Dreamer

So I am a dreamer.
I have thousands of dreams... I have uncountable moments in my day when I pause to imagine a life that could be.  I throw ideas out onto the universal winds...bubbles cast out into the day, each holding a world of possibility....I make impossible plans and I wonder what it would be like to live each of them...

I create lists in my head of all the things I could do in life... I dream up new options and opportunities every day.  The happier I am, the more I dream of what could be...

I want to make a difference in the world.  I want to live an interesting life.  I want to believe that my life will be different, will mean something different, will be a road less traveled.  I want to be courageous about dreaming of the endless possibilities that life offers, and I want to live amongst those dreams each day.

I want to do aid work in Africa and Guatemala.  I think I should go and work with orphans of Sudan.  I dream of living on a small tropical island for six months immersed in my art making and creating things of beauty.  I want to visit my friends in far-flung places.  I want to go to Japan, Lesbos, Flores, Turkey, Laos (again), Bhutan, Tibet, Cambodia, South and Central America, Cuba, Canada, New Zealand.... and everywhere else.  I want to see snow.  I want to go back and live and work in Kathmandu again.  I want to run successful aid agencies.  I want to write about the world and life.  I want to photograph each beautiful fleeting moment of this incredible life.  I want to spend time living in spiritual places, go to meditation classes, read inspiring books and improve my mind.  I have thousands of books and movies and places I want to experience.  I want to take my child to dharma club and dancing and gymnastics and art and acting and everything that will make her a well rounded confident little person in the world.   I want to develop a more useful career, do a PhD, become an expert at something.  I want to really know that I am helping people.  I want to write a children's book, have an exhibition, live in a gorgeously decorated house full of tasteful things I made myself, have a thriving veggie garden, bake bread and do volunteer work.  I want a successful career. I want a simple life.  I want to be an awesome parent and a fabulous friend.  I want to be a dedicated partner and have a rich family life.  I want to exercise regularly, live organically and budget my money well.  I have so many little things that I want to do in each day that I live surrounded by little voices calling me..."hey, what about this, this, that..."

My mind is like a bubble machine and my dreams erupt in rainbow bursts and float around me.  I know that I will never do them all.  I know that in reality a lot of my life is going to be spent cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, washing school uniforms, driving to swimming lessons, driving to gymnastics and play dates, having dinner parties sometimes and going out for Sunday breakfast.  I know that my life is most likely to continue to be fairly domestic, semi-interesting, not totally boring and just a little bit special.  I know that I am not going to be the one who makes a huge difference in the world.  I know that I am not going to be the head of the UN, I am not going to be Prime Minister, I am not going to be the one who runs Save the Children in Sudan, I am not going to be the one who frees Tibet.  Mostly I am ok with that.... Mostly.  Thats why I need my dreams.

When I dream up a plan...no matter how wild and crazy the idea is...for a moment while I am dreaming it I let myself feel it as a reality.  I open my mind to the option and I dive in, just for a moment, and feel that choice envelop me.  And in that one simple moment of dreaming, I get to live that life - that fabulous interesting courageous adventurous life.  I get to be the one who climbs a mountain, faces a fear, builds a snowman, saves the children, explores new horizons, makes a difference.  I get to feel what it is like to be that person.  I get to live it, in my mind, just for a moment.

I know that all of my dreams, in reality, come with massive consequences, hard choices, costs and sacrifices.  I know that it is physically impossible for me to do all that I dream.  I know that I probably would not really choose to do many of them, if the option became real.  But that doesn't matter.  When I dream I suspend reality, cast off the consequences, experience the dream cost-free. When I dream I don't have to face the realities of child care, money, disease, distance from loved ones, logistics. When I dream I get to be the person who does those things, because somewhere in the world someone is doing those things, and no - its not me.   In my dreams I get to borrow another life for a moment.  I get to be more than I am.

I get that sometimes this way of being is stressful for people around me, the people who care about me, the people who are potentially affected by my wild planning, the people who have learned to cringe slightly each time I say "Maybe I could...."  or "Lets....".  I get that it must be hard for the people who think, even for a moment, that I may either really do each of those things; or that I may suffer for not being able to do them.   I am sorry for this...but I need my dreams.  My dreams allow me to not have to live every option, take every step, really do everything I want to do.  My dreams let me live the moment and let it go, happily, peacefully.  My dreams are what allow me to be happy in the here and now.

My life is short, who knows how short...but certainly not long enough or wide enough for most of my dreams to become reality.  So I dream, I create a bubble and for a moment I live inside its rainbow sphere.  I float, in the dream, and experience it, taste it, feel it.  I add it to the bubble cloud, the memory bank of things that may or may not ever come true.  I record it for posterity, make it known that I was at least able to dream it.  I put it out there as an option, and then I can let it go, put on the kettle, do the dishes, put on a load of washing, go to bed.  And my dream floats in the cloud of bubbles that surround me as I move through daily life, dream bubbles that add colour and possibility to my days.

I need my dreams.  They let me be so much more than I ever will be.  They let me be happy with who I am.

we are ready!

