I smoked today.

Yup, that’s right !

I had a frikkin cigarette, and let me tell you, right now I am pretty disappointed in myself.

And why ?

I spoke yesterday about pushing myself beyond the limits because of what I believed in, and it’s hard at times. It takes you too totally unchartered territory and down a road much less travelled. I could quite easily have not mentioned a word of it to anyone, rationalised it all in my mind and just pretended that everything was fine.

But that’s not me and that’s not who I am.

What got to me though, is that in this giving up process, I have had many comments from people about how stopping smoking was one of the easiest things they ever did, how they never even thought about it, how they just decided they were going to give up and that was it. So when I really was struggling, changing my focus constantly, reminding myself of why I was doing this and so on, it really fucked me off big time.

I looked back at my drug and self harming addiction and remembered how liberating it was when I kicked that. I reminded myself of the times when I used to starve myself for a number of days and how terrible I felt and compared it to now. I prayed when I craved. I did things differently. But I don’t know what the heck was going on.

And for some stupid reason, today I smoked.

I knew all along what I was doing today, but you know what – for some reason, I just did and I won’t defend what I did at all.

Maybe I wanted to give myself a reason to be nasty to myself thanks to some stupid things I did recently which I did not realise I did, and in doing so, upset someone very close to me. But nope – no voices or arguments on that one. Maybe I didn’t deserve to have this breakthrough and freedom in my life, after all, so much else has changed so I should just be content. Again, no voices or arguments again.

And then a little voice whispered 2 very simple things to me. And I found myself answering with those words we say to ourselves over and over again – “yes, but I already know that !”

1)      It’s OK to let go. Just because you don’t recognise yourself anymore, doesn’t mean that you can’t still have amazing memories of everything you have done.

It’s a massive time of the year for me personally. It marks a HUGE anniversary and undertaking on more than one level. My birthday is coming up and at the same time, it is this period of time when I took one of the hugest leaps of faith to where I am today. I look in the mirror now and hardly recognise who is there, but what I do know is that I truly like and love who looks back at me and I have learnt that he really is here to stay this time. Smoking was and is my last “reminder” of a past that used to define me I guess, and even though I let go of all the shit and crap, there was still a lot of fun times, laughs and very happy times. It was a past that I chose to learn from and use to mould me into the person I dreamt of becoming, so I guess, letting go of that one final little thing had more lessons for me to learn that I probably anticipated. I am now beginning to see that letting go of this final thing is not going to take away all the happy memories that reminded me where I had come from. If anything, it was going to magnify them and make them even more memorable.

2)      It’s OK to ask for help, and not just on stuff that you don’t know. Help also truly for yourself.

This, I would probably say, is actually the bigger lesson I need to learn right now. I have learnt how to ask for help on things I do not know, such as business plans, getting stuff out of my head, creating products and the like. I don’t think I accepted that this also applies to me in what I am pushing myself through. Until now, I guess I have blindly jumped and gone where I have not gone before and then truly stretched myself to get through it and grow. This time around, I believe I have learnt I need to also reach out for personal help. When I wanted to smoke, the thought of just going up to someone and asking for a bit of help scared me intensely. I felt like I was letting them down or being stupid – remember, giving up something after all is just a matter of doing it, nothing else. So I thought it showed weakness that I was struggling and I was afraid that I would be told just to get over it and move on. Maybe it would have worked, I don’t know, but I guess I learnt the hard way. Asking for helps extends to more than tools and skills, it also makes us a very real person. Strength is born out of weakness and it is OK to ask I guess.

So what next I ask myself.

I get the box of plasters out of the cupboard, clean the graze on my knee and put one on the scratch I made when I tripped up. I blow my nose and wipe the tears away, I put away the whip (which thankfully I could not find this time – some fucker must have stolen it out of my back pocket because that is where I always used to keep it when I constantly used to beat myself up) and I keep going on that journey of self discovery to personal excellence. I will be free of this last little thing and I know deep down in my heart that it will be soon. Until then, I share my honest and raw, open feelings and thoughts of how I did it, in the hope that maybe it will help just one person who is having that very same challenge.

