My dentist is a Chinese guy, a real nice guy too, and I went to see him today to have my last wisdom tooth pulled. I was a little more than nervous. It was bottom left and it was broken and it was hurting.

I was waiting in his reception, and this is why I made a big thing out of him being Chinese, he was happily chatting away to some of his Chinese clients with his Chinese nurse. It didn't make me feel like I was in a different country; it made me feel like I was invisible. The last time I remember feeling that way was when I was a kid and it was a pretty weird feeling now that I'm middle aged. It got me thinking about how we treat people and how we sometimes do this to people because they're not popular enough, not part of our group or whatever. Like I said though, my dentist is a really nice guy and he eventually turned about and gave me the most beautiful smile and greeted me with a hi. I felt that there was such a lesson in this for me because I had considered the feeling of irritation I felt both at being ignored and also at him already running late and having time to chat (I realized that he was waiting for the anesthesia to take effect on someone else before working on them).

When it was my turn he had a look at that old tooth of mine and started to give me the anesthesia shots. I find those to almost the worst thing of all when I go to the dentist. I'm a freak when it comes to anesthesia, it took four rounds of the stuff to numb the tooth (the last round went straight into the part of the tooth that still hurt) and it still wouldn't numb properly. I gave the go ahead to start anyway and told him he would know when to stop if it still hurt too much. It dawned on there and then that I had already suffered far worse. I had given birth and this was going to be child's play compared to that no matter what happened.

The tooth was stubborn. I felt like it was holding on for grim death to all it had ever known. Teeth are alive you know, they absorb things through their enamel for example. It was almost as though it was afraid to let go of me but it finally came out and my dentist asked me to look at it (they do that so that you can confirm the whole tooth and the roots came out). I told him I didn't want to look at it but then I realized that it was a part of me lying there on the table and I was rejecting it as though it was something ugly and nasty. I did take a look at it and couldn't help myself, I said "Bye bye!" The dentist nurse laughed.

On the way home I thought about that tooth, that part of me that was now removed. I thought that if it had its own life would it be sad or relieved that it was no longer in pain or hurting me. Would its little soul (energy) slip away and join the source? I don't know but I do know that I have never thought about a tooth like that before. I know it sounds warped (but then I am warped) but it made me realize that everything has its place in this Universe even a broken wisdom tooth.

The humans must be crazy

Back in the good old days (1980) someone made a movie called The Gods must be crazy. It’s about a Sho man in the Kalahari desert who finds a Coke bottle (in those days they were made of glass a material frequently used for bottles in these ancient times) falling out of the sky. He brings it back to his people and the people find many uses for the object. Fights soon break out over the bottle and who’s going to use it among an otherwise peaceful people so the Kalahari man decides to take the bottle back to God who obviously gave it to them. The rest of the movie is a serious of mishaps that happen when he tries to find God so that he can get rid of the object that caused so much trouble among his people. It’s an endearing little flick mainly because it turns an every day object into something of importance and it makes the Kalahari man question the sanity of the Gods who gave this item to his people.

I sometimes wonder (my mind does work in strange ways at times) that if the Gods and Goddesses really exist (and I have to admit that I do talk to them occasionally) do they look down at us from wherever they are and wonder what the heck is going on here.

They’ve given us plenty of instructions on how to live and some we have distorted for our own purposes and some we have completely misunderstood. Some of us have hijacked the instructions and teachings they’ve given us and began telling others that they are the only ones who understand what god/the gods meant and their interpretation is the only way. Some of us have singled out one of them as the only one and tell others who don’t follow that way that they are doomed.

