I am highly sensitive, my partner is sensitive, and both our kids are sensitive. It shows up for each of us in different ways but, despite its various guises, we are all susceptible to overstimulation in our emotional and physical senses.

In a world that is increasingly vying for our attention, few would disagree overstimulation is an issue, yet the world seems to insist on toughening us up. It’s very isolating and I’ve been quite stunned by some of the reactions people have had in relation to this issue, not seeing it as anything other than a sign of weakness.

For example, just this week a teacher told me she believes my sensitive daughter, already overwhelmed by her school day, should be taking on a team sport next term; requiring two after-school/weekend commitments each week. The purpose? So that “she feels she is just like the other kids, and is as strong as the other kids and, like them, has talents and challenges”.

This is quite interesting to me, as the premise seems to contradict itself. Every person does have unique talents and challenges, this is true, but why does that make one strong and another not? I have no problem seeing her sensitivity as anything other than a huge strength that comes with certain challenges.

One of those challenges is that, for her to remain centered, she needs quite a bit of time to unwind – or defrag as my friend aptly calls it – after a lot of social interaction and sensory stimulation. Of course, school, falls squarely in this category. So after years of trial and error (that got downright ugly at times) we arrived at keeping things simple and making a point of heading home after school and staying there.

At home my daughter, who the school would have out pursuing sports that she is neither interested in and also contradicts its own core pedagogy (which advocates not introducing team sports until they are older), is happy drawing, writing and building. It’s the time in which she gets to express herself freely in the home sanctuary.

I also make a point of taking my kids out of school for two reasons. The first is to learn how to swim, in my view a basic survival skill, especially here in New Zealand where we are at the water’s edge in every direction. We have, of course, tried learning after-school and on weekends, but school has already taken the best of their attention and they arrive with ears closed and uninterested in focusing on anything else.

Any teacher worth their salt knows that, to learn, you have to have a student who is able, eager and willing to focus their attention. My kids love being in the water, but timing is everything if they are going to learn this basic survival skill well.

The second reason is for rare and coveted quality time as a family, which I wrote about in Evolving Education – Where Booking a Family Holiday during Term Time Took Me.

Before I move away from this example completely, it’s worth adding that I had shared my observations with the school about my daughter’s sensitivity when I first came across the work of Elaine Aron, though received no response. I had put that down to lack of time rather than a dismissal though; based on the aforementioned pedagogy I’d imagined we might be well aligned, apparently not so.

This is also a school with a long-established form of rehabilitation programme based on the premise that learning difficulties are often due to disruptions in the development stages in the first seven years of life that can result in poor spatial orientation and body awareness, sensory processing challenges, retained early movement patterns and coordination difficulties.

Why these disruptions to development occur is less often discussed but, as I understand it, it is thought to be a result of trauma. The trauma could be, for example, in the form of an illness that occurred right at a critical time of physical development, or an emotional upset such as the birth of a new sibling or a loss of some kind.

This is where It gets more interesting for me as I connect into the work of Dr Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-born Canadian physician with a background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development and trauma, and in their potential lifelong impacts.

In his book Scattered Minds, Maté demonstrates that ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder also known as ADHD - Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder) is not an inherited illness, but a reversible impairment and developmental delay. While he believes there is significant hereditary contribution to ADD, it is based on a deduction that what is being transmitted genetically is not ADD but sensitivity.

He asserts that environment has the far greater impact on the circuitry of the brain though and it is that which shapes the inherited genetic material. He believes environment – and specifically trauma occurring within the environment in the first months and years of a child’s life – to be the determining factor in whether the impairment of ADD will or will not appear in a child.

For those with ADD, it is well worth reading Gabor Maté’s work in more detail, but the specific type of trauma that he refers to is the emotional state of the primary caregiver when the new infant enters the world and in those earliest months of care. It is easy to see in an overstimulated world how stress unwittingly creates the type of trauma being discussed, especially where there is a genetic predisposition to sensitivity.

Whether ADD (or some other disruptions to development) will arise, will vary from individual to individual. When he makes the statement that people with ADD are hypersensitive he adds This is not their fault or a weakness of theirs, it is how they were born; their inborn temperament.

In putting to bed the idea that it is not ADD itself that is genetically transmitted, Maté points out that genetic explanations for these conditions assume that after millions of years of evolution nature would permit a very large number of disordered genes, handicapping an ever larger proportion of humankind, to pass through the screen of natural selection. He goes on to say:

We face no such difficulty if we see that what is being transmitted genetically is not ADD or its equally ill manned and discombobulating relatives, but sensitivity.

The existence of sensitive people is an advantage to humankind because it’s this group that best expresses humanity’s creative needs and urges. Through their instinctual responses the world is best interpreted. Under normal circumstances, they are artists or artisans, seekers, inventors, shamans, poets, prophets. There would be a valid and powerful evolutionary reasons for the survival of genetic material coding for sensitivity.

While Dr Gabor Maté’s work is more concerned with what that sensitivity predisposes humans to and how to heal it, I felt it is one of the most empowering paragraphs I’ve read on sensitivity.

On the face of it, it links in well with the pedagogy and programmes at my kids’ school, so you can see why I might be somewhat perturbed by responses I’ve had, or not had.

In venting about this, a good friend of mine bravely said to me “I get why you are angry, but can you share your dreams for the future when the fire has died down, I rarely hear them from you?”

Well, in a nutshell, my dream is that we as a society evolve past this point of treating children in a one-size-fits-all way. Instead of seeing newborns as empty vessels that we can shape, we need to wake up to the critical importance of those early months and years and support families to be there in a nurturing way.

In Our Children Are Changing – We Need to Move with the Times I talked about research such as the Dunedin Study bringing this important link between early childhood and the later outcomes to the fore. As Maté points out , it is recognition by society at large that there is no more important task in the world than nurturing the young during the earliest of years that will make a difference. So much social dysfunction would be prevented and so many productive and creative forces allowed to unfold.

As for those of us that are sensitive in our temperament, we have a job to do in healing the scars that run deep in our psyche from our own experiences and we have a job to do in helping our children understanding their strengths.

I’m also making it a priority to seek out people, practitioners and healthcare experts who have experience and knowledge in this area and who can support our family in our wellbeing and create a supportive community around us.

It’s important for me to raise awareness, for a person has no more choice in being sensitive then they do in eye colour or gender. And, in fact, it’s a huge benefit to feel and perceive the world in the way we do. It’s time to move forward and give more voice to this issue in the most apt way we can, sensitively.

If you enjoyed this you may also enjoy Embrace Your Sensitivity Rather than Have to Protect Yourself from the World. If you would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Many years ago now I heard someone recount words of Mother Teresa’s that really stuck with me “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations, I said that I will never do that. But as soon as you have a pro-peace rally I’ll be there.”

I was reminded of this as I was reading something similar to my kids this week. They are learning that it is much more powerful to talk about what they do want rather than what they don’t want, yet it is much more common for people to generally focus on the latter.

For example, when we were having people over at New Year’s, I talked to the kids beforehand about a few ground rules as we were expecting to have nine excited children in the house as well as all their parents. My eldest daughter wanted to write the rules down so we could read them to everyone, and the first draft was a no list.

• No playing in the bedrooms
• No leaving the property/garden
• No more than a two or three kids on the trampoline or in the pool at a time

That didn’t sound like much fun to me, so I asked her how we could write a more positive list. We took each one in turn and ended up with:

• Everyone is welcome to play in the lounge and garden areas
• Let’s stay within the property so we know where everyone is
• Let’s take turns to play on the tramp or in the pool with just a few people at a time so everyone can enjoy themselves

I don’t think we came up with the best alternatives possible, but we did manage to turn the action verbs around to create more positive mental pictures of what we did want rather than what we did not want.

That is, of course, the crux of the issue. Words create images in our mind; we can’t help but visualize a green elephant when we read or hear the words “green elephant”.  If I talk about not leaving the property, I can immediately see myself walking away from it.

This imagery makes it harder for us to do the right thing. Our body becomes geared for the action we have created a mental image of, so then we have to work harder to actually do the right things.

It is an eye opening exercise to simply start to noticing this phenomenon in society, it’s pervasive. Becoming aware of my own language is also an interesting experience.

I first really tried to focus on this when the kids just started becoming mobile, so you would think I’d be pretty adept at it now. Yet just this morning when my daughter woke up early I told her “do not get out of bed again please”, instead of just saying “stay in bed please.”

The other aspect of this is – in saying things from a negative standpoint – the receivers constantly feel their sense of freedom being eroded and become more resistant. Whereas when we focus on the more positive language, this is less of an issue.

Like any habit though, awareness is key. I catch myself doing it more and make a conscious effort to change it; especially since I know positive language is far more effective and keeps things flowing.

But it’s not just about positive and negative language in terms of things we should or should not do. My partner is a shocker when it comes to choosing his words. If taken on face value, he is the kind of guy you might peg as chauvinistic, and perhaps a bigot. Yet much of what he says comes more from a compulsion to push people’s buttons.

