 Last week my young daughter’s poignant observation that her life was far from free, set off a chain of thought that led me to the point of realizing we needed to do some good old fashioned (and somewhat cliché) dream building with our kids.
That then made me realise just how little time we assign to any conscious creation of the life we actually want. Instead, most of the time our thoughts are lost in everything we’re observing and experiencing and that just perpetuates more of the same. So, as I vowed, I started a conversation with the kids about our ideal life. It has only been a brief conversation so far, which in itself is ridiculous as the kids and I have spent enough time together to have had several really good goes at putting together a pretty good picture of the kind of life we would like. As you might imagine, the kids had no problem in coming up with ideas. What I found interesting was the tack they took in their line of thought. Everything they dreamt up appeared to be based on the premise that they would create a lifestyle purely from nature, and it would involve nothing we have commercially available. When I asked them why this was, they replied that they didn’t want to use money. They have none and they have seen the life of bondage it creates in adults. It was fascinating to realise that the kids and I seemed in tune about our ideal lifestyle, even although I have shared very little with them about the direction my own thoughts have taken of late, involving a great deal of contemplation about getting back to a more natural lifestyle. While we spent only a few minutes talking about our ideal life, it has set in motion further thoughts and comparisons with the life we lead now. I have no wish to make life harder than it is, and it can often feel hard just to think about bucking the ‘normal’ ways of living, never mind doing it. I don’t have any aspirations to Tom and Barbara in The Good Life (a 1970’s British Sitcom about a couple escaping commercialism to become self sufficient), I have more of a vision that the new normal will be a return to self sufficiency and sustainability. To create the kind of lifestyle that we would find ideal needs to feel easy though, and not like we would be pushing uphill, though admittedly alternatives lifestyles are certainly more on the agenda these days than they were in the 1970’s. For example, when I consider the schooling choice we have made for our kids, it has exposed us (perhaps more so than in a state school environment) to alternative lifestyles; mainly evident around food choices. Gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free and vegetarian are all common place dietary choices and, while it certainly poses a challenge to cater for any event that traditionally involves ‘treats’ for a number of kids, these types of food are certainly more widely available and easily obtainable than at any other time in my life. Despite that, food shopping, baking and cooking are not high on my agenda. Neither is gardening, although I do appreciate plucking lettuce leaves and other fresh things from our garden - courtesy of my partner’s endeavours - to eat only minutes later. For my own part, I find it simpler to avoid anything involving catering and am just grateful my daughters’ birthdays generally fall in strawberry season, since these are fairly universally regarded as yummy and meet most of the ‘free’ requirements. While I’m not a zealot, I am an advocate of natural living (including food) and feel that, quite simply, the closer something is to its natural state the better it is for us. Yet here we are plopped right in the middle of an age and society that has created a crazy world (see Escape the Insanity of Your Life) where, instead of it being easy to eat richly beneficial food that grows under our noses on the land where we live, it’s easier to eat food that we go online or get in our car to obtain, and may have been flown half way around the world, be genetically modified, highly refined and/or pumped full of enhancers or preservatives. In this regard, I think I need to take more of a lead from my kids, who were not in the least bit concerned about how we would make any of our ideal lifestyle happen. I was busy telling them we could just trust that whatever we came up with would no doubt unfold so long as we trusted and believed in it. Yet there I was, contemplating all the uphill struggles I could foresee. I know it’s not down to me to make everything happen, and I know things always work out, I have just been programmed the way most of us have. Despite all the work I’ve put in on raising my conscious awareness of the thoughts running through my head, and in starting to focus on the thoughts that are more beneficial, that old societal programming still has the ability to kick into overdrive at times. So much so that a whole week has gone past and the kids and I had only that one conversation about creating our ideal life. What happened to all my intentions of getting them to draw pictures of it? Like happens with all of us, life gets busy. I could give you the run down and you may even sympathise, though most likely you’d simply recognise the same craziness in your own life. That is okay, even if it takes me a month, or six, I know we will spend more time dreaming the lifestyle we want into existence. We’ve just made a start, and that will do for now. What about you and the life of your dreams? It’s almost holiday season; most of us get at least some time out. How about just taking a moment of that to dream a little? You never know what could happen, and it’s certain to at least take you in the direction of your best life. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.
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 Yeah right! Except… what is stopping us from making it that way?
“Life is free and life is fun” said the narrator calmly. “Life isn’t free!” my daughter exclaimed; our kids were listening to a bedtime meditation story. Straight away she cited some examples dear to her heart “we don’t have free (style) drawing at school, we have (designated) play groups and, if life was free, we wouldn’t have to go to bed at a ‘reasonable’ hour.” Of course she is right, from her vantage point, life isn’t free. “You can change that” I told her “you came to build a new world, not live in this one. You just have to be smart about it.” I started in on a brief explanation about focusing our thoughts, then just told her to put her attention on what she wants rather than what she doesn’t want. “Imagine what you want in great detail, as much as you can, and trust what your thoughts have set in motion.” The way she picked that statement out about freedom really stuck me, especially as I had just written an article only last week about the insanity of our lives. “It must be the current theme I’m currently exploring in the journey of life” I mused. It reminded me of another story I heard recently, about a priest in Egypt watching on as many hundreds of slaves were put to work on a building project. After a long contemplation he decreed the slaves should be set free and offered coins to do the same work. There was an incredulous response to this course of action, and so he explained that the slaves begrudged the work, and so were slow in their efforts, requiring constant goading. The slaves were also expensive to keep, they had to be fed and housed. And so, for less money, they freed the slaves who – of course – came back to the same jobs much more willingly for coins. “This” the priest said “is democracy”. The key in this story, and the one of our life, is the contemplation that took place on the priest’s part. Those with true power are those who know that power lies within – within the realms of your thoughts and imagination. We only need to grasp that thoughts really do create things, and we have our solution. Of course, we can keep going round the same old hamster wheel year after year, or we can take charge of our thoughts. Or at least start by just noticing what those thoughts are. As a friend of ours said to me today when I told him the story “yep, we get to choose what we think and how we feel”. This is absolutely true, yet most of us run on autopilot and let our feelings be dictated in response to whatever we are experiencing. So we harvest more of the same. If our thoughts and feelings are running on autopilot, who did the thinking that put the thoughts in there? This was the theme of the article Your Best Thinking = Your Best Decisions = Your Best Life. We all have the choice to be like the priest in the story, to observe and to make smart moves, or equally we can choose bondage, like the ‘freed’ slaves. So life can be free and it can be fun, is yours? Mine is probably like yours, I still let what is happening around me dictate what I am feeling too much of the time. Intellectually I get what I’m pointing to in these thoughts I share with you, but emotionally I get wrapped up in everything from the fights the kids have to the things that are happening on the other side of the world with the people I love. There’s nothing wrong with feeling the range of emotions I feel in response to those things, but they create more thoughts, and the thoughts spiral, and before I know it the whole direction of my day can go down the gurgler if I don’t catch what is happening. So I make it my business to catch these thoughts, to be aware of what I’m thinking and feeling, to simply take the steam out of them. I manage that more easily now than ever because, by regularly meditating (for 15 minutes each day), I have practiced and practiced noticing and letting go of thoughts that aren’t helping me. Now it’s about kick starting my fervent imagination, to create the kind of world I want to live in. In What a Wonderful World This Is, I talked about the great things we have to focus on in the here and now, those create a good backdrop from which we can start to paint the canvas of the future. My kids have an amazing imagination, I know when I talk to my daughter about using it to build a new world that she gets this stuff better than I do; she’s not nearly as buried under layers and years of dogmas and societal constructs and other nonsense that has filled our heads and cut us off from our hearts. Perhaps it is time to write a story of the future, the kind of future where life is free and life is fun for all of us all of the time? This is the story of my life, and your life, and our children’s lives, and their children’s lives. It starts here, today, right in this very moment, invest in a bit of dreaming and you’ll have planted a seed for a better future. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  As I was talking to someone last week about life, existence and human potential, he acknowledged the probability of ‘something more’ because of the astounding perfection found in nature, but felt it was fruitless to pursue it as nothing could be proven.
I reflected on this and realised that is not in fact true, it can be proven – but – only to oneself. There is little value in trying to prove or persuade anyone else to a belief in something that cannot be taught, only experienced. The more I pondered this, I asked myself why it’s important to ask the bigger questions about our existence. The answers are many, but can be summed up simply as the answers lead you to your best life. As discussed in previous articles, like “is religion stopping you from exploring your inner world?”, for many years I simply didn’t think too deeply about the meaning of life, although I did come to a vague point of appreciating that there was more that existed beyond my comprehension. Then, just prior to leaving the corporate world three years ago, I had a number of things fall into place that suddenly opened my eyes to a whole new world around me. Shortly afterwards, I managed to neatly manifest an exit from corporate life with a steely determination to uncover more of the real me, I just felt there was so much more to me and to life than I was experiencing. Over these last few years, I have written to focus my thoughts and understand my feelings, understanding these are the very tools of creation. Thoughts, and the way we feel about them, become things. Taking charge of our thoughts and feelings begins a process of creating life experiences that are wanted rather than a result of lazy thinking. Lazy thinking is – for example – thoughts about hating a boss, a job, a partner. There is nothing wrong in having the thought, the point is to recognise the thought and recognise that unless you do something to change the thought you will continue to experience all the same things in the future. Note I’m saying “change the thought” rather than the boss, job or partner. You can do those things too, certainly the thoughts you have gathered about those will have a lot of momentum and are perhaps easier to change when there are not those specific people in your life. However, if you don’t learn to recognise and change the unhelpful thought patterns that led to those circumstances, you will simply attract them again in a different guise. So, yes, you can change your experiences in life. First there are those experiences with the things that you have personal relationships with – like your health, wellbeing, relationships and wealth. A good place to start, but as you undertake the journey and your experiences validate the power of your thoughts and feelings in your life, keep asking yourself about the bigger questions -“why am I here?”. “what is the purpose of my life?”, “what is the purpose of all life?”. As I did and discovered that the more I come to know, the more I realise I don’t know. Life is exponentially more amazing than I imagined. Muhammad Ali once said “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it”. I’ve known this to be true for a while. So let’s zone into something quite spectacular. Think Star Trek and “beam me up Scottie”, can a human dematerialise and then rematerialise in another place? In the same or a different time and space dimension? Only you can answer that for yourself. I have now had enough experience of my own existence in this physical body and of the non-physical energy that flows through it to believe that is indeed possible. Though is seems a rather intense process to put the physical body through when it is entirely possible to separate all that you are from your physical body temporarily and undertake experiences elsewhere much more easily. I was thinking this as I spent almost 60 hours in a metal tube flying through the air this week to visit loved ones. Now that really takes a toll on the body physically. Yet, if there was a more widespread understanding of the human capacity to do this, people who live at a distance could easily ‘visit’ or communicate with each other without the arduous undertaking of the body making the actual journey. You can remain skeptical of this, but should you wish to explore it, you will find there are examples out there of humans who have and do achieve this. And should you wish to not believe them, you will find evidence for that too. What remains at the heart of this is the controversy that we are eternal, non-physical beings who are simply having a physical experience in this time and space dimension. Instead we see ourselves cut-off from all that is and believe we are only this body and the thoughts it has. But for me, and the experiences that have led to me to this broader understanding of life, so much of the way we live and the things that cause pain are so unnecessary. If every thought that ever existed still remains, it is only energy after all, and you can access that ‘thought bank’ at any time, then why do we ‘educate’ our children? Why do we treat our children as empty vessels that need to “learn about the world”? What if they are actually only needing to learn how to best flow their energy through this physical apparatus they projected themselves into? Therein lies the problem. That is not something most of us know how to teach, and so for generations we have perpetuated this insanely limited and cut-off version of who we really are. What if nature can provide you with absolutely everything you need? There is nothing man has invented that even comes close to the natural world. You might think of modern technology as being something of an example, well, while the internet perhaps provides a conceptual example of what I am talking about in terms of the ‘thought bank’ I mentioned, it is vastly inferior to what already exists. But just look at water, The Miracle of Water was what came of me contemplating this for months as I walked along the beach. But you could do the same with air. Then there’s earth, an amazing ever-changing aspect of the planet, bringing us all that we need to be healthy. If we understood the power within nature to heal us, rather than relying on the synthetic versions produced by companies who are after money, a construct in itself created by humans to what? To keep you busy, to stop you from thinking about the absurdity of working to earn money to be able to buy food and shelter which is already available to every human being on the planet. The only reason it is not freely available is why? Why do governments exist? Why do the leadership of those governments not get the time to make quality decisions? Why do we entrust so much to people who haven’t got that quality time? Quality Time = Quality Decisions = Quality of Life. These are big questions, but money, education, healthcare, commerce, governments, the whole construct of our society today is so unnecessarily restrictive to human potential. If you are interested in opening up to alternatives to these just read things like Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations or Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedar series. And even death, it is thought of as a bad thing, a painful thing in our society. But if we believed we are non-physical and we are eternal, we might have a different vantage point of this process. Ask yourself the questions, start with you, and who you are, but keep asking and you will find that the secrets to your happiness and wellbeing are not so hard to find, for they lie within. To go within, step out into nature, meditate, it’s not hard, you just have to want to do it. If you are not entirely happy with your life, this is a starting point if you want it to be. Asking the big questions will lead to answers, and those answers will help you unlock the secrets to your best life. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Where do you do your best thinking? For me it’s at the beach, which is only a short drive away, and I make it a priority to get there regularly and alone.
