 I had spent so much of my life trying to please other people, it was natural for me to want other people to get on board when I set off on the journey to authenticity, I wanted them to validate who I was becoming.
So I would defend and reason, maybe even my blog was a part of that. My self esteem, or self worth, couldn’t carry off a big moment of vulnerability without some sort of justification and approval. As I started to write, I began to quickly understand why I felt like that. Over and over my blog would start from the standpoint of us coming into this world with talents, traits, and purpose even, and yet being treated as empty vessels by those who ‘knew better’. We have been brainwashed into a lack of self worth in various well-meaning guises. This week I was talking to a young adult who is struggling with their academic results and having lots of arguments with his parents, it reminded me about how important this issue is. Getting a good education is a drum many well-intentioned parents beat; it’s ingrained culturally in most cases. There is a feeling education is a privilege. The same could be said of voting, having doctors available to look after our health, having governments test and sanction the use of certain medical products, having scientists legitimize the understanding of our world and our very being, having politicians or religious leaders espouse certain dogmas as ‘the truth’. I could go on, but that isn’t the point of this particular article. The point is, I – yes me – know what is best for me. You know what is best for you. Other people (whether a parent, scientist, priest, politician or anything else) are simply there with an opinion that will inspire you to your inner truth in the process of either accepting or rejecting part of what they say. The power of discerning what is or isn’t right for you is yours and yours alone; contrary to what we were told growing up. As this person was relating more of his story, something my mentor said to me a while back came to mind. She had likened much of my life so far as navigating icy waters, defensively maneuvering around icebergs and the like, and said I needed to get used to the calm warmer waters of just being. As life is a mirror, reflecting back to us our predominant state of being, as this young man talked about what was happening with his parents there was a clear reflection of defensive energy going on. And I think that is perhaps common to most of us - at least in the early stages of a journey to authenticity. You see, it’s a fallacy that there is only defence or offense, eat or be eaten, flight or fight. But when we have spent most of our lives either fighting against the status quo, or trying hard to fit within it, it is hard to simply accept your own position without a need for justification or validation. He had been a straight-A student, but as his journey into adulthood is getting underway, and his perspective on life is now broadening, he is questioning the validity of the notion that a good education is what he needs to set himself up in life. So we rebel, we defend. That is exactly what I did when I bowed out of the idea that I needed to be out earning an income. I had to do quite a bit of work to change the relationship I had with money, as I wrote in this article, and was I ever defensive. That was clearly reflected in my partner’s attitude at home. Then, as I refocused and accepted that I did not need to be out earning money, that slowly began to change. As I became at ease with the idea, so did my partner, and as my confidence grew, that too was reflected back in his confidence. I still have situations arise where I can get defensive, here is another I wrote about back in January when I was advocating to do what fuels you and dump the rest. While the need to be accepted is still strong, I am happy to say these situations arise much less frequently nowadays as the need for authenticity is stronger still and becoming more practiced. As I look back on my life I can see in the many changes I’ve made in direction, from the breakup of relationships, to the bowing out of competitive sport and a corporate career, I was initially defensive. Then, once I got good with the idea, once I was happier in myself, the world reflected that happiness back to me. The realization that your life choices are just that, your life choices, can take some getting used to. In fact, that is perhaps the root paradigm we get defensive about most, after a lifetime of being told others know better. Yet it is the one perspective that most universally resonates. From the standpoint that your choices are yours to make, and knowing you will deal with the consequences whether good or bad, you can start to have confidence in your decisions. As we feel into the power within each of us to discern our own truth, we can start to drop the defence and learn to simply be. If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective on your own situation, feel free to contact me. There’s no charge or strings attached, I truly enjoy helping where I can, click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog
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 This week it took a close friend to spell out to me what she’d heard from me several times before I took any notice. I’m always saying “act on inspiration” in order to follow the yellow brick road and yet I was somehow oblivious to my own inspiration. Like most I am busy being busy much of the time, but given that I make space for regular meditation and contemplation you might think I’d have my own “ah ha” moment.