That said, while he may never have initially had any reason for his prejudices, over the years those words have found their evidence as all words do. If, for example, I think dogs are dirty animals, I will notice those examples around me that support this which is how we develop beliefs. Most of us never stop to question the initial premise as we are often unaware of where it comes from.

As with all of our thinking, it begins in our early childhood. And without any conscious intervention it continues on throughout our life gathering more and more evidence to support it. In my partner’s case I don’t have to look far to see where he inherited his enjoyment of winding people up and his prejudices.

Thankfully though my partner is consciously aware of his prejudices and, on the rare occasions he entertains a more serious conversation on the topic, he displays much more objectivity than his annoying wind-up statements would lead anyone to believe.   

This compulsion to wind people up arose from a frustration in expressing himself, which in recent years was diagnosed as ADHD and possible dyslexia. Often feeling invisible in a social setting because of this struggle to express himself verbally, he took the route of wind up merchant instead.

That said, even though his motivation is to provoke and push people’s buttons, just as in the examples I gave about our New Year’s get together, the words create imagery that is then hard for his brain to get past. So it is really only when the line of thinking is challenged in a non-confrontational way that his thinking opens up.

It is something that is becoming increasing important to him having brought two daughters into the world. He doesn’t want his deliberately provoking and inflammatory comments about females to become their reality.

The kids’ rhyme that says “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” does not ring true for me. Words can and do have great power. It’s better to offer a gift with kind words than a criticism. Another great quote of Mother Teresa’s is “Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.” The opposite is also true.

So let’s choose our words wisely and have them work for us, rather than against us, supporting us in our best lives.

​With thanks to my partner for letting me share some of his story to help others. If you feel stuck in the weeds and would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Life pulls you in different directions. The spoken and unspoken rules of our society can quickly create many layers around our self-concept, and it can be easy to lose our sense of who we really are. ​Click here to read the full article on Having Time.

Many times I have felt a twinge of failure in this journey we are on together, now is another of those times.
Ideally I would love you to be able to learn what you want, when you want and in the way you want. In truth, you will anyway as it is only experience that teaches. But I’d like to have given you a freedom of scope beyond that which you have.

I know you would not choose to go to school if you had the option. I know one of the options open to us is homeschooling. But then, instead of teaching you to be who you are, I would be sacrificing who I am – and that is not the lesson I intend.

​Like all parents I would like to give you the perfect childhood. But what does that even mean?

Each parent, I think, has some driving force that influences the way they parent. For me it’s about allowing you to be who you are. For others it is about other things, like raising independent children. We are all different.

Allowing you the freedom to unfold as you want to, yet figuring out what that means in a society with many others who feel they have a right to impose their opinion – or worse, control – upon you, is an ongoing process.

I often say that if we lived cut off from society, you would be able to unfold unhindered. Consequences would naturally arise and you would learn and grow. We, however, live in a society of imposed consequences that remove your thinking from the true nature of things.

Like the time I talked to your daycare about the meals they made that you did not want. If we refuse food, it has a natural consequence – hunger. But the daycare chose to impose further consequences designed to make you comply. If you did not eat your meal, they re-presented it at afternoon tea and prohibited you from eating the cakes the others ate.

In this same way, we live in a society that creates parents as upholders of the millions of rules set by others. It creates more reliance on the parenting relationship than you would otherwise have naturally.

The government says you have to attend school between the ages of six and sixteen. The other option is to apply for an exemption and to home school. I have said you can do this when the time comes for college. At that point you will be able to drive your own curriculum and self-learn in a way that will satisfy our government.

In the meantime, you have to go to school. We have chosen the one that is most closely aligned to our values from the options available, but still, it is a square peg in a round hole.

This leaves a hole in my heart, especially when this pathway – that seemed to offer much – does not entirely deliver what I was expecting.

This is life sometimes; we take two steps forwards and one step backward. But what I have learned about holes and backward steps is that I must welcome them.

There is nothing in my past that has not turned out well in the longer run, for the best even.

I think I cannot give you the things I’d like to, but in truth I trust you are being given all that you need.

My own pathway was not one of having freedom to unfold. It was very decidedly of an era that ensured I walked the narrow pathway it prescribed, ‘or else’.

I ate the food I was given. I went to the school I was told to. I learned what I was told to. I treated people the way I was told to… the list is endless.  Yet still, I found the way back to me.

Society has changed a lot since I was young; more people have more freedom by comparison.

The biggest change though, I believe, is in the numbers who are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunities for an evolution of our society today.

Imagine health care that pays attention to the whole being, education that caters for individual expression and growth, governments operating with transparency and open communication or science that embraces the metaphysical.  The list and the opportunities are endless.

Most exciting of all, you are the generation born into a society becoming aware of its opportunities and failings. This puts you in the creative driving seat when it comes to solutions.

So life is not perfect my little ones, I don’t think we ever intended it to be or this journey would be fairly dull by comparison.

I, for my part, will always do my best to do whatever I feel is right in each moment; for that is all I can do, all any of us can do.

I love you always; keep following your joy.

If what you read here resonates and 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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My story as a woman begins so long ago I have no conscious memory of it; it is the story that all women descend from, and echoes down the generations. The story starts in my grandmother’s womb, as my mother was conceived and the egg that would one day become me was formed within her…

“Let’s dive into this together and see if we can figure it out” I said to two of my girl friends.

For over three years now I’ve been regularly experiencing all sorts of cyclical symptoms, in fact it’s fair to say, it’s not been a good experience right from the first menstrual cycle I had over three decades ago. But I want to try and create a shift in my thinking and feelings about it and have a good experience with this aspect of my womanhood before these cycles cease altogether.

And I did indeed manage to achieve a new perspective, in our few hours that we took time out of our busy lives to explore this often taboo topic. The nature in which it is dealt with in our society, often in secretive discussions (from which men are largely excluded), has been insidious in its effects. Effects I want to stop at me rather than pass on to my daughters, or at least take the momentum out of them.

Over the years, after hearing many people’s stories and learning much from anthropological accounts of the female journey through womanhood, I have come to the conclusion it is an aspect of us that is intended to be held in reverence and to be embraced, rather than held in resistance and distaste. It is not an aspect of us that it intended to induce pain, or shame.

One of my friends led the discussion, moving me backwards and forwards and remaining focused on taking the powerful insights and reflecting them back to elicit further insights, it was quite a journey and she was very skilled at it. It’s a story I believe many will relate to and can have powerful healing effects for future generations.

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. Our tendency to suppress our emotions is learned early in childhood and, therefore, we are a veritable hotch-potch of everything from our ancestral make up to our own life experiences.

My great grandmother had, by all accounts, been a force to be reckoned with. She was a woman of the Victorian era, a teacher with a strong sense of morality. My mum once told me that she and my aunt used to go to her grandmother’s house every day after school (my gran – by then – was a single mother and worked) and they thought everyone’s grandmother taught extra lessons. But of her biology and feelings I know nothing.

My maternal grandmother was, by contrast, an unassuming woman. She was born at the start of the twentieth century and had just one older brother, of whom she was very fond. While I was well acquainted with my gran, she lived to enjoy her centennial celebration and many great grandchildren, she spoke very little of her own life and her feelings towards it.

Yet there are some defining moments of her life that I have come to know, mainly through my mum. I know that despite my gran’s apparent passive nature in contrast to her mother’s assertive one, it is likely there was a strong determination that lay beneath. Struck by illness and a long convalescence in her school years, she managed to persuade her parents towards the school she really wanted to attend all along.

My gran married young, the inference was that this was an act of rebellion, and had three sons to a man who would eventually walk out one day to get a loaf of bread and never return. One of my uncles saw him once in the years afterwards, at a football match, when he got given a coin. Needless to say, a divorce was had.

Her second marriage was one of deceit as well, her husband pretending to be many years younger than he was. They were married just before the end of the Second World War and had two girls together; he died when my mum was only seven.

This was, apparently, a blessing as my mum was not as passive as her mother. Mum can recall sitting on the floor drawing a picture and hearing a loud crack behind her as my gran went from one side of her peripheral vision to the other in an instant.

My grandfather was an aggressive alcoholic, and lung cancer was squeezing the very life from his body; gran had just entered her fifties when he died. It was the context though in which my mum had been conceived and in which the first physical traces of me – the egg from which I was later formed – were created.

However, this was not my gran’s last insult. A few years later when her parents died and – despite being a widow with two young children to look after (by then her boys, my uncles (who were much older), had begun to make their own way in the world), it was gran’s older brother (who was married with no children) who inherited the estate.

This was life for women back then, there were social customs and laws that limited their choices. Much has changed but, as my friend pointed out, it is only in recent years that domestic violence has become socially unacceptable, she recalls the campaigns of the 1980’s to raise the profile of this issue.

Life for women has changed enormously in my own lifetime, but not as much as it changed for my gran in her lifetime. To have been born into a highly restrictive era for women and yet have lived the last fifty years of her life quietly, and so entirely on her own terms, watching future generations being born into an ever-evolving society must have been quite something.