Good for me, what a luxury to regularly get to the beach. Not so much, I have moved mountains to make quality thinking time a priority, even then it only happens in short bursts, but anything is better than nothing. If I’m at the beach and my kids are in tow, well, it’s unlikely much of my attention will be focused anywhere other than them. The same applies if I’m with a friend, or anyone else who is going to need my attention. It’s not just people who distract you from your inner world though, it’s all the thoughts that are swimming around your head about what has happened, what is happening and what needs to happen. That is what makes some form of regular meditation so vital, to quieten the less useful thoughts, the fog, and get some clarity and perspective on what is important. There’s no need to make a meal of meditation, the point is to do it regularly, 15 minutes is all you need, allow yourself to get in the habit of noticing and switching your thoughts instead of running on automatic pilot. These last few years I’ve written a lot about how we cloak ourselves in layer upon layer of others’ beliefs and expectations, derived mainly from our early childhood years and societal expectations, resulting in us not really dancing to the beat of our own drum. But what is it that leads to these expectations and how do we break free of them? Well, for a start, think about your beliefs. Do some quality thinking. These days with so many working outside the home, and so much media vying for your attention, it’s easy to get sucked along and not really do much thinking at all. As I read about the leaders of a country being so busy that they really didn’t get the time to make quality decisions, it led me to memories of the corporate world and all the unnecessary meetings and truckloads of email and other nonsense that constantly stood in the way of allowing enough space for quality thinking and, therefore, quality decisions to be made. It leads you to wonder who is shaping the thinking of today’s leaders? I read a thought provoking statement about Hitler the other day, that while his generals were held to account after the war for their actions, what about his advisors, his spiritual advisor for example? The whole thought pointed to Hitler as more of a puppet than a puppeteer. So setting aside that particular example, it does raise an interesting question - who are you, the puppet or the puppeteer? My mum, always so worried I’d be led astray by some dogma or other, asked me quite a few times when she read my early articles about who and what was influencing my thinking. I told her what I’ll repeat here, I do my own thinking and encourage everyone to do the same. Sure, listen, read things, read the opposite just to challenge yourself, but go with what feels right for you in that moment. I recall a conversation at two in the morning with an old mentor of mine (we were in different time zones) who was a whistle-blower on the leadership of an Amway distribution group that had been deceiving people about the extent of their profits coming from the personal development system, rather than the Amway products themselves. He said to me “If something feels off, Shona, trust yourself, it probably is”. That resonated, and it was a turning point for me in terms of self confidence. Over the last 20 years I’ve largely shut myself off from sources of distraction and persuasion – like TV, newspapers, social media etc, and tend to shun any kind of ‘group think’ in favour of my own thinking. You might wonder that I am therefore not abreast of ‘important’ current affairs, believe me it’s amazing what I seem to pick up by osmosis through everyone around me. It’s more amazing what people think is important, yet those same people aren’t taking the time to think about what is truly important. Those who read my articles regularly will know I’ve been encouraging people to start thinking about the big stuff – the “Why am I here? What is life about? What is my purpose?” stuff. It’s important; it will kick you into a different mode of thinking, one that can be less influenced by the plethora of media out there. It’s just as important – more so probably – for our younger generations to think about these things, they are leading us into the next evolution of our world after all. If you get caught up in the drudge of life, before you know it you’re at the other end, wondering what happened and wishing you’d spent more time dancing to the beat of your own drum, rather than doing what was expected of you by others. So what of all this? You do your best thinking and what? Well, you make better decisions, pure and simple. The kind of thinking and decisions many only make once a year (if that) when on holiday. This is how I like to live life. And right now I can tell you I’m happier than I’ve ever been, it’s been that way for a while. It doesn’t mean I don’t have challenges or that I don’t want more from my life, quite the opposite. It just means I make it a priority to make sure I have perspective, so I don’t get bogged down in drudge and get back on a hamster wheel. You are important, you are unique, you are worthy and you are enough. What do you want for your life? How do you want to feel day after day? Only you can make you a priority. If you don’t, no one else will. I can tell you something though, if you will make it a priority to give yourself the space to do some quality thinking on a regular basis, you will absolutely change the momentum of your life for the better. And that is good for everyone. I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Life was designed to be perfect
As were you and I Yet, far too often ‘less than’ is the now prevalent cry Really? Are you able to see what is all around? In nature energy and answers always abound Are we so cut off from our world we can’t see what really is? Instead we live our lives in some kind of indoctrinated fizz We took what was perfect and carved it to our demands Yet have created nothing as perfect or sustainable As already exists in our heart and our lands In fact we took our world and carved it in such a way As to make ourselves nothing but slaves both night and day When I am sick or sad or mad, it’s a gift for me to see What my inner world has been trying hard to tell me Help is always near in the natural world that we live Take a walk, feel the truth of all that actually is Switch off your device Stop listening to that clown The fizz is stifling; it keeps your thoughts spinning round Round the same old circuits, believing you are less Believing in what? The answer is anyone’s guess Whatever it is Is usually designed to keep you down Believing you are not enough Intended to wipe the smile, perpetuate a frown Do you know why you’re here? Do you know how perfect you are? Do you know that in all those questions you can ask The answer is never far Yet most live their lives The questions, even if asked Left unanswered as they hide behind the mask Go take time in nature Reach within and you shall see The answers are already there They exist within me I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others if they inspire, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Hello
I do not know where to begin, only that there must be some words inside to stir your heart with warmth. In the way it has been for generations we treated you like something that needed tamed, shaped. Like a horse, you got broken. This was society’s way, we knew better than the generation before, but only marginally. We stopped physically lashing out for the most part, but our words, feelings and actions were used to control you none the less. You came knowing your worth, your purpose, and your freedom. We have tried extremely hard to cast layer upon layer on top of your knowing, yet you still feel it do you not? Only now there is no clarity, for now we have succeeded in obscuring it. Clarity will come, but you have to seek it. To know who you are, why you are here, why any of us are here, these are important questions. Right now you believe you are learning to think for yourself. If you start to ask yourself these important questions about your life, there will come a point when you realise that your mind – a most powerful tool – is starting on those outer layers. You are heavily shrouded. Your first answers will be tainted. And more. Yet the answers lie within, keep going. What to do? What to say? To fail you, well, that was our path, and it is a perfect path because it can be nothing else. We have failed you miserably, yet not. Bad is good, in that it shows you the way if you choose to listen. We cannot go back in time, we can evolve from today. Your experiences will play their part in our evolution. Celebrate being not normal. Normal is a zombie of yesterday’s paradigm. As the saying goes, you did not come to live in this world, but to create a new one. We need a new paradigm on earth; you needn’t look far to see this. “But I need money to live”… trapped in today’s Earth. Our potential far exceeds the way we live today. Your potential is incomprehensible to those with rational minds; ignore them as best you can. The answers are there to find, look within. Imagine a life free of economic constraints. Imagine a life free of government control. Actually, be more basic, let’s start somewhere else, you are a teenager after all. Imagine a life free of parental control? Free of the limitations of an educational ‘system’. Imagine a life free of your neurosis about how you look? How you will appear to others. What others will think of you. Imagine a life free of sexual desire. In itself this desire is not a bad thing when it is born of love, but born of lust it is empty, soulless, you know this. So let’s go bigger, imagine a world where people act out of love. Wow, a world where people act only out of love? Sounds like a revisit to the 1970’s. Those hippies transcended their self limiting thoughts using drugs. The same exists today. You do not need drugs to transcend the thoughts we have shrouded you in. You only need to become conscious of how badly these thoughts mess with your happiness. Your thoughts are controllable, so are you feelings. Shoot, now I’ve let the cat out of the bag. Learning how to master that is key to mastering your future. Our future. The future of mankind. When your heart breaks, you have allowed someone’s opinion to become your reality. Realize there is nothing but opinions out there. Nothing said before, by anyone, is anything but opinion. There are no such things as facts – unless you would like me to cite the ‘facts’ of yesteryear to see what a ridiculous concept this is. One plus one does not always equal two, otherwise how would you exist? Man plus woman can equal man plus woman plus child in case you didn’t get that. Perspective changes depending on your plane of thinking. Include this stream of words among those that you need to discern for yourself the truth – and that lies within. Look into your heart for the answer. So you, young teenager, have much to think about. It will take you a lifetime so there is no hurry. For now, as always, enjoy what is before you. Just know that you are more than you thought, you are love personified and you worthy of the future you will create. Is that too big? Did I miss the mark? Then we have made you feel too small. The sadness you feel, the hurt you feel, the anger you feel, is you knowing that life is meant to be more. Yes indeed, you are more, and life is more. But you need to ask yourself those important questions – to know who you are, why you are here and why any of us are here - then go seek your best life and we will stand in amazement at the beautiful future you unfold. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  “Who am I?” I asked, “why are we here?”
