I am not alone, I am the gift my ancestors gave to the world and, as such, I pick up the baton. If there are challenges to be overcome, I will overcome them. If there are old hurts to be healed, I will heal them. If there are lessons yet to be learned, I will learn them. If there are talents and gifts I have inherited, I will use them; I am the very extension of all who came before…

While I don’t know each of my ancestors’ individual stories, I feel them through my own experiences. There are some things that hurt more than others, some things that are more joyful than others, each perhaps on a similar path travelled by another part of me in a time gone by.

When the first physical trace of me appeared back towards the end of 1945, as an egg in the fetal version of my mum (who was developing in her own mother’s womb at the time), this physical piece of who I am was carrying a lot of emotional data about my maternal lineage.

Just as I said in Womanhood – A Story of Our Time, the emotions we feel are carried in each of the cells within our body, positive emotions fuel our wellbeing and negative emotions create dis-ease and disruption to our biological makeup if not dealt with in a healthy way.

So when that seed of who I am physically was joined with the rest of the genetic DNA required for me to take my human form - the successful one-in-a-(250) million sperm - almost twenty seven years later, it is easy to see that who I am is a veritable buffet of everything from my entire ancestral make up to my own life experiences.

Despite not knowing the specific stories of the vast majority of the people in my lineage, it is easy for me to imagine these and how they might affect my life now as I enjoy reading historical time-slip novels. These have two or more interconnected stories across varying timelines where the main character gets taken on a voyage of discovery that dives into challenges they are facing in the present day.

This brings to life the stories of the past and how they intertwine with the present. While fictional, there is no doubt they were almost certainly, at some point, bits of someone’s story. These stories are the kinds of stories we all descend from and they echo down the generations and affect us in ways we often sense but don’t fully understand.

I do know, though, that all my grandparents had experience of the Second World War; with one set of grandparents also alive during the First World War. Having heard some of the real stories, been to museums and specific battle sites, and having read many fictional stories that bring to life the details of that time, I can see how the things that affected their lives then ran through the veins of my parents in their respective upbringings and then got passed on to me.

It was a time when feelings were heavily suppressed and having basic rations was something to be grateful for. There was a sense of lack, not abundance, yet gratitude for the little that was had. There was so much trauma at that time, and yet there was also beauty, many of our ideas are shaped even today by the experiences our ancestors had throughout that time not so long ago in our history.

I have a very definite sense that - despite life being very different for my grandparents then - they were all real people with wants, desires, hurts and tragedies.

Last year, before my mum died, she filled me in on parts of her own mother’s story. There was a lot of pain that continued on in mum, showing up as resentment towards others in her lineage for being the perpetrator or being too passive. Her own childhood experiences in that environment also inevitably shaped her values and beliefs about the world and, thus, her life experiences and the way I was raised.

Talking to another elderly member of my family about her childhood recently, I uncovered old hurts there too; events that happened over seventy years ago still fresh in her mind. I asked whether she had ever reconciled her issues, but they had never spoken about them, a common feature.

The things that happen to us early in our lives we sort of chalk up as history in our heads, feeling foolish to even mention or care about them. Yet they can weigh upon our hearts for eternity, shaping the very fabric of who we are and how we allow ourselves to interact with the world.

When we were asked to sink into our maternal and paternal lineage during a meditative part of a Family Constellations session I attended this week, facilitated by a good friend, the joy on my gran’s face as she birthed my father popped into my imagination. Perhaps she intuited her own father’s creativity (a father she hadn’t ever known) in the eyes of her youngest son, perhaps not, but her joy was evident in her creation.

I also imagined the same at the birth of my gran on the maternal side. The stoic great grandmother of the stories I had heard was somewhat softened by the birth of her baby girl that was named Joy. It was quite beautiful.

That we are each the gift that our ancestors gave the world was one of the many take outs I had from that session. When I mentioned what I was writing about to my friend she added “You embody all that was and all that is, you are your ancestors’ prayer for all that could be.”

That is quite something isn’t it? Here we are, the leading edge of all that has been, with opportunities to be aware of ourselves and love ourselves as never before. And if that is all each of us do, imagine what life would be like? What an amazing gift to the world.