And yet still we bleed metaphorically and physically in ways that are quite foreign to that of our design. I recall my mum being whisked into hospital for blood transfusions and finally a hysterectomy as she literally bled out in her late forties. This seems to be a common crescendo to the reproductive years for many women, accompanied by years of mood swings, hot flashes and many other debilitating symptoms.

For my own part, I recall the introduction to my reproductive years vividly. Being a competitive swimmer, and training twice daily in the pool, it was not an option to ‘sit out’ for a week each month. I found that in order to use suitable sanitary products required a surgical removal of my hymen. Being admitted to hospital for an operation ‘down there’ at age twelve was embarrassing to say the least.

Then there were the cyclical physical symptoms, the dull aching feeling in my lower back that signaled the beginnings of some pretty acute and incapacitating cramping if there were no Askit powders to hand. I remember mum introducing me to Askit (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that tasted fowl as it had to be mixed in water and drank), her drug of choice for the same symptoms.

In later years I used Mefenamic Acid for the same reason, as it had the good grace to be encapsulated and was easier to swallow. But the pain was severe even in my thirties, before I had given birth. I can remember one night, around midnight, crawling around the floor in our lounge just trying to ease the pain. Then of course I was up and out for work the next morning.

I used to think I am someone who is sensitive to pain, but a midwife set me straight on that when I delivered my second child. In deliberating whether to give me a local anesthetic before ‘sewing me up’ she told her assistant “no, go ahead, this one has a high threshold for pain.” Mind you, by then I’d had a lot of practice.

Menstruation was also the beginning of migraines. Walking to school one morning, I rounded the corner past some neighbours houses and noticed I had little lights dancing across my field of vision. By the time I’d gotten to school and started the first lesson of the day (it was home economics and we were making an apple pie), I hadn’t got past peeling the apples before I felt unable to keep my eyes open. The pain in my head was one-sided and quite excruciating and I felt totally nauseous.

Someone at the school had to call my mum to come and pick me up. The pain had gotten so bad by the time she arrived that I was literally lying curled up on the floor of the school hallway and only vaguely remember dozens of kids running past as the school bell rang signaling playtime. I was lost in my own haze and have no idea how I walked home.

Then there is the issue of blood flow for women. I remember when I started working at my first ‘real’ job after university; I’d worked there on a secondment during my postgraduate diploma and was quite familiar with the staff in the Human Resources department. The organisation had just employed a new Training Manager and she was quite a character.

What I remember is her arrival one morning after her hour’s bus ride to work. She rushed straight to the loo and then afterwards, in the office with the door closed, she went on to explain to the little gaggle of us women who worked there that she had really heavy clotting and had to go home again.

I was quite taken aback that a woman could experience (as a matter of course) such hemorrhaging that there was no sanitary product that could allow her to go about her normal day. And, unlike the menopausal women I mentioned earlier, the Training Manager was not an older lady; she was actually quite young and only recently married.

A friend told me of her experience when she started her own reproductive years. Her cycles were irregular and painful and – as a young teen – someone advised her sit on the ground against a tree in the moonlight, next time she was menstruating, and let herself bleed into the earth. With nothing to lose she did just that for a couple of nights.

While she doesn’t know why that worked, within three months her cycles evened out and she has never had any issues since (she is now in her forties). Perhaps it has something to do with recalibrating with nature’s natural rhythms and flow.

If menstruation has had its issues, then pregnancy and birth took everything to a whole new level. My children are pregnancies five and six, each one before was a ‘blighted embryo’ – a condition I was told that was usually a one-off occurrence.

After having had surgery to remove the first empty sac, the second time around I decided that – rather than undergo another general anesthesia and surgery – I would take an alternate (debatably more natural) route to evacuating the empty sac. That time I was sat in a ward with several others all undergoing the same process, given a drug called Misoprostal and a metal tub to collect the ‘evacuations’ in and told it would just feel a bit like period cramps.

Pretty horrific is my succinct description of that process. Having already described the pain of a normal cycle, you might imagine that pain as nothing compared to the pain kick-started by Misoprostal. There was no sedate lying in bed, I ended up locking myself in the ward toilet and – on all fours – stayed there in my own vortex of pain, contraction after contraction, until the sac was passed.

Suffice to say, by blighted embryo’s three and four, I opted again for unconscious surgical removal of the empty sac. But these failed pregnancies were not, of course, just about process of physical recovery. While I was philosophical, each pregnancy had carried its own hopes and dreams; most had a name and a bond created within.

After finally managing to successfully conceive in my late thirties (a whole other story on its own), throughout the early stages of pregnancy I had weekly scans. If every emotion we feel is felt in our very cells, you can imagine the stress on that young embryo as I contended with the constant stress of maintaining the pregnancy. It is no surprise my first child displays quite an anxious personality at times.

My first experience of labour took physical pain and exhaustion to yet another new level. After a day of early labour pains and then over twenty two hours of labouring, with not much progress, I finally looked at the midwife and told her I wanted an epidural.

She called for an ambulance to take me from the maternity centre to the hospital, as that is where epidurals were done. Unfortunately it was a Saturday evening and the ambulances were busy so, in the end, it took three hours before I was transferred to the ambulance for the fifteen minute journey.

Having made the decision to seek pain relief, as time ticked on I got more and more frantic. By the time I was loaded into the ambulance, I screamed murder every time we had to cross over a speed bump in the road. I remember finally arriving in a theatre to await the anesthetist, and I could hear the midwife talking to him on the phone obviously debating the need for urgent attention as he was being called to another operation.

I cannot remember the words I yelled, but they obviously sealed the deal as the anesthetist promptly arrived and the epidural was at last dispensed. My daughter was born twelve hours later by ventouse. It was a long night.

My second pregnancy was a bit more relaxed and, for the birth, the midwife had agreed to admit me to the hospital straight away given the horrific ordeal of the first birth. I had decided to try and deliver naturally, but did not want to rely upon an ambulance if I wanted pain relief.

As it turned out the second labour progressed much more quickly than the first and, by the time the midwife arrived, she felt the hospital was too far to travel. She did something for me then that helped me enormously, she grabbed my hips and showed me how to move with the pain rather than resist it.

Almost four hours later, feeling like I had finally mastered the art of labour, I heard the midwife comment to her assistant that they would need to get me to the hospital as the baby was going to rip me open (she had her hand above her head superman-style). This was all it took for my body to respond. With a final involuntary convulsive push she was out, and I needed sewn back together.

That was when the comment was made about my tolerance to pain. As I showered afterward, blood draining everywhere, I remember hearing someone delivering a baby in the next room. It was quite a shock to hear how harrowing it sounded from the outside. No doubt I’d made similar sounds, but from the inside I had withdrawn into a quite space.

I just remember thinking “I never have to do this again.”

And I contrast this with friends and other women who have had amazing experiences that – in comparison – were pain free. They have described their menstrual cycles and labours as ‘mild discomfort’. We are all different.

Sharing these experiences with my friends created a new perspective. There has clearly been trauma, mine from the moment I was an egg in my mother’s womb, and through my own life experiences since birth, and it has been played through this journey of womanhood.

As I talked about this journey, and about my other journey, the journey to a more authentic me, my friend pulled out some words I had used as I had shared: 

• the pain of loss (including my twin brothers who were born prematurely in the pregnancy before me and subsequently died), and the physical pain endured (not just by me, but the generations before);
• the shame felt in having my hymen removed, in unsuccessful pregnancies, and – ancestrally – in domestic violence and in abandonment;
• the reclamation of me, Shona Keachie; the process of evolving in my beliefs about me and the world;
• the feeling of safety to be able to talk about these things today;
• Trust in the way life works, in the bigger picture;
• The process of mastering pain;
• The process of shedding old wounds, old pains, in the journey to me;
• The desire to embrace my womb as a seat of feminine power.

As I look back now, I am in awe of each of the women in my lineage for all that they endured. I now live in an age and a society where being a woman need no longer be about sufferance and for that I am truly grateful.

Just prior to catching up with my girl friends I had watched the final episode of one of my favourite TV dramas, Nashville. At the end, Callie Khouri (the creator) had said “that’s a wrap”. That is how I felt about the chain of pain that has been created through my womanhood, it ends here. Each player has played our part, the show is over.

One of the most miraculous gifts we have been given is the power to create another life. The mechanics of all for women have been suppressed for so long, it was time to take a look in the darkness and see what lurked there.

And as always happens, when we shine a light in the dark, everything brightens. I feel the possibility for an entirely different future for my daughters, and for the daughters out there that are still playing their part in this chain of pain in societies and families where pain and suppression still occur.

After all the years hearing about feminism, embracing womanhood means something entirely different to me today. Rather than something in opposition to the masculine, or trying to compete with it.  embracing womanhood is about embracing reverence and joy, the very art of creation.

​If what you read here resonates and 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.

