A New Beginning. Now.

"Can I have it all now? I want it all. I can't have it all ...."
How is it possible that she looks good in what appears to be a modified strait jacket?

10^th January 2013.

 Instead of endings, let us now be concerned with beginning. When is that? Yep, you guessed it, that would be NOW!

Always smiling when I'm at Lou and Johnny's!

I refuse to drag around any useless stories.  Well. Not for too long anyway. A lot of us suffer. Anxiety seems to be a major issue and I certainly ‘enjoy’ my share. Over the last year I have focused a lot on dealing with anxiety. I think it’s paid off. The core of peace I've glimpsed and held for short periods is no longer so fleeting. All emotions change and shift so quickly, but a deep core of inner peace can be permanent.  I know, because it’s happening to me.

Rest assured, during a time of stress and pain I am still very much a sookie ba lamb, but something does feel different. I sort of breathe like I’m in labour if I have to. Breathing cannot be underestimated. Of course I also like singing, and I’ve made up plenty of songs lately.

Today I cried. I lay down and sort of went a bit foetal and bawled my eyes out. Then I imagined I was above myself watching. As I calmed down, I went back to me, and as I ‘went back’ I truly inhabited my own body. I felt the tears, started to shift my body, heard myself cry, and let myself feel it, feel it, feel it.

Like a wave, this smile of peace washed through me. In less than 10 minutes I felt clear minded again. Clear and clean of self pity or needless sorrow.

Later I got angry about parking. I had to breathe. Breathe!  I acknowledged I was making a big deal out of nothing.  My reaction was totally out of proportion to events, but I didn't tell myself off. I laughed at myself. I swam in the ocean and sent out love. In the supermarket I saw gluten free pancake mix. For reasons I won't go into, tears welled up. I stared at the pancake mix for about ten seconds too long, thinking about what might have been.

Labour-like breathing, nausea  and crying sessions aside, it’s been a wonderful weekend.  I went to a meditation class with Suzanne on Saturday morning, then to Tieneke’s baby shower that afternoon. In the evening I headed to Devonport to see Lou and Johnny. They also had their friend Annette over, and we all talked, laughed and ate. Annette’s funny -  she says things like  - “I don’t suffer fools! I used to, but no more! I also don’t care if someone doesn't like me. I try to do the right thing, and if someone doesn’t like me, then why should I care?”. Good point.
Why should I care if someone doesn't like or love me? It only feeds into pain and anxiety. Wake up. 

An old sliver of glass that had snuck it’s way into my right heel about a week ago was really sore last night. It changed my plans for going to a dance class with Suzanne as well as catching up with another friend for coffee in the same area. I'd stayed the night at Lou and Johnny's and slept like Goldilocks on Valium. 

This morning Lou, Annette and I went to Vauxhall cafe. As Annette was leaving, she produced this beautiful necklace that she doesn’t wear, offering it to Lou or to me. I was so pleased that Lou didn’t want it. It’s like an angel necklace.  Pale blue faceted stones, so light I can’t even feel it against my skin. The silver linings of a cloud pouring out. I’m protected from the darkness that usually threatens to drag me down and into an endless mind of hell. Mind. Mine. Leave the mine. I am free of mind.

After Annette left, Lou and I meandered down to the beach. It was impossibly beautiful.  A tortoiseshell cat finished cleaning herself in front of a multi-million dollar beach bungalow. She then strolled confidently onto a woman’s towel and sat sphinx-like, looking ocean-ward, knowing that this was certainly her right. The woman yapping on her phone didn’t even notice the cat until she saw me and Lou looking and smiling excessively.

We swam. Lou and I that is, not me and the tortoiseshell cat.

“Where’s my anxiety now? I can’t seem to locate it.” I said to Lou.

Like the cat, we also looked towards the blue and green, peace present.  A monarch butterfly floated high in the air, endless blue sky as her back drop.

We headed back for a cup of tea and ended up finishing off a modest glass of sparkling fejoa wine from the night before.  I did a bit of healing (Reiki/general) for their young cat (had been run over and survived thank god) and then did a relaxing visualisation for Lou. Now I’m at mum’s place and she’s going to make a stirfry for dinner. Mmm. I’ll pour myself a pinot gris shortly.

I’ve just read a bit more of Eckie. It always calms me down.

In regard to relinquishing inner resistance (surrender) and finding the stillness/peace within: From The Power Of Now:

I don’t call it finding God, because how can you find that which was never lost, the very life that you are? The word God is limiting not only because of thousands of years of misperception and misuse, but also because it implies an entity other than you. 
God is Being itself, not a being. 
There can be no subject-object relationship here, no duality, no you and God. God-realization is the most natural thing there is. The amazing and incomprehensible fact is not that you can become conscious of God but that you are not conscious of God. The way of the cross (finding ‘god’ through suffering) … is the old way to enlightenment, and until recently it was the only way. But don’t dismiss it or underestimate its efficacy. It still works.

The way of the cross is a complete reversal. It means that the worst thing in your life, your cross, turns into the best thing that ever happened to you, by forcing you into surrender, into “death”, forcing ou to become as nothing, to become as God – because God, too, is no-thing.

And so I will leave you with that something that is no-thing. I send you, whoever you may be, or whoever you think you may be, a wave of love, the beginning of Now. Breathe and Surrender.