The answer came and it keeps coming Obtusely my thoughts wander to my young daughter’s creations She often doesn’t know when to stop, beauty rapidly transforms into chaos I note this is where I am in my musings about life There is much to learn None of it taught in school In fact it is perhaps true to say What is important Is undone in school Though the truth begins before that, at the spawning, the dawning, of each life Parents so unaware of who they have created This tale could go on Let’s say for now that you are so much more than you know Our children, especially those in their first years Are much more so Imagine every thought that has ever been Held in a universal memory bank Instantly accessible to anyone to understands how to direct their attention We come knowing If we come able to access all that is and all that has been Then what use is a parent that tries to teach us to fit in to this world when we have come to create a new one? What use is a school system that teaches knowledge rather than enquiry? History rather than how to shape our future? Imagine your child knows all there is to know And you spend all your time convincing them they know nothing Teaching them fear in a bid to keep them safe Now look around, this is the world we live in I consciously try to focus my thoughts now Because I know my thoughts, together with the way I feel when I am thinking them, shape my reality I understand this isn’t some rah-rah designed to get me to hit my monthly target, drive a Ferrari or live in a mansion, this is serious shit This is the heart of all creation My hope for humanity Is that more of you start to take your thoughts seriously To shake off your shackles of yesteryear when you were taught how unimportant you are When you were subjected to a multitude of opinions that told you how unworthy you are And you see all of that for what it is, opinion Opinions that were relentless, when you were powerless Opinions that were manipulated generation upon generation Rendering you a mere shadow of your true nature Please step out of the shadow You are important Please start to take more care of your greatest gift Your thought Use it consciously Use it wisely It can lead you to your worst nightmare or your best life You decide If I can be more conscious of my own thoughts Heed my own words Then there is indeed hope Taking charge of our own lives, our own feelings, our own thoughts This too, is simply another opinion My hope for humanity Is that you look into your heart And you feel the truth of your own power For human potential to flower again This is my hope Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Possibility has been on my mind a lot lately, I seem to be drawn to stories about the extraordinary capabilities of our kind. I’m not talking particularly about the physical feats of athletes, more about what is possible – natural even - in terms of wellness, healing, intellect and communication.
A few years ago when I watched the sci-fi movie Lucy, starring Scarlett Johanssen and Morgan Freeman, based around the concept that humans don’t use more than 10-15% of the brain’s capacity, I cried. Through an accidental overdose of a mythical synthetic drug, Lucy develops extraordinary abilities (such as telekinesis and telepathy), eventually as the drug continues to be absorbed into her system, she is unable to sustain her human form and dematerializes into non-physical energy. I cried because I felt the movie, albeit a fictional account, had hit upon several truths: one being we are all energy coming into and out of form, the other is our conscious awareness of that energy (and its power and potential) are – even when recognised – so underused. Then last year when I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the revised edition with an added fourth part, I felt that also explored the same concept with the added depth of perceptiveness into why humans have shunned the powers and insights available to us. It’s no surprise that since then I’ve also uncovered stories of people alive today who are both consciously aware of their powers and use them to great effect, two recently were particularly interesting. There are the abilities of Teal Swan to divert her waking consciousness to other realms, though her abilities were enhanced by a rather brutal and harrowing start in life. Then there’s the contrasting story of Anastasia, someone you could call a hermit living in nature, who displays extraordinary intellect, wellbeing and knowledge as well as healing powers and astonishing powers of non-physical communication. The interesting thing about these stories, whether you believe them or not, is the possibilities that open up. While I have talked about my own spiritual awakening and the abilities that seem to be opening up in my own life, what I am constantly drawn to are these bigger secrets of the universe. Listening to anyone who clearly channels wisdom greater than that stored in their own head is completely fascinating. It quickly becomes apparent how crude our current science and technology is, and how little we are tapped into both the physical and non-physical worlds around and within us. The question for me is what to do with this expanded view? It’s not that I feel compelled to uncover the secrets of sound energy as indicated by Abraham Hicks in response to a question asked about the pyramids in Egypt, or to investigate the accuracy of Anastasia’s theory for quickly and economically reducing city pollution by 30-40% by inserting a filter of sorts in car bumpers, or the plethora of theories about what our natural environment has to offer or theories in relation to child rearing – in that respect I feel more like I’m awakening to truths already known. As I look around at our world, it’s no mistake that I have felt more than a little dissatisfaction with our education systems, healthcare systems, judicial systems and the very systems of government and enterprise themselves. The premise and philosophies most of our ‘first world’ societies are based on feel too limiting, too primitive and, well, frankly, cut off from what is right under our noses. Many times I’ve wondered about at the questions that arise from apocalyptic stories, and how most of us would fare in a world without ‘modern’ conveniences. And I’ve always been drawn to the ancient wisdom of tribal communities who seem much more in touch with nature and the world around and within them. Yet none of this has compelled me into fields of learning or discovery beyond that which first grabs my attention; I learn what I need to, when I need to, following my intuition. Anastasia was brought up in the purity of nature, in Siberia, well away from human communities of any sort; her raw potential nurtured and allowed to flourish. In contrast I chose a life experience like most, in a society that caused me to close off my intuition early on and learn based on reason, authority and rational explanation. Only 7 or 8 years ago, I was undergoing a Myers Briggs psychometric evaluation as part of a corporate restructure/career planning process that all the senior managers were subject to. By this point in my career I had undergone so many psychometric tests it was hard to keep up with all the labels – and anyone who knows the MBTI evaluation knows it results in 16 boxes you can find yourself in. What really struck me at this point was just how lost I was. In my early twenties when I started doing these kinds of tests, they were fascinating, illuminating even, facilitating lots of personal growth. However, nearing my forties, I was starting on a more determined path to an authentic career. The consultant and I spent a long time discussing sensing versus intuition, thinking versus feeling and judgement versus perception. Now I look back and can see clearly I was emerging from the highly rational, mind-oriented, society-indoctrinated cocoon that had wrapped around Shona Keachie and been presented to the world for nearly four decades. But at that point I couldn’t even clearly answer questions about using my intuition; I just couldn’t decipher who I was. Compare this to the me who has embraced my highly intuitive psychic abilities lately. So I am starting to get a clearer picture about what is possible for humanity, the question is what to do about it? All of this possibility and no clear impulse yet. That is the crux of my musing, life is always full of possibilities regardless of where your spheres of interest lie, the question is what you will do with those possibilities. Of course, I don’t want to get to the end of my life and wish I had done something and instead done nothing, but that is unlikely given my track record. Neither am I going to rush off to the Siberian taiga to find myself, though I do have an undeniable thirst for nature. What I lack at this point is clarity. And that is okay. If I look back at the twists and turns in my own life, I have faith that I will know when the time is right and I’ll act on whatever it is that has inspired me. So I shall just keep interested in following the clues that seem to present themselves – which basically just means I’ll keep doing whatever I feel inspired to do, be it read another book or tune into to anothers’ story or take a walk on the beach. That is all you can do. The world is full of possibilities, can you see those in your own life? Just follow your inspiration one day at a time to uncover your best life. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  If you are of my generation – I’m a generation X-er – or older, you were likely brought up in a culture where there was deference to authority. The word of the government, and those systems run by government (the health care system and the education system), or the word of the church, and the people called to them and employed within them “knew better”.
This was a carryover from the hugely powerful opinions that dominated for centuries. As white men adopted technology and thought they knew better than the “savages” they “civilized” large parts of the globe. Let’s cut to the wise words sung in Colours of the Wind in Disney’s Pocahontas: You think you own whatever land you land on The earth is just a dead thing you can claim But I know every rock and tree and creature Has a life, has a spirit, has a name You think the only people who are people Are the people who look and think like you But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger You'll learn things you never knew And so as the money that ‘great’ British Empire was built upon diminished, people are slowly learning that the great systems of government - even those created in ‘breaking free’ of the Empire - are no longer so great after all. There was a time when healthcare actually involved a deeper level of care, and sadly many who are healers and compassionate in their core are drawn into a system that is more about budgets and targets these days. In the words of Alan Shore, played by James Spader, in Boston Legal: “The fact is the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development. That’s obscene!” Albeit this is from a fictional storyline, it points to something that is evident. Dee McCaffrey (one of the government scientists that put together the original food pyramid, the government’s recommendations of healthy proportions of food groups) talks about how pressure from the big food companies ended up in the pyramid changing, with way more emphasis on bread than was actually though healthy. She also talks about the history of stevia – a natural sweeter that does not upset the chemical balance within your body in the same way as refined sugars and sweetners, and can be harvested quite cheaply in plentiful amounts – and how the company selling artificial sweeteners in the early part of the twentieth century lobbied the government to ensure stevia was discredited and made unavailable. Yet many still look to their doctor for healthcare advice and treatment. Doctors study for jobs that largely involve surgical procedures and pharmaceutical interventions that ‘bomb the enemy’. Look to any war to see the devastation that creates in society for decades, even centuries, beyond. The same is true within the microcosm of society that exists within our own bodies. Alternative therapies and/or complementary therapies have been positioned in a derogatory way next to the big pharmaceuticals. Setting aside energy medicines that are based on the belief we are made of energy and essentially non-physical beings having a physical experience (that is a whole other debate, but you will find fields like neuroscience and epigenetics are now starting to point to this), even those therapies that have a direct effect on the physical system, like nutritional supplements, massage therapy and herbal remedies are often seen as woo woo. Even when they are not, too many people still put their healthcare in the hands of “medical professionals” who are generally less likely to have the knowledge and experience about these alternative and complementary therapies – never mind funding - that can help the patient back to a point of wellbeing. Certainly very few are funded to offer these as treatment routes. Meanwhile there are many more health practitioners out there who have studied many of these alternative therapies in great depth, and continue to keep abreast of the latest research and findings despite the many attempts to discredit or downplay their importance. But because of an ingrained deference to the ‘authority’ of traditional systems, too many people are still missing out. If you haven’t looked lately, over the last 20 years huge swaths of research and studies have been undertaken around the world that seek to understand alternative medicines and their effects on humans, and to understand our emotional wellbeing and its’ effects on illness, and even to understand consciousness itself. I could talk in similar ways about the education system, and its effect on burgeoning humans – and the various doctrines of any church. Dare I say all of these things are simply the perspective of a person. Even those whom channel the energy of that you might call God, or spirit, have channeled it through their physical apparatus with all of its limitations. This is a perspective, it is no more valid or credible – and no less so – than anyone else’s. Each person experiences life from a different vantage point, and (regardless of training and experience) all anyone EVER has to offer you is an opinion. No more, no less. Look to our new generations, who pay much less attention to ‘authority’ because they see it for the falsehood it is, it is only an opinion, and certainly it is not absolute. The only opinion that really counts, the only ONE truth, is the truth you hold within yourself in this moment. I’m not talking about the truth as you were taught to believe it, the one that speaks from the facts and figures stored in your mind, I’m talking about the wisdom that resides in your own heart, your own intuition, which can always discern your own truth, the way that is best for you right now. Putting your life, whether in its physical, mental or spiritual capacity, in the hands of any other authority than your own, is detrimental to your wellbeing. Sure, seek advice, seek opinions, but take charge of your beliefs, question the thoughts that reside as a result of your early upbringing, they may no longer serve you. Not to put too fine a point on it, reexamining your beliefs can save your life. Take your wellbeing into your own hands. Your own opinion is the only one that counts. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  When who you are, your most authentic self, carries a stigma...