If you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

“Be fluid” the osteopath said to me. Of course she was referring predominantly to my physiology, but I couldn’t help see the parallels across all levels of my being, and how that shows up in everyday life.

Unbeknown to me until recently, osteopaths are very concerned with how fluids flow throughout our bodies; through channels, across membranes and within open spaces. Should the flow of fluids stagnate our wellbeing diminishes.

As I was lying on the table during the consult, she asked me to take a minute and focus my thoughts elsewhere so I could get out of the way of my body. Often, as a patient lies on the osteopathic table and is trying to guess what the osteopath is doing (or is about to do), these very thoughts are inhibiting the flow of fluids that the osteopath is trying to assess.

I took the welcome respite from having to focus my attention on what another was saying and started to notice the noises in the room. It was a warm day and the windows were slightly open. I could hear the traffic going past on the road outside. Then I could hear the birds twittering away, seemingly oblivious to the encroachment of man’s modern world.

It made me think about the same sounds I’ve been hearing in my back garden while meditating recently. It’s late spring here in the southern hemisphere and nature has come alive all around. The birds and their melody will soon be surpassed by the pulsating symphony of cicadas as the weather gets warmer, but for now it’s the bird’s chips and chirrups that reach my ears all day long – should I wish to tune in.

Another thing the osteopath said that captured my interest was how attentive I was with my daughter (who she had also treated recently). Having just spent another 4-day weekend with the kids due to a teacher development day and a strike, and having had visitors over that time, I was feeling rather depleted and in need of alone time.

I mulled over this word attentive, rolling it around in my mind, in a similar way to sucking on a delicious candy. Contemplation is one of my favourite pastimes; I love going down the rabbit hole with just one or two words that pique my interest.

So I thought about this word attentive. It indicates presence, which I have been deliberately focused on these last few years. In fact, I should probably take a moment to just absorb the fact that I am less prone these days to fretting over the past or future, the thoughts in my head often relate to the present moment, which is a good thing.

That said, I am not exempt from cogitating the burgeoning to-do list in my head in any given moment; especially when I am at home with the kids. The process of running a household, supporting a business and looking after two young children is often a juggling act of crazy proportions. However, I know I am not alone  in that, we each generally have responsibilities that require our attention many times in each day.

So as I circled back to this issue of being fluid, I wondered, how can I go with my own flow when I’m feeling pulled this way and that so often? I thought about what being fluid really means, and – given these apparently encroaching responsibilities I have chosen – how do I define flow?

There is a verse in the Teo Te Ching, ascribed to Lao Tzu, which resonates “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard, the gentle overcomes the rigid.”

It brings to mind a picture of flowing around obstacles rather than pushing against them.

For example, yesterday I had an opportunity to go with the flow or push against it. I went to pick up the kids from school. Generally I park at one end, walk to the other to pick up my youngest first, then collect my other daughter on the way back down to the car. As a rule, I usually like to get home as soon as possible; it’s the time of day the kids need to unwind, and I need to make dinner and such forth.

So when I had walked from one end to the other and back again, my eldest daughter asked if we could walk back up to the other end of school to collect “something I left there earlier”.

I groaned inwardly, my flow was taking me to the car, now I could see an obstacle. It quickly became apparent that her desire to go get this valuable item (that she described as “a yellowish-green thing that sparkles”) was higher than my desire to rush home. To make her go home without collecting this item would have created a virtual dam in the flow, especially since her sister also seemed quite intent on the idea.

So off we went, picking our way up through the school grounds again until we came to the forest where she retrieved her treasure (a dislodged bamboo shoot). It was actually quite a pleasant walk once I’d surrendered to the diverted flow. The weather was beautiful, the kids enjoyed reconnecting and sharing the various things they’d discovered that day, and I enjoyed watching them and being with them.

We got home a half hour later than usual, but there was nothing else pressing, and we managed our after-school routine quite well.

This is not me saying we should do whatever our kids want for an easy life. As an adult, we have a greater perspective than they do. They see only their path on the river, their singular desires and focus, whereas we are able to take in a wider view and assess where these paths may converge.

It also means there is no need to do whatever my partner, parents, peers, or anyone else, wants me to do if it goes against my own flow of wellbeing. I now look for the win-win answers in each seeming obstacle, seeking the path that allows me to remain fluid. Sometimes that may mean I need to body swerve a path that seems easier to take in the short run, in order to stay on the better path for me in the long run.

