The 23rd Psalm, translated by Nicole Alexander.

I allow myself to be held by the Universe,
I am enough.
The Universe makes me lie down on soft couches, covered with blankets,
Through libraries of ideas it leads me,
It sings me back to myself,
and pushes me to act with integrity in the name of greater truth.

Yes, though my path leads through thoughts so dark that I contemplate suicide
I shall harm neither myself nor others.
For the Universe is within me,
The training and calming of my mind, they comfort me.

Loving hands prepare feasts even as I face my ranting ego,
The Universe hands me weapons of love,
Knowing that I will emerge victorious.

I believe that the light of love shines through me while I walk here on Earth
And that my home in the Universe is eternal.

Based on the 23rd Psalm.
Adopted by Nicole Alexander, May 2017

Being in Time

Time is a tool for acceptance and appreciation*

This quote started me thinking about what it is to be human on planet Earth. I also read in the news this week that astronomers have discovered other Earth-like planets. These planets, which may contain life, do not rotate. What would it be like I wondered to evolve on a planet where day (or night) were eternal and permanent? Imagine if there were no seasons, would one have a sense of the year(s) passing? Would one have a sense of time at all? And what are the advantages and downfalls of our sense of time?

Tool-use is one of the markers of humankind’s evolution and has lead to our extraordinary ability to control and manipulate our environments in pursuit of comfort and security. Progression from the first use of sharp rocks to scrape skins to computer systems that can mimic neural networks and learn can be used as a definition of what makes us human. Alongside these developments arise moral questioning as we wonder what it is to be human and worry that, in delegating some of that function to machines we will lose some essence of ourselves.

Maria Montessori in a critique of education claimed that education must inoculate against greed, laziness and our tendency to let machines do our work for us. She was speaking a hundred years ago, in the time before the Internet, smart phones, pocket calculators or typewriters. Our relationship to machines and tools is tempered by our love hate relationship to ‘the other.’

Time is a mental concept, a tool we have invented and continue to invent in response to the world in which we find ourselves. To live on Earth is to be a time-being and our individual and collective relationships to time reflect a love-hate dichotomy. We have invented time, yet we feel driven by it. We have become more accurate at measuring and marking the passing of time in the past two hundred years and every individual has access to multiple time alerting devices, from watches to alarm clocks, computers to reminder messages on our phones.

Yet spend a day with a child on their schedule or alone in nature and rhythms of time assert themselves in a way that is very different to our consciously timetabled lives. Time passes and we grow older in ways that are imperceptible from within. Children and trees grow, beloved pets live out their life span in fractions of ours, buildings rise and fall and time appears an inevitable fact of our lives. But I would argue that while on our planet the concept of time makes sense the kind of relationship we have with it is up to us.

Time, like any other tool can be used for good or evil. The best use I can make of it is to acknowledge the opportunities it offers for internal growth, for acceptance and appreciation of what is, has been and ever will be. We can see time as a God-like figure, directing us but perhaps by seeing beyond life on our planet we can arrive at a more nuanced understanding of time, appreciating time as a tool of our unique human situation.

*I came across this quote in some Harry Potter fan fiction by a writer calling herself Bec-Chan

To have..To Be… To Have – A Poem

I Have… I Am … I Feel… I Can… I am learning to… I Have

I have depression.

I am intelligent, brave, loving and creative.

I am sensitive.

I feel like I’m worthless.

I can be my own worst enemy.

BUT

I can also recognize when I’m depressed.

I am learning to nourish my body, to listen to my soul, to respect my boundaries, to celebrate the good times and to let love in.

I have the opportunity to live an extraordinary life.

Here’s how you can write your own To Have.. to be.. To have

I have (challenge)

I am (list the 5 best things about yourself)

I Feel (write how you feel when you are confronted with this challenge)

I can (write what you have tried already that hasn’t helped)

BUT

I can (write one small step you can take now)

I am learning to (write five things you are learning that help)

I have the opportunity to…..

A Chance to Choose

We NEED more self-directed learning in our schools – especially for boys!