So this week my baby girl had her first experience of "Big School"...
Wide eyed she approached the traditional old building, gazing up up up to the high bell tower standing proudly against the bright blue summer sky.   Barely able to contain her excitement as she peered in through the big oak doors she prompted many a smile from the nervously entering mums by crying out "Mummy mummy, is that Big School in there??"
She gripped my hand tightly as we found her new classroom, and then in the bumbling crowds of unfamiliar mums and shyly curious little ones, she slipped from my fingers and was gone...I looked, slightly anxiously, between the plaits and many eager eyes for that little slip of a piece of me that I know so well... and eventually I spotted her, doing the rounds, touching everything with keen fingers, locating and categorising the different tools of childhood, landing on the globe on the teachers desk with enthusiasm.
Around her bobbing head there were tearful eyes, sobbing little people gripping their mummies tightly...tight faced mothers edging backwards reluctantly... Not us though.  "Bye Mummy" she called, only turning back to benevolently give in to my pleading for a kiss goodbye.
I hovered, peeped, toured the school, met the P&C and shelled out wads of cash for terribly unattractive and over-sized school uniforms.
Meanwhile I caught glimpses of her jumping through rainbow hoops, assembling unfamiliar puzzles, weaving her way out of childhood and into Big Girl World.
At the end I opened my arms to my beaming angel and I stepped into the new role - that of the mother collecting her child from school, desperate to know all about their day, eager to share the wonder, to uncover the secrets of all that we miss out on in the mysterious land of the school room. And at the end there were the tears.  Not for us the reluctant holding onto Mummy and childhood...No.  My angel sat by the roadside on the way to the car and sobbed.  "But Mummy, I miss Big School!  I want to stay here NOW....Why can't I stay at big school??"
She is ready.  Now I just have to catch up.

standing still, being...

There are moments in time that are for doing.
There are times that are for moving, creating, learning, growing...
And there are times that are for standing still and welcoming the simple unfolding of life.

There is a phrase that has been echoing through my life for many months now.  It has guided me forward in the tough times, the times in the past year when life felt draining and cloudy, when the learning was hard earned.  Over the last year the phrase danced through my mind tantalisingly and I knew that it was not for the current time, it was my promised reward for future...
And then when I got off the plane in Australia I sniffed the air and I knew that it had become my now.

The phrase is :
"Confident of being in just the right place, at the right time... I knew that all I had to do was to stand still and my future would find me."

My time away from home was limbo time, learning time, giving time.  It was the right thing to do at that time and the right place to be to do it...but it was not a place and time for "me".  What I needed was to get through that time, achieve what I achieved, learn what I learned, and move forward to now, to here.

This is how I have been feeling since we touched down in Australia... I am here, I am home.  I am in my place.  And so I have been confident.  I have known that the time of my phrase was here and all I needed to do was to stand still.  So I stood.  I smiled.  I grew flowers and I tended my friendships.  I smiled some more and I breathed in the fresh air of the beauty of each moment.  I was content, patient, happy.

And then as I stood still a change happened in the air around me.  I was calm and I breathed and I smiled a little more.  A new sweet, gentle, warm, rainbow-tinted breeze entered my life.  And as I stood still I felt an unfolding of the future happening in my life.  Tendrils and tickles and hints of days to come.  As the colours danced I said to them "Hello!  Are you my future come to find me?" And the colours breathed "yes please, I think we might be".  And where the coloured breezes touched the earth a single fresh new shoot emerged, a curling spiral unfolding, a path on which to travel...

Let it go,
Let it out,
Let it all unravel,
Let it free
And it will be
A path on which to travel.

Kindy Girl...

My baby started Kindy today....
Another threshold leapt over with her steady determination to move forward in life.
She proudly carried her new lunchbox and put it in the lunchbox tub.  She remembered where her locker was, and put her bag away... Then she turned and smiled at me, two long plaits swinging as she waved... "Bye mum!"...and I was dismissed.
Thankfully her face lit up when I asked if she would like me to stay for a little while...she was happy to share this transitional moment with me....but once inside it was clear that I was welcome but unnnecessary.  She was happy exploring, meeting new friends, discovering new toys, making her place in this new world.
As I watched her I realised that once upon a time, when I looked in her face, I marvelled at seeing my baby growing up. Now when I look at her I no longer see a growing up baby...I see a little person full of the rich potential of who she is becoming. She is no longer defined by who she was, but who she will be.  And I am so crazy proud of the person she is becoming.  She is smart, funny, kind, brave, open, inquisitive, independent and confident. She is strong willed and knows exactly what she wants. The fact that she is confident enough to believe that she can do what she sets her mind to fills me with pride. The fact that she argues her point but accepts, without tears or tantrums, the times when she cannot do what she wants makes me even more proud.
Yes my little angel is growing into herself and she is beautiful.

Happiness....

I'm home.
I feel at home.
I feel like I am home.
In my youth I fled the restrictions of the familiar, I craved the new and interesting...the adventure...
As I have aged I have noticed, with some bemusement, my process of becoming more and more home and stability oriented. I have routines. I love my routines...the same comfortable places bring me comfort.  Once I would have laughed at myself, but now I am learning to embrace this different sense of self.
I used to fight it, force myself out of my comfort zone...now I surrender and revel in it.
I am happy.
I am extraordinarily happy at the moment, happy in a simple, breath in the moment sort of way, a way which undeniably tells me that I must be in just the right place and the right time.
And as they do when I am in the right place, things are falling into place.
Nothing in life is perfect but my experience is that when you have trusted the direction your feet take you, when you have allowed yourself to follow your instincts...then things just flow as they should. This is how I feel at the moment.
Happy.
It's a good feeling.

We are back baby!

And here we are... Back in Australia, firmly planted in the next stage of this, my step by step life journey.  Of course it feels slightly bizarre... As expected... On the one hand it feels weird and a little overwhelming to be in the hype of big civilisation, suddenly cast out of our comfortable routines and home of the last 18 months... On the other hand it's all completely natural and like we were never anywhere else. The later is much more disconcerting.
I don't want to feel like none of it ever happened.  Don't want to just move on like it was all a colourful dream. I want to stay connected and inside the person that I became through the journey of being a CEO, a mother abroad, an expat in a developing country... I had adventures and faced challenges and I made a great success of it all I think...and I don't want to lose the parts of me that were developed and honed through those experiences.
So I keep repeating to myself..."What we think we become... I am a former CEO. I am someone who does things and does them well...." I have had almost a week of "rest" arriving, unpacking, seeing friends... Now to keep my momentum going and keep a strong sense of achievement in my life :)

On letting go...

