What Matters Now

1. What Matters Now (Inspired by Seth Godin): Think about the here and now. What matters most to you right now? How are you going to nurture what matters in during 2012?

What matters to me right now.

What matters to me right now?

What matters to me is this:

- Nige and my relationship with him. Mighty companions, soft place to land. 

- My work as a teacher. I am finding that the more I teach, the more I realise that living my 'purpose' in this life isn't about reaching or preaching to thousands of people, as my ego would like it to be. It's about the daily connections. It's about me remembering that, as the Buddhists teach, this one in front of me, this one, is brother, sister, mother, father and child to me. We are all connected. The people I am meant to reach, I will meet. I don't need to scramble around anymore, looking for some elusive life purpose when right here, right now, there are so many people who need help remembering the truth about themselves, just like me.

- My friendships. What I don't want you to know is that I feel ashamed of the ways I have behaved at different times this year. What I don't want you to know is that I believe I am a failure at friendships. What I don't want you to know is that sometimes I feel awkward and don't know how to connect, especially with women. What I don't want you to know is that I believe that I am disposable, that people don't really need me to be their friend because there will be someone better out there for them. And yet... and yet you matter to me. And despite the snide whispered evaluation of my worth inside my mind, I have an inkling that deep down, I matter to you too.

- The Clearmind community that I am a part of and the work that we do in that community to remember the truth about ourselves and each other, ACIM style. I am starting to work on the winter issue of The Ripple magazine, and I acknowledge the deep desire that is swelling up from within to create something that will have a deep and powerful ripple effect.

- Choosing to mind the gap. Compulsive eating has reared its head in my life again recently, and what matters to me right now is choosing to walk a path of freedom away from a personal hell. One step at a time.

- My sisters. Rosie, Daisy and Edie, you are so important to me.

- My mum, my dad(s), my grandparents. I intend to stay in touch more in 2012. Starting now.

- Love, love, love.

- GIVING MYSELF AN F-ING BREAK.

- Slowing way down; being here now.

1. Reframing (Inspired by Patrick Rhone): How are you framing yourself and your life? Could you reframe things going into 2012?

I don't know if you've noticed two thought systems running inside your mind. I have. They are both available to me in every moment. One runs on fear, toxicity and shame. The other, love. On any given day, I frame my life according to one of these two mindsets. The way I am currently framing my life looks something like this...

I am heading for financial ruin. (Everything will be just fine.)

I need to find a 'proper' job, otherwise I'm going to end up thousands of pounds in debt. (I'm exactly where you're meant to be. I'm being taken care of - who knows what exciting things are just around the corner!)

I am a bad friend. I don't keep in touch with my friends enough and I don't make an effort to go and see them enough. I am too scared to even pick up the phone and just say hi. (I am kind, loving and loyal. I love my friends. I want to know about their lives. I do the best I can to stay in touch. I recognize that I am afraid to reach out some days, and that is okay. Every moment is a chance to start again.)

My relationship is falling apart. (Only the love is real between us. I can choose again... and again... and again. I am kind, caring and really, really doing the best I can. Relationships aren't easy! So gentleness and a willingness to take a risk to be intimate are vital. Especially gentleness. Being cruel to myself won't help me to be present in my relationship with Nige. Gently does it Ell... you have come from a pretty dysfunctional family, and perhaps this is a time of growing pains. Just keep coming back to love. One step at a time.)

The women's circle I started is not growing because I haven't even bothered to invite anyone else. (You do go on, don't you? Won't you ever give the poor girl a break? No wonder she's not sleeping at night! For your information, the women's circle is going just fine. I am learning with each one, and have learned some pretty big lessons very early on. For this I am grateful.)

I am a total bitch. Look how I treated Nige in the gym the other day. I can't even control my moods. I am worse than a teenager and a toddler. I should know better. (I am innocent. In those moments when I act out, I am simply afraid. I can choose to do it differently. Besides, not every workout has been like that. There is something here for me to see and learn. I am doing the best I can.)