For example, this last weekend was the school’s annual fair. Rather than be herded into the path that involved the onerous task of organizing the fair, along with most of the other parents in my eldest daughter’s class, I quite deliberately opted to take another path. I knew the first would be my undoing, so I put my own welfare above the pull to fit in and seem helpful.

We contributed to the school’s fair in other ways; my partner made more than 70 bars of his famous fudge and he and his mum both helped to run the coffee and cake stall for a good chunk of the morning while I looked after the kids among the thronging masses who had descended upon the school grounds.

This pales into comparison to what some of the other parent’s contributed, but to do more would have been inauthentic for me. My energy fills up from inward reflection and contemplation, or meaningful one on one time with people, rather than broader social contact. On balance, I’d rather teach my kids by my own example to be who they are than to sacrifice in order to fit with the herd.

As I was listening to the birdsong the other evening after dinner, I was struck again by how completely oblivious the birds seem to our human din. My youngest daughter, who is rather vocal, was upset with her sister. The cacophony that ensued made not the slightest difference to the bird song; they just kept right on tweeting and chirping to one another.

It reminded me of a story I’d recently heard about the fighting in the fields of France back in the Great War. With death and destruction all around, in the midst of mayhem, a soldier became transfixed by a butterfly that fluttered above where he was lying in the field; struck by the beauty and carefree oddity amid his own personal hell.

Nature pays little heed to us; it goes with the flow quite nicely, tuned to its own wellbeing. In contrast, I still spend far too much time tuned into other people, or the thoughts in my head that are regurgitating the past or anticipating the future.

Casting the shroud of who I should be versus who I am is a process. I can’t suddenly be okay with different ways of being in the world without recalling the old beliefs and judgments I had about them. But the more I learn how to go with my own flow, the less resistance I feel in my path.

In addition to taking 15 minutes in each day to do nothing other than observe my thoughts and let them go (meditation), I now stop as often as I remember to just tune into the natural sounds around me. This allows me to tune into the flow of life that is always there, the wellbeing, and reminds me to be fluid.

If you enjoyed reading this you may enjoy Win-Win-Win Giving, Do What Fuels You – And Dump the Rest or Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success.

​If you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or 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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Some people know their purpose, they have dreams and goals and pursue them with vigour. Go them!

But what if you don’t know your purpose, yet feel there must be more to life than you are living?

That was me, and still is in some ways. Uncovering my life’s purpose has been a process of tiny steps, serendipitous moments, sorting through the wanted and unwanted, figuring out who I am beneath the shroud of a lifetime of gathered beliefs and trying out lots of ideas.

I agree wholeheartedly with Annette Noontil’s words “It is our absolute need to look inside and find our purpose; to know where we came from, what we are doing here and where we are going. Then we can move into fulfilling our purpose and not waste our time here.”

When I met my mentor twelve years ago, I had just wanted someone objective to talk to, be accountable to even, as I’d just moved countries and was starting afresh. The questions Annette Noontil poses were on my mind. So I asked someone I knew (who was on my wavelength) if they could recommend anyone, and that led me to my mentor.

While she works internationally by phone, I was fortunate to live nearby. From the first day I met her, she held a vision beyond all I could articulate at that point. I can’t remember the conversation specifically, but it felt like someone saying:

“Oh, I recognise you. That shell on the outside isn’t really you; you just had to develop that for protection. When you were a tiny seedling, barely taken hold, someone tried to shape you and it bruised and hurt; so you retreated within and developed an outer protection. But you are still whole inside that shell and we can retrieve that seed of who you are and give her the time, space and nourishment to grow and blossom.”

It took me many years to sift through what is me, the true essence, rather than the shell I’d identified with as being me for so long. My mentor, who was probably more of a coach at that point, rarely gave me any answers. Instead, she would encourage me to find my own, relentlessly reflecting back (and amplifying) the salient points of whatever was going on for me, but from a broader perspective.

I was the little seed taking root again down in the rich soil of authenticity, she was soaring above the treetops, her view expansive. She knew I couldn’t yet see the sun, but she would encourage me to feel its warmth, to take my nourishment and to just keep going.