Do you ever wonder if Jesus sits there with his head in his hands shaking it muttering something about it not being what he meant at all? Maybe Buddha reassures him with a pat on the back solemnly stating that he knows exactly how Jesus feels, that despite the hard work of the Dalai Lama most people just seem to miss the point. Maybe Jesus thinks to himself (not saying it our loud because he doesn’t want to hurt Buddha’s feelings) that at least you have the Dalai Lama kind of uniting the Buddhists, just look at the Christian and see how fractioned they are. Others may not worry so much about fractions but rather about the violence carried out in their name. Others again may just shrug and give up; humanity is on its own, they’ve done what they can. Others may have lost following altogether and may be wondering what the whingeing is all about, at least hey have someone who still talks to them.

I don’t know but I find humans awfully odd at times. I’m almost at the point of admiring our ability to use tunnel vision that it almost leaves us blind. We are so afraid of facing up to things, taking responsibility and to use common sense when it comes to big problems. Ego is hard at work of course. How could I possibly dare to reduce my current living standard somewhat to ensure that someone lives better somewhere else? It’s not like they’re going to thank me, is it? No, on an individual level it is too hard but if thought more along the lines of the bigger picture and everyone pitched in a bit then the whole thing would be completely different and so much easier.

Excuse me while I put my head back in the sand. This makes my head hurt and it all seems too hard. Ciao!

I work for a company that has been in a sort of flux for some time now. A few years back we got a new boss in the R&D department which is where I work. He was forceful, he swore (not only to weed out the slackers but literally) and he promised new times with innovative ways to do things. We were almost the world's best company in our field and now we were going to be the best.

Truth was that he frightened the crap out of everyone but that wasn't all. Things like him saying that because 40% of sick days were falling on Mondays and Fridays we would now need doctor's certificates for those days if we were sick whereas we previously hadn't left us confused. We did the math (and in case you haven't...) and we realized quite quickly that 40% of workdays fell on Mondays and Fridays too (you are coming to the same conclusion we did right - statistically all was fine) so what was the problem?

We were surveyed and it turned out that most of us wanted to be better informed so he instituted quarterly information sessions when everyone, in groups of 25, would turn up in a meeting room and he would do a presentation. He called it communicating with us. We called it him communicating at us. No one dared to open their mouths during these sessions even when he asked for input except for the favored few. However, he could go back and say that we were all happy (we didn't question or challenge him while we had the opportunity in these "intimate" meetings) and we were informed because of these sessions. The illusion had been created that all was well and the people was getting what they wanted: communication and transparency.

This went on for about two years. Anybody down on the coalface (so to speak) could tell that people were less inspired and started to care less. The lower ranks of managers had to do their best to keep their people going. HR told them that although this man came across as hard and heartless he was "passionate" about the company and as such he was good for us. We were told we should have faith in him because he was going to lead us to great things. He hadn't been put in charge of three major departments (Sales, Marketing and R&D - now there's a conflict of interest!) for nothing.

Well, unfortunately this man didn't quite succeed in bringing us into greater times. He did however institute a management style in the higher ranks that meant that they were free to do (as my manager likes to call them) "impromptu performance reviews". They were basically dress downs that took place in public shouting so that all were left without doubt that the offending "plebeian" deserved this kind of treatment and was a complete fool. Many a good person fell foul of the higher ranks and they were slowly made to resign, or in some cases they were retrenched, while their only real crime was to know the business better than the higher ranks that had been brought in by this man we now had running the department.

In a sudden move this man lost all his departments and was left with (his half a million dollar a year paycheck and a) small department to run. He resigned yesterday and was seen out the door the same day. We all knew why he went and that he was never going to go anywhere in the company again. It would look bad to stay because for all intents and purposes he had been demoted. He had no choice but to go. Problem is that his legacy lives on and so does the damage that was been done. People are now so disillusioned that one wonders if the company will survive.