I was mailing someone from the other side of the world today, and she said some words that got me to this point of breakthrough, so I thought it would be pretty apt to close on them as I pick myself up again. Thank you Ig, I love and miss you dearly.

“I think that’s the bracket we fit in to. The one’s who constantly have ants in their pants and will break all the rules. You know Ga – I’ve realised that when I get to the end of my life, I want to be that little old granny that can blow people away with her stories. The only thing you have when you get older is your memories”

Bollock ! Fuck ! Shit !

Generally, I think that I am a pretty decent guy. Well, to other people that is because I have been known to be pretty nasty to myself on more than one occassion and there was a time where I used to believe that people were just being nice when they were being nice to me. Anyway. That was then, and over the years, I have got to know myself and actually now enjoy my own company quite a bit. I have met some really awesome people lately who have really showed me so much about me, and at times, it has been pretty challenging to say the least. But I have come out of the other side with a renewed and deepend relationship with myself.

I guess you could say it is strange but I really like me now. I don’t feel that I have to hide away and be someone or something else anymore. I am not afraid to express myself or who I am, something that just the thought of used to terrify me. And I used to hide behind things in a way. So this stage of my life now has made me realise the biggest thing that I have been hiding behind would you fucking believe !

You could call it a bad habit I guess, but for me it never was. Like I said in my previous blog, smoking used to me something that was really mine – it was something I did for myself and for nobody else. It was a way of rebelling against things. Which is strange really because I am such a sucker for rules that even I drive myself insane sometimes. And it was something that used to, in my head at least, give me some sort of normality in the “male” world. So gradually as I released my need for approval from anybody, I began to live more in line with my values and beliefs – the most important of which are honesty and health !!!

And that was when something pretty mental started to happen in my head. As I started to accept and realise what I had in my life,I had a pretty cool realisation in my life and that was that nothing really mattered at all. Now that may sound strange for someone who has been working so pretty frikkin hard for a very long time, but yeah, nothing that we actually do in our lives really matters at all. There is no point to what we do and what results we get because at the end of the day, the only point that matters is the point that we give it ! See the point ?

Anyway, maybe it is withdrawal, I don’t actually know right now but as soon as it all makes sense, I might try and explain it properly. All I know is that I am still the rebel with a cause (just got to figure out my way of rebelling I guess you could say), I still need to take time out every now and then (and what get’s me now is that when I do go outside for a walk, I have “nothing” to do which is why I think I used to smoke – it gave me something to do on the time out’s) and it’s nearly 3 fucking days without a smoke mate, and that is pretty damn cool.

Today I have had 3 bottles of water, 3 cups of tea and a packet of japanese rice crackers so far. For the more spiritually inclined people who read this, I find that my energy centres / chakra’s are actually physically vibrating – when it first happened this morning on the tube, I thought that I had my phone in my pocket and it was going off. I guess you could say it is like getting these pleasurable little electric shocks every now and then. At the moment, I am finding it difficult to concentrate and am all over the place which is pretty challenging whilst sitting in an open plan office – fuck me, it is like I have done too much coke and am buzzing right now !!!! Have you watch Over The Hedge when Hammy drinks the energy drink – that is what I feel like !

So what next ? I don’t fucking know. All I know is that right now, I am just going through it. I am still very sore physically but at least I can eat and drink today, so that is cool. My whole body is quite stiff and I am pretty tired – I woke up at 1:30 this morning thinking I had been sleeping all damn night and then just tossed and turned before falling into the strangest dream ridden sleep ! I will keep you updated !

So, here we fucking are ! Excuse my language from the onset, I will do my best to refrain from swearing however to be perfectly honest, I just need to rant right now so right here, you will see honesty in its purest form.

As you know, I have given up smoking and it has been about 36 hours since I last had a cigarette. Having been severely addicted to other crap in the past, I am fully aware of what lay ahead of me, and thanks also to skills and techniques learnt along the way, I guess you could say I was well prepared – you know the normal crap – it’s as easy as you choose it to be, it’s how you look at it, it’s not really an addiction and so on and so forth.