Letting go...
Letting be...
Letting it all unravel...
Recognising the limits of what I can do...
Redefining moment to moment the things I can't change...
Trying to focus on the things I can...
Putting up an emotional shield against mourning the things I can't...
Living with the irrationality of guilt, frustration, should/could do more...
Balancing self preservation with my enduring struggle to overcome injustice and "fix" the world....
Bemoaning my lack of omnipotence...
At the same time craving freedom...
Balancing the wish for release from the battle to change the things that need to be changed...
With the angst of giving up and walking away after giving my all...
I've been changed
I am different
This thing I leave is different
I leave a part of me here
Even as I lean towards the newness, next steps.

The luck of the loss...

So I got burgled.
Worse than that, my home was invaded...
Worse than that, men were in my house, while I was getting my child ready for bed, and at any moment I could easily have stumbled upon them and put myself and my child in mortal danger.
I came home in the dark, late, after enjoying jumping castles and merry-go-rounds at the local festival.
I rushed in, dropped my bags, and focused on getting my sleepy angel into the bathroom to clean her teeth and off for a bed-time story.
I clearly didn't properly lock the door behind me.
At some point between bathroom and bedroom two men followed me into the house and took my bag.  I think I was on the toilet, with the door open, at the time. India was running in and out. My mum was skyping on the iPad...
I heard a noise...but I didn't go into the lounge to check what it was.

Some time later, long after I had properly locked up, I realised my bag was gone.
In it were all the usual life necessities... Phone, camera, wallet... Plenty of personal bits and pieces of life stuff that I only realise is gone as I go looking for it...

I thought I was going crazy for a while... And then thankfully I checked "find my iPhone" and tracked my phone to the other side of town. That's when the truth sank in...

With "find my iPhone" I was able to direct the police, over Skype, to where my phone was and it was recovered.  They arrested one man and the other is still on the run.  The next day they found his bag with my camera in it.

The losses are annoying.
But more than that I am surrounded by the cloud of awareness of all that could have gone terribly terribly wrong... Of just how close we came to something very very bad.
I feel more fragile, more brittle than before.
I still feel incredibly lucky, but I do feel more aware of my vulnerability.
And my little one now wakes from a nap in fear that the bad man will come out of the bushes and come into the house and steal her.
 I reassure her that she is safe and I cross my fingers that its true.
While it felt enormous and overwhelming at the time... I also know that nothing has really changed.
The nature of life as a female, as a solo mum of a daughter, is that we are utterly vulnerable to the whims of men's aggression. We lock our doors, we bar our windows, and we do what we can to keep our daughters safe...
But at the end of the day, it's most often pure luck that stands between safety and disaster.

The missing

So my angel is learning about change and the bittersweet happy sadness it brings. I'm fascinated as I watch the development of her conceptual understanding... Watching her stumble, in her pure innocent  way, through ideas that many of us still struggle with as adults.
She's been naturally super excited about going back to Australia, to our old home, grandma and papa, the coast....but I've been reminding her that we won't be coming back to Fiji...so going home also means saying goodbye to the people and places we enjoy here.
She thought about this for a while, and then she said "but I will be sad about that mummy".  "Yes" I said... She thought a little longer and then announced "mummy, I wish things didn't have to change...when things change we feel happy about the going but we feel sad about the missing things". So we have a few conversations along these lines. It's obviously on her mind. This morning I woke up to the patter of her little feet and a sad face next to mine.... "Mummy I miss grandma, and I'm happy but I'm sad because I'm going to miss Fiji"
Yep... I'm with you sweetie.
As I count down the weeks and struggle to navigate through my burn out, it's easy to want to rush to the finish line. I'm trying to remember to stay in the moment and savour the things I will leave behind...the spectacular vivid sunsets over the ocean as I drive home under volcanic mountain ranges,  the sound of my little chickens chirping and rustling outside the window as they have their cage free time, the tumbling flowers I planted in my garden that are just coming into their fullness, the smiling faces, people who go out of their way to make our every day a little happier, the way indigo is known by, and safe with, all the people around our daily lives...and of course our lovely nanny and cleaner and the fact that I have not had to mop a floor or iron a shirt in a year and a half...
There are so many more things as well, of course, and each day I try to remember and cherish them while I can... Because any change, no matter how happy, also brings with it the missing.

8

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Weeks

The closer you are....

"The closer you are to who you want to be, the closer the people along the way will be to what you really always wanted all along"

Le love

Embrace the imperfect

So recently I watched a TED talk by an artist who had embraced his physical limitation, a shaky hand, and created his own far more interesting, inspiring and personal style of expression.  Rather than being held back, or give up, he was able to use his nerve damage to free himself from the restriction of creating perfect images.  In doing this he found that he was free to explore much more profound themes of impermanence and play with the very concept of limitation in a unique and meaningful way.

And it got me to thinking... How much energy is spent in my life avoiding, fighting or overcoming my own limitations, my "issues", my imperfections.... And what would change if I was able to embrace them and make them work for me, instead of holding me back.  More than just finding ways to live with them, how can I make them into advantages instead of hindrances?

I don't have any answers yet, but I am enjoying the question....

The missing and the finding...

The missing piece.   (Click the link here)

This little animation may just sum up a rather profound amount of the theme of my life...and perhaps it provides a context to what I think of as the Malaise of Generation X.  I think of the people I know my age, and so many of my dear ones seem to echo my theme... We search and search for the "thing"...the thing that will define us and make us whole. Maybe it's a person, a relationship, a child, maybe it's a job, maybe it's a home or a culture or a religion, a passion or a way of being in the world. We were raised to be acutely aware of the infinite possibilities before us, and of  our fundamental life-task...to choose the right path for us and follow it to reach our full potential in life.
As I reached my late 30s and early 40s it dawned on me that I've been searching searching searching for the "right choice"... Thinking I have found it but then...no... Always the slight misfit, the slight emptiness, the jar of a pointy edge where there "should" be smooth connection. And on goes the search.  It dawned on me that I may not find "the right thing" and maybe I'm going to have to find a way to be happy anyway...
Somewhere around the last year or so I have started to realise that the best likelihood is that my life is not going to be defined by finding the right choice for me.  At this point it is far more likely it will be defined by the search, the relentless search for meaning, than by that meaning found.
This little animation prompts me to think...perhaps this is the thing to be embraced.  Perhaps the issue is that when the piece is found, the search ends...and perhaps the greater meaning is in the experience of the search than in the finding.