When I was working as a Casual Relief Teacher today, teaching art I had a run in with a particular student, let’s just call him “J”

J’s grade 5 class were waiting outside the art room and were being a bit ratty.
I had just spend half of my 20 minute recess supervising classes that were trapped inside by the heavy rain. The kids desperately needed a chance to run around and the weather was grating on all our tempers, mine included.

I brought the class in, sat them down and explained what I expected a far as behaviour, in a nutshell, respectful listening, not talking when I was talking.

J was a persistent offender and my temper was already frayed. I felt the need to make an example of him and gave him a warning.

The class were at the tail end of a project inspired by Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly pictures and of course J was one of the students who had already finished. The alternate task of making a poster for the upcoming school fair clearly held no appeal for him. By the time the others had been working for 10 minutes he was roaming around the room causing trouble.

I felt like exploding and sending him out of the room but then I remembered that part of my ZONE OF GENIUS is outsmarting people who have worked themselves into dead-ends with their learning.

I called J over. He was pretty wary of me by that time.
I asked him what he WANTED to do with the session.
“Nothing” was his first reply.
I decided to level with him.
“Look J you’re really annoying me. But the thing is, I’m getting paid to be here. You could annoy me and I’ll go home at 3:30 and just forget about it. Or you could do something really cool with this time and I’ll go home and remember it. What would you LIKE to do with the rest of the time? You can use the resources we have here as long as you don’t use things other people need.”

J’s sullen face suddenly lit up.
“I’d like to make a giant Ned Kelly figure out of paper,” he volunteered.

So for the next half hour he worked away at this creation. When it was all laid out on the floor I suggested that he get some split pins to articulate the joints. He went and sourced this material from another teacher in the school, after working out how many he would need.

As the bell went he was putting the final touches on his creation which I stuck up on the board.

He had a choice. I had a choice. I’m pretty happy with the way things worked out.

My drug of choice – Pr

Learning…Growth…this is what I value most about being a human being in this crazy world of ours.

I’ve been learning a lot about myself the past few months and I’ve noticed a theme. It’s AUTHORITY and my relationship to it.

What I’ve realised in the past few months is that I am learning to balance

INNER and OUTER authority.
Both are necessary and both are useful. When I give too much attention to my inner authority I can’t take in valuable information, tools and knowledge from other human beings walking this path called life with me.

When I give too much attention to outer authority, teachers, gurus, coaches, friends, family I lose my sense of what is important to me. This usually leads to me making choices that I regret.

Luckily I can then escape from the uncomfortable sensation of regret by blaming the person that I willingly gave away my authority to. It’s the perfect solution to all emotional pain (NOT!)

As my spiritual path I’m committed to acting in my integrity as much as possible. Giving away my power or shutting myself off from this things I need to learn is actually painful to me. The kind of painful that wakes me up 4am and bounces through my body with an intensity that I have trained myself to heed rather than ignore.

Letting go of life-long habits of self-degradation or stubborn arrogance has been testing my ability to be generous with myself. These habits have a familiar comfort to them even though I know through long acquaintance that these are habits of short-term gain at the expense of long-term pain.

Mental habits are just as addictive as drugs and lately I’ve been confronting my habit of giving away my personal power because of my desire for validation and approval.

I can see so clearly how this addiction was born in my high school years when my natural academic talents were rewarded with constant praise and recognition. Yet I never had to really struggle or work to earn this praise. So deep down I didn’t feel I had earned this praise.

I might not have felt I deserved the praise and recognition that my high marks attracted but I did come to rely on it. Without realising it I used praise to validate my existence. Praise from others, especially others in authority produced a dopamine hit in my brain. Praise and external validation became my drug.

Like any drug the effect lessened over time and I needed more and more praise more and more often from more and more people in order to get my ‘hit.’

Because no matter how much validation I get from outside it doesn’t change my inner story. Only I can make the choice to learn and grow. It’s a choice that I’m committed to making over and over again.

Talking with MY Fearful Self

I’ve got so much going on in my body and mind at the moment.

I’m really negotiating the massive changes I invited into my life back in March.