I can only imagine what it is going to be like once all this is over, and yes, I can choose it to be as difficult or as easy as possible, but you know what – right now I am going through it and it is not nice – not fucking nice at all. And what is it that they say – the mind cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination?

My body is in physical pain and my head feels like it is going to explode but I am taking time out to walk around as much as I can. Unfortunately, thanks to all the other shit I have done in the past, I cannot take head ache tablets so yeah, that sucks. I am drinking loads of water to clear the toxins out of my body, which in turn, thanks to the stomach cramps is making me feel rather nauseous – won’t go into further detail there. One minute I am hot and the next minute I am cold which makes lying in bed challenging. My chest feels like an elephant has decided that this is where it is going to wait for the night bus. As for the emotions right now, well let’s not even start on that. There are those of you out there who have given up smoking and it has been simple, and to you all I can say is I am fucking jealous – maybe I should start again and in a few months, “decide” that stopping smoking will be fun !

So why ! Why I keep asking myself, am I putting myself through all of this? I have come so far I should just be grateful for what I have – most people do not change half as many things during their lifetimes and I have done so much – can’t I just be happy with that? And I began (as I always do) to dig deeper.

You see, I lived in denial of so many things for a very long time. I used illegal drugs as a way of escaping reality from a young age because I was unable to face what was going on in my life. It was a way of covering up pain and “pretending” that everything was fucking fantastic. So since the conscious age of 12, I have had something to turn to, which made me into something I was “supposed to be” in my mind. Over the last decade, I have managed to throw aside all but one of these things that controlled my life.

And this is what I realised smoking does for me personally: -

• Smoking gives me “time out” away from all the noise that goes on at times in places
• Smoking used to be a way to silence my personal voices until I learnt how to silence them on my own
• Smoking is a way of rebelling
• Smoking is something that “I” do for “me” – in a way, it is one of the very very few things that I do solely for myself – I guess you could say it is my simple pleasure
• Smoking is one of the “manly” things I used to do – before I accepted my sexuality, in my mind, smoking made me “manly” as I was ashamed of who I was

I don’t know hey, but you know what? Right now, it’s hard. I guess you could say part of me is grieving letting go of something that has helped me through so much. I know that addiction comes on all levels – mind, body and soul – and yeah, I guess that in order to truly let go of something in your life, all aspects of your life need to be dealt with. All of a sudden, I feel like that scared little boy again, aimlessly wandering around and looking for something that could just take away the pain he is going through.

Will I do it? I don’t know right now, I really don’t. But what I do know is that even though the choice has been made, I still have to go through this right now.

Self-harming is something that I struggled with for many, many years of my life and to this day, I see the scars that remind me of how far I have come and what I have worked through, both on my own and with the help of trained professionals – something that I will always encourage people to do.

In doing so, there are also some small things that I used to do that helped me to break the pattern of constantly hurting myself, whether it was physically, mentally or emotionally. These little steps, combined with other things, made a huge difference, and in working with people in the past, I have found that it has made a huge difference with them as well.

The first thing that you need to grasp is that, even though this is a coping mechanism, in one way or another, it has also become a habit that we do. Identifying what triggers that habit and breaking the cycle, along with professional help to deal with the underlying causes, are 2 of the biggest steps to take to freedom from this.

1)    Keep a journal of your emotions, recording every single thing that you feel and what you go through. This may seem like a very negative thing to do, but as you go along, it will help you to notice a pattern or patterns leading up to times when you hurt yourself. Seeing these can help you to change or alter the way that things happen because you are no aware of them.

2)    Hurting ourselves produces hormones in the body that are the equivalent of natural pain killers – they get released by the body when it is under stress and the overall effect that they have on us is that they tend to relax or quieten our minds, and more often that not, this is also part of the cycle. The body knows that when it hurts itself, it is going to get a hit of something – kind of like a drug addict scoring, and this then becomes a mental cycle. Understanding this principle makes the next suggestions easier to follow.

3)    Carry a thick elastic band with you around your wrist – you know you can get those bright coloured bracelets that many charities now use to raise awareness. Whenever you feel the urge to go out and do something to yourself, pull the band back as far as you can and let it snap back down to your wrist. This, in effect, has a similar effect to that of cutting yourself or harming yourself in other ways, and is also a very good way to interrupt the pattern.