I was listening to a discussion about interdependence yesterday that got me intrigued. On one hand what I was hearing felt like it held some deep truths yet, on the face of it, seems in juxtaposition to the self-concept I hold of being independent. I love the kinds of challenges that expand and evolve my thoughts.

I have a friend who often calls my independent nature “the lone wolf”. She too was once a lone wolf, but circumstances have led to her relying on a bigger community of support than she might otherwise have sought.

While my desire for regular solitude, and repellant reaction to dependence, may seem like they add up a fierce independence, listening to this conversation about interdependence has now led me to conclude otherwise. The journey to me, my authentic self, has inevitably shifted me from independence to interdependence.

There is a part of me, for example, that thinks of myself as having ‘opted out’ of the kids’ school community, standing instead as the lone wolf. This is true on some levels; I have opted out of after-school activities, much of the socializing, and extra-curricular ‘volunteering’ for crafts and events. This, however, has more to do with the motives that previously drove me to participate, I had been putting my desire to ‘fit in’ and have others like me before my own health and wellbeing.

But now, from a place where I’ve put my own needs to function healthily first, I care more about the other members of the community. In fact I ‘see’ them more clearly now than I used to and am able to help in ways that benefit both me and them.

There was one mum that used to really trigger me emotionally. She is, in many respects, my very opposite – extremely active in the garden, kitchen and with outdoor activities generally. She is also a very active volunteer at the school, supporting crafting and events.

In the days when I used to feel ‘obliged’ to participate, she became a focal point of my subversive loathing.  Now that I have deliberately decoupled myself from the unhealthy desire to be liked for things I hate doing, my own needs are better met and I find myself much better able to perceive and acknowledge how she is really feeling – rather than try to create her as the villain in the scene who deserves whatever crappy thing is thrown her way.

And now, without the narrow focused lenses on, I can also see that – while in practice we may seem quite opposite in the things we enjoy doing – we clearly value many of the same things (like home-grown organic foods and sustainability). I recognise that much of her lifestyle – while perhaps not obviously of direct benefit to me – is lending to the creation of the kind of world I want to live in. That is pretty cool.

The premise of the discussion on interdependence that I was listening to, was– while many people have largely lost that ability to perceive not only how others feel, but often how we ourselves actually feel - we will need to, once again, become more emotionally intuitive in order for our race and the planet to thrive.

This makes sense from a spiritual perspective. If we all derive from - and are still connected to - the same source (a state of unity) then we are, effectively, already interconnected. None the less, as we invented things that created less physical reliance on our natural world and on each other, how other people were feeling became less important. People, like the planet’s resources, became commodities; objective rather than subjective. So our modern societies have evolved valuing intellect over intuition, independence over interdependence.

Just the other day my partner and I were discussing some trees that are growing on our property. There are two Phoenix Palms which were here when we bought the house a few years ago; planted on a verge that is possibly about 3 or 4 metres at the most from the house.

These trees were quite small when we arrived, but they have gotten rather large and can clump and grow up to 12 metres tall. Aside of the dangerous spikes that run along their leaf stalks, they are also extremely heavy trees as they hold a lot of water. So, should they ever fall, the house would most certainly be damaged.

There are quite a few trees on our property that were obviously not planted with their mature size in mind. I have found this to be quite common in the various places I’ve lived and visited. People seem to plant more with instant gratification in mind rather than the changing shape and form of their environment and the impacts of that, or plight of future residents or generations.

What is interesting about all of this is that the human intellect, by virtue of all its invention in the creation of independence, actually does care what people think but in a totally narcissistic and independent way. The intellect doesn’t care if the outcome is win-lose, so long as it is “I’ who wins.

This is in contrast to the more healthy approach of being aware of, and meeting, our own needs, which then allows us to help others in an interdependent way. This is an approach concerned with win-win.

We were born being able to decipher other’s moods and feelings, and because we were so reliant on our caretakers (usually parents) for our physical survival initially we had to care about how they felt. It’s because of this reliance on them emotionally and physically that we put so much faith in what they thought and believed, whether it resonated with us or not.

This is why we each ended up with so many layers of false beliefs about the world we were born into. This is how I came to hold a self concept, which perhaps many of you share, that it is more important to fit in than it is to even give my wellbeing a single thought.

To put our own wellbeing first is how each of us can begin on the road to interdependence. It is so much easier to love myself, and other people, regardless of where we each stand on this journey when I do it from a place of honouring my needs.

Interdependence is the mutual giving and receiving of things that are enjoyed and valued. If you find yourself feeling resentful in anything you are regularly doing for someone else, and vice versa, then you are not in an independent relationship with them, you are in a co-dependent relationship. Giving something of yourself when you don’t want to, especially if it receives no appreciation, is the road to ruin.

Interdependence doesn’t necessarily mean I do something for you, and you do something for me. It means we give and take based on what we feel good about giving.  There are times I find I’m in a position of giving more to certain people and receiving more from others.

For example, I have often looked after one of my daughter’s school friends because of her parents’ work schedule. It’s not that I love looking after kids as such, but this particular arrangement has suited us all well, my daughter and her friend play well together, so I feel it’s a win-win.

On the other hand, I can think of the many times a neighbor has helped me in times of need and – while we have been able to reciprocate on the odd occasion – the ‘receiving’ scales feel tipped in our favour; I just make sure to show my appreciation and help them when we can.

At the end of the day I can’t be everything to everyone and, even although in a survival situation I might get by without help from others, there are many things that others are much better at (and enjoy) than I am. And I feel able to receive these gifts from others much more freely than I did before I started to put my own wellbeing first.

It’s ironic, but being selfish is the road to our recovery. Interdependence is the ultimate healthy state of our society, but that begins with each of us accepting it as our own healthy state, and beginning to put our own wellbeing at the forefront of our actions. 

If what you read here resonates and 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.

Within each of us there are aspects of feminine and masculine, and what I’m about to share may initially sound somewhere between controversial at best and revolting at worst, but I think it is a bit of a litmus test that shows where we (as a society) are up to on this topic. It certainly revealed to me where I sat.

A while back a friend shared with me the idea that, instead of sanitary products, I should use a menstrual cup to collect blood and use it as a plant fertilizer. I think the phrase she used was “spray it around the house plants.”

My first reaction was “Eew!”

That was a reality check since blood is a common plant fertilizer, in fact a specially manufactured blood and bone mixture even sits in our garden shed as a standard stock item. So why was that my reaction to my own blood? Blood that is likely more healthful for my plants than that which we purchase.

Kate Morton sums it up quite well for me in one of her novels. There is a chapter where she recounts the memories of a 17-year-old girl on the beach with her family back in 1938. Her dad was trying to cajole her into a game of cricket on the beach and she didn’t want to play, so she said she had a headache coming on…

Headaches carried the whiff of ‘women’s business’ and Mr Smitham’s lips tightened with awe and distaste, He nodded, backing away slowly. ‘Rest up then, eh, don’t exert yourself-‘

This made me chuckle as it’s an attitude that most females today have experienced even if it is one they don’t carry themselves. I would have to be honest and admit it’s obviously become woven into the fabric of who I have become. Menstruation is a topic I’ve learned to discuss in hushed tones to a select few rather than revere it for its part in one of the most sacred and miraculous of all human creations – another human.

Despite a deliberate focus and journey to a more authentic me over the last few years, there are still so many of my beliefs about myself and the world that are left unchallenged and untouched, yet feeding into my life in ways unseen. Until someone challenges those beliefs…

I knew as soon as my friend suggested it we had unearthed a valuable insight; a real doozy actually.

This one lies at the door of the patriarchal age, a topic that I’m going to open up a bit more and explore. What is the patriarchy? Why am I seeing it referred to more and more often? Is this a women’s lib thing? Yes and no, it’s so much more, because it’s about all of us.

A patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Our societies have predominantly been patriarchal for thousands of years and it’s only now, having seen a huge rise in civil liberties for all in the last few decades, we are starting to uncover what that means for all of us.

While we are not yet where we need to be in terms of honouring each individual on this planet, we are shifting across the precipice of awareness. Having suppressed many of the feminine aspects in all of us, and having overplayed others for millenia, we are where we are, as I discussed in Porn – Good or Bad earlier in the year.

Back in the 1990’s I found it fascinating to read iconic books like: Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by John Gray; His Needs Her Needs by Willard F Hartley; and, Why Men Don’t Listen and Women can’t read maps by Allan and Barbara Pease. It brought out the often unspoken different interests and priorities of men and women. 

However, as it turns out, these were not definitive guides to the roles and needs of men and women, more a marker of a point in time; the beginnings of awareness.

Donna Eden and Davis Feinstein talk about how the landscape between men and women is changing in their book, the Energies of Love. Looking at America through the eyes of historians and sociologists  gives us all some useful insights. Here are three eras they have defined in relation to marriage, a microcosm of the male-female dynamic:

• For the settlers there, until about 1850, affection and emotional intimacy were secondary to the basics of physical survival, such as food, shelter and protection.
• From 1850 to the mid-1960’s love, intimacy and a fulfilling sex life rose in importance within the dominant model of marriage. In 1939 when women were asked to rank eighteen qualities they’d want in a future husband, love was ranked fifth – economic support was still considered more important. By the 1950’s surveys revealed love to be climbing up the list.
• In the current era however, love has – to a great degree – become the mutual exploration of our infinitely rich, complex and exciting selves. The ability of a marriage to support each partner’s personal evolution has emerged as a pivotal dimension of marital satisfaction. 

