He made how much from doing what? Where am I going with this? I want to briefly share with you an opportunity that I’ve stumbled upon recently. Up until then, I had been questioning, walking blindly, intention setting, asking for clarity about how do I create a successful online business. Success for me equaling spreading …
What is our purpose in life? Today’s 99 Million Dollar Question right?!
I’ve been working with this questions quite intimately these past months here in Bali land. Knowing for a long time there is much more to living life than just hitting the daily grind in exchange for an income.
I know this – but such is life – continuing to learn lessons, plugging along & asking life purpose reflection questions.
Each question has created an opportunity, a stepping stone to the next. Each stepping stone has requested courage & fear acknowledgement. But here’s the thing, they ARE stepping stones. We are never given what we cannot handle, and so we get to choose in each moment whether we continue with what we know, or step into that which we don’t.
Bali was and continues to be a gamble.
I have no idea what I’m doing & showing up for on a day to day basis, but I do, because sitting here in my life, I cannot & will not go backwards.
If I ‘went back’, this might look like returning to Australia or maybe New Zealand, getting a J.O.B in exchange for my life hours and a small wage in exchange for such un-priceable value. I will not do it. (Well – it doesn’t feel like my here & now calling. Although I have learnt to be open and step into what is needed in each moment.)
The Silent Retreat was tough. It was an inner boot camp of looking at fears, demons, and a time out & deconstruction of everything I knew to be true. The living paradigm of J.O.B working. Compartmentalizing life. It has since spat me out, in which I am SO grateful for. Day by day, now some 10 days on or so, life continues to show up for me because I am choosing to show up for it. I am in the hands of something far greater that has me in it’s arms.
How am I sustaining myself?
Friends, more friends, small savings & trust.
Do I know what I’m doing tomorrow?
Hell No!
Am I happy & excited?
Hell YES!
Do I get to live my life on my terms?
HELL YES!
Am I safe? A roof over my head & food to eat?
Everyday!
This is life!
This is living!
My dear chicken friend reminded me last week. There is no separation between work & play. There is only life. We shouldn’t have to invest in one to have the other. They shouldn’t need to be mutually exclusive things.
Life is life. It was given to us as our birthright to enjoy, explore, learn & play. Not to live by rules & patterning passed down from generation to generation. But the sad thing is, unless you don’t start to question, you will never learn any different, as we only know what we know. If we knew what we didn’t know, there would still be more that we didn’t know. And so on & so on, x’s infinity! Where does the mind go with the limitlessness of that!?
I’m reading the book “Cashflow Quadrant by Robert T Kiyosaki” right now, and a passage he shares within it is;
“We all know people who make a lot of money, but hate their work. We also know people who do not make a lot of money and hate their work. And we all know people who just work for money. A classmate of mine realized he did not want to spend his life at sea. Rather than sail for the rest of his life, he went to law school after graduation, spending three more years becoming a lawyer and entering private practice in the Self Employed Quadrant.
He died in his early fifties. He had become a very successful, unhappy lawyer. Like me, he had two professions by the time he was 26. Although he hated being a lawyer, he continued being a lawyer because he had a family, kids, a mortgage, and bills to pay.
A year before he died, I met him at a class reunion in New York. He was a bitter man.
“All I do is sweep up behind rich guys like you. They pay me nothing. I hate what I do and who I work for.”
“Why don’t you do something else?” I asked.
“I can’t afford to stop working. My first child is entering college.”
he died of a heart attack before she graduated.
he made a lot of money via his professional training, but he was emotionally angry, spiritually dead, and soon his body followed.”
Whilst this story is extreme, doesn’t it hit hard? I mean, I’m sure we know people in our sphere’s like this right? Living the daily grind, surviving not thriving.
There is no blame or finger pointing here. This situation is what it is because we know no different, but is merely an opportunity to be open to reflect on HOW we could live differently? What would I really like to enjoy in my world? It can be a big question that brings forth a blank canvas. I know it did for me for a long time, I’ve only known that the old didn’t fit and I needed to move towards something new , un-created & unwritten.
Question with me, create, play & explore.
In Bali I sit reflecting on, “what am I doing with my life?” I am reminded of how much I LOVED being a trainer and how empowered I felt. 10 years on, how it affects today – I competed in the ANB – Australasian Natural Bodybuilding Competition. I was at the pinnacle of my Fitness Career and loved working as a Personal Trainer in Sydney, Australia.
