doing. He spent his time measuring himself up and making sure he was the alpha.

At some point in our lives there’ll probably be someone like my ex-manager. The one you detest but who shows you so much.  Interacting with him taught me trying to please anyone else, is a fruitless, miserable place to exist in.  Most of all he showed me the misery we feel when we disconnect from our own way.

Chris McCandless and my ex-manager are the extremes. Chris was so into his own way, he was ultimately alone, and that’s cool… for Chris. Not for me. My manager, not making his way, was also ultimately alone. He had so many barriers between himself and the people in his world, he was alone in a metaphorical way.

The beautiful thing is, we don’t have to be extreme. When we make our own way, we find the right way, and for most of us, it isn’t extreme because we don’t need it to be. Most of us love being part of humankind and of communities who support us and none of us have to choose to worry about what everyone else is thinking.

When we stop trying be something we’re not, the most graceful thing happens: we realise plenty of other travellers are making their own way alongside us.

A fishing lesson.

We have the ability to choose our own adventures in this life, to make our own paths.

My dad is the perfect metaphor. His cathedral is the bush. It’s his comfort, his joy, an extension of who he is and where he is peaceful. He makes his own tracks in the bush. Often to a fishing spot on some obscure bend in the river only he and three select mates know of. Often because one of them once, back in the day, caught a huge trout there after an epic battle of man against wily beast.

My dad’s fishing habits aren’t the point here though. The point is he makes his own track. He marks it with cairns so he can find it again, anytime he needs to, but it is his. When we’re at the end of the road and what we want is still ahead of us, the only way forward is to make our own path.

We have to look at what we want and then one step at a time find our own track. I’ve seen my dad’s tracks. In most cases you can’t see the river, let alone hear it when you start out, these are tracks made on faith. A few involve trusting walking away from the river will lead you back to it. Some follow a path chosen because it’s the gentlest way possible. Why take the hard road and climb a ravine when you can walk into a glade of ferns taller than you, with moss under your feet, and spend an extra five minutes enjoying the walk?

When they reach a cliff they find a way down, and when they reach something beautiful, like a tree with a trunk my arms won’t fit around, they make a mark with stones. Trees can fall down so stone is far more enduring in the world of choose your own path.

In life when our landmarks are beautiful but tenuous, like the beautiful boy or girl you adored for three weeks in Santorini, we need to make sure we mark our paths with something lasting. Maybe a memory. A tattoo. A photograph.

We have to have faith when it seems we’re being led astray. It doesn’t matter if the river is north and you’re heading south. If if feels true you trust you will eventually find your compass point and head north.

Know too we can take the gentle path. The meandering one taking us through the beautiful valley. The path which allows us a moment of stillness in rough terrain.

Sometimes we will stand on the edge of a cliff and not know how to get down. Sometimes we’ll just have to jump and sometimes we’ll float down to earth. There’ll always be cliffs and valleys and twists and turns on our paths. Obstacles we have to step over and obstacles we will sit in wonder with.

Some people would say no fish is worth it. Stay at the car, fish from a bridge on a highway. I say find your own path. Your own adventure. And if you really, really want to fish from a bridge find your own or better yet, go build one.

*This post was inspired by my dad and so the photo above is his. It’s one of the rivers his secret dad track leads to.

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 :)

Universe I’m not happy..

I don’t know whether there is a grand plan for any of us but I tend to believe in a bit more than co-incidence. I can’t accept that to put two people in the same place at the same time or standing on a beach when a dolphin swims by is a coincidence.

I love science, I believe in it wholeheartedly but I still believe just as wholeheartedly we’re meant to meet who we meet and see and experience the things we see, sometimes over and over, until we learn the teachings screaming at us.

So today when I think finally, maybe I’ve got it right, this might be OK, it hasn’t happened at all the way I thought it would.

This entire year I feel like there has so often been a carrot dangling in front of me and just when I decided hey maybe I’ll do that.. bang it’s taken away. 2011 was the year of the near misses. And I tired of it.

Endings and Beginnings

My unit sale fell through. I walked away from inspecting it Friday morning and the thought I’m not buying it came to me. I called my lawyer and a building inspection confirmed what I already knew in my heart. I didn’t feel disappointment, just relief. I felt relieved this wasn’t going to be my story. I also realised the man who wanted to cook dinner for me wasn’t my story either.

Both situations remind me how the truth feels so very different to anything else. There is no stuff, no clutter around it. If I gave my truth a form its like a star floating in space with nothing around it to challenge its clarity or dim it’s brightness.

Something else has ended too. The murky, lost, untrue part of me that apologises for asking for help, a hug, advice, a phone call or even a visit is gone. This apologising was a manifestation of a fear of neediness.

My whole life neediness terrified me and yet the dictionary defines neediness simply as: ‘a condition of want or need; poverty; indigence.’

I took such a simple definition and made it into a powerful and meaningful word. In fact when I wanted to insult my ex I used to call him needy. He hated it but no wonder when really he wasn’t being needy he was just being beautifully vulnerable and normal. For that I’m sorry.

I don’t need to analyse this, it doesn’t matter where the belief came from, what matters is this way of acting compromised my life and the relationships in it.

So..

I’m don’t apologise any more for being me, for needing help, for whatever. It undervalued my worth, myself and my relationships and other people noticed it. Sorry is for when I’m wrong or have behaved badly but it’s not for being human and needing help sometimes.

I’m as needy as I need to be (lol) when I like. I’m allowed to ask anyone in my life for help or to give their opinion or whatever, when I need to, and without apology. And if I’m strong enough to walk away from my unit and a man then I’m certainly strong enough to speak up for what I need without apology. This is my story after all.