What is it all about anyway?

If children's most profound shaping influence is the unlived unfulfilled dreams of their parents (Jung) then the greatest authenticity must be in navigating a way of not reliving or fulling the gaps in your parents relationship, not following anyone else's dreams and finding a way to define "the one" in the space of absence of influence. Is this possible? It seems unlikely...

10 weeks

So I have 10 weeks left in my job.

10 weeks of being CEO.  10 weeks of being the boss.  10 weeks of "the buck stops with me".

10 weeks of stretching myself into new shapes. 10 weeks of being pushed and prodded and manipulated into new ways of being in the world.  10 weeks of winging it and working it out as I go along.  10 weeks of feeling like I have to know everything and 10 weeks of feeling like I never know enough.

10 weeks of feeling drained, empowered, cynical, hopeful, driven, burnt out, meaningful, pointless, motivated and utterly peeved...

10 weeks of feeling that my life has a purpose and a routine - all-be-it one I have frequently wanted to chuck in the nearest swamp.

10 weeks to find a way to walk away feeling like I did all I could.

10 weeks to find a way to walk away not feeling like I leave behind a house of cards, and 10 weeks to accept that I cannot control what happens after I walk away - in fact there is not all that much I can control between now and then either.
3 weeks of active management left, then 7 weeks to wrap up all the lose ends and produce a mountain of words on paper.
Words on paper will be my legacy.
Words on paper which, in my optimistic moments, I trust will translate into making the world a little easier for some people.
Words on paper which won't change a whole lot in an obvious way, but may just be foundation that makes the difference between dark and light for some people.

10 more weeks of putting words on paper... before my next adventure into arranging different words in different orders on different bits of paper.
I must hold up my hands and blindly hope it all matters somehow.

10 weeks until everything changes again.

SWM parenting....

So before I had a kid I had lots of parenting ideas... They mostly revolved around clear consistent boundaries, always following through, never fight over food, and stay calm and positive at all costs.

When I had a kid I did my best, I really did... The kid was born with bulls horns and an uncanny ability to milk every weakness until the tears flowed... my tears that is.  I. underestimated the extremes of sleep deprivation and the uncomtrollable rage that wells inside when your kid yells for you through the night repeatedly, exactly 15 minutes after you have finally and arm numbingly soothed her back to sleep.  You see it's just long enough for mum to desperately slide into slumber...and then ....waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh there she goes again.
So yes, I let her cry it out at times....don't lynch me... the alternative was unthinkable and  involved either a straight jacket or hand cuffs.  And you know what? It bloody worked, damn it.  Tut tut all you like - the choice was either neither of us ever got a decent nights sleep again and went rapidly mad, or she cried it out once or twice and then slept through the night until sickness or such opened the door to her believing that mummy should be on tap and within arms reach all night or the world was ending.  And no - bed sharing was not an option.  She grunted like a randy pig and kicked like Beckam all night.  Fail.

So I had a pretty happy well adjusted kid who thought the world of me and I was pretty firm and clear most of the time, used the dreaded cry-it-out and time-out techniques when I had to, and we all got along pretty well in life.

Then I stumbled across Positive Parenting literature... I read up and, just as it intends to do, it convinced me that time-out was tantamount to torture, parents who let their kids cry should be hung drawn and quartered in the town square, my home was no better than Guantanamo Bay, and of course I was destroying any chance of my kid ever being happy in life....
Ye gads.... So I wholeheartedly embraced the approach.  I jumped on board with the ways of respecting your kid to within an inch of its life, soothing rather than setting limits,  responding to the feelings behind the behaviour (I see by the fact that you just punched me in the face that you are feeling frustrated with me...do you need a hug?) NO consequences under any circumstances (punishment is child abuse) NO rewards (poison carrots!) NO saying "well done good job..." (teaches external praise seeking rather than internal self satisfaction), encouraging free and unlimited self expression at all times.....And basically your life must revolve around anticipating and meeting the needs of your child so that they never have to experience the harsh realities of the world... ("Don't prepare your child for society, change society to meet your child's inner needs").

But.... to my honest surprise... It failed miserably. My sweet angel descended into new and horrific depths of evil. Quickly working out that there were no longer any consequences to fear, her inner needs became expressed loudly and clearly and involved the world entirely revolving around her passing whims - oddly enough - or she screamed the house down.  She cottoned on very quickly to exactly who was in charge here.  Relying on my child's inner sense of self responsibility turned out to be a mission of futile frustration...and no-one was there to sooth my bloody anger! In vain did I turn to the Positive Parenting advice pages only to be confronted by the scores of other poor parents writing in with exactly the same experiences as me... Their children were monsters too.... And the answer, according to the hallowed gurus? Must be a food allergy.... Or just don't take your kid out in public.
Seriously.
The answer to the child who demands every piece of candy in the supermarket or they chuck an almighty lay down tantrum? Just don't take them to the supermarket - they are telling you they are not ready for that experience...
Holy crap what kind of fantasy land do these people live in??
Clearly this approach can only work if you are a privileged married/coupled middle class family who can afford to give up everything other than devoting yourself full time to meeting your little Hitler's every desire.

I struggled on, feeling more and more guilty and like a failure...I couldn't socialise or take my child out in public without living in fear of the next screaming fit. I dreaded bed time or bath time or any time when I had to convince her to do anything contrary to her inner self expression... And my friends started looking tense in the shoulders when ever she entered the room...