I am being reminded of my arrogance or perhaps my innocence. When I made those changes and said I was willing to go into the void, to face not knowing. I really didn’t know how hard it would be.

I knew I was making a deliberate chance to experience a profound life transition. I wanted to apply my self-knowledge and acquired wisdom to this situation, one which had caused me the most stress in the past. I wanted a to allow myself to sit in the void of not knowing and trust by doing that I would learn more about myself.

I didn’t know that by doing this I would be calling up my 13-year-old self. She’s been really present for me since mid September, reminding me about the massive changes I went through at that age. My transition to a high school far away from home and going through puberty were massive changes and sometimes I felt like I just wanted a break. Sometimes I just wanted to stay under the covers and not face the day.

Recently my 13-year-old self has been reminding me of this time an asking me not to push myself so hard. So after really hustling to create Feel Real Heal I have been taking my foot off the accelerator and practicing patience. It’s been hard. What comes up most often is fear.

Fear came up big time for me last night. I went to bed early but I couldn’t sleep. I lay there and became aware of my fear. I started to have a conversation with it.
Actually not a conversation but a dialogue or dyad – a communication technique I’ve learned from meditation and self-development courses.

In a dyad there is a speaker who asks the same question over and over and simply listens and accepts the listener’s response without engaging.

Last night I felt my fear come up and decided to ask myself:

“What are you afraid of?”
I let a response arise from my fear, listened and accepted it.

I noticed how I wanted to jump in and comfort my fearful self by talking her out of each scenario she came up with.
But I didn’t engage, I just asked again.
“What are you afraid of?”

I noticed how many layers there were to my fear.
I’m afraid people won’t like me.

I’m afraid the business won’t make enough money.

I’m afraid I’ve made irreparable mistakes

I’m afraid I’m not loveable.

My fearful self had plenty to say.

I practiced listening until she had no more to say. Fear is a part of being human.

I haven’t got a magic wand to wave it away but I am learning to be with my own fear with compassion, acceptance and understanding.

Embracing Fear

Embracing Fear

Fear… it’s a four-letter word that any human being understands. We know most of our fears are unfounded but that doesn’t stop us investing our time and energy worrying about them.

I used to identify as suffering from ‘anxiety.’ I spent years perfecting my natural ability to worry by dedicating hours to it. My preferred hours for this important work were the middle of the night, the very time when I needed rest and sleep. My worrying thoughts became an obsessive mind trap and eventually an illness.

This part of me will never go away but it no longer has the power to run my life. I’ve learned to love and appreciate the gifts fear brings without falling into its seductive arms.

My secret?

I’m willing to meet my fear.

This is confronting but ultimately puts me, not the fear in control.

I’m dancing a dance with uncertainty at the moment. By investing my time and money in this business, Feel Real Heal, I’m embarking on a path that is not only different from everything I’ve known but also everything my family stands for and understands.

Some days I feel like a fraud – how can I ask people to pay money for my expertise when it’s not backed up by a university degree?

Where are the safety and protocols in this undertaking?

Surely I should rely on a system devised by something bigger than my little tender self?

What if I lose all my money on this venture and end up with nothing to show for it?

I’m pretending to my parents that I know what I’m doing. They love me and they want me to be happy. Most people believe that the way to be happy is to avoid fear, not engage in conversation with it.

This is was what my fear said to me at 4am today:

I’m afraid I’m taking unnecessary risks.

I’m afraid that I’ll lose everything I’ve worked so hard to gain.

I’m not going to pretend anything to you, my clients.

You are the brave ones who’ve signed up to come on this journey with me.

You are the ones who see your own courage and determination reflected in my stories.

You are the ones who wake up at 2am, 3am, 4am worrying if you can do it and then get up in the morning and do it anyway.

You are the ones who are so committed to your growth and expansion that you are willing to push at your comfort zone.

You are warriors – Gentle, loving warriors.

To walk this path I invite you to love yourself more deeply, more fully and more tenderly with every passing day.

I encourage you to face your fear and move through it.

I ask you to let go of your stories that are holding you back.
I can’t pretend it’s easy.

I can’t pretend it’s safe.