Over the last few years I’ve had people of all ages from all walks of life contact me looking for my perspective on their situation after they have read something that resonated in one of my articles. It’s hard to express the inspiration it ignites, the ease with which a response flows and the satisfaction in simply being able to be of some help. Yet I had somehow not picked up on this thread of inspiration and acted on it, it took my friend to connect the dots for me. We don’t get to meet up as often as we’d like, my friend and I, so when we do get together it’s a bit like speed dating because we are trying to get across all the most important bits in the short time we have. So we usually go from the hilarities of being school mums (the ‘you have to laugh or you’d cry’ stuff) to the meaning of life in a nanosecond. The nature of this particular friendship is one where we hold a space for the other in the big picture stuff. We are each on a journey, neither quite knowing the destination, yet both fervently knowing that where we had been was not where we wanted to be. I have read and seen enough of my friend’s creative talents to fully hold a vision in which she’s a famous novelist buying me cocktails in the Bahamas as we ‘speed date’ catch up at some point in the future. She laughs at this, which is not a bad thing as we can’t take ourselves too seriously after all. Plus buying into something that far from where you are now can really put the brakes on any baby steps towards it if it feels too big a stretch. When I was sharing my latest ‘cup-filling’ moment, responding to a reader about a difficult situation she’s dealing with and recommending some resources that might help, my friend pointed out “you realise your whole energy changed as you were talking about that, your face just lit up”. Being my friend, and holding the big picture for me, she didn’t stop there. “That is at least the fourth or fifth time you’ve told me about scenarios like that that you really enjoy, why don’t you put yourself out there to invite more?” At first I meekly retorted that I do invite people to get in touch at the end of each article. She called me out on that “Mmm” she said “but when I read the bit at the end of your articles I wouldn’t take that to mean you’d be happy to help me with my problems”. Don’t you just love those moments when someone reflects something back to you and you think “ah ha, you’re right”? I also love the people brave enough to do it, it takes courage to call others out. It is said that life is a mirror, but often we are so stuck in the details of our own lives it does take another person to give us a fresh perspective on what’s going on. It’s a classic ‘can’t see the woods for the trees’. As we were talking I realised that, since I’d initially put up the website and added the blurb at the end of my articles, a lot has changed in my life. I’ve been sifting through different ideas, trying on different hats to see what fits and what doesn’t fit, I am getting clearer about what those things are and who I am so reflecting that outwards can only help draw more of the things that really float my boat. Over the last few years I’ve shifted away from the idea of having to launch into another career, people have said “what about coaching? consultancy? teaching? writing?” among others. None of it called me, and I don’t want a label on what I’m doing because I like it being fluid: the river is still running, finding its way. I don’t want to solve others’ problems; instead I enjoy helping them find the place within themselves where they can uncover the inspiration to move towards a solution. I don’t want formal clients at this point in my life; I simply like helping others for the joy of helping. I don’t want it to become an obligation; I want it to thrive as an informal sharing of a different viewpoint. As I was talking with my friend she observed “you’re really clear about what you do and don’t want, so put it out there”. So, of course, here I am at the beginnings of “putting it out there”. These blogs simply reflect my own need to allow wisdom greater than mine to flow so I can continuously learn and grow, and I share them in case they help others. And when those who read them get in touch and share how what has been written has resonated with something going on in their own life, that ignites more inspiration within me and I thoroughly enjoy sharing the perspective that arises in return. So I’m taking my cue and making myself available. Whether there is something I can help with, or whether you have a great friend like mine, or another person in your life who ‘gets you’, we all need a bit of help sometimes to gain a fresh perspective on what is happening in our lives. That perspective can give you renewed energy and hope, at least enough to take a baby step in the right direction, and that is what will lead you further along the journey of your best life. If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective on your own situation, feel free to contact me. There’s no charge or strings attached, I really enjoy helping where I can, click here for further information.  Change Your Life, Change the World
When I awoke the other morning, still half in a dream state, I had a really cool moment where I was observing what it felt like to dream versus to actually think. The dreamy state was a lot lighter, as if images were floating somewhere up above my brain. The thought state was a lot more effort, and I could feel the sensation of the areas behind my left and right temples cranking up ready for another day of mental activity. Once underway, we often don’t realise the sheer effort on our part to keep up all that activity, nor the benefits of taking time out from it. I remember my daughter’s kindergarten teacher commenting a couple of years ago on how important it was for our kids to have regular times in the day where they could just have downtime to unpack new experiences, things as simple as processing the new crayons they had used, or a new story they had heard. I watched my 7-year-old last weekend as we spent time away with friends, she was in her element playing with the gang but she was not taking any downtime; something I also let slip because of the social nature of the trip. By day two, her lack of tolerance was obvious, she was snappy with her sister and her ears were closed to any requests or questions. By the time we set off for home she was pretty frazzled and had a total melt down over something she’d normally take in her stride. It’s often easy for adults to look at kids in that state and label them simply as ‘tired’, implying more sleep is needed. While sleep is beneficial for bursting the bubble of any negative momentum going