It took an old dear friend arriving to visit and informing me in no-uncertain-terms that I was breeding a demon to shake me out of my cycle of despair and denial. Oh I was cranky at her for it at the time, but it shook the veils from my eyes and I realised my kid was miserable, I was miserable, we were spending all our time fighting or avoiding fighting, and the future was looking bleak. It was around this time that I became very very sure that another child would be about as desirable as performing open heart surgery on myself without anaesthetics.

So...I stopped.... And I realised that the true art of parenting lies not in doing what you are told, but in listening to your kid and doing what works, what makes you both happy...In our case Positive Parenting could kiss my stress-expanding ass.

I am a single working mum. I work because I have to, but also because I passionately believe that what I do makes a difference in the world and I want my kid to be passionate about changing the world too... I want her to see that adults work, follow their dreams, have a balanced life of different commitments, and that she is a part of a big painting of life that is a populated landscape not a single pointed portrait.  I also want her to understand that the world does not exist for her amusement, it is not always fair or the way we think it should be, and if she behaves like a selfish beast no-one will want to play with her.

So in case I ever forget again, in case I get sucked into someone else's theory, I thought I would write my own parenting tips.  These are the some of the things I've worked out that work for me, for us... They may not be politically correct and they may or may not be found in any parenting book... they may even be just slightly tongue in cheek, but they work for us....for now... And if they stop working we will deny they ever did move right along...nothing to see here....

So - TOP TEN PARENTING TIPS FOR SINGLE WORKING MOTHERS :

1. Bribery is good. If I believed in such deities I would be tempted to say bribery is the god of single working parents... The deity would have many many arms full of lollipops, chocolate, new toys, star charts, ipads and ice cream.

2. All doors should have really really high handles... Anyone can slam a door but only a mummy can open them again. This is essential for mummy to have a few precious minutes to breath instead of exploding.

3. If in doubt, always lie. The correct answer to "Is that the ham I like?" is always "yes".

4. No-one is too big to beg...in fact, only big people are allowed to beg....Never let it work for the little people or you will want to scrape the word pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease out of your ears with a rusty nail...but a please please please get out of the car sometimes does the trick...maybe she misguidedly thinks that if she gives in to my pleases it will make me give in to hers... Sucker.

5. The match is over when the kid chucks. No matter what happened to cause the fight, vomiting always wins. Never give them the thing that was wanted of course, never that, but at least a whole lot of hugs and kindness....I have an easy chucker... It's like playing the joker card... Trumps all.

6. The joys of FFT...flexible follow through... Some days you need a LOT of last chances up your sleeve if you are going to walk the fine balance between world war three and anarchy.

7. Love love love the good stuff.... Total positive reinforcement... I do not care if my kid runs the risk of growing up needing external reinforcement to feel good about herself... I will NOT stop telling her she has done a fantastic amazing job, she is hugely talented and a superstar, and she will one day rule the world - at least until bedtime.

8. Toddler Tennis Tips... parenting a toddler is a game, never forget it.  Its a tennis rally in which both the little person and the big person are dancing around trying to get a ball past their opponent.  You may rally around deuce for a time, but at the end of the day whoever hits the better curve ball wins.  I am a good enough sport to admit this.

9. Parenting is a battle of wits.  I've never stretched my imagination, innovation, creativity and inventiveness this far before - and trust me, I'm pretty inventive in life.  Its a constant process of trail and error to find a win.  Celebrate the wins and high five yourself... you earned it!

10.  Ask for help when you need it but don't expect to get it.  Ask the kid to cut you some slack on a bad day.  Sometimes it works.. .and if it doesn't - they were warned!

11. Its ok to have the shits.  Kids are not stupid - they know you love them and think they are incredibly amazing, if you have told them a million times (see 7).  They can cope when mummy gets pissed off.  Mostly they know they deserved it.  Seriously.  By 4 years old - my kid knows when she is pushing my buttons or leapfrogging over the boudaries of common decency... and she knows that when she does that I get C-R-A-N-K-Y... such is the nature of it.   She makes the choice... self responsibility and all that - love may be unconditional but happy smiling faces are not.

Ok so that is 11... get over it.  Mums are inherently unfathomably amazing and utterly imperfect.  Deal.

Oh and one more... iPads rule.  Full stop.

Trickling back baby....

Hello mojo! Well... You are a somewhat wasted diminished neglected version of your former glory... You look like you could really do with a decent feed and a hot shower...
 but still, it's so nice to see you again!!
I've missed you so...
What made you finally return to home and hearth?
Did I speak the words aloud and break the curse?
Did I find better balance in myself so that there was space for you?
Is it because the end of this journey is looming and you realised I wasn't going to make it over the line without you?
Was it just your time?
Or was it the Zumba?
In any case... I'm so happy to have you back in my life, even in your reduced current form.
I've really been enjoying the recent yummy healthy home cooked meals...
And I'm loving actually hitting some of the to do list....
I'm even enjoying getting to bed at a decent hour rather than hiding myself in meaningless distractions!
Stay with me mojo... Lets roll together down the next path of adventure and see where it takes us.
I'm so much less me without you!
Xxxx

Burn out

So I am burnt out...
Burn out is a bitch.
It sucks the life right out of you
It sucks the will to achieve out through your eyes leaving bloody trails of good intentions
It makes everything and anything more interesting that what you are supposed to be doing... cereal boxes suddenly detail fascinating essential facts for life, but you can't remember what you were supposed to be doing anyway so it doesn't seem to matter.
Cleaning becomes really interesting and subsumes all other priorities
Facebook becomes your best friend, judging by time and energy commitment made
Burn out fogs the brain, makes it hard to remember just what was so important that you decided to work at home to make up for time that slid into the mirky swamp during the daylight hours.
Priorities pop into mind at random moments, inspiring more guilt than motivation, only to dart away as soon as the computer screen refreshes.
Tiny routine tasks take superhuman effort
You can't imagine how on earth you used to get stuff done.
Burn out - you suck.