4)    Another way to do this is to go and find a cube of ice and grip it tightly in your hand for as long as possible.

5)    One of the best things that I ever personally did, and believe me, this may sound strange at first, but you will only do it a few times before you begin to understand how to break your cycle because it can be rather amusing. Whenever I felt the urge to hurt myself and I was in a public place, I would clap my hands together as loud as I possibly could. First of all, it was rather painful, but more importantly, it gave everyone around me quite a large fright, as well as myself and I only had to do this 2 or 3 times and I began to break the thought pattern of going to do something else to myself.

6)    Reward yourself every single time you manage to do one of the above things rather than something else. Notice how you feel proud of yourself for not doing something damaging, and begin to feel the freedom that comes with this release from old patterns.

The most important thing throughout this, is to get help from someone. There are many people out there who are qualified and able to help you get out of this pattern and there is nothing to be ashamed of. In my personal opinion, people may believe that we who self harm are cowards – however, having lived through this for over 20 years, and having come out the other side alive, I can honestly say that it takes a huge amount of courage to do what we do, and at the same time, that same courage is what we have to use to our advantage in getting out of the cycle and helping those who are still trapped.

These are my own thoughts and opinions and are what have personally helped me in my own life, and should not be followed without also consulting and working alongside a trained professional.

Fear exists for everyone in their life, no matter where they are at. It is a completely and totally natural thing and one that keeps us alive. However, in some instances, many of us allow this fear to drive us and we allow it to stop us from doing things. Remember when you were young, how you used to do things that now would stop you cold. When we first started school, there was no real fear of rejection – had we listened to that fear like we sometimes do as adults, how would we have ever made those childhood friends and how would we have grown up. As we get older, and as we start to listen to the opinions of everyone else, it is then that we start allowing those fears to control us until one day, we realise that there is a very real problem with us.

I allowed fear to drive and guide my life for many years, until it landed me in a very bad place, totally afraid of everything and even to scared to go out on my own. In a defining moment in my own life, I decided that I was going to reclaim my own personal power, and start working on them, one by one. I am not going to say that I no longer have any fears, however, I can openly and honestly say that I no longer allow my fear to “live my life” for me.

These are a few of the very simple steps that I took to overcome these fears: -

1) Take the focus off yourself. If you notice a situation where you get fearful, more often than not, it is because your are focusing on what is going on for you personally. What if this happens or what if that happens or what it this gets said – most of the time, it is all internal reflection on yourself. Stop focusing on what is in it for you, or what could happen and begin to think about how things could happen for the other person – maybe you are afraid of speaking to someone new because you don’t want to rejected. Instead of thinking of yourself, think about how their life could be made different by having a friend like you. When you start focusing outwardly, the fear immediately diminishes and it becomes way easier to do things.

2) Respect that other people have the right to their own opinion, and that by them saying what they feel does not have anything to do with you personally. If someone offers me onions and I don’t eat onions, I have the right to refuse them. It is nothing personal against him who offers them to me, it is just me allowing myself to say what works for me.

3) Would you rather have someone be honest with you at the onset, rather than find out months or weeks down the line that because they were too afraid to express their opinions, they had been lying to you? It is better to have a “no” or a “rejection” at the onset, because someone is being open and honest with you, rather than them lying to you and leading you on, only to cause you to feel pain in the end.

4) Thomas Edison made many different light bulbs before he came across one that actually worked. What if he had given up after the first go? Where would we be today? What better way to get to the person who seriously wants to talk to us or get to know us than by getting all the other ones out of the way first. We will never get to a “yes” without making the wrong type of light bulbs first. Another way of looking at this, if every offer we made was accepted, we would then have to be the one doing all the rejecting, and let me tell you, I don’t think I would want to be in that position where because everything has gone my way, I now have to do something I used to fear.

5) Our fears can also bring to our attention things that we can work on and improve in our own lives. They can help us to accept that there are areas of our lives that we need help or assistance with, that we can work on to become a better person, a more authentic and honest person and someone who is genuine, rather than pretending a lot, and this was something that I found the most rewarding out of all of it.