This is how I'm framing my life. This morning I have chosen to give a lot more space, time and thought to the second thought system. Sometimes I feel like the only one that exists is the first one - the one that batters me, tosses me about, hurls me against the same brick wall again and again, slamming my face against concrete and leaving me feeling utterly desperate. But then... then... then I find just one moment of freedom: I glance at the sky, or out to sea. I take a long, deep, conscious breath. I stop and reassure myself. And even if it doesn't sink in, I know this - that somewhere, it does. That love is real, that the fear I feel is of my own making, that it's all make believe inside my head. It is not the outside situation that determines the meaning. It is me who gives meaning to everything that happens in my life. And I am committing to continuing to allow my life to mean one thing: that only the love is real in any situation. 

Only the love is real.

To thine own self...

I penned this a couple of weeks ago. It's far from perfect but I want to publish it anyway.

On more than one occasion, I have danced the night away on December 31st at a venue called Conway Hall in London. The hall is a wonderful space, and the atmopshere electric as hundreds of people in recovery move, groove and shake their thang to pumping beats and lyrical melodies. Above the stage, a Shakesperian quote reminded me of a truth that eluded me for so many years of my youth:

"To thine own self be true".

What a lesson, and how often I have deviated from this path!

Life is, as far as I can tell, teaching me this lesson once again at the moment. After months of wearing my 'business hat', I crashed and bottomed out a few weeks back, and emotional car crash of a human being unable to get through a day without tears, waves of desperation and an almost uncontrollable urge to hurt myself.

I've made some changes. I had to make some changes. I don't think I could have carried on without reverting back to type, and that is a pretty frightening place to be.

I'm leaving my job; just one more week to go. 

I'm tuning in to Ell, slowly, moment by moment.

I'm frightened, I'm limiting myself, and I'm trying to allow myself to stretch, grow, expand, reach for the light as a flower leans towards the sun.

I'm inviting the real Elloa to emerge, to come forth, to dare to bare her dreams, her ambitions, her truest insights into the kind of life she's always wanted to live. 

Doing this is so scary for me. I've been down this road before, and have allowed myself to be swayed, carried down a path I had never envisioned, until six months later I wake up to find myself at a dead end - again. Two and a half years ago, when I quit my job at Waterstone's, I thought that that was the last time I'd have to draw that particular line in the sand. Somehow over the last half a year, I allowed myself to get involved in a situation that didn't feel right from day one, because it was a job (and I needed one), it was a funky company (and there are so few of those out there), I was given responsibility (and that made me 'someone' in the world), it was only three days a week (then four, then five). Only in retrospect have I allowed myself to take a step back from the situation and get some perspective on it. Why couldn't I have just done that at the time?, I wonder accusingly. I could have saved myself, and Nige, and my boss a lot of trouble. Why do I have to be so.... Elloa?! Typical bloody Elloa!

And still the birds sing. The sun continues to rise, and shine and set. Life goes on, despite my mistakes. Is the guilt helping? No. No, it certainly is not. 

Well then Ell, it's time to drop it. 

The unanimous feature of being a human being, no matter where you live or who you are is that you can't tell what's going to happen in the future. Being fully alive means being present to the ever-unfolding now and trusting in the safety of that. Dark, haunting shadows of a doomed future are but misguided creations of my overactive imagination, and yet they seem real enough to me to trust. I believe these thoughts! And they terrify me. This is the very problem; that I trust my thoughts, when experience shows me that they're the least reliable form of guidance I've got!


So, with a week to go until I'm unemployed, I have no idea what the future will bring. But the birds are singing, my bike is amazing, and last night, Nige and I welcomed a stranger into our home and found in him a new friend, an inspiration and someone we could offer a hot shower, a washing machine and a warm night's sleep to.


I wonder what will happen next?


Perhaps the better question is, I wonder what is happening now?

I keep remembering to say yes to the whispers, and the whispers are telling me that one chapter is ending, another is shortly to begin, and there are a great many bike rides ahead of me.