on and resetting our energy levels, it’s not the only thing we need. We need regular, conscious, time to unwind mentally. Later that same day, once home, I was reading a story before bedtime for the kids and my daughter was really obviously not following the storyline as she does usually; she kept switching into a dream state, which I commented on to help her realise the effects of the over-stimulation. “But I like daydreaming mum” she said and I thought there was a lesson in that for all of us. While her body was trying to regain its balance through a meltdown, closed ears and day dreams, as we grow we tend to get on with things and ‘push through’. This usually results in headaches, regular colds, coughs, flu, earaches and so on as we ignore what our body is trying to tell us. Then, as we move through life, we can manifest far more serious illnesses as our body keeps trying to bring us back to balance. Unlike children, we generally have less new experiences that we have to process in our daily lives, instead we tend to expend most of our mental activity regurgitating the past in some way or worrying about the future. We put a lot of effort into thinking about things that are not just unnecessary, but entirely unhelpful to our quality of life. I thought about the many hours I have spent in meetings, and how disengaged most of the attendees were most of the time. Personally speaking, I know that if I had just used that time to actually daydream about the kind of life I wanted to lead and the kind of world I wanted to live in, I could have saved myself a lot of angst. Instead I’d often be stewing on things I had seen or heard that I didn’t like, or trying to figure out how on earth to get to better end solutions, or wishing I could use the time more productively on the list of 500 other things that needed to get done that day, or sometimes I was just simply sitting in despair at the time in my life that was wasting away having to endure those largely useless gatherings. Rarely was I ‘in the game’. And having attended and hosted many of those useless gatherings over many years in many different settings and companies, I know how rare it was for any of my colleagues to really be in the game either. The one exception was usually ‘away days’ or ‘offsites’, where we kicked into a more open and creative gear. My partner, on the other hand, has never worked in an office environment; instead he works with his hands. He has the radio on for company a lot of the time, and commented recently about becoming aware of when his mind was wandering while he was working. He found himself ruminating on a dynamic with someone in his life that really bugs him, yet he can’t change it except in his own attitude. Acutely aware of that, he was also wondering why he was letting it take up so much space in his brain, instead of dwelling on the many nicer aspects of his life. There are so many scenarios that each of us replay in our heads each day, sometimes the characters in our stories change, but often not until we have well and truly chewed them up and spat them out of our daily activity over long periods of time. We tell ourselves we are well rid of that character, then another takes their place in a similar story – unless we wake up to these thought patterns. This human condition of useless and unhelpful mental activity seems endemic. It’s perpetuated by ‘being busy’. Taking regular time throughout the day to just contemplate, drift and daydream feels impossible and unproductive to many, yet it’s the opposite. I bumped into another school mum the other day as I was leaving the beach, where I like to go for regular walks, to go and pick up the kids. She was just getting in her car and had clearly been for a swim in the ocean. She looked at me guiltily and started explaining why she was at the beach, and how she had made it productive because she had groceries to do. I smiled and shrugged “I just like the beach” I said “I come here most days”. But I get where she is coming from, our defensive standpoint around productivity is a result of our environment. We haven’t been taught to value ourselves enough to take time out of our regular physical and mental activity and actually be present in the moment long enough to see the world through fresh eyes. When you do that regularly enough, you can more clearly see your own self defeating thought patterns and how they have and are showing up in your life. For me, it hasn’t meant I am completely rid of these old habits, but I am more aware of them and many have lost momentum as I have switched focus. I now also see the value in questioning everything that is ‘common opinion’ or ‘the way we do things’. With my head out of the sand of my own little life more often, I have started to think through many of the issues we face as a society. I look at our way of living and question all aspects with an interest now that I never had time to indulge in before (because I was so caught up in useless and self-defeating thoughts). I look at our ‘systems’ of living and wonder at how we ever came to give away so much of our own power on such a mass scale, certainly over the last 5 millennia; the power to think, to be well, to learn, to build a home, to barter and to govern our own lives. We are at a place of crazy when it’s normal to think in terms of another ‘owning’ land or anything from the natural world, or to think it’s normal to pump ourselves and our environment with chemicals when we are at dis-ease, or to think that we arrive into this world in complete ignorance of all that has gone before, or to think we are each only our own body and disconnected from everything else. Rather than let your mental activity take on a life of its own, as most do, become aware of what is going on in there in the moment and try to start directing your thoughts towards something that makes you feel better than worse. It helps hugely if you can mediate regularly, as it makes the practice of becoming aware of your thoughts in any given moment very easy. Taking a regular break from your mental activity will not only release you from the insanity of your own life and give you a fresh perspective, gradually leading to more quality of life and more moments of happy, it will help us all to evolve this world and realise our best potential. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Watching my kids have a horsey race using their noodles at their swimming lessons, I heard my eldest tell the instructor that her sibling hated to lose. She then compromised her own race so that her sister wouldn’t be upset. In fact her sister, more than anything, is quite suggestible and so quite happily then got upset (playing up to her role) when she did finally lose.