As you know, the last few days were a little tough so I have been rather focused (or should I say, more focused than I normally would) on what I envisage for my own life, as well as for the lives of those that are important to me. I find that during the crap times, as hard as it can be, turning my focus to the bigger picture allows me to “get out of the pit.” So knowing that this has worked very well for me in the past, that is what I did.

I l0oked up instead of looking around and down and it really helped.

I took some (more) time out to reflect on my journey so far – it always reminds me of how much things have changed for me and it makes me see the growth that has taken place. I remembered the times in the past when I thought that things would never get better, because that was all I knew how to think – you know those times when things happen and you have no frikkin idea how they could change. Yup, I remembered those times because it showed me that I got through.

I then took some time out to think about my passion in life. What is it that makes me get up each and every morning, because let’s face it, if you do not have something to wake up to, then what is the point of getting out of bed. Regardless of what you do, why do you do it ? For some people, it may just be getting through the day to the next pay day, for other people, it may be because they have some sort of obligation or commitment to something. But for me, it is because I have a plan. A plan that makes me scared and excited all at the same time. One that makes me think of the bigger picture, rather than my own secluded world. Something that ignites the flame of passion inside of me. So I did some writing, I did some strategic planning and I made some important conversations that resulted in my decisions for my life being confirmed.

In short, I re-connected with my passion and desire for my own life, no matter how huge or grand it seemed. To the extent that I even got someone to make an enquiry to find out how much it would cost to hire out a rather large venue as well as sending some emails to find out about some further studying that I would like to do.

It helped a fuck load I tell you, because it reminded me that without my passion in my life, there would be nothing to get out of bed for. And some years ago, that passion was not there and even though there was so much going for me, without knowing my passion, I did not see the point. And that is pretty cool because I personally know a lot of people who want to do things but they are just not sure what it is that they want to do.

Take some time out to connect with your passion. Listen to the music that makes you cry when you hear it and ask yourself why it does that to you. There will always be a clue. Look around at the world going by and put yourself in other people’s shoes to see if you can come up with what their passion in. That way, you will open your mind to something that makes you want to fly. You will open your mind to a whole new world or opportunity and discovery.

I did. I opened that door a little wider and let out a little more, and I know that, despite the challenges that come my way and try to get me back, the door is open and the passion is out and it ain’t fucking going nowhere mate !

Today, internally, I had a seriously challenging day, I really did. Part of me is ashamed to admit that I allowed it to show more than I normally would – and that kind of hurts me to admit because I like to think that I am as authentic and honest as I can be these days in my life. I woke up this morning feeling somewhat off course and I mentally prepared myself to deal with this – something that I have learnt to deal with in the past and something I have been working on intensely.Taking care not to be hard on myself this time around, I began my day with an extra dose of gratitude for breakfast, something that always has amazing power in lifting the feelings, and thankfully I feast on this regularly because it helped.

Just over 2 months has passed since I had one of those issues that I have learnt to live with, and for some of my life, I actually physically denied that I had a problem with bipolar depression, having been told that it is based on decisions and thoughts and patterns and so on, so accepting this has also challenged me, as some of you who follow this blog may be aware of. It hurts me so much when people say that being bipolar is allowing yourself to be labelled, or that something is wrong with your thought and belief process. Yes, I agree that there is definately an element of this involved, because we can allow ourselves to become victims to everything. But sometimes, when you have had some awesome times, when you have put your head down on the pillow with every great intention to have an awesome day tomorrow and when you have claimed back your own power, it can be very trying and frustrating to wake up feeling this way. And over and above that, it is rather tiring because every action you take becomes a very real and life-saving effort. That is probably the easiest way for me to describe it – imagine not having slept for a week, not having eaten properly and then being asked to run a marthon, however, you have been resting and taking care of yourself, you have been training and you have been doing what you should be doing. It frustrates the fuck out of me to be blunt.