“Who the heck AM I?” I wondered. I had just, quite unexpectedly, told my good friend what her dead sibling had to say to her. That was over 2 years ago. I was – and still am – on a deliberate journey to figure out who I am. I had left the corporate world more than 6 months beforehand and had started publishing a blog. Writing helped me focus on what I wanted to say, or find out. As I wrote I came to realise that we are each a bit like onions, with layer upon layer of self-limiting beliefs we have picked up in our lifetime. I also recognised the joy and release in focusing my attention in the present, and that joy is our natural state. The year before I had awakened fully to my spirituality, a series of dots suddenly joining, but this phenomenon was something new. Growing up I had heard about psychics and mediums, if I’m honest they probably scared and intrigued me a little, but I really had nothing to do with anyone like that – mainly because I didn’t know anyone like that. It was the stuff of fairgrounds and gypsies so far as I knew. My upbringing was conservative, as was society. I wasn’t aware of anyone I knew who was ‘different’ in any way. It was really only through media hype, reading fiction, self-development and watching movies and sci-fi that my world expanded. When I watched the first version of The Secret DVD in 2006, I listened again and again to Esther Hicks, her words were so poignant and wise, and I was eventually intrigued by the subtitle “Voice of Abraham”, wondering what that meant. When I later watched The Secret Behind the Secret DVD, which is Esther’s story, I began to understand that she was channeling a more universal intelligence than that which resided in her own mind. At the same time I was starting out in a new country and looking for someone I could bounce ideas off of as I built my life, someone who could give me a broader perspective. A friend recommended a lady who was a ‘psychic remedial psychologist’. The word psychic didn’t sit comfortably with me, but I decided to meet her anyway. I talked, she listened, and she’d reflect back to me what she had heard. Except sometimes she’d reflect back to me what she’d heard without me ever talking. While there was a frustration in not being able to mentally offload at times, what I was hearing resonated so I kept listening and by the end of the session felt lighter without saying much of anything. It was a strange experience really because she never explained what psychic meant, or tried to teach me the art, she simply amplified back to me what she was sensing or conveyed what she was hearing. Only now do I understand it enough for it to seem quite normal to me. Now I can quite easily articulate that, given that we are just energy at our essence, with that energy preceding all thought, and thought (and, more importantly, feelings in relation to those thoughts) creating the experiences we are having, interpreting the energy doesn’t seem so weird. In fact, we all do it every day, it’s called our intuition. Psychic ability is simply the ability to turn up the volume on your intuition. We all have (and generally acknowledge) intuition, we do not all – however – acknowledge the existence of anything more than we can process with our physical senses, nor do we all agree on what that non-physical realm might be. This creates a conundrum. If the fullest expression of who you are is something the world at large recognises and agrees on, great. If not, it can be a bit tricky. Listening to JP Sears talk recently on the topic of self acceptance, I was reminded of a concept that I have heard Eckhart Tolle, Esther Hicks and many others talk about, and it this idea that you are not your beliefs. Your beliefs are, after all, just a repeated thought pattern and can be changed. He was also talking about the importance – for him – of being playful about his spiritual beliefs because this helps to remind him he is not his beliefs. Acknowledging that we each have our own truth, there is no ‘one’ truth, kind of got me stuck in that conundrum for a while. If I ‘came out’, psychically speaking, would I be rejected? And who is the ‘I’ that could be rejected? I am not my beliefs, this I can see. I think it was Esther Hicks that pointed out the need to get others to agree with us is the single cause of conflict in our world and it’s so unnecessary. What you or I believe might shape what we think, do and feel, but it’s not ‘you’ or ‘me’. I then began to wonder whether this ability to turn up the dial on my intuition was ‘me’. Well, it’s a gift, but does a gift define ‘me’? It still didn’t feel like the whole answer. If I take a broader perspective, acknowledging it’s within the confines of my own beliefs, if we are all one energy coming into and out of form, then ‘me’, the one writing this now, is simply a point of focus until this body stops breathing. Like a wave on the ocean. Therefore the “I’ or the ‘me’ who was realizing my psychic ability, can’t really be rejected, only the idea of it can be rejected. As I shared some stories with my parents on how this was unfolding, ‘coming out’ as you might call it, they rejected the whole idea, yet - strangely - I didn’t feel rejected. After some initial feelings of defensiveness and frustration, I asked “do I feel rejected?” and can honestly say that, no, I don’t, I still feel loved. I think this idea of who “I’ am, is just an intention. It’s like the wave on the ocean, perhaps a bit like a wave that finds itself on a river inlet when it had intended to break on the shore of a sandy beach, I just have a sense of what I intended for my life and whether the experience was a match to it. In my corporate guise it was not, just writing and producing articles it was not entirely either. However, when I receive and pass on messages, whether to myself or others, well, that feels more of a fit. Where the messages come from, whether they are a translation of an answer to a desire or a question a person has, or whether they are delusional, is really of no consequence. What is of consequence is whether the messages help. This is how I felt in the years preceding my own spiritual awakening when I’d connect in with my psychic remedial psychologist. I used to call her ‘my voodoo woman’ to my friends, in order to disassociate from the term psychic. Putting aside the term and any construct in her belief system, the messages resonated, so I kept listening. And so it is that I tell readers and individuals to simply take what resonates. It doesn’t really matter how you hear something, in this context or any other, if it helps, keep it; if it doesn’t, ditch it. I can’t say where any of this is going in my own life, there is so much learning and growing to be done to ever be as good at it as my psychic remedial psychologist or the likes of Esther Hicks. I don’t think I’ll be updating my title on LinkedIn to Medium anytime soon, but who knows? It’s interesting that neither of the two teachers I have named (Esther and Eckhart) have ever labeled themselves with their ability, not wanting it to stand in the way of people hearing the messages. While a crystal ball would certainly fit with the image some might conjure, translating energy can only ever apply to what is in the now – and since we each create our own energy and have free choice – we each determine our own future in the choices we make in each moment. I can only tell myself what I’d tell anyone, that when you are in touch with who you really are, and you are expressing that to the world, it can only help you to live your best life, therein making this world a better place. Have the courage to be who you are, the world needs you. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  How many things are there in your life that feel more like an obligation or a chore than a joy?
Stuff You Shouldn’t Be Doing Trusting I’m enough, instead of being the perfect parent, perfect school mum, perfect friend, perfect daughter, I could go on and on, actually requires a bigger act of trust on my part than believing that there’s something bigger than me. Yet if I believe there is something bigger than me, something powerful enough that lines up circumstances and events to bend to my desires, a trust in life that results in things always working out for me (at least in the end), it should follow that I must be worthy of these? That is a big disconnect for most of us, resulting from years of having our behaviour corrected and being told – often in well-meaning and certainly in many guises - we are not good enough. This results in many of us acting out of fear, shame and guilt, doing things we think we really should ‘if we were a good person’; I often have to stop and question these in my quest for authenticity. Right now I’m contending with the annual school fair that the parents at my kids’ school are required to run. I not only feel the pressure myself but see it in so many around me. There is so much to do to get ready for it (it’s a big community event), and too many people dancing to the beat of someone else’s drum, instead of looking at it through the lenses of what they’d like to contribute, the things that would give them satisfaction and joy. Shame and guilt feature prominently in the landscape of already overwhelmed parents. And that is just a poxy fair (not to diminish our wonderful event, but you get what I mean). It takes courage to say no, and to do that without any defense. If you are finding yourself justifying what you’re saying no to, you are still in defense mode. Practice focusing on what you can and want to do instead. I call it win-win-win giving. When you can do that it creates more space in your life for what’s truly important. Stuff You Really Should Be Doing This is about your goals and dreams, the stuff that is both big and small. Do you even know who you’d rather be and what you’d rather do beyond all those obligations you feel? Another way of asking is whether you are acquainted with the person you were born to be? Knowing who I am and what I want, truly, and feeling like that is enough or that I’m brave enough or worthy are ongoing for me. It started with a deliberate journey to authenticity, now well documented, but it continues to be something that takes practice. One of my kids’ favourite story series is about a young brother and sister who time-travel in a magic tree house. I love listening to the stories as the kids (both mine and the characters in the stories) learn so much from their missions. There have been many stories where they’ve helped famous figures in history connect in with their greatness long before it was recognised. In the one we are listening to now, Jack and Annie have gone back to a time when Florence Nightingale is a just young lady, before she ever served on the battlefields, she was an aristocrat spurned by her circle for not acting the way a lady of her breeding should, and certainly it was unthinkable that she should be a nurse. There have also been the stories of helping Wolfgang Amadeus connect in with his musical talent and Leonardo Da Vinci and Louis Armstrong and many others beside believe in themselves. While these are just fictional accounts, albeit written with great mastery, they are a great reminder that the world would have missed out on some amazing inventions, contributions and people if we were simply born to comply with other people’s expectations of us. I will continue to beat the drum of worthiness in my own ears and those of anyone who will listen. If you can trust that you are enough, and ditch any defense and time wasting crap, and trust that the universe will always find ways you can’t even think of to deliver your desires, even just some of the time, you will start to open yourself up to the best version of your life. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  I’ve always believed that – in the bigger scheme of things - things work out for all of us. Sure, we might experience pain – a lot - along the way, but certainly when I look back on my life there isn’t a single thing I’d change. Everything that has happened has ultimately benefited me in some way.
Despite that belief, I have also spent too many years trying to make things happen, feeling like I’m swimming upstream. “If it’s going to be it’s up to me”, I just didn’t realise what that actually meant. I didn’t realise that my work was to figure out what I wanted, and then to trust it would happen. I don’t mean that things would just drop into my lap, though things like that have happened from time to time, often when they are things that – while I certainly wanted them - I wasn’t so wedded to wanting them that I was dwelling on not having them. Like the time I had a salary figure in my head of $150k as being my worth in the market, and out of nowhere I got more than a $25k raise to match the salary I had in mind. I didn’t need the raise, our bills were taken care of, and I wasn’t expecting it. If I had been, I likely wouldn’t have come so easily, that is the irony of feeling needy. Or the time I imagined finding a huge shell on the beach where I usually walk, where there are soft sandy beaches and hundreds of smaller shells, and then I found a great beauty just the day after wishing for it. Or more recently, we started dreaming of a holiday in Hawaii and then were gifted one in Fiji (no need to split hairs, it was a tropical paradise minus the consumerism, so it worked out well). But often there are things I want and I do feel their lack. The big one that so many relate to was when I was trying to get pregnant, which is a whole other story of its own. Then there was coming home from that holiday in Fiji and realizing it had created a desire for more than just 6 weeks of reliably hot sunny days a year, the kind of days where you just want to flop in a pool. Interestingly the first question I get when I share that is “where would you live?” or something similar. The ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ are where trust comes in. I can spend hours researching options and trying to make things happen. I can try to reason with my partner when he says “well I’m not moving, I’ve spent so much time and effort establishing a business here.” But what’s the point in that? The answer may not be in moving, it may be in travelling more or something else I haven’t ever thought of. At this juncture, it’s just a thought, the seed of desire, I feel no urge to check anything specific out; anything I do think of feels like too much effort or not quite right. That is where I’ve pushed through in the past, if I’ve felt it important enough, making it my mission to make it happen. Yet when the timing is right and the stars are lined up, I know I’ll feel inspired to take action if it’s needed and the transformation will be relatively effortless. Too often I’ve experienced happenstance and serendipities to disregard their role in life. There was a time when trusting in life wasn’t something I was inclined to do, but a lot of years of hindsight have helped me see that things always seem to work in my favour in the end, and I wasted too much time worrying along the way. I was reading an old collection of Enid Blyton books to the kids recently, about a family with three small children who live in a caravan and have all sorts of adventures. In one book they look after another little boy throughout the summer holidays as his mum is very sick. There is a conversation between Ann (the youngest caravan child) and Benjy (the stranger) where they’re talking about saying prayers, and Benjy feels his are not really heard (by God, the Universe, whoever). Ann is shocked and says “well you can’t feel very safe then” and he replies that he doesn’t “I’m always afraid something awful is going to happen”. Trusting that life works perfectly if you go with its flow, remaining alert to the things that you feel called to, the things that inspire you, makes life so much easier and much more relaxed. My lesson now is taking this tact with the day to day things that irk me, like queues, slow traffic, fundraisers at school, the school fair (organized by parents), so many things about school! Yet if I can remember to remember that things always work out, it eases the pressure, it takes away the angst of feeling that I’m ‘needing to’ do certain things. That ties in with feels about my own self worth, another topic to explore. Trusting in life and its ability to bend to your every desire, whether relatively trivial or deeply important, takes practice – and it’s a lot easier to start in the realms of the trivial. But just make a start, the very next thing that irritates or inconveniences you (it won’t take long), just try saying “thank you” and remember to remember that things always work out. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Don’t be dissuaded from your own true nature. But be sure to know what that is.