And along the way, although for a long time I was still so completely buried in a life that knew only that outer shell, these were my moments of fresh air.

When I started writing, it was as a young shoot breaking through. As I have continued to write and to explore all the aspects of who I am, I have grown in awareness, confidence and strength. Now I’m a bud brimming and beginning to burst open, entirely transplanted in my authenticity.

Then my partner asked me why I continue to book in time with my mentor; I guess he figures I’ve gone a long way down the road of asking (and answering for myself) a lot of life’s big questions. I can tell you, without skipping a beat, my purpose relates to creating a higher level of conscious awareness on Earth.

But I want more; the part of me that shares through these articles is poised for expansion. Yet, like many of you, I am also bound to the responsibilities of life: looking after my kids, being in a relationship, running a household, supporting my partner’s business and cultivating our garden among other things.

Any expansion will have to come from serendipitous moments rather than me actively pursuing anything specific. I have begun from a point of ease rather than effort, building a pretty credible platform on my own terms, and intend to continue that way.

And that is where having someone who believes in me, and can see that ‘more’ is inevitable, is critical. The part of me that writes and shares with you is the part least understood by most of the people in my life.

So I cannot adequately express the gratitude I feel to have someone that understands the importance of this to my very existence and continues to encourage the brimming bud to blossom in the rays of the sun.

Someone who believes in us is a magical thing. There are many quotes about believing in yourself, but someone else who believes in you – even when you don’t feel like you can believe in yourself – is a huge motivator to keep going.

When you are earnest in your endeavours, my experience is that people step forwards to help, you just have to be brave enough to take it. It doesn’t mean you have to do everything they suggest, in fact they may not suggest much at all, but take the encouragement and use it to fuel whatever resonates.

I’ve come to the conclusion it is common to be surrounded by people who can’t see or believe what you can feel in your heart to be true. As much as others love you, and may want the best for you, they can see only their own horizons. That means you will have to seek out people who love what you love and have seen the sun rise and set many times over a different horizon.

When I was little I announced one day, after a swimming lesson, that I was joining the local swim squad. My parents were thrust into a world of driving me to and from pools in the cold darkness of the early morning and late evenings as I trained.

I was earnest, and I was disciplined; I showed up every day for years. One of the coaches took me under his wing and volunteered his time to help me focus on my technique outside of the usual training hours. We studied Mark Spitz, who had won seven gold medals and set new world records in each of those races in the 1972 Olympic games (the year I was born).

My parents loved and supported me, but this was not their arena. The head coach had written me off, but not Bill Tinney and not my next coach, Owen Flannigan (who we affectionately called Mr. F). So there was a measure of satisfaction when Mr. F told me one day I’d just narrowly missed being picked for the national swim team.

However, it was also a defining moment as I realised that wasn’t what I wanted. I had really been enjoying pushing my body but my most abiding memory is of the meditative effect of swimming up and down the lanes mile after mile, contemplating much.

So I thought of Mr. Tinney and Mr. F as I got back in the pool this morning, for the first time in earnest in over 30 years. Their time was not wasted, each cell of my body rejoiced as it got to move again, each limb remembered exactly what to do as I sliced through the water.  I won’t deny my underarms and shoulders ached somewhat, but in a good way.

There are not adequate words to express how thankful I feel to have these people – past and present –believe in me and help me along the way. If you have someone like that, embrace them; if not, go find them.

The effects of someone who believes in you and who has walked the path you are walking, or has walked with others who are further along the path than you are, is nothing short of magical.

And I can categorically say that, if you have been drawn to read this, there is more within you too. And the world will be a richer place when we can help you express it.

With thanks to a magical lady, Chrissy Ramsay, who holds a light for many. If you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

While there are not many of us that would dispute the benefits of being fit and healthy, how many of us incorporate regular exercise into our lives? And perhaps the more pertinent question is why?

When I left the corporate arena nearly four years ago, I had been working in a highly stressful, sedentary environment for over two decades. The contradiction in that is well understood from a health perspective.  Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline coursing through us are great if a high level of physical exertion is involved, but if theses have nowhere to go, the effects are quite damaging.

But with a baby and toddler at home, there was barely time to make sure we were all fed never mind thinking about regular exercise, I made do with the mad dash from the ferry terminal to the office each day.