Keeping up my end...

So it's Wednesday...day three of my "finding my fitness groove" self challenge... And I am thrilled to say that inner determination and self commitment, my old friends, have popped in to visit. I'm working on convincing them to stay a while, move in, unpack...
Three days, three work outs, 150 push ups, calorie controlled diet and no alcohol or chocolate...
Sore but happy...
Yay me.

This week's challenge...

So I am attempting to get my fitness groove back on...
Last week was a shocker on the health front...stress induced yes, but stress didn't shove all those chocolates into my mouth and wash them down with red wine... That was all me baby...
So ....this week the bar has been lifted.
My challenge this week :
1. No alcohol
2. 1200 cals a day
3. 30 min cardio work out every day
4. 300 push ups over the week.
Oh and no chocolate I think goes without saying... No? Ok then NO CHOCOLATE...take note self, you are being blitzed.  Luckily I have now eaten all of the chocolate and drunk the open wine.
So it's the end of day 2 of the week... And Tuesday evening sees me chocolate free, 1.5litres of water consumed today, alcohol free, and having done two work outs and 100 push-ups.
Not too bad if I do say so myself!
Yay....feeling groovy....
Now to keep up the good work given that I have also chosen this week to come down hard on the little person sleeping coming into my bed at night....so sleep deprivation has already commensed.
Wish me luck!

Peek-a-boo!

Tick tock tick tock...

I sat down to write a post about how fast time is flying as I pass the milestones along the way to coming home...
And as I started to write it felt so very "de ja vu" like... And I realised so many of my posts have been about tick tock time passing toward the next stage of life..the next big thing... So much of my life spent anticipating, planning, wondering, nervously awaiting, almost always with some degree of ambivalence.... A letting go of past and moving towards the future unknowns.
Is this normal? Is this how other people live? Do other people's lives settle into comfortable routines or do they too live life rolling from one big event to the next? Do others live more in the momentary interests of the day? Or do they too experience the vast lands of limbo between one adventure and the next?
I have lived my life in chunks...chunks of experience, chunks that feel like very different lives all sticky taped end to end like a Christmas streamer.  Most of the chucks have been about 18 months to two years long... I have seen this pattern emerge clearly. Two year cycles and then on to the next reinvention... Maybe it's connected to having travelled the world in a back pack at 18 months old, maybe I am repeating infant patterning... Or maybe it's a natural cycle... Six months to settle into a new thing, six months to a year to live fully within it, and six months closure and exit to the next thing...

Some days this is the very best I can do

Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother's Day... And for the first time ever I'm not celebrating it in any way...my own mother is cruising the Greek islands....we figure she is celebrating enough without a token bunch of flowers from her tropic bound off spring. I'll be sending her my thoughts, but I'm not sure I could top a beachside seafood feast in a village in Crete even if I tried, and I am sure she will be indulging in yet another of those tomorrow.
And my own little four year old angel has turned feral this week... With impeccable timing she has launched another phase of boundary testing rebellion. I know it will, like all the others, pass and peace will be restored...but it's not a shining mummy week I have to say. Spending this morning sitting on the ground outside the fun factory (closed for private function) while she wails that I am not to touch her and refuses to stop pressing her face against the door to the forbidden land was not one of the mothering highlights of my short but mostly happy career in the role.
So I'm going to simply pretend Mother's Day doesn't apply to us this year. We will try again to visit the fun factory (ball pits, slides, trampolines...all the joys of life in one room) and I shall enjoy her smiles as my Mother's Day gift... Maybe I will eat a piece of cake.... And that shall be my day.
Happy Mother's Day to all my dear friends who will be celebrating this year, may your toddlers be angels of happy compliance, may your cups of tea not grow cool, and may you have uninterrupted toilet time :)

Living to prevent dying regrets....

I read this article today and it got me thinking... am I living the life I truly choose? What regrets will I have on my death bed? What would I do differently if I was going to find a way to reach the end of my life without regrets?   I've inserted my reflections into the article... Coz you know, it's my blog and I can do that...

 THE TOP FIVE REGRETS OF THE DYING:

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying".

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
"This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it."

Am I living a life that is true to me, or am I living other people's expectations? 
I find it almost impossible to really know... I've spent a lot of time on this question in my life...but the expectations of others are so tightly woven into everything I have ever known about myself, and are so much a part of how I think about what is meaningful in life, that its impossible to tease out what is just me and what is internalised... Maybe this is because I actually agree with a lot of what I internalised from my parents and my buddhist upbringing. 
Do I feel that I am living authentically, in a way which is not in discord with my personal values? Yes... Do I easily get caught up in pleasing others and trying to meet their expectations of me? Yes, I do.  Do I actually think its a good personality trait to try and make others happiness a priority?  Yes I do... But where does the balance lie? That's the trick question... I think it comes back to listening to whether pleasing others requires compromising authenticity or not...if it doesn't, it's ok...if it does...negotiate, make conscious choices about when to give in and when not to...
That's the point I have reached on that journey...

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

I don't think this one applies to me... Sure I work hard, but I believe passionately in what I am doing and why I am doing it...and if anything, I'm a little lazy and could work harder if I really wanted to be proud of my achievements and have fewer regrets...

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

I'm getting much better at this... It's taken courage, but I'm getting there. No longer do I allow myself to feel silenced by the fear of others reactions to my true feelings. I've learned by doing that out is almost always better than those festering in feelings...

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

Now this one I do need to get better at... I used to be much better at this... Age has narrowed me...I've become much more introspective, introverted, less socially oriented and engaged with others. This is given, of course, that used to be Extreemly Very Social... So it is relative.  I have also, flip side, realised that I have friends who I trust I can pick up with at any point like no time has passed...true friends who I may not speak to for years but that I know are still in my life and will always be. I miss them in between though, and I'd like to connect more...