There seems to be a trend out there to treat workers as though they are not important in the bigger scheme. They are commodities and they are replaceable. What matters is the company profits. One has to wonder if this is what we really want and if this is what capitalism really is about. The majority of the people do not benefit but we are asked to swallow it hook line and sinker, and we do. People base whole careers on this system but they remain largely unfulfilled. Stress and dissatisfaction take their toll on us all. We feel fettered to a way of living that doesn't suit most of us but it's all we have to hold on to. The ultimate price we pay is environmental destruction as we become so disconnected from nature and the way we really are deep inside. We refuse to look inside ourselves because all we see in there is pain. The only way to change this is for all of to make different choices but most of us don't even know that we have the right to.

Transformation time

Today is one of those days (hence my third post) when my soul positively aches for more. I don’t know if it has to do with being so close to full moon, the nearing moon eclipse or just a phase I’m in but I’m hungry for more. What I can see and perceive today feels like it’s nothing, it’s not enough, it simply falls so short that I just can’t be satisfied with it. No matter how much I try to tell myself that I should appreciate not hunger, I still seem to be starving. This is a time for intake of information – I know that because I have been here before – and it will be followed by a period of introspection.

What this means is that my mind wants to travel and expand. My spirit wants to reach places far away without the constraints of time. My soul wants to know more about the people who surround me in my reality and out of it. I want to choose my next step, a new path and head towards a new outcome that will be quite different from what I have had so far. I want to destroy the old and create the new at the same time. I want to surprise and be surprised. I want to expand and explore. I want to invite new perceptions and find new ways of looking at things. I want to get to know new people (or beings). I want to do so in joy, while my soul still sings and before reality again chains me to my ordinary life. I want to do it while I still have hope that I will be able to remain free this time. I am in transformation and perhaps this time I will be able to slingshot myself out of the old and into the new if I can just gain enough momentum.

May the goddess be with me because I’m doing this without a safety harness or a helmet…..and I will keep you posted.

Those people....

There are those people that you for some reason always feel drawn to. You don’t even have to know them well; they don’t even have to seemingly acknowledge your existence yet you have this warm feeling about them.

You don’t need to see them all the time, you somehow still feel connected. They turn up in your most profound dreams and may even take on a supporting role in those dreams. For some reason even when you are at odds with them you have a feeling like they are a pair of your favourite old slippers that you have worn forever and you just know that they are such good quality that they will never wear out.

You never get close to them for some reason. Occasionally you spend time wondering why that is and why it is you still feel so connected to them. You end up asking yourself what you are waiting for and whether you should try to get closer to them or not. You wonder if they feel the same or if they are they completely oblivious to you and what you are feeling.

Sometimes they disappear out of your life never to be seen again or perhaps to turn up later quite unexpectedly. Sometimes you don’t see them for days, weeks or months but you heart and soul sing when they come into view again and you don’t even have to have them acknowledge you in any way. It’s as thought the sheer presence of their energy is enough to soothe you even when you didn’t know you were aching for it. Sometimes they nudge ever closer to you but it takes years. It’s so subtle that you don’t really notice and even if you do, you decide that because it’s moving so slowly they are not feeling what you do.

It happens sometimes that they reach out and physically touch you, quite unexpectedly, seemingly by accident during a conversation. To your great surprise it feels so right, even though you really don’t like to be touched by people you don’t know well, that it’s almost like you don’t even notice, like they have done it a thousand times before and you’re already used to their touch. Their energy seems so familiar to you that is doesn’t feel like an intrusion at all, like their already part of you, like you were once one. It doesn’t feel at all the way it does when most people touch you, even your lover. It is cotton candy soft, warm and it permeates your whole being until it eventually touches your heart. You imagine that it’s what love really feels like, not romantic love, just love.

At times you allow yourself to long for more, to wonder if things could be different, if they’re your soul-mate. You realise that trying to figure out why it is the way it is with them and you will just make you sad and frustrated, making you wish that you could have more of the closeness you’ve already tasted. You choose to appreciate what little contact there has been between and you allow it to become your refuge island in an otherwise stormy and treacherous sea. You choose to stay silent and invisible to them while waiting for signs that they noticed you and feel the way you do.