Now, more than ever, the speed of change is accelerating. I have mentioned before the recent Australian drama, Puberty Blues, where actors played their teenage counterparts from the 1970’s and were asked to compare teenagers then to teenagers now. Being my own era as a child, I was very interested in their responses.

It was somewhat comforting to me to hear of the rise of what had traditionally been more feminine qualities within the males and vice versa. The girls today danced to the beat of their own drum, rather than swoon and do what the boys wanted of them. The boys were much more affectionate with each other, and there was less bravado. This is a changing landscape indeed.

It seems, more than any other, it is the emotional landscape that is changing, for both men and women alike. Emotions and intuition have been suppressed and pitched as weaknesses or even witchcraft for thousands of years.  I was just musing that the word ‘hunch’ probably came about in an attempt to masculinise and thus accept this most fundamental of human gifts.

It is this very talent for understanding how we feel about anything and everything and using it as a guide to our best life that holds the key to a more evolved, personally purposeful and fulfilling future.

While I’m not one for sensationalism or conspiracy theories in general, in fact I tend not to engage in any form of media, it does makes rational sense to me that the quashing of the more feminine traits was no accident, as it is the seat of true power. Instead the alluring power of ego has been played to and, as a result, the world is in a lesser state for it.

There is a theory that I rather like, that this has its roots in the priests of the ancient Egyptian civilizations (in a bid to outwit their creator) who became the puppeteers behind the pharaohs. I would suggest that even the most aware and idealistic of today’s world leaders find themselves to be largely puppets in their seat of power.

Regardless of the theories and the history, what I do know today is that my true power lies in my inner ability to know my own truths and to create the kind of world I want to live in.

I’ve become so attuned to my inner world that I forget there were days when I didn’t even know whether I was more naturally inclined to rational or intuitive thought. My ability to rationalise things always led others to conclude the former, but when I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking it gave me insight into and confidence in my ‘knowing’.

I suspect my ability to rationalise stems from having to defend and explain my ‘knowing’ to those around me as I grew up, rationalsing is really the process of bringing into conscious awareness what the broader part of you already intuitively knows.

But if you have to relearn how to listen to your intuition, there are some great pointers out there. I particularly like Sonia Choquette’s exercises that help with this, she has written many books and, most recently, did an online course on Your 3 Best Superpowers: Imagination, Meditation and Intuition.   

Our power is not ‘out there’ in the having, our power is ‘in here’ in the being. Learning to listen to that inner voice may be considered a feminine trait, but it’s one that we all have regardless of our gender. Learning to listen to that voice, and to discern whether the thoughts and beliefs of the mind-led you are serving you, is what we must learn to embrace in order to live our best life and evolve our world.

Learning to embrace and honour that which is uniquely feminine, well, that will come too. In light of such a swathe of conscious awareness, and in embracing the feminine aspects within all of us, how can it not?

If what you read here resonates and 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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A few years ago now as I was walking around my old neighbourhood, a deeply profound thought struck me:

The closer anything is to its natural state the better it is for us.

Food has become an issue for me. Not because I’m concerned about my weight particularly, though I am overweight according to my Body Mass Index (BMI) and have been for years. For those who don’t know, your BMI is a measure of body fat based on your weight in relation to your height, you can easily Google BMI calculators to work it out.

My issue is more about how I’m feeling; I can just tell the food I’m eating doesn’t resonate with me anymore. As I’ve gone on this journey to a more authentic me, the food I used to enjoy is less and less appealing. After I eat I feel bloated and sluggish, and generally yuck.

A while back I showed my kids a fun video about the digestive system and how our bodies function at optimal health when our internal environment is slightly alkaline. It’s a basic truth I’d learned about our physiology years ago.

We then watched a video about acid and alkaline (or base) foods. We made two big charts, one for acids, one for alkalines, and cut out heaps of pictures of the foods that we eat before sticking them to their relevant chart. 

That was a visual wake up call, with about 80-90% of what we eat being acid inducing food. It’s almost the exact opposite of what a healthy balance would look like. Not surprisingly, if I were to eat a variety of whole foods in their natural state, the balance would be totally reversed and support my natural physiology.

I then bought a book that appealed for some recipe ideas, called Vegge Mama, since my kids eat practically no vegetables and my partner and I are just sick of the ‘same old’ meals. The authors, Doreen Virtue and Jenny Ross, share their food stories at the beginning; Doreen’s father has been a vegetarian since childhood and her mother was a food counselor; Jenny doesn’t say what her childhood diet was like, just that a health crisis about 20 years ago led her to a plant-based raw food diet and then to becoming a raw food chef.

The foods look good, but it’s overwhelming. There are a whole bunch of ingredients I’ve never heard of and, by the time I tried to figure out if that is because it’s an American word for something I do know (like cilantro instead of coriander, or zucchini instead of courgette) or whether it’s just something new to me entirely, my willpower to do something different had waned.

My childhood diet was typical West of Scotland fare. Dinner was meat, potatoes and two veg; breakfast and lunch were usually some form of wheat with some form of dairy; and these were supplemented with snacks of seasonal fruit, bread (with butter and jam) and – if we were lucky – home baking consisting of some combination of refined flour and sugar. Treats were anything fried, , sugar (cooked, baked and boiled in its many guises) and a can of diet Irn Bru (a lurid orange-coloured fizzy concoction sworn to get rid of a hangover).

Cholesterol became a thing in the 1980’s, and so we ditched the more natural butter in favour of foul margarine. Then McDonald’s came on the scene, followed by a whole raft of other fast food choices to complement the kebab shops and Chinese and Indian take-out restaurants.

As life has progressed, many of these elements have remained in my diet. When I became an adult and moved away from home, I learned how to cook many more pasta and rice dishes to add variety to the potato and veg kind. But I soon discovered that very little of these foods are actually helping my body, most of what I’ve eaten for most of my life is highly processed or mono-farmed; far from its optimal natural state.

That is annoying, I feel myself taking a deep sigh as I’m not really a lover of cooking. It’s a means to an end for me, and not something I wanted to have to entirely relearn, changing all my shopping and cooking habits feels like a huge deal.

Hence there are only three times in my life I’ve ‘been on a diet’. The first was when I became housebound for months in my early twenties, undiagnosed with a debilitating lethargy. This was in the days before the internet, so I was reliant on bemused doctors, magazines and library books.

My research, such that it was, led me to the early discussions about Candida Albicans and yeast overgrowth, and I embarked on an anti-candida diet. That was no mean feat in those days, especially given the social context (it was seen as highly controversial and ‘alternative’), and ingredients were hard to come by.

Eventually I was diagnosed with panic disorder and generalized anxiety, so my focus shifted more to ‘mind over matter’, but I had learned a lot about food groups and their effect on human physiology in the process.

The second and third diets that I have ever embarked on were both in an attempt to conceive. After four failed pregnancies, by the time I reached my late thirties I had again begun to look more broadly at my health. Much of what I read reminded me of what I’d learned back in my early twenties. In the intervening years, candida overgrowth (synonymous with internal inflammation in the mucous membranes and resulting health issues) had become a more widely recognised and less contentious issue.

I was drawn to a book by Dee McCaffrey about flourless and sugarless living, and was astounded by her knowledge and experience around this issue. Recently I was reminded of it again when I saw an online course being offered by Susan Peirce Thompson, who has spent years studying the psychology and neuroscience behind addiction when it comes to these foods. Refined sugar and flour are as addictive as cocaine and heroin and block our body’s natural ability to know when it is full.

So it was no surprise to me when a naturopath looked me in the eye and told me “no self respecting fetus wants to come into a gloopy environment”. He may not have used those exact words, but I heard what he was saying and I got it. Both times I switched to a more natural alkalizing diet and I was pregnant within a month, and both resulted in healthy babies.

Of course, in the months and years that followed, with breastfeeding and a family and house to look after as well as a full time senior corporate role to hold down, I reverted back to my old habits. This is an aspect that Susan Peirce Thompson deals with head on – willpower. Her philosophy is to draw a line and make no exceptions for unhealthy food choices, as you would for anything else addictive.

I understand this and the science behind it, and in situations that are ‘acute’ or pressing, I have proven myself capable. Whereas right now, this dis-ease with my health is more chronic, making it feel less pressing.

I know that is not cool, I know that ignoring all the small signs and symptoms only leads to larger issues down the line.

The question is how to tackle it. I know anything that feels like ‘effort’ can negate whatever I am trying to achieve. So how do I go about creating more healthy habits in a way that feels easier?