Today I recognize, along with my recent Canadian break-up, I have been affected, by seemingly having ‘failed’. Whilst intellectually I know I haven’t, I have an installed fear within, that has prevented me from stepping forth, again, owning something that I WANT. I WANT so much to feel this sense of joy & empowerment again, today I met my fear head on whilst speaking with my friend. I witnessed my fear in committing to something I want, for fear of not being good enough, worthy enough, not my path, for maybe failing again, etc etc.
You see, I had it all mapped out 10 years ago. I had a business partnership with another. We signed a 3 year lease on a commercial property to create a Holistic Health Centre. I was a successful trainer, and well on my way to graduating from my Diploma of Tranformational Coaching. This was what I wanted! I was 27 years old & I was doing what I loved! The sky was the limit!
In October 2006 I went into competition & placed 4th in Women’s Short Figure. It was a MASSIVE achievement! My coach suggested I stick at it as my physic was perfect for competing. Through this time, the relationship I was in ended and we parted ways.
Over the next duration of months, I continued to pour everything into my work and kept my training up, despite the next comp being another year away. The turning point happened after my Coaching Module – VISION QUEST. Where we undertake a sacred ceremony of entering into the bush from Dawn to Dusk – setting intentions for what we wish to let go of and welcome into our lives. I came away from that weekend with my mind blown & my energetic senses high. I’d gone down the rabbit hole & lost my way back out.
I entered depression for the next 2.5 years & as a result, everything I knew fell apart. My PT Business died, the friends I knew, fell away. I had high expenses based on my previous life & the mediocre jobs I was doing barely cut what was needed each week. I became a recluse hermit. My training faded and I lost who I thought I was.
I underwent therapy through this time & it was baby steps in the dark. I didn’t know if I was moving forwards, backwards or even if I was moving at all? Mostly I felt I wasn’t. Eventually as I pulled through, my confidence was shattered, and I took whatever jobs I could to survive. Personal Training felt so far from me, it was a distant object.
This was 2009/10, and ever since has been a gradual step forward.
Wrapido to Nature Care College. Nature Care College to lululemon. lululemon to Canada. Canada to New Zealand. New Zealand to Bali Silent Retreat.
Each role, each location, bringing me closer and closer to ME. The real & authentic ME. Each place, rich & full with life lessons & experiences not possible in a classroom.
Now, sitting here in Bali, after being ‘born’ from my 8 month Bali Womb, I sit and wonder what is next? There is no backwards, there is no sideways, there is only forwards. I am done being a paid employee, I am done being dictated with plans & someone else’s ‘to do’s’, I am done with being 2nd best!!!
NOW!
NOW!
I must step forward, I must face my fear of failure, I must feel it and step forward regardless.
I MUST.
I MUST.
After all, what is a life worth living if we haven’t truly lived?
I don’t know how to do this? I don’t know how to start again? I only know I have to. I have to!
Anything less & I do my soul a severe injustice.
And so being my own guru is where this is at!
The only way forward is through.
It’s time to be my OWN GURU!
Have you noticed how grief can be a trickster at times? Disguised in one form, dressed as another. Like an unannounced house guest, he knocks at the door, packed bags in hand, you answer in your underwear, the house a mess, you’re unprepared. “Hello friend, I am Grief.” He has come to visit. To turn him away …
While sitting in the Immigration Office in Bali, I was contemplating how much change my life has undergone, is such a short space of time. Living within a Silent Retreat has brought me back to simplicity & the heart of what really matters in life. I now see the many many distractions we create in …
‘The hare runs into the fire’ photo was taken during my Fire Circle, Monday night. This sacred held space for sharing our authentic voice allow individuals to feel heard & held in the most special of ways. I shared the image later with a friend who replied back with this poem he knew. The hare runs into …
To create change in the world, I write for me. To connect with a story from my soul. To give my soul a purpose. I like the idea of having no agenda. There is so much freedom in no agenda. The same goes for other areas in life. When we have no agenda in everything …
I love to write, and lately, slowly, I’ve been putting my pen to paper with nothing more in my head than perhaps the first sentence. Sometimes the words make sense, sometimes they don’t. I’m allowing myself to just run with it and have fun with judgement. I share last nights play below, just for fun. …
For the love of god! Question EVERYTHING! A few conversations have popped up at work recently where I hear people answer; “they said we can’t” “we’re not allowed too”, or variations of these sentences. I always like to reply back to this statement with; “why?” “who is ‘they’?” “what is the reason?” Working within a …
Neils’ Dad has been here visiting for the weekend. He lives in Campellville, Ontario. I’ve met him twice before when Neil & I visited for Christmas & the packing down of his Mothers’ Condo in Milton. He’s a lovely man, a real Dad type. I guess what other type is there really? I think I …