On the way home I started talking to them about the purpose of the race. “To win” they said. So I went a bit deeper and challenged them. “Mm, so win or lose, what do you get out of racing?” Between them they came up with fun and better swimming. Both true. The other word I’d put in there is confidence, with a caveat. The purpose of the race is motivational, to get them out there having fun and building their confidence and skills. However, if winning is seen as the purpose, only one person gets the confidence boost and where’s the sense in that? I started to reflect on this a bit more, drawing on my own experience as a competitive swimmer. When I was about 11 years old I beat my personal best time for 100m freestyle; 1 minute and 7 seconds. I have no idea if I won that race, I can’t remember that part. What I do remember is that, despite all the years training afterwards, I never beat that time. There were other races I won, but none of it meant anything. Freestyle wasn’t ‘my stroke’ so I told myself it didn’t matter, yet it obviously irked me since I still remember the details 30 years on. I really wanted to be able to swim it in under a minute, which is what would have made me feel like I’d been successful. Winning over others, on the other hand, is just contextual; there will always be others out there who can beat you and there will always be others you can beat. Sure losing can feel bad if you wanted to win, but perhaps we need to think beyond that to the actual goals of participating in the first place. I know that I want swimming to be fun for my kids, and for them to become capable enough to be safe in water. Personally I don’t really care whether they make a sport of it. Well, that is not true, I care that they only make a sport of it if it’s a passion they want to pursue for the joy of being the best they can be at it. There are so many things in life to pursue, the choices are endless. We came to experience life here to its fullest, and that means winning and losing in life. Right now my focus in life is to feel as good as I can as much as I can, to enable me to be fully present in each moment, listening to my inner inspiration. That is no mean feat and is likely to be a lifelong goal. With any luck I can at least improve the proportion of my day I spend in that state versus the one most of us live in. That state is the one where we live in our head, ruminating on the past, whether it has just happened or happened 15 years ago, and worrying about our future, whether in 10 minutes or 10 years. Most of us are rarely present in our own lives in this moment, which of course is where all life happens, So each day I take small wins as I manage to become aware of my mental state and let whatever thought had been in there drift away as I focus on my cat purring away beside me, or one of the kids drawing a picture, or playing a game, or the weather outside and the garden. I also love to dwell on and relish the inspired thoughts too though, like the words that come as I write these articles. And each day there are what I might consider many losses, cumulative hours of wasted thoughts. But there are many other things in life we could view as ‘losing’. We have each lost jobs, people, relationships and many other things beside all with varying degrees of emotional intensity. Yet of all the changes in my life that felt really bad at the time, if I look back they are all just the ebb and flow of life that ultimately led to growth that I underwent. Everything always seems to work out in the end, circumstances change, people change, and out of that comes growth and confidence. Even in this latest turn of events with mum sadly dying, while I will always carry mum in my heart, no doubt there is some change seeded in me as a result and I will grow in ways I can’t foresee right now. So perhaps we need to consider the messages we give out when we seek to use winning or losing to motivate someone, especially ourselves and our children. For really, if you choose to look upon any loss as a stepping stone to a better version of who you are in the world, then you are always winning. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  I woke up, smiling as I remembered the warm embrace of my dream. I used to call these my ‘higher self’ dreams, when I had this sense of just being able to let go, to lean back against the strength and love that was always quietly there for me. Now they are a daily occurrence, my awareness of flitting among the fairies of the universe in my nightly wanderings is more acute.