I can’t pretend it’s guaranteed.

I can tell you that your dreams will come true… So start dreaming…

I’d love to know more about you.
I think you’re amazing.

The Perfect Paradox

Yesterday I was working hard. I was sitting on the couch for a lot of the day. I talked on the phone to a dear friend. At 10am I had a bath with rose petals, coconut and Epsom salts. I wrote in my journal, listened to sad music and fed myself sporadically. At one point I read a children’s book, out loud, to myself. Finally by sunset I had come to my senses enough to meditate formally. I sat on my cushion for twenty minutes before heading down the dusky inner city street to buy myself dinner.
Perhaps you’re wondering how I can call this work?

My work was emotional processing. This is the work I am most committed to now. This is the work that our culture has ignored for too long, to our detriment. It is the work of the inner world. I feel particularly drawn to this work in winter. I used to push myself to achieve in the outer world, school and university semester dates meant that this was when I was required to push myself. I believe this disconnect from my inner self at the time when the season calls me to go inward was a major cause of my depression.
This week I was working with my deepest, most vulnerable and painful self. Access to this part of me, a part I haven’t seen close up for years, was gifted to me through a romantic breakup. This is the situation that I still struggle to love myself through. It becomes a mirror for other kinds of loss and grief in my life. Breakups have the power to ‘trigger’ me like nothing else and this was a big one. Even though the romance ended a couple of months ago it was re-activated last week by another kind of break up, ending my job as a teacher. Yesterday I was swept up in a wave of emotion that felt scary because I (whoever that is) was no longer in control.
I realized that my task for the day was to accept this lack of control. I accepted that that I couldn’t make myself feel happy or even balanced about this situation. I couldn’t make myself be the loving, compassionate person that I normally perceive myself to be. As I exchanged Facebook messages with my ex-boyfriend I wanted to access that part of me but couldn’t. Even though I could glimpse the bigger picture. Even though I knew that hurting him was not the answer.
Yesterday I seemed particularly unable to stop myself from falling into a black hole of pain. I think it began deep in my subconscious. I dreamed of tiny, vulnerable, neglected kittens. Waking up soon after 6am my thoughts continued along this vein and overwhelmed me before I was even out of bed.
I made it upstairs but was unable to sit down to the meditation practice that I normally do to begin my morning. Instead I sat on the couch and started to cry. By 7am the day’s work was well underway. I wrote down my dream and kept writing following a series of prompts to try to understand what was going on in my inner world. I could feel my child self clearly. I decided that I needed to nurture that part of myself.
So I found a children’s book and began by reading it aloud to myself. I had stumbled upon the pithy tale Tiny Spook’s Tumble by Swedish writers Inger and Lasse Sandberg.
In this story Tiny Spook is having a day rather like mine. She keeps tripping over and screaming. Then she blames whatever she tripped over and Little Spook, her exasperated brother removes it in order to keep the peace.
First it’s the grass, then the path, the steps, the castle, an umbrella and finally her father.

“And Tiny Spook was left all alone…. It wasn’t fun at all.
Tiny Spook cried and cried… But no one heard her. No one came.”

Finally she got tired of crying and began to reconstruct her world. When she has put back the path, the castle, the grass and the steps her family return.