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

Now this one I give myself about 70% on... Nothing like a four year old to remind you about the silliness and joy of life... But could I do more of it? Yes ... Could I spend less time "parenting" and more time playing? Yes, I could... I think the thing I need to work on there is being more present in the moment... I spend too much time with my mind elsewhere...multi-tasking...distracted from the fun of the moment... This is the meditation I need to do more of. An when I have practiced staying present in the moment before... I really do have more fun!

What's your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

I am you, I am not you...

Ive been watching the final series of Being Erica.  Tonight i watched the second last show of the last series made....I will miss it when it is over...every episode delivers a life message...a new perspective, a reminder of known but buried truths, a confirmation of lived truths...
Tonight's Being Erica life lesson...
I am you, and I am not you...
It is a double edged coin of awareness that allows us to both find ourselves in another person in order to have compassion for their experiences, their common struggles, their similar vulnerabilities...and yet to also be mindful that they are fundamentally different people.
Too often we fall into the trap of expecting others to be like us. We expect others to make similar choices, value similar things, treat us they way that we would treat them...and when they don't we are offended, hurt, angry, disappointed, judgemental....and whether we shout in fury or smoulder in silent resentment ...they know... They feel it... They "get" that we wanted them to be more like us.  And no-one reponds well to being asked to be less themselves...and nor should they.
So the key? Get rid of the expectation. Live the truth of acceptance of difference, and pardoxically it will be even easier to find the common ground.
I am guilty of this, like most...
I will take this lesson on board in my continual process of being the best me I can be...

The help

Just watched the movie "the help"...  I would imagine you have seen it.. I know I am behind the times after four years of little people and foreign lands... I expected a gentle little story...  And maybe I'm just in a sensitive mood today but i found it profoundly sad.  It was gentle in that it didnt hit you in the face with brutality, but it was, i thought, all the more powerful for it. The quiet domesticity of hatred and disempowerment was nauseating. Oh why is it so easy for people to hate so irrationally?  Sometimes I can block out the world and feel relaxed and happy inside... As long as I stay blind and numb. But then something breaks through and reminds me that while people are indeed capable of love and kindness and infinitely inspirational levels of selflessness...too often they squander their lives and miraculous opportunities on hatred and nastiness... 
At least it makes those who don't seem like shining lights in the storm. 
Oh for a world where people were fundamentally good and evil was the aberration... 

On equanimity...

Equanimity....
Just thinking the word gives me a warm gentle softening feeling in my heart.
Equanimity.... More than simply viewing things as equal, it is, to me, the profound sensation of letting go of my grasping on to my preferences and judgements about something, about everything. In the moments when I feel myself caught, bound by my own emotional reactions to people and situations, if can think clearly enough to remember, I simply close my eyes and say "equanimity"... And in that moment I breath out - physically and mentally - and I let go.  I let go of thinking things should be a certain way because its better then the alternatives. I let go of thinking that people should behave in a certain way because I think it's better. I let go of being annoyed that things don't always, in the sort term, turn out the way I want them to.
In equanimity I let go of should and just let be.
In Buddhism it is upekkha, the foundation of wisdom and compassion...the heart that views all beings as interconnected and valuable and does not preference the happiness of one over the other.
In Judaism it is menuhat ha-nefesh, the foundation of spiritual morality.
Christian philosophy referred to the evenness of mind of equanimity as essential for the virtues of gentleness, temperance and charity.
In Hinduism it is the nature of Brahman, of absolute reality.
Across faiths, culture, beliefs - at the heart lies equanimity.
I find it joyful. When I let go, suddenly I am free.
Free to just love, cherish, appreciate...without judgement, preference, rigidity.
Free to let be, and thus, free to be.

On Finishing...

So I have written before about finishing... I am not a finisher.
I am a starter certainly...
I am an ideas person...
I love new adventures, opportunities, options...
I love to plan and imagine the wide open space of tomorrow land.
And I am ok with starting, head down, nose to grindstone, getting my teeth into it...
But I am not a finisher.
I hate endings... I hate the limp to the finish line.
I struggle to stay focussed, to bring home the race.  When I can see what the outcomes is going to be I lose interest.  I want to side track, point out that really - we all know that eventually we are going to cross that line so lets just all it now...
What I don't understand is why...
Why do I not crave the thrill of the perfect ending?
Why do I not seek to sink the final ball, sound the final horn
Why do I not desire the handshake and back pat of a job well finished?

Sometimes I think its because that is the point where I have to say "ok this is as good as it gets"
Sometimes I think its because I get bored and want new stimulation (bet thats a bit too simplistic)
Sometimes I think its a hidden mystery in me that I just don't understand...

But its annoying.
And its happening now.
I am in the final 4 months of this huge life changing job - and all I want is for it to be over... done.... I don't relish the run to the end, I don't feel the desire to bust a gut to leave it in tip top shape for the next person... I just want it to be over now.
But then, stupidly, I also know that I will have a huge come down when it is.  I will miss the challenge, the sense of purpose, the all consuming nature of it.  I will miss the sense of accomplishment against the odds... and mostly... I will be in a world of pain trying to work out what I want to do next.  Sure - I have some plans - I wouldn't be me if I didn't. But its going to take a huge amount of adjustment to let go of this and move on.
So I desperately want it to be over, but I fear it at the same time.
No wonder I don't like finishing.

Juggling in the sunrise

Love that kid...

An angel turns 4...

A week early (shhhhhh) it may have been (so that grandma could be part of the big day) but it was emphatically declared by the little one to be "the best birthday party ever"!!!

Roller coaster days...

Please can I go home now??

Simultaneous selves

Juggling game

Let it all unravel

The space between...