I know that I have the power to turn this around but more importantly, I know that I have the power and the strength and conviction to live with this and be an example to others who don’t know how to do it. So yes, when it showed today, for a few moments, I chose to feel hurt that I had let it out. It also made me choose to feel hurt when someone I deeply care about challenged my thoughts and decisions even when they knew, to an extent, how this happens without me asking. And I allowed myself to put walls up again – something I don’t like to do but I guess you could say, the usual defence mechanism kicked in and that is what happens – this little army of builder’s frantically run around putting up the heavy walls so that it all stays inside.Maybe it showed, maybe it didn’t but it reminded me why I do what I do with my life and it kept me going because of what I know I am going to do one day.

And over and above that I still made sure that I fed myself properly today, I still made sure that I put my heart into my work even though the mind was just going through the motions, and as difficult as it was, I allowed myself to feel every single emotion, as raw and painful as it was.

This isn’t something I decided one day to have in my life. This is not something that I would ask for my worst enemy to go through and this isn’t something that I like. One of my favourite books of all time is the Bible. I personally believe that it is an amazing story with some of the most powerful messages ever written in it. It has kept me going during dark days, when all I have wanted to do is run away, and it has given me some amazing inspiration for who I am today and who I strive to be in my life. There is a quote that always comes to my own mind when I go through dark patches like today and I would like to share it with you: -

“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a THORN IN MY FLESH, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
2 Corinthians 12:7-10

And in my own words, if this is the challenge that I have been given in my life, then whoever is out there looking after me knows that I am strong enough to deal with this. He knows that we have what it takes to get through anything, and in doing so, he knows that we have what it takes to make a difference to other’s who may have a similar thorn but do not know how to deal with it.

You know, of late I have been receiving a few comments and emails about the things that I write and the things that I say and I do. And to be totally honest with you, they sometimes come as a bit of a shock because I still fight with having that self-belief in my work – may sound strange but like I always say to you, I am not gonna bullshit you here or anything so this is the truth from my heart. I used to think that my words were just waffle, but I am now beginning to see that they make sense to people so thank you for helping me to see what you already see – it is pretty cool.

Yesterday, I received 2 extremely personal emails that truly touched my heart – one from a colleague that I have worked closely with in Dublin, that I have seen grow and break though so many barriers in courses we have done together and some I consider a very special person in my life who I would even jump out of a box naked for. The other is an amazing young lady that I met whilst working for charity at a festival last year – we had an immeadiate and amazing connection, and even though I have not kept in physcial contact, that bond was pretty strong and I often wondered why – until I read her message last night that touched me again, very deeply. There are so many others that have come my way, but these latest 2 have made me reflect on some stuff and made me understand why “M” in My Coach Guy is so amazing powerful.

Why do you do what you do ? These are my Top 5 Reason why I do what I do : -

1) For years, I did a job that was not my passion at all. Yes, I was good at it and yes, there was a lot of enjoyment out of it as well. I got to work on some amazing construction projects back home, as well as over here when I came to live here and it has given me some valuable tools to apply for life. But every single day, I lied to myself because my heart was not in my work. Today, I get to work in an industry that inspires me and pushes me all the time, and I know that what I do impacts a lot of people, therefore, work is  no longer work. Work is a pleasure and something I look forward to most of the time.

2) I am constantly learning, and that is very important to me. I get to learn new things every day, new ways to do stuff, new events to prepare for, new people to meet, new challenges to take on. I like learning so it is pretty cool that I get to do this.

3) I have met some pretty frikkin amazing people and people that I never thought I would be friends with as well if I am honest – again, boils down to that self-belief shit I guess. Last week, after 2 events, I had the opportunity to sit at the dinner table with 2 of the trainer’s we work with, speaking purely about nonsense. For me, it was kind of surreal to be in this situation because it “only happened to everyone else” in my life and here it was happening to me. These 2 guys have been instrumental in my development so far, and to be able to call them friends is wicked.

4) I have big dreams that involve changing the world basically, and to be somewhere that I know is taking me in that direction rocks. I never used to dream, I never used to wish and there was a time that all I wanted to do was die because I felt like all I was doing was hurting the people I loved the most. To be alive today and to have the chance to share those dreams with them is sometimes very challenging, but at the same time, because I share honestly with them about what I want to do, it inspires me to keep going. My family (Bean, Da, Sav, Mom and Ke) are part of the reason I do what I do because despite what I have put these 5 people through, they still love me for who I am and for that I thank them by doing this – they don’t expect me to do it, I know that, but they believe that I could do if I really wanted to, so therefore I do.

