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.

The First Women's Circle... and my message for you today

Tuesday evening was a milestone in my life: my first Women's Circle. I say 'my circle' because it's important for me to have a sense of ownership of the circle and of the fact that I created it.


Creating - being creative, being a creator - is something that has been in the shadows for me for a number of years. Julia Cameron talks a lot about shadow artists: blocked creatives who find themselves hanging around with a lot of artists, musicians, writers, sculptors, actors, and poets, living in quiet envy, supporting their creative spouse, friends, colleagues and children but somehow not managing to dive into their own creativity.

I have so known this space.

The act of creating something, whether that is a picture, poem or indeed a space, has felt frightening to me. What if what I create isn't understood or liked by people? What if I get rejected on some level? What if it's not noticed or recognized? What if what if what if.... This is the crazy what if train, a world in itself, a state of paralysis.

These fears - these little mind thoughts - have almost crippled me.

But they couldn't kill the desire to create. 

Yesterday's video was one tiny (bizarre!) outpouring of that. 'But the world doesn't need any more writers', my ego protests nastily. Maybe not. 'Everything that needs to be said is being said.' (Notice the horrible pooey colour that the ego writes in. Perhaps so, I respond. But I need to say these things. 


And besides... each of us is creating every single day - whether we admit it or not.


So on Tuesday, I created a sacred space, and two beautiful women came along. I read The Invitation to them, and invited them to ponder what is no longer serving them, what they want to let go of, and what they're ready to change. We shared. We gave feedback to each other. We drank herbal tea, and giggled, and wrote wish lists, and then gave each other delicious massages. I had a lovely time! And today I got the feedback that they did too.

Lovely homemade flyer

The support I have received from fellow challengers on the Screw Work Let's Play 30 day challenge has been truly incredible, and I don't know that I would have had the courage to follow this acorn of an idea through to the manifestation of an actual circle had it not been for the daily support, encouragement and spurring on I've received from the space and community involved in the challenge.

So this is my message today - support one another.
Cheer your friends on, encourage them to take the next baby step, commit to doing a tiny but focussed amount on your project every day (20 minutes of distractionless time can work miracles) and get accountability buddies - people who love you enough to challenge you when you're not stepping fully into your magnificence, to be honest with you, to gently but firmly dare you to take the next step.

Because we've only got one life. One chance to live today. The sun has gone down here in England, and Thursday 20th October 2011 will never come around again.
Heck people - this moment is all that we have! (Thanks, Oprah, for the reminder).

So if you're putting off living your life until some undefined day in the future, making excuses to yourself that sound like this: 'when I've got more money/time/freedom / when I'm not so busy at work or stressed out / when I'm in a better space and feel more loving towards myself / etc etc, then I'll follow what's in my heart'... please, STOP!

Just go, right now, and do one tiny act of magnificence for yourself. Have some freakin' fun!
Dance round your kitchen.
Do a handstand.
Draw a dog.
Call a loved one.
Just do something, anything, to shift the energy and get yourself creating again.

Because the world needs your light, just like it needed my women's circle on Tuesday. Just like it needs this blog post. And just like it needs the little dance I'm about to do right now, straight after pressing 'Publish'.

Love you... let me know how it goes.
Elloa xx

Moments

Moments

by Luis Jorge Borges

If I were able to live my life again,

next time I would try to make more mistakes.

I would not try to be so perfect. I would be more relaxed.

I would be much more foolish than I have been. In fact,

I would take very few things seriously.

I would be much less sanitary.

I would run more risks. I would take more trips,

I would contemplate more sunsets,

I would climb more mountains,

I would swim more rivers.

I would go to more places I have never visited.

I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans.

I would have more real problems, fewer imaginary ones.

I was one of these people who lived prudently

and prolifically every moment of his life.

Certainly I had moments of great happiness:

Don’t let the present slip away.

I was one of those who never went anywhere

without a thermometer, a hot water bottle,

an umbrella, and a parachute.

If I could live over again,

I would go barefoot, beginning

in early spring

and would continue so until the end of autumn.

I would take more turns on the merry-go-round.

I would watch more dawns

And play with more children,

if I once again had a life ahead of me.

But, you see, I am eighty-five

and I know that I am dying.

Me having a moment. Photography by Nige.