Burdens aboard, but sunrise twinkles in the distance

A world of possibility unravels...

sensible sucks

This year I pledged to myself that I would be more balanced, take better care of myself, make sensible choices...
For the most part its been a great thing - I have made choices that are keeping me sane, helping me achieve more less painfully, making me feel more adult, together, balanced, happy.
But sometimes I just wish that the sensible choice was also the easier, more fun choice.
Once upon a time I was much more reckless, much less safe, much more impulsive, much less "sensible"...
In so many ways I miss those days....

Today I feel in love with the crazy world....

I may be a little insane at the moment, but my heaviness has lifted and little bubbles of happiness and love for the world are floating out of my chest and popping in rainbow flashes around me.

Doorways, archives, bundles and files....oh the places we go, a whole world inside...

my charming angel...

Snapshots of love

Created using Pic Collage. http://pic-collage.com

Sent from my iPad

ENFP

So today I finally did the Myers Briggs test, after hearing the jargon in conversations for many years...  Turns out to be scarily accurate... Hmmm. I know that there are many who will say that its auto suggestion and that I would recognise parts of myself in all of them, but I don't actually think so... It was like reading a page straight from my blog...in one of my more self indulgent self obsessed rambles about what ever recent piece of self awareness has slipped into the puzzle...
Funny though, I really expected... Don't laugh now, it's not nice...that I would rate as an introvert... I don't see myself, anymore, as the extroverted type. Man, I must have blown off the scale when I was young!

#8 the introvert within...

#7 My mind is in the sunrise....

#6 Climbing...climbing....phew....

The wump of gump

its those moments...

So if a lifetime is made up of moments, I want remember my life by these moments...

Thwarted in our beach sand castle plans by the darkening clouds, we took to the roads for an adventure instead.  (by "roads" I mean driveway, and by "adventure" I mean riding up and down the drive way with mummy running behind to help with the uphill bit at the end).

Ah the pride of peddling very very fast, and not falling off the side of the driveway into the muddy swamp either side...
Ah the elation of reaching the top of the hill at the end of the driveway...
Ah the nervous excitement of rolling down the hill with mummy's reassuring hand on the back of the bike...

And then... lets do it all again!  and again!  and One-More-Time...Pleeeeeease....

Its these moments that define a childhood, for little and big people.

Clever angel

R O O F. Mummy, does this make "roof"?

The angel wanted in on the action...

"Mummy with very long hair, and she grows and grows until she reaches her hair..."

#5 keeping all the balls bouncing...

#4 contemplating opportunity...

Hello Ukraine!

So looking at the stats page I see that my blog has had 11 hits from the Ukraine today.... That's a new one for me! Welcome Ukrainians!

#3 you are my smile...

#2 static head...

Let down by technology

Not a good start to my pledge... Doing my sketches but they refuse to load on my blog... Let me just assure my readers that my commitment is there, it the display of it is thwarted....

Update: fixed!

New challenge... Sketch #1

 

So I have decided to set myself a new personal challenge. In the ongoing quest to maintain positive life balance and keep myself sane in what is rapidly becoming a completely insane year, I am trying to reconnect with the past artist version of myself.   I liked her, she was cool.  She drew in her art journal daily... She was grounded in her emotions (if they were filled with youthful angst). She took risks, was open and adventurous, and she was creative in her life.  I'd like to see more of her. I know she's grown up, and changed, but I know she is still in there, just enjoying an extended nap. 

So since being back in tropical disturbance land I've taken up painting again. With my limits of time and energy I haven't exactly been prolific, but it made me happy to start back down that path. 

I can feel the work monkey sucking at my back, wrapping me in the endless tentacles of the unachievable to do list...and so in order to keep a grip on my journey back to my artist self I have decided to post a sketch a day for 21 days.  Readers may recall last year's 21 days to inner beauty challenge... And this one continues the theme by using 21 days to change a habit, reinforce a new habit or break an old one. 

So here goes... 21 days, 21 sketches... Just quickies... Just to keep my mind in visual self expression mode... And this is today's.

gratifying...

So I am terribly pleased to know that I must be doing something right at home... today the angel kissed my knee and said "I really like you today mummy"... words of endorsement indeed.

Yes Boss...

So it may not come as a surprise to some in my life, but I have realised that I may have a little issue with authority figures... I have been noticing that when ever I am deeply unhappy in a job the reason is almost always a "bad" boss.  In this case I AM the boss... so its my board that have the power to render me almost blind with rage and frustration.  I have been trying to work out where this might be coming from... what is it in me that reacts so vehemently to someone telling me what to do - if I don't agree with them.  I have great respect for bosses who simply let me do my own thing most of the time and provide gentle guidance and support when required.  What really gets my goat though is bosses who I don't agree with but have to follow anyway... it eats me inside.... I lay awake at night, and ruminate on it constantly... its a deep frustration and a silent rage that renders me almost irrational.  Is this a childhood issue that is unresolved?  Is this an arrogance and pride in me that thinks I know better?  Is this my natural and common fury at perceived injustice?  Am I just a bad loser?
It seems that the universe is determined that I confront this issue.  I've had a few really great bosses, but I have had quite a share of ones that have prematurely aged me.  The other time I recall being really frustrated was running a struggling business in which I was the boss - and I wasn't a great one.  So I was mad at myself as well as the situation.  So here I am again - in a really hard job but one that I do actually enjoy, despite the workload... and the thing that is making me walk on the day that my contract ends is a bad boss/board.  Now I know that they are actually independently shit - many people who have no reason to lie to me have indicated that I really do have the bad end of the stick with this one.  And sadly the way that our constitution was written means that they can't be sacked, they can't be brought into line and they can't be controlled except by their own members.  So I am rendered almost powerless and it is eating me up from the inside out.  So... this is my challenge... I will find a way to overcome how badly this affects me.  I will find a way to keep calm.  I will find a way to see this as an opportunity for me to learn about my own issues with authority.
I will turn this around and use it for good instead of evil.
Wish me luck!