I heard an author talk about virtue recently, saying how undervalued, how unpopular it has become in our society. True perhaps when you look at social groups. Yet I was reflecting that it’s interesting that when looking for a mate, or to someone in authority, or to those we elect, those virtuous qualities are generally still important to us. My mother-in-law came for a visit last week and saw all the banner advertising as she drove into town, we have an impending national election here in New Zealand in the next month or so. She was telling me what a farce it’s turning into and how out of date many of the banners are already due to public scandal and resignations. Yes I live my life happily without ever watching or reading the news, why on earth would I want to track that kind of nonsense? It’s not the world I want to live in and I’m not going to fuel it by giving it my attention. I’m also not entirely sure why anyone else does? Years ago I recall a friend taunting “don’t choke on your halo Shona”, and it really upset me. Not so much because I didn’t want anyone to think I was a goody-two-shoes, I didn’t care whether they thought that or not, what I cared about was not wanting to appear sanctimonious. I’ve never seen myself as superior to anyone, nor anyone as superior to me, morally or otherwise. We can know more about certain things than each other, or have different talents or experiences, but we are all in this game of life together. One affects all. When I was a child, there was talk of our school fighting another school. I don’t know how this started, but I do know even my best friend turned up with a wrench. I was scared, not so much of getting hurt as I had no intention of being anywhere near, but that this pointless bravado would result in others getting needlessly hurt. I just knew the right thing to do was blow the whistle, so I did. I have no idea if anyone ever knew it was me, I wouldn’t have proactively told people but wouldn’t have shirked away from an answer if I had been asked, yet no one ever said anything. Now as I see even my young 6 year old in school, there’s something about a social group that seems to bring out the worst in human behaviour, all in pursuit of being popular. Why is bad behaviour so popular among a group I wonder? And why does virtue tend to lack more when people think they can get away with it? I think we generally rebel from feelings of being quashed ourselves, being indoctrined into society means being told what not to do, and rebuked for doing it, from the moment we start to interact with the world. Less than virtuous behaviour is generally our way of clawing back power, yet the irony is that the power always resides within us. Virtue is not just for the few, virtue is a quality we are born with. Yet as adults it is often proffered as an undesirable trait, naive even. No one wants to be seen as naïve, nor as overly goody-good, why not? I want people to treat me in a virtuous way, with honour and kindness. I want to live in a society that displays that in its political systems, corporations, education and healthcare. We seem to be born into this world in pretty good shape, loving, full of joy and self worth, then we become subject to the opinions of others. Why do we place so much importance on those? I understand as a youngster so much is out of our control, big people are in the driving seat, and boy we seem to do a lot of damage in a short space of time. It’s like a collective collusion to disable our next generation. In the guise of teaching what is right (which, frankly, does not need taught, only demonstrated) we seem to knock down and rebuild; rendering the adult a former shadow of the self who arrived as a baby, and more of a drone. The birth of new generations perhaps takes us inching towards a better world, but the pace is painstakingly slow, encumbered by the relentless tides of knocking each new hope’s self confidence and filling heads with utter nonsense. Wake up people. You were born to this life with a purpose, you came knowing love, self worth, knowing virtue. Love yourself enough to be virtuous . You are not powerless, you always have the choice to do the right thing, and it is never fruitless nor too late. You don’t need to take a stand against anything, you just need to take a stand for the right thing. Fighting against something, anything, is a waste of energy, it fuels the very thing you want to get away from, just focus on what you do want, and live that life. Small things, figuring out the right thing to do can sometimes perplex, especially when ‘”doing the right thing” has become somewhat of a euphemism for sacrifice. The fact is, if it doesn’t make you feel good, trust your instincts and don’t go along with it. Like this week when I was angsting about throwing a birthday party for my kids who both have birthdays coming up in the next few months. I simply don’t want to do a party for either, but both my kids love parties and want one because many of their friends have them, so I was feeling like maybe I should. In the end it took someone wiser than me to point out that it is a better thing to teach the kids to be true to themselves by being true to myself. There are plenty of things I feel inspired to do for the kids, and they don’t go short of anything really, but this is not one of those things. Each of these little dilemmas in life provides insights to our best life, and the answers are easier to find when you allow yourself a bit of space, taking regular time to fill your own cup. Try and get out into nature, take your lead from the examples all around. Despite some of the atrocities in the world, the sun keeps coming up, doing its thing. The leaves keep growing, shoots keep forming, rain keeps falling, and rivers keep flowing. Nature is not dissuaded from its true nature as we are, so it’s easier to get grounded in nature, tethering your resolve to its aspect. Look within, be virtuous, and you will be victorious in living your best life. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  I watched a rather confronting documentary about dying after a friend recommended it. Death has much to teach us about life, and I am always an interested student on that topic.
It was a western man interviewing an old friend of his, they had both travelled far from the urban life of their childhood, and over the years his friend – a wise scholar and sage – had increasingly immersed himself in traditional indigenous thinking and practices and earned the name Griefwalker for the role he played in helping people to die well. While the riddles of many of the indigenous stories are not my favoured path of learning, I understood the sentiment with which they were spoken. We shy away from death, we sanitize it and we fear it, yet it is a part of life. As a flower will bloom and then fade, so do we, each stage having its own challenges and beauty. Many barely have a grasp on life, feeling like ‘someday’ they will have their time in the sun, so death seems cruel, a punishment. Yet when my great aunt died recently, I could feel what a welcome release death has to offer when the body is both sated and weary. But she was one of a minority these days that recognise death in its approach, and welcome it in. In the documentary, a couple said farewell to their young child, who had been kept alive only by medical treatments – every treatment and surgery was exhausted and she was now being kept alive with constant blood transfusions. Griefwalker asked them whether they thought these transfusions were strengthening or depleting her, the man narrating referred to her as having joined the list of those officially not allowed to die. The couple stopped the transfusions and took their 2 year old home. And so she died well, not surrounded by machines and strangers, but by having some time out in nature, and at home in the arms of her parents. Western medicine and its approach is limited to fixing problems, but the underlying premise is that disease, injuries and death are unwelcome. Yet all have a part to play in our life here, all point to burdens we carry and can let go of if only we knew how to live well. To live well is not to fear death, but to be grateful for the life we are living, including all the things that feel bad at the time, and live it to its fullest. That includes being the fullness of who you are. Dancing to the beat of your own drum, hearing the beat of your own drum and its insights, and knowing that your dance is a good one, an amazing one that will forever change you and the people and world around you in ways unforeseen, that is the fullness of life. To cower in the shadows of others’ opinions, to remain frozen in fear or fierce in defense, that is a life not even half lived. To know that life will present you challenges but that you will handle everything as you always have and always will do, and that everything always work out for the better, that is to face life head on. Death, death is nothing but the transformation to something else. Here, in this life, you could call it transformation to a memory, or a legacy, transformation to dust. This is what many fear the most, that the memory will fall short, that the legacy – if there is one – falls far from the mark in their ideal state. The regret turns to a life half lived, dancing to the beat of another’s drum. But you, you are not dead. Yes you are dying, that is the paradox of life. If you have breath in you, you are still living and you can still find the joy that resides in being brave enough to be you, fully you, to seek your truth, to speak your truth and to feel love for yourself beyond any you feel for any other. To understand and forgive yourself for ever being unkind or feeling less than worthy, to know that you are enough and to know that there is enough for everyone to do and be anything they really want. This is life. To see the atrocities and be as thankful for those in the world as you are for the cherry blossoms and miracles that occur every day, is to have the wisdom to know that life and death, that joy and sorrow, and wellbeing and pain, are all players in the same game. Without one the other cannot exist. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  “Do you ever worry about all the suffering in the world?” the kind looking gentleman asked me after introducing his besuited grandson. These strangers stood at my door, the older man holding leaflets in his hand. “No” I replied with a smile.
“No? It doesn’t worry you?” he looked at me as if quite stunned. “No” I reaffirm, “If I worry about all the suffering, I just add more energy to it; I can’t help those suffering if I join that club of worriers.” The man looked at me, “yes I suppose that is true” he said, thrusting the leaflet in my hand. “Take this anyway” he smiled and quickly ushered away his grandson who stood a few steps behind him. “Really?” I thought “is that their angle to start a discussion about finding God?” I’ve always been one to call a spade a spade, call out the elephant in the room, but let’s not wallow in it. Call it out to dispel the fear. This week I was offered the chance to pick up the Cloud Cuckoo Palace Lego set. While the Lego Movie isn’t one my young kids are even aware of, I indulged anyway. A few years back, one of the more significant (and fun) pieces of work I ever spent time on in the corporate arena leveraged that very movie. I could call it ‘the transformation that almost was’ as it didn’t get it’s time in the sun due to – ironically – micromanagement, ego and fear. We were working on an inward culture change in order to significantly lift the morale and the customer experience, with the added benefit of efficiency. I was working with the guy who looked after about a third of all the company’s staff, mainly call centre based, he was a visionary and he too was happy to call out the elephant in the room. Emmet’s journey in the Lego Movie was such a parody of life in that part of the company, I was inspired to use clips from it edited into a video interview I did with the leader. Given the demographic of the staff and the company’s brand culture, I knew it would have great cut through. Using humour to say “we know this is what it’s like and we recognise there’s more in you and we want to make things better” was the right thing to do. While there were significant parts of the programme of transformation that did happen, like leadership assessment and development, momentum popped like a balloon as large amounts of the follow up work never got off the ground and others were swept under the carpet, the leader ‘left’ and much of the work now sits in the Philippines. So I chose Cloud Cuckoo Land, it’s much nicer. Though there is one difference, there is no “stuffing down of negative feelings” in my world, that leads to some nasty side effects. Earlier this week I was listening to some authors talking about a programme they’ve developed called “Shadow Work”. While I don’t think their video was a great introduction, a bit too much wallowing in the suffering seemed to be going on, I like the expression. Shadows are only cast in light, yet many live among them constantly. They accept the shadows as their truth, fearing that if they walk out into the sun they will be burnt. Fear is created in the minds of people and, just like in the Lego Movie, perpetuated in society, systems and government. It is perhaps a mix of well and ill intention but, regardless, fear is not welcome in Cloud Cuckoo Land. We should never be scared of the shadows, without fear they serve more to sharpen our focus on the type of person we wish to be and the type of world we want to live in. This year I have watched as someone close to me has been faced with their own shadow. A shadow common in our society, cancer. It is interesting that our bodies produce cancer cells all the time, yet in some people they can lead to such suffering at specific points in life. Years of stuffing down emotions, perhaps putting the needs of others before their own, living in fear rather than in love for ourselves, manifests as these devastating diseases. The body’s last attempt to wake us up, to relieve itself of the burdens it unnecessarily carries. For me, this translates to a different kind of shadow. In the last few years I’ve become better and more attuned to reading the energy that surrounds us. When people are looking for answers, they evoke their own solutions but often they hold themselves from those answers as they sit in fear in the shadows. When someone asks “Why me? I didn’t ask for this” I hear an answer. Often it’s not a question they have asked outright, more of an anguished cry within. So being in possession of an answer that someone hasn’t directly asked me can be weird, and I will usually share what I hear but tell them just to take what resonates. I want to help, to sooth, but when someone you love doesn’t want to hear, well, that is a shadow right there. Accepting another’s right to choose is fundamental in my book, yet the desire for me to help, to sooth, remains. I do not feel good in that shadow, but I see that it is there and it teaches me about my own choices. I do not stay in that shadow for long, I thrive in Cloud Cuckoo land and I know it’s from there the right inspiration will come to me to help ease suffering where I can. Yes there are some stinking situations in this world, yet you can still choose to live in one that focuses on magnifying the many wonderful aspects within and around us and focusing on creating more of that and wondering what can be. That world, the one that some call Cloud Cuckoo Land, is where many of our most inspired contributors have come from, from inventors to composers, artists to the various spiritual teachers upon whom world religions have become founded, and even business people and doctors and scientists. Given the choice is mostly in our own hearts and head, Cloud Cuckoo Land is the one I choose to live in anytime. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  “Do not touch that!” I screech at Jenna, looking at the pop-up that appears on my screen asking whether I really want to discard the email I had been drafting. I have a vague awareness of the crestfallen look on her face as she slinks beneath the keyboard on the desk where I am busily focused.