To be honest though, physical exercise has not been high on my agenda for a long time. In fact, it’s been about thirty years since I really took it seriously. There have been moments in there where I played at it for a while, but nothing stuck for the long haul.

When I first left the office environment my priority was to figure out who I am, from the inside out. I stopped having massages for tense, aching muscles, I stopped going to the osteopath for treatments and I avoided any kind of painkillers or other medication. I wanted to get a sense of the real picture.

And over the last few years as I started to write and get clarity about what is authentic versus what I’d adopted through misguided beliefs, I have also started to get clearer about the role our physical body plays. It’s usually the last aspect of our being to reflect our inner state and intention.

Although I consider myself to be generally quite healthy, there are some aches and pains and annoying minor (yet chronic) conditions that have crept in over the years. I guess I could say my body has become stagnant and, like any body of stagnant water, that creates an unhealthy environment for my wellbeing.

Recently I had to take my daughter to the osteopath, and I felt an intuitive nudge to book in for an assessment myself. I figured that, after all the inner work I’ve done, and all the insights I’ve gained, it’s now time to do some work on a physical level.

This has been neatly spurred on by labouring in the garden lately. While it’s been gratifying, by the end of each day my physical body is hobbling around with a back that keeps getting thrown into spasms. It’s definitely time to get moving.

Growing up I tried out several sports: I did gymnastics for a while, swimming, board diving and even cross country running. Then I got more serious about swimming and, before I knew it, I was training for over an hour in the pool every morning before school and then every evening before bed, in addition to the weight and gym training that supplemented it.

After five years of dedication to that way of life, I felt I’d swum all the miles and I’d done all the training I ever wanted to do and have hardly been near a pool or gym since.

There were other sports I tried briefly: mountain biking, climbing, orienteering and hiking, but nothing really stuck. Life got in the way and I spent years of working in desk-bound jobs. So it wasn’t until my mid thirties - after a number of failed pregnancies – I decided to take my fitness seriously again.

I employed a personal trainer and my core muscles screamed in indignation at the drastic reintroduction to being worked out again; it was not an enjoyable experience. I really hate doing repetitions unless they relate more to something meditative rather than excruciating.

If I compare repetitions in a pool to repetitions in a gym, I definitely prefer the feeling of my lungs being expanded and strengthened, as I take a breath in between strokes, than the feeling that my head wants to explode from the way my body responds to squats or pushups.

Yet I still didn’t feel compelled back to the water, though I may have if there had been a decent pool locally. Instead I found yoga. Of course there are many forms of yoga, ranging from the more strenuous, repetitious types that remind me of squats at the gym, to the forms that hold poses for extended periods; I prefer the latter.

The yoga I do is great for stretching out the connective tissues and maintaining flexibility in the joints. So while I had found something that, like meditation, serves my wellbeing and has now been integrated into my life over an extended period, it still doesn’t get my body moving.

When I was at the Osteopath’s for the assessment and she said “what do you do to raise your physical vibration?” I responded meekly that I take a few walks on the beach and a do a physically low key yoga session each week.

Her reply was well aimed:  ” I think your body would really appreciate an opportunity to move, to let each cell breathe and increase its vitality.” That made a lot of sense of course.

We talked then about the options, and I divulged that I had been thinking about taking up swimming again for a while, I just hadn’t yet felt compelled to act. “I think even after just one session in the pool we will see a difference” she said. So right there was my nudge to action.

No longer am I getting in a pool to train for anything competitive, it’s about giving this physical body a chance to move and to replenish itself; to flush out the old and bring in the new. It seems fitting at a time where I feel poised for action on my journey, to get moving: I just have to get moving.

Like anything in life, the signposts appear when we are ready to see them. If you’ve been drawn to read this, it may mean that you also needed a bit of a nudge towards physical exercise beyond it is good for you.

Frankly, our soul’s journey in this realm is experienced through our physical body, so if we want to live in it long enough to feel satisfied that we’ve made a difference, we really need to pay as much attention to that level of our wellbeing as any other.

If what you read here resonates, you might enjoy reading:
When Did We Become So Oblivious to What Our Bodies Are Really Telling Us?
What is Your Body Telling You?
Is More Leisure the Antidote?
If you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.