From a metaphysical perspective, I’ve found discussions about food and energy from the likes of Anthony William and Teal Swan extremely interesting.  Many intuitives often ‘see’ the energy that flows in and around us, including our food, whereas most of us generally only feel it.

The concept of eating food that is alive and full of life energy seems so much more appealing than food that is, for want of a better word, dead.

While I’d easily find food full of kilojoules in a supermarket, I would struggle to find anything with much life energy. Teal’s run down of foods that are worst for us (in order, everything from sugar substitutes and pesticides to dairy and meat) resonated with everything else I’ve heard and read; you can hear this on her You Tube channel.

Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedar series also has some fantastic information about our optimal diet and lifestyle, and how to go about tackling it.

I know my ideal end goal is to eat fresh foods I pick from my garden, foods grown with love and in a more healthy (for the plant and therefore me) companion-plant mix. Not the best news when neither cooking nor gardening is really my thing, the kids are fairly picky eaters and my partner is bound and determined to stick with gluten and meat.

So it was of some relief to be reminded, when listening to one of Teal’s videos, that as I follow my path of authenticity I’ll be naturally inspired towards the types of foods that are healthier for me. All I need do is work my way into this incrementally.

That hit home. The ‘all or nothing’ is too much for me right now, too big a leap to make in one swoop. I have to break this down. I decided that each week, when I order the shopping, I’d choose one new recipe to prepare. That way we can try new things, incorporating the ones we like into my new repertoire, which can slowly build up over the coming months and years.

My rule of thumb is that it has to be natural, tasty and easy.

Simultaneously the garden has become my domain. My partner, who has tended to take a lead in the past, is just too busy this Spring to plant up and look after the vegetables (yes it’s Spring here in the Southern hemisphere). So the kids and I have chosen some of the basics and will use some of our time at the weekends to start growing what we need.

While I’m hoping that will inspire them to make more healthy food choices, I recognise this is about what I’m feeling the intuitive nudge to address. Right now they seem more enamored with everything I’ve come to dislike. I trust, in time, they will follow their own intuition around this issue. In the meantime they will find more healthful choices available to them around the home.

Whether you feel a critical need to urgently look at your food choices, or whether this is something that has been grumbling along in the background, only you can determine. The key thing though is to get your head around it. To work out what beliefs you have that are fear based, versus what your body is telling you about your diet.

You won’t choose lettuce and carrots for dinner and suddenly find the path of enlightenment. However the reverse can be true, so trust your inner knowing on this issue. Listen to your body and you’ll discover the foods that will support you in living your best life.

If what you read here resonates and 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.

As a proponent of finding one’s inner power and expressing our authentic selves, being called into the Assistant Principal’s office at my children’s Primary school at the age of 46 - and getting told off for booking a family holiday in term time - was an interesting experience.

I know this issue comes up time and again in the media, I know some countries – like the UK – actually fine parents for doing this, and I know there are arguments on all sides, but I feel like the arguments are happening at the wrong level.

What is the purpose of education? I’ll start with the dictionary definition; it’s a process of learning new skills, values, beliefs and habits. It’s fair to say that government-run education systems are about indoctrinating children into society.

The question in my mind is therefore what kind of society do we want to create?

For my part, I am not concerned about our future generations, as my recently published article Our Future is Bright – Why Worry? attests; it may be worth a read for a different point of view if you hold any fears about it yourself.

I'm certainly not worried about a breakdown of society and the traditional constructs and systems as we know them, they are long overdue and inevitable in my view. I'm excited to see the changes brought about by these new generations. So how can we best support them in that?

In our country, by law a child has to be in a system of education between the ages of 6 and 16, or the parent has to have been granted an exemption (usually for home schooling). There is no choice in the matter and, as I was taught, we are to feel that having an education is a privilege.

Now compared to some of the historical alternatives, and perhaps even some of those we see in countries today, I can see why the educational process I went through myself was an improvement upon those.

However, in my lifetime the rate of change on this planet has accelerated and, with the ushering in of the technological era and meteoric rise in consumerism, I believe the resulting constant and overwhelming bid for our attention is birthing another era – the age of meaning.

With knowledge at our fingertips, there is less thirst for it.

My daughter said to me just the other day “why couldn’t we just be born knowing how to read and write, then we wouldn’t have to go to school?” I’m going to come back to that thought later in the article. First let me tell you what happened.

My kids attend a school we chose primarily for its setting and general philosophy. I love the natural environment in which it resides, the fabulous adjuncts (like a programme that develops children’s auditory processing skills) and the fantastic teachers my children have had the good fortune to experience.     

The school seems to attract quite a contingent of those of us who have moved here from other countries, so it has quite a multi-national demographic in terms of the families being taught there. New Zealand itself is a country of immigrants; even those we might call indigenous are thought to have arrived perhaps only as far back as 800 years ago.

Thus most people here can track their ancestry to many other places in the world, and so wanderlust is part of the culture. The ‘big OE’ (overseas experience) has been a part of the Kiwi way of life for a long time.  Whereas when I worked in the UK, it was unusual for companies to grant an employee an extended leave of absence for an overseas trip, it is quite commonplace here.

And this has been reflected within the school culture too, travel and experiences oversees were encouraged.

However, last week the school announced a new process for planned absences. Given we are about to embark on a family holiday (that the teacher has known about since February), I found the new process includes being invited into the office and told not to book such a thing again.

While, certainly in New Zealand, there is no discrepancy in the Ministry of Education's eyes between persistent absenteeism and an absence due to a holiday, I feel there is a huge difference in the two in terms of developing a child's will and the effects on their education.  There will also be quite a difference in overall actual attendance across the year.

It is quite one thing to take measured absences, another to just decide not to bother going to school.

​In the past the ministry hasn’t published individual school absence rates on their website, but perhaps there is a move to push up attendance levels? I was not given a clear answer.

However, neither the intent nor content of the conversation with the school about our family holiday has dissuaded me from the choices we have made nor persuaded me that it's actually my child's interests that are really of concern. 

My children will have a wonderful opportunity to spend two unadulterated weeks in nature, spending their days with parents more fully present than they can hope to have at home with the demands of school and business.

With the way school weeks and terms are currently structured, intense blocks of weeks followed by similarly intense weeks of holidays, quite aside of any financial implications, would any of us really choose to go somewhere at a time (in school holidays) that is likely to be ridiculously busy and full of frazzled people trying to let go of overwhelm?

Now a road paved with less intensity and burn out, shorter school days, shorter weeks and less holidays, more of a natural rhythm and balance, this is something I would support for children and teachers alike.

That said, I can well understand the challenges for a teacher constantly having children absent, having experience myself in the realm of adult training and having managed hundreds of staff for many years. I know it is a rare thing to have a ‘full house’. Absenteeism in the workplace is as prevalent as it as at school, and – I think – for the same reasons.

We inherently feel our freedom within, and are less and less willing to conform to systems that do not allow us to express this. I see people now in swathes quietly and passively rebelling against that which we could call authority, so it was interesting (and perhaps somewhat unfortunate) when the assistant principle mentioned a book he’s been reading The Spoilt Generation: Why Restoring Authority Will Make Our Children and Society Happier by Dr Aric Sigman.

Although I suspect my views and Dr Sigman’s do not differ as substantially as one might think, it’s the deliberately controversial use of his chosen terminology that would set many of my generation against it. The inference is that we’ve ‘gone soft’ in our parenting. While I would acknowledge that we are a generation of parents now having to figure out ideal boundaries for things that were not even thought of when I was a child,
I’m not so sure Dr Sigman’s terminology would attract us to his methods.

In fact, if you’ve read any of my articles you will know I am not an advocate of blindly following any particular system or method for anything. I advocate for people finding their own power, their own answers, within themselves. I therefore hold a vision for an evolution in our education systems (and society more broadly) that would seek to guide a child to look within for their answers.

Much of the help I offer is to people who – like me - are trying to retrieve that sense of authentic self, and have no idea after years of effectively being told ‘others know better’ how to even hear their own inner voice. And I watch as those who've suppressed it are consumed by cancers and other diseases that arise from being so detached from the essence of who they are to even see the connection to the causation, which is usually years of suppressed emotions. It is a fascinating topic.

As to where this leads, I'm not so sure about a spoiled generation, over-stimulated yes. Hence we are now seeing generations of children being born with sensory processing sensitivities and disorders.

But if I circle back to my daughter’s question, about wishing to have been born knowing how to read and write, I think this is a topic worth exploration and research. I had a grandparent exclaim to me recently their awe at their infant grandchild quite obviously being able to understand so much despite not yet being able to talk.

This is well known in child development terms. But what if it goes beyond this? I have read enough accounts of human capability over the years that would lead me to believe that is is quite possible that all that has ever been thought, said or discovered to this point is held in our collective consciousness, and therefore does not need to be retaught again and again, it simply needs accessed.

As I wrote in What We Wonder About Creates Our Future, I am left to wonder at how technology has increased connection significantly yet decreased presence just as significantly. I wonder when people will begin to understand that technological connectedness is a crude replica of the connection that exists to everything when we are able to be fully present within ourselves. And I wonder when the masses will tap into that state of presence and connection, which is infinitely more powerful.