At this precise moment I am driven by a desire to sort out an issue with the telephone supplier, wanting to hand off the details to someone with the power to action them, before taking the kids to school. This sense of urgency I feel is conflicted with the need to fully focus on the kids at this time of day. As I press send on the email awareness returns to my surroundings. “Oh Jenna” I say, she’s still under the keyboard looking glum, “I’m sorry; mum was a bit grumpy then huh?” She slumps into my arms for a cuddle, and then I refocus on the task at hand, fleetingly thinking that perhaps I should have just left the email until later. This may seem minor in the scheme of things, and it is, but I could recount many examples in each day where I am somewhat distracted and growl at the kids, or my partner, or inwardly (mostly) to anyone else who happens to interrupt wherever my attention is focused; I like to get things done. The world of handy devices makes it so much easier to multi-task, except we aren’t actually wired to focus on more than one thing at a time. It can’t make for a very nice experience of being with me at those times I’m sure. Each week as I sit down to write these articles, it’s always to reflect and share what’s inspiring me in the moment, always linked to the lessons I’m learning. When I read them to my partner he says “they all sound the same to me, different circumstances, but you’re saying the same thing”. True, the basis of a happy life is simple, think good things, feel good things, and more good things will come to you. “Yes, “I say “I need to keep writing about it to drum it in.” The problem is, imperfection. At birth we arrive in our complete perfection, knowing it, then life (in the guise of often well-meaning people) sharpens our edges and we grow into adulthood with fears, insecurities and a lack of self worth. We humans are a bit clunky at all that for now. Loving ourselves in all our humanness is one of our biggest challenges; even knowing ourselves is a challenge. There are so many versions of us; certainly there’s the happy, inspired version and then there’s the version under stress, when we are far from our best. These days that super stressed version of me isn’t around as much as it used to be, but it certainly presents itself often enough to remind me it exists. In the past I’d likely even have lacked the awareness that I’d hurt Jenna’s feelings, the little 4-year old who just wanted some of her mum’s attention, far less apologised. It’s more likely that my mood would have spiraled in self righteous indignation at having been constantly interrupted – and included more yelling at the kids about them not being ready. We expect so much of ourselves, and certainly there’s nothing wrong for aspiring to be the best version of who you are, but you have to cut yourself a break. I find myself dwelling on the things I could have done better, then I remind myself that those things have passed, and there is zero benefit to wallowing in any bad feelings about it. Then I feel bad that I even wallowed. As I say often, I am a most imperfect being, and thank goodness because it’s taught me some valuable lessons in life, heralded some magnificent opportunities and growth and reaped many rewards in that awareness. But I am quite sure I could embrace that imperfection without the constant beat up sessions. Perfection is the aspiration, imperfection is the inspiration. Like everything else in life though, it’s about the journey, not the destination. If I am trying to get things done and other things keep getting in the way, I know enough now to see it’s actually a sign that I just need to be more present, let the other stuff go until it can have my full focus. One thing at a time. So I am thankful for this morning’s distraction and imperfect parenting moment for reminding me that I do not need to get everything done all at once. We have not transcended our humanness and become superheroes. Embracing our imperfection in this way can only help lead us to our best lives. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Regardless whether you believe in more or not
There is consensus in life joy is sought ‘Tis always there, though not always sensed In our hearts, too often fenced Shrouded in details that life has brought Leaving us – well - overwrought In later life all becomes clear A sensing of an ending near Time worrying is wasted indeed Let not regrets take seed Instead look into your heart And you will see, as from the start Your capacity for joy remains with you still And in each moment take your fill This one is dedicated to my gran, Joy, who took hers in spending the latter part of her life dancing to the beat of her own drum, silently teaching us the power of focusing only on the things you want in life and ignoring the rest.  I don’t know about you, but despite have an unfailingly optimistic attitude that everything comes right in the end, I seem to spend most of my days caught up in ‘stuff’.
Don’t get me wrong, there are things I make space for each week, when I make it my business to soak in and appreciate life as it is now and ponder what can be, like snatched walks along the beach, short daily meditations, weekly yoga and writing these articles. Yet, too often, the prevalent experience of my day can tend towards grind. Things like getting up and out each morning, listening to the kids argue, drafting quotes and invoices, getting washing done, tidying, just being the parent when the kids are tired and whiny at the end of the day, being stationed in the kitchen for (what feels like) endless hours and many things besides, it all seems like a distraction from the main event. Then when my partner comes home, I sometimes have this attitude of having survived something. Sound familiar? So what is this main event I think I’m missing? Sure, more cup-filling time and solitude would go down a treat, but really, it comes down to attitude. Switching from an attitude of resentment, all grumbling and grumpy, to one of gratitude is a bit of a trick and requires deliberate focus; like any new habit. If I look back, it’s easy to see in hindsight that the nasties life has thrown my way have always turned out to be blessings in disguise. From the heartache of being ditched by one that was loved to the challenges of illness and the deprivation felt in failed pregnancies, every cloud has had its silver lining. That’s the big stuff. What about all the humdrum day to day guff that we all just have to get on and deal with? Well, it’s a funny thing, I look back and really struggle to remember most of it. I’m quite sure my life in the decades up until now would have consisted of multiples upon multiples of daily tasks and experiences, that I would have had my energy all wrapped up in for most of the time, yet they are so inconsequential I struggle to remember. It’s not even that I have no conscious recollection of them, the bigger surprise is that the emotional resonance is, well, not there. Fast forward to the present day, that tells me that I’m wasting energy angsting when instead I have an opportunity. Sure, it could be an opportunity to focus on bringing a housekeeper, personal assistant and nanny into my future but, if I’m honest, it’s not that bad and I kind of want to stay in the driving seat for most of it. That tells me there is a payback in there and when I start to unpack it a bit more, I realise it’s a healthy payback, so I need to start focusing on the positive aspects rather than the negative ones. If I was feeding something unhealthy, well then I’d go back and read my own thoughts on breaking out of my comfort zone, but this is about changing my habits in terms of the way I view these things. Another way of putting it could be putting my big girl undies on and see these things as first world problems to really prod me out of a pity party. The truth is, I do feel a sense of privilege when it comes to my life and my kids. I’m exactly where I want to be in order to be the kind of mum I want to be. To be in the driving seat of example setting is a privilege and a responsibility, so I need to take responsibility for my own attitude and stop fighting against something I’m actually wanting. Sure, I can relook at each of the tasks I’ve put in the drudge basket and question whether they are actually serving me, or if I’ve created some kind of expectation around them I need to drop, and I will; but mostly it’s just a dawning that nothing good in life is as sweet as when there’s a challenge behind it, and sometimes that challenge is just about being grateful for the small stuff. Just like the surfers who patiently await the right swells, who spend endless days waiting for the right conditions and then hours floating on the ocean in order to catch a handful of satisfying waves, I remind myself that life is just a series of moments. Without the day to day in between, we could not create such moments. In each of these small, seemingly inconsequential, instances where our thoughts are ticking over, we are observing, learning and adapting. We inch forwards and then we have breakthroughs. The day to day grind that I was referring to is indeed something I am learning to be thankful for. It’s like the carver chipping away at a block of wood, slowly, slowly, a new shape emerges. The biggest gift I can be thankful for is our ability to create our own experiences. We have the gift of thought, and we can choose good ones or bad ones. Bad ones will yield more bad experiences, good ones will yield more good experiences. Simple really. For that, I am truly thankful. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  This idea that “you complete me” is prevalent in our society, but what I’ve learned on this journey to me is that I am already whole; we all are. Others can inspire us to greater heights, amplify back to us the love we have within and make the journey richer, this is all true, but ultimately, you are the greatest love of your life.
Circumstances have led to two separate and – on the face of it – very different friends visiting us on the same weekend. I’ve learned to trust the twists and turns in the path of life, and so I began to wonder at this odd coupling of events. Then it struck me what both our friends have in common, something many of us can relate to, is that both feel somehow incomplete without another. In each case the situation is quite different. For one, the death of a sibling has left her wrangling with many mixed emotions; not least is this sense of not knowing who to be in the world without the other. For our other friend, a new relationship heralds another circuit in the quest to find happiness. As I reflected on this, and the experiences in my own life, I gave inward thanks for the unburdening revelation in this journey to me these last few years that I am already whole. I met my partner at a point where I’d just left a long-term relationship and was finally – for the first time – happy to be single. I really had to stop and think hard about whether I wanted to commit to another relationship so soon. Yet there he was. At this point I suppose looked upon love more as being parts that come together to form a whole. Yet I wanted to know more about that part that was me. We talked about the need for autonomy, as we were both still reveling in the joy of dancing to the beat of our own drums. We both wanted a family in our future, and someone to share that with. Our journeys were taking us on similar paths, so we decided to walk together awhile. Over the years our respective conditioning has led us, particularly under times of stress, to make demands of the other that do not speak to autonomy. This pervasive idea in our society that another has a duty towards our happiness is unhelpful when – as humans – we are ultimately selfish beings wired only for our own happiness. Somehow, we have gotten caught up in the idea that sacrificing our own happiness for others is more honourable, and that – somewhere on a fabled scoreboard of life – that is ‘better’ than acting selfishly. The predominant experience was one of feeling chained to a path neither was certain they wanted to take. Under enormous stress financially, bereft of time to ourselves and enslaved to tasks of our own making that felt ‘necessary’, we were not kind to each other. We looked to the other to lighten the load, fill our respective cups, and bend to our will. Yet a wonderful thing has happened, in each selfishly pursuing our own desires and dreams, doggedly determining to be more of who we truly feel ourselves to be in this world, we have maintained the same direction in our journey. We smile, and decide to continue walking awhile more. These desires, judgments and expectations in those middle years were felt acutely, so how did we move past those? How did I move from being a human who felt that I was a only piece of myself to one who felt whole? Like all journeys, it started with a single step, with an unequivocal desire – in this case – to be all me. The journey is well documented through my articles, but on this particular topic is true to say that letting go of the judgments and expectations I felt was a key step. I reexamined everything I believed to be true about myself and the world I was living in. Did I really need to be responsible for bringing in an income as well as being the primary caregiver in the family? Did pursuing my passions need to generate income in order to justify it? Did time for regular introspection and contemplation require some special reason? It’s a funny thing. As I started to change my own expectations, the world around me changed too. At first I was defensive, still acting from a point of justifying why I wasn’t doing those things I felt were expected, but then I started to fill my own cup with more and more of the thoughts and things that make up that part of me I felt to be who I truly am. I wrote more, I walked more, I opened up more to my own dreams, and to my partner’s dreams. It took time, it took patience and persistence, but once the journey had begun there was no going back. Once you begin to uncover who you are, the power and love you have within you, there is no turning around. What becomes evident is that you are not simply a part of a whole, you are whole within and a part of everything. But there is nothing lacking in you that you need another to fulfill. In fact, once you discover your wholeness, you will find you have a lot more to give, and a lot more to gain. I thought I knew who I was, way back when. I had all the profiles and credentials, but I was not happy. When you are seeking something outside of yourself, in order to give you confidence or make you happy, then, no, you do not yet know who you are. When you know who you are, you know that you are whole. So I say to my friends, and to you, who are you? Be all you, know you’re wholeness, and in that you will find more love than you ever thought possible. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Many years ago I heard someone say “whatever you give the majority of your attention to will be your greatest contribution”. It made me sit up and take notice at the time, I had been busy setting goals and creating vision boards, but this made me realise I was inadvertently creating an entirely different life than the one I wanted.