5) And the final reason I do what I do is for me. It has taught me to love myself and look after myself. It has been my way of speaking when I am a bit nervous to speak to people. It has shown me that is Ok to be honest about everything, which is very important to me. It has shown me my own personal growth and development. It is a tribute of thanks to some amazing people, you included. It basically is me, and for once in my life, I want to do things for me.

I spent yesterday working at some events, listening to 2 people who inspire me a lot to be who I am today. It is truly a blessing to be able to call these 2 guys friends of mine, and years ago, the thought of having people like this as a very big part of my life was something that eluded my imagination – wait, that is a load of bullshit ! I never believed that I deserved to have friends like this, succesful people doing what they love every day !

I lived my life in the closed up world, limited by so many undeserving beliefs and decisions that held me back until I woke up and told myself to wake the fuck up and open my mind just a little bit each and every day. Small things were followed by bigger things and this weekend made me see some more of the world.

What follows is not my original words at all, but I have added my personal slant on it !

“A new idea cannot be grafted onto a closed mind… Open-mindedness leads us to the very insights that have eluded us during our lives.”

We arrived at that place where we decided that enough was enough, you know that point, that really low point in our lives. We’d just about run out of ideas. What we needed most when we got here were new ideas, new ways of living, shared from the experience of people who’d seen those ideas work. Yet our closed minds prevented us from taking in the very ideas we needed to live.

Denial keeps us from appreciating just how badly we really need new ideas and new direction. By admitting our powerlessness and recognizing how truly unmanageable our lives have become, we allow ourselves to see how much we need what some other people right in front of us now have to offer.

Self-dependence and self-will can keep us from admitting even the possibility of the existence of a Power greater than ourselves. However, when we admit the sorry state self-will has gotten us into, we open our eyes and our minds to new possibilities. When others tell us of a Power that has brought sanity to their lives, we begin to believe that such a Power may do the same for us. It does not matter what that Power is – the mere fact that we see other people doing things in their own lives with totally different results to anything we may have experienced before makes us realise that they could possibly be that Power greater than ourselves.

A tree stripped of its branches will die unless new branches can be grafted onto its trunk. In the same way, our closed minds stripped us of whatever direction we had. To grow or even to survive, we must open our minds and allow new ideas to be grafted onto our lives.

Just for today: I will open my mind to the new ideas of what lies before me now, a new way of life that I can experience when I choose to.

I came across this today, something that I have read in the past and that has inspired me to make every effort to do this on a daily basis. Thought it was too good to keep to myself so decided to share it with you !

In a dream I saw myself as a great and colorful butterfly; now I am not sure if I am Chuang-Tsu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am Chuang-Tsu. -Chuang-Tsu, Chinese Patriarch

Over the past decade, the word real has come into vogue. Coca­Cola insists that it is “the real thing.” Our friends tell us to “get real.” Before entering into business ventures, we do a “reality check.” We can’t help avoiding the questions, “What is real?” and “Who is the real me?”

At the completion of nearly every one of my retreat programs, some­one wistfully notes, “Too bad we have to go back to the real world now.” I always respond by saying, “This is the real world. The world of loving, honest communication and genuine caring reflects our true identity much more than the world we usually call ‘real.’”

What world is real to you? The world that most people consider real is fraught with illusions. Money, fame, power, sex, and material security do not offer true reward and substance; they dissolve as soon as the tini­est light is shed on them. While the “real world” tells us that these com­modities are worth living and dying for, those who have them are often desperate for love, relationships, communication, community, and peace of mind.

The real world is the world of kindness, caring, vision, and service. All of these qualities are attributes of our divine nature. As children of God, we can be only what God is, and that is everything that is good. We are born of light, and we return to the light. To live in light is to live in the real world.

Show me the real world.

Let me not forget my nature and my origin.

I live in the real world of love.