Yet here I am, still here on Earth, a beautiful planet. The sun has come up, or more accurately we have rotated back around to greet it again. When I moved to New Zealand I can recall the strong desire to see more blue skies. Yet even on the grey cloudy days I am more aware of the sun in all its glory just behind them. What beauty the sun reveals, even when it is shaded. Colours are one of its more wonderful gifts, and the life of course it breathes into all that is green, not to mention that radiant energy of our most bright star, an energy I have begun to appreciate so much more since I began to reawaken to the wider context of my life. The cat has stirred, ever alert to my awakening presence, her soft purring a gentle start to the day, her fur silky on my hand as she revels in a few strokes. Then “Mum” I hear, the children of my heart are awakening to the day. I go to them, we greet the day as we always have, a little tune for each. Their smiles are worth a shower of diamonds. Then Archie, now awake too, greets us all with his usual mischievous bluster and goes off to make my morning smoothie. Fresh leaves plucked from the garden, mingled with berries and yogurt, plant life intertwining with mine. Understanding the essence of what we eat has been a great gift. As death leaves a body as a decaying shell, it is the same with plants. I appreciate the essence of what is given when plucked from their life source and eaten straight away. We all head to the kitchen, the kids helping themselves to breakfast, then we sit and eat, sharing funny stories and thoughts about the day. I love those moments, the kids are just full of gems and I can see Archie taking it all in too. After everyone puts their things away, Archie gets ready for his day and the girls drift off to their creative endeavors. I head off to do my meditation. Sometimes one or both of the girls join me, sometimes not. But I smile at the sky as I appreciate the powerful forces that are focused upon me. Life is pretty cool. Every day I feel grateful for the inspiration that pointed me in the direction of New Zealand and the place I call home, it’s quite a contrast to the place I knew as a child. Though I still love the West of Scotland humour and relish visiting the places of yesteryear and the fond memories I have. As I meditate I can hear the cicadas singing, their constant backdrop a familiar sound throughout the warmer weather. It’s a soothing sound, like multitudes of small birds all calling to each other in morning song, with only a lull now and then. It helps bring me to the present moment as I breathe in and out, only the occasional thought popping into my head and drifting past like a cloud as I focus again on the sound of the cicadas. After my meditation, I just take a moment to look up to the sky; upwards and outwards taking in the vastness. Some days I am greeted with a colbalt blue sky, others it is dark and cloudy, with everything in between. Regardless, the enormity of it all gives me perspective and keeps me in deep appreciation. The green of the skyline as my eyes come back to the earth signifies flourishing of life here on this planet, we are very fortunate. So I step into the garden, rain, hail or shine. I love to wander through this oasis we have planted. I look at trees that are now flourishing into growth and remember the saplings we brought here. I thrill at the berries I can pick and eat as I wander, and thank the universe for such gifts as these. Thinking of the intelligence and love in these plants, is another sheer miracle of the world we live in. Both Callie and Jenna are often in the garden. For them it is both a playground and a natural wonderland with so much to teach. Watching children at their play is special, especially when it is play that exercises their imagination and connectedness to the natural world. This time at home is so grounding and they are thriving. I have help of course, for in my journey on this earth I became limited in my thinking early on and have awareness of wanting to expand my way of being and that of my children, so it is good for them to be around others who can help them to connect with their own inner guidance. Ahead I seek my little nook. It’s the place I can retreat to, exclusively mine. Others come in of course, when they are invited, but it is the one place that I can go for solitude. It has a beautiful view, I can see the lush green of our land and its plants and trees and beyond the beautiful landscape. I can see the children playing at times and I can hear them or the wildlife around me. I go to my nook to write, to think, to contemplate, to rest, to meditate, to stretch out in my yoga poses or just to be simply with myself and the whole of the universe. In this home of ours, we each have our own little haven, and it’s bliss. There’s also a small place for guests to have their own space too, used most often by one or other of our parents. The kids love having their grandparents come to visit, and they in turn love seeing the kids, but all the more for having a retreat. Archie thrives in this place too. While he loves the process of transforming other people’s homes, he loves nothing more than his own home and working upon it, or riding through the bush around the property. We often talk for hours about our ideas for making the place feel even more special. Life is good and we often dream together as a family. These days there are less material things Archie or I want, but the kids are unlimited in their thinking, which is a joyous thing for a parent to know. These kids have come to change the world, as did we, but the ground upon which they walk is a much more enlightened one. I look forward to the future that is unfolding and enjoy the present we are living, it’s very gratifying to know we have such control over our experience of life. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You. |
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