My greatest contribution wasn’t going to be that great at all based on the trajectory of where my attention was focused in those days. A life of corporate and personal frustration would have been a good prediction. While my journey since then has been well documented over many articles, it’s something that has come up for me again recently, and I expect it will continue to throughout life as I continue to grow and change. As I shared in Break Out of Your Comfort Zone I have been in a place of exploration these last few years, not having a specific vision or big goal for the future, only knowing how I want to feel in each moment. Yet… since I wrote those words I have wondered. Much of my attention has necessarily been on the children these last few years, figuring out where this skill of parenting fits with all I am learning about the meaning of life. But since I have been exploring for a while now, sifting through experiences that point to what I do and don’t want, I thought I’d run a little test and see where my focus actually is. That might sound silly, but we are never entirely aware of each and every thought. Given the average person has an estimated 60-70,000 thoughts every day, we would probably go insane trying to monitor them all, certainly it would render us pretty useless at any other activity while we were doing it. Of course, the fact we are never aware of all our thoughts doesn’t stop them creating our reality, which is why using our feelings as a barometer works well. Dreams too, forget the content, taking a high level pulse on whether your dreams feel good or bad gives you an accurate indication of whether your thoughts are serving you. Also, even when we do dig in and figure out some of our negative thought-patterns (also called self-limiting beliefs), it’s not like they suddenly disappear. I think of them as a car heading along a road at a good speed, a sudden stop is possible, but usually at great personal expense. Instead we have to slow the car down before we can go in another direction. In thought terms, we slow down self defeating thoughts by deliberately planting and cultivating new ones. The trick though is to only to focus on ones you actually believe. There’s no point in you setting yourself a goal to becoming the world’s greatest pianist if you simply can’t believe it’s possible. Instead find something that is headed in the right direction that you can believe. Perhaps in this example you’d start off thinking about how great you feel when playing the piano, and how Aunt Betty loves to hear you play – make it a goal to play for a group of her friends. A series of small steps that you can believe is better than a giant leap that feels unachievable. So my little test was to just sit and write in my journal for a while about what this time of exploration has taught me about what I want and don’t want. I’ll confess it was a lot easier to start with what I didn’t want, and then articulate what I did want. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering, but I find that until I get it down in writing – the most focused form of thinking – my head continues to spend too much time ruminating on what it doesn’t want. It was this vague awareness of some negative stuff rattling around that made me want to purge what was in there and gain clarity on what I do want so I can focus my attention more intentionally. Mine are things like not wanting the school machine to dictate our lives. I want a more relaxed flow, I want our children to have what they need to unfold more in their own style, while maintaining some space and autonomy for me. I don’t want a life of deadlines and objectives written by another to satisfy, I want to call the shots and work from my own inspiration, to my own timeline. While these may seem quite broad, they are specific enough for me to start focusing on. I don’t need to keep dwelling on and revisiting the examples and things I don’t want, they will just keep what I do want at bay. I also realise that for some, the things I want might seem impossible or selfish. That’s okay, they’re not your goals, you need to set ones that work for you. Different ways of focusing your attention work for different people. I’ve mentioned here that writing is the most focused form of thought, so it’s a good way to start. Visualization can evoke powerful emotion, so if you can regularly visualize achieving what you want it will create faster momentum and bring it into your life quicker. There are many tools out there to help you, just a quick Google search on “visualization techniques for achieving goals” brings up hundreds of examples and articles. The important thing is to just start by taking a bit of a litmus test on whether where your attention is currently focused and ask yourself whether it is helping you to lead your best life. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  When there is a list of things you could or should do, yet nothing floats your boat, and there are many things you’d rather do, but you just don’t seem motivated enough or circumstances just don’t seem to be lined up enough to make it happen, what do you do?
My partner told me recently he was in the doldrums. It only lasted about 2 days, but I could see he was there. It’s a tricky place to be, you’re not feeling inspired to take any action yet you don’t want to wallow in any thoughts about your circumstances not lining up in case they take seed and sprout more negatives. Tonight he talked about this vacillation of feelings he is having about having not enough work and then having too much work (he made the leap to self employment last year). I smiled, asking him which was more helpful, to worry about future work or to be grateful for the work he has and has planned, and in fact to be grateful that not once in his career has he ever been without work. He smiled, I watched as his energy shifted, then the phone rang, and it was an inquiry about another bathroom renovation, a referral from his last client. “Wow that was quick” I thought. He’s been shifting gears, his desire is to continue with the renovation work he loves, but to change the smaller jobs into between from tiling to glazing, and he’s a master with frameless glass. So, he stopped chasing small tiling jobs and was still. Now I don’t mean he stopped working, he’s in the middle of a meaty renovation right now, but he did decide to stop working 7 days a week and take the weekend off. He got himself in the doldrums because, instead of getting out into nature where he would have felt soothed and content, he sat and watched TV instead. Have you ever noticed how TV saps your energy and dulls your motivation? Being still is hard to do when your body is used to being on the go all the time. If you can get out in nature, you can keep moving and yet let your mind come to rest at the same time. I have a friend who recently told me that pounding the streets and walkways around her neighbourhood each day was literally a life saver. She really was quite depressed, having made the decision to switch over from her corporate career to something more fulfilling. Despite a range of work that she had picked up, and much investigation into things that were of interest, that ‘something’ hadn’t yet appeared and she was struggling to make ends meet. After she started walking, it helped her to come to a place of stillness within herself, peace you might call it, or perhaps surrender. Now she has a part time job doing something worthy that she finds fulfilling. Whether that is her long term ‘thing’ is yet to play out, but it’s better than where she has been lately. Another friend and I were talking about some issues in our lives, the angst she was feeling over her child’s sleepless nights, my angst over the comforts and escape my kids seek out in too many treats and TV programmes. As we were talking I realised, here we were giving more energy to the problems by focusing on them. Instead, I become conscious we needed to focus on our kids’ wellbeing. Actually, more accurately, I needed to focus on my own wellbeing. I continue to wonder at the wisdom that pours out when I write and the regularity with which I need to take my own advice. Put your own lifebelt on first, then you are in a position to help others. I can’t say I was aware of feeling bad as such, except about those issues with the kids, knowing that the long school days are at the heart of it and feeling powerless to change the system in this moment, but the fact I was dwelling on the issue at all is a big indicator I needed to look at my own wellbeing. My friend commented she’d never heard me angst about anything this much, which I thought must be quite refreshing (as I say, it’s one thing to write wise words but I am in need of my own advice often). Sure enough, the next day I had the beginnings of a cold, a sure fire sign from my body that it’s feeling overwhelmed. Enough of this I thought, I’m stuck in the weeds and can’t seem to lift myself away from the issues to get some proper perspective. So I booked in time to talk to my mentor, who I knew would amplify back to me the key points of importance within my ramblings. That act allowed me to be still, to let go of the issues I was mulling and just focus elsewhere for a while. When the time came to talk to my mentor, it was great to rediscover what I already knew, I needed to focus elsewhere, help the kids find their soothing in nature too. So when you feel so wrapped up in something that they way just isn’t clear, you have to do something else to break the momentum, to come to a place that is still. Just follow your inspiration, do more of the things you love. Being still is not about doing nothing, it’s a state of mind, a shift in gears, achieved only by creating momentum somewhere else. Take your easiest option, seize whatever opportunity is around you to just get out and breathe in some life, let your body unravel itself and you will find that being still is a place you like to be. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  I awoke from my dream with that very distinct message. It had been nothing spectacular; I had been scheduled to sing and had to choose what to wear on stage. In typical teenage style I had tried on a few outfits at the last moment, dreams can be amazingly visceral as I felt the tight curves of the corset and the firm grip of the fishnets.