I also wonder when we will treat education as a lifelong journey rather than an obligatory 10 year slot that one should see as a privilege. I wonder when we will wake up to the inherent intelligence in our newborn and help them to access it rather than thwart it each step of the way?

And I continue to wonder at the magnificence of a world that allowed me to bring this conversation to the table, it is a beginning. For all that you might agree or disagree, I believe our systems of education hold far more potential than we are allowing.

Rather than focusing on attendance or methods and a curriculum that perpetuate a society ill equipped to meet the present, never mind its future, we should be taking a huge step back and asking questions that lead to an evolution of the whole thing.

If what you read here resonates and 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

It's easy to get caught up in worries about the future, especially since the media preys on fear. But people who care are doing their part to make the world a better place. Maybe things aren't as bleak as they may seem...read here on Tiny Buddha

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.“ ~Ayn Rand

It’s a funny thing money, a bit like time, it’s a human construct that has almost created the illusion it’s in control – it does, after all, seem to drive a lot of decisions individually and globally.

Perhaps like you, I found myself growing up in a time where fitting in, getting good grades, going to university and getting a good job to earn decent money were the main thrust of my first couple of decades on this earth.

I was so busy trying to live up to all these expectations, and be good at them, that I had no clear idea of where my true talents lay or what it is that would make me happy. If I’m being honest, I thought you got a job to be successful and got married to be happy. I found both to be pretty hollow.

Over the years I carved out a fairly successful career for myself, certainly from a monetary perspective. I had eventually discovered I had a knack for foreseeing what was needed to drive change and make it stick. Having managed people and change for many years, one thing was obvious to me – intrinsic motivation is key.

Ironically, I had also come to know what a soulless merry-go-round I was on.

“How many people are being paid for what they feel is their purpose, their calling, right now? Versus how many are chasing money in order to survive?” I used to wonder. From all I observed, it seems like those following their passion are in the minority.

At what point do we jump off the merry-go-round and stand back to look at the bigger picture?

The Lego Movie is a great parody of our era and well worth watching for those who need a refreshing perspective on the big picture. It helps to laugh at ourselves in order to find a healthy jumping off point, which is precisely what I did.

But how many watched that movie and went back to their cog in the machine? Why are people so willing to put up with a life hardly lived?

Regardless of historical facts and theories, I figure that - however we came to be here – this planet was not under anyone’s control. There was no one handing out land, nor other freely available resources, no one was ‘in charge’; humans simply used what they needed, nature provided. That was our starting point.

So how did we get to the point that most of us have to pay to live on the land nature provided? Why do we have to pay for the food that naturally grew to sustain us? Why do we have to pay for materials provided in nature to offer us shelter?

Worse than that, all the bits we have constructed to come between us and nature (the aforementioned merry-go-round) have made this world less healthy for us all.  Why are we so caught up in a world where money has become the architect of our lives?

There are theories. The best I’ve heard was summed up in the form of a story about a priest in the days of Egypt’s great empire. The priest watched from a platform for many months as slaves were driven to build the walls of some incredible architectural structure. He observed how hard they had to be driven, due their lack of intrinsic motivation, and how much it was costing the state to keep these slaves and their families.

After his months of observing he instructed the masters to free their slaves and, instead, offer them gold to do the same work. Initially reluctant, the masters had no choice but to comply as the priests of the day were powerful. However, they soon relinquished any doubts as they saw the slaves flocking back to take up the coins on offer – overall it was a much more lucrative deal for the state.

“We shall call this democracy” pronounced the priest.

Regardless of theory, it is a story of relentless greed, of one taking from another to feel more powerful. It is a story that can have no happy ending until we each find that the power that is being sought lies within.

The ‘why’ of it all, is less important than what we do about it. With realization, new habits are required to break free of the chains that bind us in so many respects.

When I left the corporate world a few years ago, we also moved cities in a bid to reduce our outgoings and pursue a better quality of life. I was determined to figure out who I am, and it had also become clear to me that our young children wanted to be in their own home with their own parents more of the time.

In moving, we had anticipated I wouldn’t have to work. But, with only a certain degree of willingness to downsize, it turned out there was still a shortfall.  Initially I took up some short term consulting work to bridge the gap.

In doing so, I was sabotaging the little time I had to let the seeds of who I am even settle in their new soil; having grown used to having a small amount of regular reflection time in the short months between leaving the big job and settling in our new life. I had experienced firsthand how answers to questions I’d been asking myself for years (like “who am I?”) began to reveal themselves now that I was paying attention.

Although I had given up work I was still busy, with a household to run and young kids to take care of there is little let up time. I listened to and read anything I could find that was inspiring, I got out into nature and I tried to fill my cup as much as I could in those small pockets of time I had stamped for myself.

My desire to protect that time was so strong that I pursued no more consulting work, recognizing that it put me straight back on the merry-go-round.  That said, while I had faith that things would work out in the long run, I constantly worried about how we were going to pay next month’s bills.

I started meditating regularly, which I define as a practice of continually become aware of your thoughts and releasing them, to help me find the calm and trust that lay below all the day to day worry. Over time that helped me become more and more aware of my thoughts throughout the day and how they were sabotaging me.

One day a new thought occurred to me, “what if I never had to make money?” I sat with that for a while, and realised how the load lightened at just the thought. Sure, I knew money was required to pay the bills, but as I listened to a hypnosis audio on financial success every day for a month, it prompted me to think about the different ways money had flowed to me in the past.

It discussed the nature of money, how money moves based on value and confidence. It was logical, calming and a good gear shift for me in terms of valuing what I was bringing to the table. While it was no longer a top notch salary, the roles I undertake are extremely valuable none the less.

I had balked at the mere hint of being a stay at home mum, reliant on her man’s income; I am extremely autonomous. Yet I didn’t see those playing out the role as superwomen winning either.

Finally I felt at peace and confident about my decision to relinquish the need to make money at that point. This wasn’t an outward discussion, it was an inward shift. While our bank balance still didn’t look at all healthy, I stopped focusing on it and started to talk to my partner about the future again, about what we wanted from it.

We started to dream about taking holidays abroad now that the kids were getting a bit older, perhaps even getting back to the UK to see my family. In some way, that shift in focus seemed to dislodge us from a sticking point.

Simultaneously my partner’s patience with his own work situation broke. Master of his craft, 30 years of experience, yet still working for minimal pay and poor conditions, he wanted to take a hold of his own reigns.

He got set up using the simplest of business constructs here and was off and running with only a small outlay. Not considering himself a salesman, he shied away from pursuing cold leads, instead sticking to known contacts. But his reputation preceded him and he had no difficulty picking up work.

A couple of years in and it’s almost hard to remember those days of wondering how we were going to make next month’s bills, neither of us have looked back. While I inevitably picked up the support role, doing all the invoicing, marketing and bookkeeping, it’s not my core focus and I still have regular time set aside to pursue my own calling.

Interestingly, when I did a review of our income and expenses last year, while the business had done well, just like most years we also received a good chunk of money from other sources that we would not have anticipated. It was just like the hypnosis audio had reminded me, unexpected tax refunds, gifts and so on. Money flows in many ways.

We regularly talk about what comes next now, not wishing to get in a rut again. When we look back on the pattern of our lives, it reassures us that the things we are focused on tend to come about sooner than later – for better or worse.

More than that, as I’ve continued to focus on the pursuit of uncovering more of the authentic me, I have experienced the empowerment that comes from putting my true needs ahead of the many other things that are vying for my attention.

When mum died last year, it strengthened my resolve to live my life now, and to its fullest. With that in mind, money is firmly in its place. It is simply a mode of exchange.

I can see that our relationship with money as a society will change as we evolve, as we each reclaim our power to live the lives that make us happiest and start to trust ourselves as the driver, the architect, rather live a life dictated by the boundaries of our bank balance.

If you understand what I am saying here, you will know I’m not talking about accumulating debt in order to fulfill your dreams. I’m talking about changing your inner relationship with money. Instead of chasing the money, chase your dreams, value yourself enough to put you first – even if, like me, that means taking only a small amount of regular time to pursue your heart’s desire or to focus on finding out what that actually is.

Money is a means to an end, one day we may decide it is no longer needed as a form of exchange for goods and services we need or desire, we may go back to the custom of barter. Regardless of what evolves, it will start with you and I taking control of our own lives, our own happiness.

Use money as intended, a tool to help you create the life you design for yourself. 

If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, 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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“Be the Change that You Wish to See in the World” Mahatma Ghandi

While this is one of those powerful quotes that speaks to my heart, in practice it really feels a bit tricky. Every day I find myself disappointed or frustrated about things in my world, and I know that it’s my reaction to them that can make a difference.

Yesterday, in many countries, it was Mother’s Day. For the first time ever I received a completely handmade and handwritten card from my eldest daughter, it was beautiful. Seeing unprompted words like “to mama” and “I love you” written all over it made my heart melt.