I read this book and knew I was doing exactly what Tiny Spook had done. But there was a further problem compounding it. I’m not tiny and ignorant. I knew exactly what I was doing and I did it anyway. I knew that really all I was doing was hurting myself but I couldn’t stop from doing it. My emotions were taking me on a wild ride against my better judgement.
Because of my meditation practice I have learned to observe my experiences in ever-greater detail. Despite the intensity of my emotions I managed to notice those few moment when a simple thing brought me back to the beauty of the present moment. A cat sitting by the fire, a screen saver of trees in the mist, the chill of the evening air as I set off to get my dinner. Noticing these moments reminded me that all is impermanent, even the mood that at other times in the day had me understanding why suicide can seem like a sensible option.
Above it all I knew from my previous work that this emotional intensity was a wonderful opportunity, a gift. It was the perfect opportunity for me to practice self-love. It was the ideal classroom for me to learn to respond to whatever arose with gentleness rather than harshness. I loved myself even though I knew I was doing the ‘wrong’ thing. I accepted all my feelings, even the nasty, negative ones. To do otherwise would have only perpetuated the cycle, adding judgement and blame in yet another layer of pain.
I wish I had been able to act differently. I knew that if I had been able to act with more openness, compassion and love it would have been better for everyone concerned, especially for me. But I decided to accept my limitations in the same way I would make allowances for a young child.
The next morning when I woke up I had a choice. As I rolled over in bed, slowly waking up and thinking of my dreams I remembered the circumstances that had caused me so much pain the day before. That path was still there; I could sense it’s heavy blackness looming over my head. But this time I had a moment of choice and I chose not to fall in that hole.
That day I had fewer moments of pain and more moments of openness. I noticed that I could consciously work with my thoughts for a certain amount of time. For example I could deliberately think of the ways that I felt grateful to my ex-boyfriend. I also noticed without blame that these periods of ‘positive thinking’ were inevitably followed by a return of my obsessive negative thought patterns. Like so much learning it was a case of two steps forward and one step back.
I made a consciousness decision that the only way forward was to love and respect the whole process.
I decided to love my opening and my closing.
I decided to love my love and my pain.
I decided to love my gratitude and my resentment.
I decided to love myself no matter what.
Unconditionally.
I believe that that’s the work I’m here to do.

Deep acceptance of the way things are is the source of all creative change. The perfect paradox.
Jeff Foster

Jigsaw Satisfaction

I have just allowed myself the luxury of a week of guilt-free idleness. I often reflect that in our busy, hyper-connected culture we have lost perspective on the benefits of doing nothing. Rest, relaxation, healing, creativity, all these arise from space – space that in our normal lives gets filled with seemingly inevitable obligations and demands. If you haven’t yet read How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson put it on your summer reading list! Mr Hodgkinson, the august editor of the Ildler magazine (http://idler.co.uk) gives an hour-by-hour description of how best to be idle in each hour of a 24-hour period. He’s far more convincing than me on the benefits of idleness and I feel it’s a discussion worth initiating.
So what did I actually do in my week of idleness? I was house-sitting in Hobart and so was removed a healthy distance from any impending home-based chores. I was mostly, though not always alone and I reveled in it. Lots of sleeping, daydreaming, lazy mornings and gentle afternoon naps, eating simple meals and shopping locally without a car. Apart from that I divided my time between three of my favorite holiday pursuits, reading, knitting and completing a complex 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle – click on this link to see the image.
http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/most-popular/other-world/
Serendipity brought M.C. Escher (the artist) and I together in the form of 1000 brown, green, white and black pieces rattling around in a box someone had picked up at the op shop. For my part it wasn’t planned, in fact, I’d forgotten that having the time to complete a jigsaw signals to me that I am allowed to relax. It’s a process rather than a goal, akin to making a mandala that you then sweep up and pour back into the box. What the process gave me this time was a chance to observe myself in the process of jigsawing (if I may invent a new verb…)
Firstly let me say that this was the most satisfying jigsaw I have ever done. In fact at one point in the process I began describing to friends the “jigsaw orgasm,” the intense sense of satisfaction I felt when I was able to smoothly unite a lonely jigsaw piece with a void in the design. Because this picture is so geometrical and fantastical there were none of the typically tedious parts that occur in most jigsaws. The variety of tasks to complete the jigsaw kept me engaged as I switched between searching for common colored pieces in the box and putting together the various elements bit-by-bit, hour-by-hour.
The danger, and the very thing that can make jigsawing less fun is becoming obsessive over it. The urge to keep slotting pieces in blind pursuit of the final goal is not that far removed from the compulsion that stalks other kinds of slots! When I noticed this feeling arising I brought consciousness to the situation and tested my ability to make choices. When my back began to tense and my self-talk turned from pleasure to frustration I took it as a sign that it was time to walk away for a while, or a night. Inevitably I would return to the puzzle after a hiatus and easily place pieces I had been struggling with. The balance between perseverance and refreshment of the mind can equally apply to writing or any other sustained task!
As the end of the process drew near I was working on the layer of brown and white tiles that form the inner edge of the outer part of the puzzle. As the number of pieces and the spaces to accommodate them dwindled I noticed doubt arising in my mind again and again.
“Perhaps they’ve put in a whole lot of extra pieces, just to fool me” or
“This piece doesn’t fit in any of the spots left, it must be faulty.”
Despite these internal doubting voices shouting at me, another part of me knew this was the time for perseverance and trust. The bigger part of me understood that the ultimate nature of a jigsaw puzzle is to fit together as a unified whole. As I watched doubt arising in my mind I was struck by an insight. A huge part of my healing has been to flip my belief about the way the world works from my old unconsciously formed fear that the universe is chaotic and something I need to control to a conscious choice to believe that the universe, in a huge and cosmic way which we can never fully perceive from our limited human mind, is a giant spiritual jigsaw. I can tell when I am aligning myself with the ultimate nature of things because, like the jigsaw piece that clicks in I find myself in a place that looks right and feels right – even when it’s pushing me beyond my comfort zone. Especially when it’s pushing me (just) beyond my comfort zone.