Who are these people and why do they exist? I would really like to know because one of these people has been in my life for over eight years now.

Water striding...

I’m back here again, skimming the surface of shamanism. I hold no illusions here and I believe that it is naïve to think that you can become a shamanic practitioner by reading a few books or doing a weekend course (even if it sets you back $3000 and is led by a person who trained with a shaman from Native American tribe). I can’t even buy into the courses that take years (and still set you back thousands of dollars) simply because I don’t think most of us Westerners have it in us because of the belief systems we have been brought up with. Yes, there is the odd exception or two but I think we have to see them as rarities and stop kidding ourselves.

However, the more I read about shamanism the more I believe that there are people out there that can heal in the way described and do all the amazing things that are described in the books I read (if they can’t it makes for some really good stories). If all these stories do is to shift the Western materialistic view into a more all encompassing one it’s a good thing. We have sold our souls to materialism and we are paying the ultimate price for it: global warming.

Changing beliefs is probably the most potent healing tool there is. We can continue to concentrate on fixing the shell with mechanical means (i.e. surgery) until the cows come home but I think the in the end it’s our energy that needs to be worked on. That’s right, our energy, not even our minds, our spirits or our emotions. Scientists have proven now that if we break anything down far enough it always is the same thing: energy. What gives things different form is the different vibrations of the energy.

If you consider the last paragraph a load of bull, that’s cool. Most people have however had the experience of walking into a room full of people and just getting a feel of the atmosphere or mood. Or, they have met someone who just gave them the creeps or just made them feel really comfortable without doing anything in particular. How do we pick up on these things? I’d say energy. I have a cat that won’t leave your side if you are ill or feel down. How does he know? I think he feels the energy. He’s normally really high strung but when you are down he projects calm and intent.

I’m bored, bored with the normal perceptions and the hap hazard way we go through life without knowing enough even about ourselves and what makes us tick never mind how to deal with others. I hold no illusions, I will never be a shaman, but I’m curious to know some of the things they know, not to use it on others but just to figure out what we really are. Can you really become invisible to others? I’m sure there are times when you have felt that you are. Is it something about your state of mind that made it so or are people just too busy to notice you? I don’t know, but I want to find out. I want to find out how far you can push the concept of shapeshifting, time travel and reaching places without physically being there. It can be a scary thought but if it’s possible it would be a hell of a ride! It challenges everything we have been brought up to believe which is why it makes it so interesting. The backyard we normally play in with the limited perceptions it allows us to have is not big enough for me anymore, I have to climb the fence! Separation from my husband was the first step in shedding things that were holding me back. Letting go of fear of doing things out of the ordinary was the next. “Knowing” that there isn’t enough time for me to do the things I need to get over the fence is next. There is never enough time and therefore time has to cease to be of importance.

I feel a little like a water strider. I’m skimming the surface but I’m dying to know what’s going on in the waters below me. What’s it like down there and who lives there? What does it look like when you look up from down there up into our world? What are the possibilities there? What are the dangers? What can I learn there? Who will I be there? How could I possibly not be curious about it all……..

Choices......

For me the last half a year or so has brought enormous changes and I still don’t feel as though I’m hitting the target. What I’ve written here in this blog leaves me cold and wondering why I’m still fluffing over the important stuff in my life and for how long I will keep doing it.

The latest developments in my life have seen my husband move into the ex-husband state well and truly. He’s decided that rather than pursuing me and trying to find ways of getting me back he will give me all the freedom I want and go to Greece to work. It was a move that surprised me, I have to admit. He told me last Sunday but on the day before I was suddenly hit with this enormous sense of freedom and I felt as though I great weight had been lifted off me. Ever since he told me about his plans we have been able to have decent conversations almost as though we are longstanding friends.