That said, there were other things about the day that I felt disappointed about that didn’t quite meet my expectations of Mother’s Day.

Today I’m reflecting on my reactions and the thoughts in my head they are tied to. Thoughts about our society especially marking the day as something to celebrate, that children will (to a certain extent) learn who, what and how to honour through our example and, most importantly, I am a mother worthy of that honour.

While the thoughts might seem enticingly in the category of a change I wish to see in the world, my reactions were not; I was making all sorts of judgments and suffering as a consequence. Yet I’d much rather be in a world where loving acceptance was the predominant experience over any judgment.

Sure, I can dwell on the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of how I was feeling, and that might create a temporary change in others’ behaviours. However, it’s unlikely to inspire any sort of lasting change. Instead, a more lasting change can be found in my own reactions.

And I recognize that my reactions are tied to experiences and expectations from society and my own upbringing, something I am always so quick to point to as that part of us that is ‘man made’ rather than our authentic selves.

When I take a look at what I really value, it’s there in the first paragraph about Mother’s Day, the unprompted and spontaneous words from my daughter. Those were gold and I, instead of letting that golden feeling warm and light the vibe for the whole day, tempered it with a whole load of other garbage in my head.

Getting wrapped up in my own perspective, making things ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and confronting or avoiding others as a result is not a change I want to see in the world.

Loving acceptance, however, is a change I’d like to see. Therefore I have to be in loving acceptance rather than in judgment.  I know I’m no Mother Teresa, but I’d like to have that level of compassion instead of making judgments and feeling disappointed or annoyed as a result.

There are so many changes I’d like to see in the world, like transparent communication, evolved leadership and evolvement away from our economic, education and healthcare systems and governments. Each and every one has a lesson in there for me.

It will take awareness, openness and ongoing focus and practice to make it happen. Simple, not easy, but I am committed to it.

Talking to my friend’s daughter recently, we were discussing this topic of bringing about change. She was talking about her experiences of the many people she has met in our westernized education system, who are simply subjecting themselves to it because they feel they need to be ‘in it’ to change it. Without the credibility of at least a masters or doctorate, they feel they will not be listened to.

That reminds me of a discussion I had a few years ago with a colleague as I was contemplating my exit from the corporate world. He had taken me on, valued my perspective and championed me in some controversial roles. He felt I could do more good from within than on the outside.

There is merit to being in the game in order to change it. But I don’t have to be in the game in order to inspire others who are. And I can, as Ghandi said, be the change in order to inspire it.

Those changes start with an awakening to and ongoing commitment to my authentic self.

A close friend commented to me last week that I do well in spite of the fact most social interaction brings me out in a rash. It is true, since undertaking this journey towards authenticity and bringing more of who I am into the world, I have literally sported a bit of a rash on my face.

I am not comfortable in the company of most people because I sense they are wearing a sort of mask and don’t even recognise it.  It has been interesting for me to observe in this last few years how I relax more when others are drinking a little (even though I don’t) because their guard drops as they relax and I get to speak to the unencumbered person underneath.

That person, the one who has let society’s conditioning and expectations melt away, is inevitably much more understanding and compassionate and a lot easier to connect with. And so I understand that when I am wearing my mask – like I was for some of Mother’s Day – it makes it harder to connect with those around me and vice versa.

As I more determinedly step out into the world as my authentic self, I still get plagued by all the old thought patterns that ran the show back in the days my mask was the only part of me that ever faced the world. It’s no wonder I get a rash. But it’s getting easier.

I am just thoroughly grateful that at least I know who I am these days. As I move forward taking these small steps, which are actually gigantic in some ways, the world will continue to change in response.

If we each commit to being the person we want to be then, before we know it, the change we wanted to see, the change we learned to be, will be reflected right back at us from all around.  

If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, 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.

“Self is a sea boundless and measureless” Kahil Gibran

A spark ignited when my friend told me she’d spent two hours down at the beach yesterday contemplating this question. At first my mind whizzed with all the possibilities, and then I sat and contemplated the actual question and its inference.

“Who is this self that I don’t believe in?” I wondered. In the realms of our entire existence that felt like such a huge question. So I narrowed it down to two ‘selves’ to keep my head straight; let me introduce them.

There’s Mind-Me, the one that lives this life I’m having in this body and this place, the one everyone acknowledges is ‘me’; even my dad.  Then there’s Big-Me, the one who is eternal, multi-dimensional and omnipresent, the one some people struggle to even acknowledge might be there. That is okay, I don’t.

Yet Mind-Me struggles to trust Big-Me; maybe it’s the little ego Mind-Me is so fond of, or the multitude of experiences Mind-Me has had since birthing into this body, in this place. It’s taken Mind-Me over four decades to begin to understand Big-Me.

Mind-Me likely had the same sort of upbringing as you did. The details will be different, but the gist is the same: There were bad times and good times, struggles and challenges, peppered with moments of upliftment and joy.
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Based on some of the wiring Mind-Me birthed into, and these experiences since arriving, Mind-Me now has a whole heap of tapes playing in my head that, quite frankly, don’t really serve me at all. Meeting Big-Me has helped Mind-Me become aware of those tapes in my head.

Big-Me is amazing, always upbeat, always moving forwards, always seeing the best in everything. But there is more, Big-Me rephrased the question that got me all jazzed up in writing this in the first place.

“How would life be different if Big-Me was in the driving seat?”

How would it be different for you? If that greater part of who you are was to take the wheel for a while?

Holy shmoly. Now we are talking, the playing field really opens up!

But before we go there, let’s give Mind-Me a bit of credit – go on, you do the same for yourself.

Here is the thing, Mind-Me has been pretty good at getting my big girl undies on when there are changes to be made. I’ve never been one to shy away from ‘doing the right thing’ for myself. If I’ve needed to move jobs, leave a relationship or otherwise change things in my life, regardless of how terrifying the prospect, I’ve always taken a deep breath and jumped.

I understand not everyone feels or acts that way, it just depends what wiring and experiences you came into. But don’t think for one second there aren’t a whole heap of tapes in my head that amount to a lack of self confidence and self worth, there are. I just push through despite them and am thankful for everything I have in my life as a result; good and bad.

I realise that to have acted in that way, and to feel that way, I must have always known Big-Me at some level. I had faith that life would ‘work out for the best’ - always – even if I couldn’t see it right then.

So part of me thinks, with Mind-Me running the show, I’m not sure how hugely different my life would be on the outside, perhaps there just would have been less angst and turmoil on the inside which would have resulted in less obstacles along the way.

But then I think about the Big-Me I’ve come to know and, well, that knocks my socks off.

Big-Me isn’t just about confidence. Big-Me has the power to create life as Mind-Me knows it, and far beyond.

​Big-Me lives in abundance and knows only wellbeing. Big-Me is not limited by my physical senses, Big-Me experiences all aspects of life in a multisensory way I only caught a glimpse of when my mum passed over. That is a whole other story in itself, but it was glorious.

Big-Me blows my mind!

How true that is, Mind-Me struggles to conceive of life with Big-Me in the driving seat. That is why Big-Me finds ways to put others’ experiences in front of Mind-Me to help me understand what my potential is.

Listening to and reading about the experiences of others has expanded Mind-Me’s view of human potential far beyond where it lay 10 years ago, even a year ago, and it continues to expand. It’s simply a matter of conscious awareness and applying what I become aware of to my life, so I can add it to my knowledge and experiences.

So how would my life be different if I believed in myself, in Big-Me?

I would have vibrant health rather than having some chronic mumbles and grumbles, along with the occasional acute wake up calls.  I would see the perfection in everything, compassion abounding rather than judgment arising. I would live in abundance, without concern for where I am living or what I am wearing or eating, it would simply all click together. 

I would be love, allowing myself to feel it rather than holding it in resistance as I am apt to do when I get stressed. In allowing myself to be and feel the love that is there, my potential in this body to navigate the wonders of the non-physical world would grow exponentially.

Telepathy, telekinesis, transmutation, astral projection, on and on, become possibilities. What’s more… is the realization that putting Big-Me in the driving seat of my life is simply an ongoing shift in conscious awareness. It is a practice.

Becoming consciously aware of all that I am, all that is possible, is a reflection of more and more of us awakening to the same.  That is nothing short of magnificent.

Imagine the changes in our societies, in the way we live with our planet and all its creatures, and the cosmos around us? We could be free of the chains of the economic system, and of all the other systems it has spurned. We would approach relationships, child rearing, health, education, science, leisure, creative activities, even nourishment, all in different ways. Thinking would be valued not for its limitations, but for its limitless potential in creation.

The world really could live in all its glory, and it is. That is my personal take out from all of this, is seeing just how perfectly all of this is unfolding around us.
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For each of us, life is a journey. But how about we start to explore our dreams and capabilities? Kahil Gibran is right, self is a sea boundless and measureless. So, I ask again, how would your life be different if you believed in Big You?
 
If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, 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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