Perfectionism Rears Its Head

The longer I teach the less I “do.” For me learning to teach has been a gradually process of letting go of my need to be the active agent in the room. Which is not to say that I’ve gotten lazy or even that I do less. Rather it’s been a process of increasing my ability to support students by observing their learning journey from an open space within myself.

The greatest obstacle to learning that I notice in my classroom and in myself is perfectionism. I’m struggling with it right now as I chastise myself for getting ‘out of the flow’ with writing and notice how my thoughts aren’t turning themselves into paragraphs with the ease they did back in June when I was sitting down to write regularly. The thought of walking away from the computer, doing something else, anything else, becomes very seductive. I don’t even need anyone in the room in order to create a competition in which I always perceive myself as the loser; comparing my current self to a remembered self is enough to activate my inner perfectionist. (Cue sepia tones and violin music.)

I was well aware of my perfectionistic tendencies but they have been taking a backseat for a while.  However, last weekend I signed myself up for four days of Buddhist training, Shambhala levels III and IV, four days ‘on the cushion,’ getting to know myself anew, finding out what was really going on in the unexamined parts of my psyche, with a slight suspicion that my subconscious had sneakily resumed it’s role as backseat driver of my life while I was busy with other things.

As I sat in the beautiful shrine room where the calming white painted walls and wooden floors are decked with colorful banners, flowers and sacred pictures my gaze rested on the point where the skirting boards meet the floor. The brick walls feature a protruding column, perhaps the site of a former fireplace, now a bump in the flow of the wall where the skirting board has been re-directed at a ninety degree angle for a foot or so. My attention came to focus on the end of the skirting board as it faced me. Surely, it was sticking out an inch or so into the room? How untidy I thought. I delved off into a whole fantasy where, armed with a saw and some white paint I could ‘fix’ the messiness and restore the room to ‘perfect.’ The longing to do so became almost unbearable.

            Suddenly I realized that this was familiar. This desire for ‘perfection,’ manifesting as a need to control the world was a symptom of an underlying anxiety, my profound fear of change. Intellectually I knew the truth of impermanence, I’d been reading Buddhist texts for long enough to assimilate that knowledge, but suddenly, on the cushion I found myself face to face with a desire to control, to perfect and basically to escape death by doing something, anything. I breathed out; I sat with the fear of that monumental truth and suddenly the skirting board faded back into the background. Sitting down again after lunch I realized that in fact it was not out of alignment after all.

            Coming back to teaching at the end of the four days I could see perfectionism flourishing, largely unchecked in the school system where the illusion of the ‘right answer’ rules the day. The children I especially noticed falling victim to its clutches and shutting down from opportunities to learn were those who I know have faced massive challenges in their short lives, loss of a parent for example. I find myself wondering how I can help those children bring awareness and acceptance to the fact that we cannot control life and death – and realizing that perhaps it is they who are teaching me.