It’s there though, the sadness and the grief. I can detect in his voice and I feel it in myself. All the subjects that are now carefully avoided because they could cause arguments, the overly cheerful tone of conversation and the need to be reassured that somehow the love we once shared will always be there, that it wasn’t all in vain and that there’s still hope. I struggle to keep my eye on the ball, having to remind myself what it was that made me call it quits in the first place and what has made me refuse to take him back no matter what he did or promised. I also find myself grieving and battling a real sense of loss. Now I have to face the sad fact that my second marriage failed and try to learn something from it.

It occurred to me that even though it’s silly to grieve for something that you created (it was my choice to separate and stay separated), it is something I have to do. We are so afraid of our feelings, of experiencing any emotional pain whatsoever. Pain cannot hurt us though. It may seem to be a contradiction to say that but emotional pain is perhaps even useful if we view it as a sign post rather than anything else. My grief, my pain, tells me of a fear I have of being alone and unwanted, of being unloved. As this part of my life unravels so are other parts, like the way I think of my career and work in general, and the value it really holds in my life. The way I look at myself as a woman is changing and so is the way I monitor my thoughts. I have come to realise that I spend a lot of time in some sort of fantasy land imaging what it would be like to be in a functioning relationship while romanticising the whole in a big way. I have lived in there, doing that, for decades to cope with a life that I quite frankly haven’t found to be very rewarding so far. Hitting the 40s is well and truly making me face my own inability to create the life I want and that I think I deserve.

The question is now, how do you create the life you want? If you believe all the hype surrounding The Secret and those who believe in the law of attraction the way is to feel it. It’s not as easy as you may think because most of us programmed to not put too much faith in anything. We are well and truly brainwashed into thinking that nothing can come easily to you and that you have to work hard for every single break in life. We are a bunch of “half empty glass” people who rather err on the side of caution. We don’t like to be disappointed. I’m slowly trying to change my thinking there though because to be honest, and this is my only real reason for doing it, working hard with little to show for it in the end but more hard work stinks. I think I would rather believe that things can come easily at this stage, I have nothing to lose in doing so, and if it helps me attract good things into my life all the more power to me and my new way of thinking. If it doesn’t I will deal with it later (and demand an explanation from the Universe and Rhonda Byrne who wrote the book The Secret).

Thinking about finding new love, especially love that will last, is probably the hardest right now. When the body aches to be touched and your soul to be warmed by another’s love and presence it amplifies the loneliness. It’s easy to get impatient and angry, to hold the Universe or the opposite sex responsible.

Here in the Western world (or at least in the city) we all seem to suffer from the need for instant result, anything else just won’t do. If we don’t get instant results we get nervous and suspect or even see it as failure. We work like that, cook like that (if we cook at all), we eat like that, travel like that and treat ourselves, our families and our friends like that. The process and journey is worth nothing; only the result holds value and meaning to us.

So many of us blame our parents for how we feel about ourselves and the lack of perceived success in life, basically for what we have turned out like. I used to do that as well but I have come to the conclusion that it’s a rather fatalistic way of looking at what I have become. At every point, in every moment of our lives, there is always a choice. We can’t always choose what others do to us but we can choose how we perceive what is done to us, the way we remember it and most of all what we learn from it. A man named David Pelzer wrote a book about his childhood and it’s a horrific story of what he endured. Yet, David went on to not only survive but to become successful in life. What makes some people succeed, survive and heal after something like that and what makes others broken, awful and unhappy? I can’t help but think that choice plays a big part in it.