Yet, no longer a teenager, and hampering no desires to become a budding Madonna, instead I had the dreamy thought that life has become comfortable and perhaps it’s time for a different tact. Recently I had read a book to the kids about a young 8-year old who feels very safe and comfortable in her world, and her mum and dad take a year off from their regular life and they all go driving around Aussie in a large campervan. As I was reading the book, I could see how my kids – who are a bit younger - will also benefit from the new experiences our own travel plans will bring this year. It’s as if we have all been in an incubator for a while and, although there is still the need for a cosy family cocoon, it’s becoming more mobile. I used to think I wanted to be a full time parent, then I had kids and felt the relief of handing them off at a young age so I could return to being (a corporate version of) me for a while each day. But that took its toll and, as the kids emerged more into themselves and the world around them, it became evident that mum and home were deeply desired aspects of life. Trying to do more was too exhausting for all of us. So we convalesced a while, breathing deeply into the relaxed world we were creating, pulling back from the conventional and occasionally testing the limits of it with the more social and mandatory aspects that kindergarten and school machines bring. Life is not perfect, it would require more flexibility of the machine to get nearer to that, but we have found our happy medium, a more contented place than the one we were in a few years back living crazy frenetic lives. There is more to be had from the machine, more playdates, more activities, but that is not it, we do not want to join that momentum, it’s exhausting. There is more to life, yet when ‘more’ feels wearing that is your sign it is not the more you are seeking. Travel beckons to begin; it is more, and it gives more, not draining but filling our cup which seems somehow empty right now. This is a good sign, when space is created the ‘more’ that you have been in search of can come, so we shall see where that takes us. Another thought popped up in my dream, in that semiconscious haze between sleep and awake, as I smiled in realization and relief that it was not a secretly harboured desire to become an aging popstar that it was conveying, but the memory of another dream. In the other dream, too confusing to convey, I had a moment of clarity as I thought about this body that I am in. In my forties it’s not quite the same as the body I had in my teens that could carry off corsets and fishnets in the various guises of 80’s and 90’s fashion, but I’m fairly certain that as the years progress I will remember this body as it is now and wonder at why I did not celebrate it more. In those teenage years, there were many hours spent experimenting with hairstyles and make up, clothing and accessories, fascination with the different looks that could be created in line with the differing moods that prevailed. In the years of the corporate chase, make up and such clothing became part of the uniform, yet still it was a reflection of the mood of the day. I’m not the type to want to apply makeup or get dressed up to simply be at home, nor do I care much for socializing, I like comfortable. Yet, here is my dream, prodding me with memories of the fun in experimenting with new looks, heralding whatever transformation in our lives is in the process of unfolding. While it’s fascinating to open up to the messages we give ourselves night after night, they are like riddles if you are not used to reading your own signals. There is no book that can give you your personal interpretation, though some can help inspire the answers you are looking for. This comfort zone I am breaking out of is well known to me. Yet I cannot point and show you where this journey is leading and neither am I bound to any image of what that might be. I simply trust that life is unfolding in exactly the way I want it to, with all the myriad of things I have wished for (in the rejection of things not wanted) coming to fruition. It doesn’t matter whether you know specifically what you want, or whether – like me – you can only describe aspects of it and how you want to feel when you have it. Either way, you need to create space in your life for new experiences. Breaking out of your comfort zone is a natural part of life’s cycles of growth. The trick is to push yourself in areas that inspire rather than drain you. Take your inspiration wherever you can find it, in your dreams, in a magazine, or in a fleeting conversation while waiting in line for a coffee, or a deep and meaningful catch up with a friend; that is what will lead you to your best life. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  As I look around all I see is fog, so I close my eyes and feel into myself. It feels like I'm flying, way up above the fog. Above the sky, faster than the speed of light, there is no wind resistance. I’m on the outer reaches of the universe and I am happy, oh so happy. I can see and feel everything everywhere and yet I am still.
The image is there in my mind, in my heart – a interactive video short of sorts, of me flying - to remind me of who I truly am, the clarity the larger part of me knows, way up above the fog. It’s there, like the things that are on the tip of your tongue, yet you just can’t seem to find them in your head, elusive, but persistent. Life here continues, amidst a wave full of low energy happenstance that serves as a reminder to turn and look another way. Yet there is momentum and so there is no quick out, but soon this wave will reach its shores, its force dissipating and clarity will return. There is clarity and there is fog. Take one of two routes, either trick yourself out of it, or outlast it, one is fast, one is slow. No use staying stuck in the fog, that will not do, might as well run off the highway. Life is to be lived. Life is about being happy. If you are not happy, what is the point? Yet at any point you hold the potential to be happy. Today my friend told me of children she is working with, at a school. Young children with special needs. A girl so neglected her ear is almost hanging off from eczema, a boy with learning difficulties who has never had anyone read a book to him, a child who can’t do anything physically for themselves. How do you see the beauty in that? Yet it’s there. If you give these children just an ounce of the love and care they deserve – that we all deserve – you can feel their beauty shining right back. Seeing the beauty through the fog is where we expand beyond where we have been. Land of the free, what a joke. Stop singing unless you believe it America. Freedom is felt within the soul, it is not given, you have a land that many have flocked to so they can live a life that matches what they know to be true within, only to find so many enslaved by their fears. Fear of no money, fear of no job, fear of no food, fear of death? Fear of suffering? Here we are again, a world of fear, when fear is nothing but an illusion brought to reality by the fear itself. Find hope in hope. These are the ramblings perhaps of someone privileged. Someone who can’t know the hearts of those who suffer atrocities. Maybe. But I can see the best in everything, I can see the possibilities, I can see the way through the fear and the suffering. I can see you. I can see that you have the power within you to let your light shine. Shut your ears and eyes and heart to every bad thing past and present, and continue to do it into the future, moment by moment. There is no good or bad, there is only the great in good and the good in the bad. The only person you need to convince is yourself. What you believe is all yours, it’s between you and your heart. If what you believe makes you feel bad, that is on you. Change your beliefs, if they are not working for you. Hating that person who betrayed you or harmed you, it’s normal. But get past it, don’t keep fueling that flame, the only person left carrying that burden is you, and you have suffered enough, don’t keep carrying that the rest of your life. Lighten the load, forgive because it frees you. There are too many carrying too much unnecessary stuff. This is the world we live in. All that energy once created always exists. There’s only one way to live here and be free. Dial it up people, tune in at a higher frequency, let yourself fly. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  Lately I have been catching up on episodes of Nashville that I missed. It’s one of only a few TV programmes I watch, mainly I enjoy the interactions and insights from the characters, their triumphs and frailties, and I love that the characters are pursuing their passions.
People doing something they love is always a draw card for me. But what inspired this particular musing was the focus on the various relationships, as the characters – like those of us in real life – try to figure out the magic ingredients to happiness. One line that really struck a chord was Rayna sharing with Scarlett that she thinks relationships are just moments, if you are lucky those moments will keep happening over the years. Then there was Avery’s wise observation to Will that never in the history of relationships did living with someone make things easier. In truth, these moments we have are not so much moments of connection with others, they are moments where we open within and that in turn opens us up to the connection we have with everything else. That is where we find true love. I was fascinated that these characters, like most people I know in the real world, really put themselves through the mill when it comes to relationships. There is this pressure to make someone else happy, and vice versa. Yet when the characters are pursuing their passion, their songs, they know that they can always find that connection and love within themselves. The relationships are secondary, no matter the ups and downs, their passion remains their core anchor; and that is how it should be, yet something I rarely see acknowledged in the real world. We have such high expectations of what relationships mean, and place far too much value on what others think of us and what we think of them. Growing up I used to read all the teen magazines and romantic novels, and I had figured that people in lasting relationships either had good sex or were good friends, and – if they were lucky – both. Now I see that there are just moments of connection as each life runs its own course. Over the years I have seen many people who stay in relationships (and have done it myself) based on distant memories of special elusive moments together. Holding onto the hope of rekindling these or staying out of a sense of fear or misguided obligation. I had a tendency to focus on the potential within people, then feel let down, rather than simply continuing to focus on the best in who they were being. The uplifter in me, who initially saw their loving soul and their beauty, generally disappeared after a period of time and became the critic instead. Always looking at it from a vantage point that I was somehow a half that needed a whole was entirely unhelpful. It was only when I discovered my own wholeness and stopped looking to others to fill my cup that I created the possibility for the love within to reveal itself more easily and more often. Just as people say “when you are in love you’ll know”. The same is true here, when you have experienced the love within you, you know, you get it. You feel the sense of connection and oneness not just with yourself or a specific person, but with everything. Call it what you like, from feeling elated, to feeling God, spirit or life-force, it doesn’t matter what you call it. What matters is the truth of the feeling and the power within you to connect with it; if only you can get out of your own way. I know what it feels to fear someone leaving you, I know what it feels like to have your heart broken, and I also know it was all an illusion. Right now, this moment, and the love you have within you - for you - is what truly matters. Putting your happiness first may seem selfish but it’s what creates more connection with others, more moments, amplifying the love within them to them. Let’s face it, who are you going to sooth when you are feeling horrible? Who are you going to inspire when you feel fear or worry or anger? Who can you make happy when you are miserable? The best you can do for anyone is to discover the capacity you have within you to love yourself, and to honour that. Do you really want to hang your happiness on another? When you make it your priority to get in that place, you will create so many more meaningful moments than you can imagine. A life fulfilled and a life experiencing true love. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You.  I am currently in the midst of booking to travel to the UK later this year, the first time I will have been back in eleven years to the place I lived for so long. Friends and family, ever hospitable, offer (even insist) on us staying with them. Fine for a night or two, but when we are there for longer it’s a bit of a different story.
As ever, our children are our best teachers. I’ve watched what happens when they are with others, they become socially magnetized, unable to break away and take much needed time for themselves. Inevitable bickering starts and then all out tantrums become necessary for the body to find its equilibrium. This is what we parents commonly refer to as our kids going feral. We comment on how tired they are, but tiredness doesn’t always equate to a need for sleep. Our body has a rhythm, it likes to be engaged then rested, and so on. Engaged means your attention is outwardly focused, requiring lots of energy, it can be anything from a meeting, to constantly attending to the needs of others. But we all need regular inward reflection time (as in many times in each day) to keep our wellbeing in balance. I recall hearing a kindergarten teacher talking about young children and the need to minimize play dates and anything extra after kinde. She talked about the young child needing time to process everything from the dynamics of play that day, to the taste of the tomatoes at lunch. All of it new information, new experiences, all of it needing processed. When we continually fill our time with giving our attention to others, or to a device such as a TV, a whole lot of experiences get suppressed. Instead of regarding our experiences as new, they go in the pile in our subconscious, attaching themselves to previous like experiences, compounding the effects of the emotions attached to them. Sadly too many of the emotions are some shade of grey, negative emotions about our lack of worth in one guise or another. It’s kind of become our default and it’s created a whole mountain of unnecessary stress. Our body’s kicking into flight or fight responses when there is no real imminent danger to our life, more of a chronic danger to our wellbeing on an ongoing basis. I was thinking about how we got into this state. Recent conversations with my mum about her own childhood, which was hot on the heels of world war two, reminded me of the prevailing concerns at that time. Life and death were a reality for many who had lost loved ones or faced that kind of danger. For those left, life had been stripped back to its basics. It’s been somewhat refreshing to read Enid Blyton books to the kids, many of which were of course written amid the era of two world wars. The simple joys in life are extolled well by the Famous Five, Secret Seven and others, when lemonade and ice creams were rare treats to be enjoyed. These days, we are ‘doing’ and ‘having’ far more than we are just ‘being’. Taking space for ourselves means taking time to allow for the inward processing necessary to our wellbeing. That doesn’t mean you need to consciously take apart and examine everything that occurs in your life, it means you need to let yourself process things by focusing on activities that require just enough attention for you to stay awake without getting too focused and drawn into something that requires too much attention and energy. In other words, your body is a system that needs to defrag itself on a regular basis while you do something that allows your engine to keep ticking over. It might be regular walks you take, it might be chopping carrots in the kitchen, it might be listening or dancing to music, or reading a good book that you can get lost in (not the nightly newspaper that sets off a spiral of a whole other set of worries). Regular time for meditation and contemplation are really healthy things to do; though you really don’t need more than 15 minutes of meditation a day. The point is to give yourself enough space to start becoming aware of what you are thinking and feeling, rather than just running on default. This then allows for you to more consciously ditch the things that aren’t serving you, and start doing more of the things that are. I know what I’m like, if I stay with someone, especially loved ones I haven’t seen in a while, I’ll be wanting to soak up as much of it all as I can while I’m there. But if I don’t make the effort to detach and defrag, all those new experiences of people and places won’t get processed in a way that allows me to truly enjoy it. It’s like being presented with a good wine and just slugging it down like a glass of water on a hot day. You have to take the time to taste life and appreciate it, that can’t happen when you are too busy giving your attention to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and trying to do more than one thing at a time. So do yourself a favour and take your own space, and allow others theirs, so that you can see things through fresh eyes and live your best life. Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to like, comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at shona@shonakeachie.com, I’m always happy to help if I can. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also subscribe to my newsletter and, as a special thank you, you will receive the link to my video 3 Steps to Becoming You. |
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