I used to have these awful nightmares about an incident that happened with my first husband. His hands around my neck, the smell of alcohol on his breath and the way he looked at me when he told me that he was going to kill me because I didn’t deserve to live. Every detail of it played back in those dreams. The way I went from feeling fear to pure survival mode with my mind almost calmly starting looking for ways I could get through it alive, to get him to let go of me, to calm down and to hopefully fall into an alcohol induced sleep so that there would be peace again and I would be safe. It’s a state of alert, the adrenalin pumps through you and your senses are heightened to the max. I would experience all that in my dreams. It had a grip on me that I just couldn’t imagine would ever let go. Then someone quite calmly told me one day that I ought to change the way I remembered it all. I thought she was nuts but because of who she was I decided that I would try to while not holding much faith in how well it would work. In fact, I had no faith in it at all. I closed my eyes and very reluctantly went back to that moment and although it was nowhere near as vivid as I would recall it in my nightmares I imagined myself turning into water. As water I trickled through his hands and down the wall. I became a stream that ran down the hallway and out through the gap underneath the front door to freedom. The nightmare never returned and the need to feel like a victim started to dissolve although it would take time to heal all of the emotional wounds that I had.

Perhaps it’s really that simple. Perhaps all we have to do is to change our minds and remain open to the possibilities that are waiting out there. I hope so because the powers at be ought to know that I currently fail to see any other solution to how I feel right now.

Black and White

Truth be known. Most of us prefer our lives to be lived in black and white. Clear cut lines drawn that we can work within. Labels that we can use for situations and people. Any gray areas are to be avoided because they cause confusion and invoke emotion. Gray areas make us feel something. Gray areas challenge us to choose and to make decisions for ourselves.

I don't like the black and white for too long; I bore easily. I find at work that most people spend an awful lot of time working towards having everything black and white so that they can settle in and just cruise. There's no doubt it makes you feel safe. I have noticed though that my growth as a person is greatly accelerated when I spend time working in the gray areas and accept life's mysteries for what they are: part of life.

My ex told me yesterday that he was sick of spending our separation in the gray area and that he needed things to be black and white. As such he has apparently decided to go back home to the US and leave all this behind. I don't know if he has seized to expect me to be upset over things like this, I hope so. I feel a great sense of relief and a sense of freedom has come over me. I'm still a little afraid of believing that I have finally reached this point but I feel hopeful for the first time in a very long time. I'm not supposed to be dominated and forced to work within the limitations that I have been. My natural state is change and I need to be allowed to function like that or I become dysfunctional. I feel now that I'm on the doorstep of better things to come.

There comes a time.....

There comes a time, hopefully in everybody's life, when you realize that what you have been doing, this living to please others is never going to get you what you really want and need, that it will never fulfill you. That time has come in my life. It didn't come suddenly, it has been creeping up on me for some time now. The realization that this fear of not being enough in others' eyes that I have lived with for what seems to be for most of my life never has and never will bring me happiness. I cannot possibly please anybody because I have no real idea of what their expectations are and when expectations are not met people will be disappointed.

I want to live every second of my life. I want to feel alive every second of my life. I want to walk around grinning like my life is the best ever every second of my life. I want to experience every second of my life fully and I want to do it in a state of happiness.

Now think about that one for a moment. I want to experience every second of my life fully. Now there's a scary thought because the moment you think it is followed by something like the questions "What if something bad happens to me? How could I possibly want to experience that fully?" Our fear of something bad happening to us is so deeply conditioned in most of us that we never risk changing what we do in fear of bringing ire from some invisible force upon us. We think it will somehow jinx us, bring bad upon us, but the truth is we make ourselves suffer because we continue to live in fear. We live in fear and we are even afraid to care and of our own emotions so we ridicule anyone who shows emotion and we think anyone who is happy is also insane because what is there to be happy about? Life is tough, right? Life is out to get you!

We go to work and do our best to play the politics and please our boss' ego because without that we know we won't get a pay rise next year. If we open up and tell people what we really feel is right and stand up for ourselves we know we will become a target and even lose our jobs. In the meantime though we are so unhappy and stressed we make ourselves ill and our loved ones are suffering as a result. What kind of a life is that?

So in light of this I have decided that I will make a conscious decision to be happy every moment of my life. I will wake up in the morning and decide to be happy. Every time I catch myself not being happy I will again make the decision to be happy and see what that does for me. It can't be any worse than what I've had so far!