Gratitude

One of my intentions for this year is to be more grateful. Late last year, Kikki-K had a sale on their journals and I purchased the set of the old design (Happiness, Goals, Wellness, Gratitude) as I don't really like the new design. On New Year's Day, I opened the Gratitude journal and started a process that I've so far kept going for 12 days. Every day I will write three things I'm grateful for and why.

There's only about 77 pages in the existing journal, so at some point I'll have to suck it up and buy the new style journal, but until then I'm rocking the old design. It's so nice to be able to reflect on the little things, big things and awesome things that happen each day.

And on that note, I also started another daily process of collecting all the great things that have happened each day and sticking them on a post-it note, then into my 2014 Great Things jar that I received for completing a three-day yoga intensive from 29-31 December. My yoga teacher Emily gave us each a jar, which I promptly came home and pimped out with a banging jar tag. 

Yoga has certainly reignited my creative fire and I've done a lot of crafty stuff so far this year. 

Long may it continue. 

Ignorance is bliss

Ignorance is bliss. I don't do TV anymore. I don't read newspapers anymore either. I don't feel the need to view news sites on my phone or iPad. I read the occasional magazine but not those trashy gossip ones. Do I feel the need to relish in other's misfortunes? HELL NO!

While in Malaysia on holiday, I had only one night of TV. I was in Johor Bahru, the night before I went to Legoland and I was a bit bored. Instead of reading a book on my iPad, I turned on the TV, which came with my hotel room package.  What was on? 2012, the movie. A disturbing waste of a few hours of my life which I'll never get back.

A couple of weeks ago you'll remmber that I cut off Foxtel and therefore I cut off TV in general. I didn't enjoy waking up and having the beauty of a brand new day ruined with an overload of negativity (news and weather channels). No TV and no newspapers has been fantastic and it's awesome not being caught up in all the negativity and horror and violence that is plastered across newspapers and the news. 

It doesn't mean I don't care about the people suffering in the world, because I do. I just prefer to wake up and be genuinely grateful for all the blessings I have in my life. 

I suspect I was watching around 15-20 hours of TV each week. I'm now using that time to learn stuff, do stuff and generally chill out. I've discovered the wonderfully frustrating game of Mah Jong. I've completed two courses which lead to two pretty awesome qualifications (Basic Law of Attraction Practitioner and Certified NLP Practitioner) and I should have the final tick in the box for the NLP one early this week. 

I've been reading books, researching stuff on the internet, cooking more and generally having a more peaceful and interesting life. I've discovered activities, places and new fun things to do that I need to explore. I'm going to the Hare Krishna-run Gopal's restaurant for dinner one day. I'll go to one of their Kirtan evenings and chant and sing and dance. Heck, I may even follow them down Swanston Street one Friday night (like I used to do in Auckland on my way to the Ferry). I'll try new places with Char Siu Bao. 

I'm going to make a far more determined and conscious effort now to focus on doing one new thing and one fun thing each week. I'm not having enough fun and that needs to change, STAT!

In terms of mind-body-spirit connectivity, I've got the yoga three times a week thing down pat, so I'm going to add in a Saturday morning class - yes, a fourth class - and I'm considering attending the Monday night women's health class by candlelight as well. It doesn't cost any extra as I have a membership at the studio. I may add in Wednesday night down the track too.  Then I can do six days a week and it's six days in a row. Maybe I'll try it one week and see what happens?

Tomorrow heralds a new day and the start of a brand new week, so it's time to try a new morning schedule. I'm thinking:

6am - continuously hit the snooze button

6.30am - Meditate, Dharma Practice

7am - Yoga (Vinyasa sequence)

7.30am - coffee, green tea, first breakfast, journalling

8am - 21 day transformation tasks (I'm doing a mind, body, spirit transformation)

8.30am - walk to the gym

8.45am - one hour of cardio

9.45am - shower, second breakfast, coffee, green tea, chill out time

10.30am - start work

7pm - finish work, head home for dinner and study, or to yoga, or whatever

Better get to bed soon - 6am alarm beckons!

Mountaintop retreats and free-range children

It's been a bit of a topsy-turvy week exercise-wise. I had a tiring and dramatic week (see the previous post), so I gave myself permission to take it a little bit easier mentally and more gentle physically this past week with my body, so that I could work on sorting out my mind and that situation. I didn't let the exercise go - it was just a matter of shorter sessions and an impromptu rest day. 

I definitely made up for it by doing an active retreat day yesterday. I have been wanting to head back out to the Dandenong Ranges for quite a while and yesterday's weather forecast was amazing, so I figured it was time to act. I wanted to get out of the little seaside town, so my intention was to visit Belgrave, maybe Olinda and Sassafrass, head up Mt Dandenong, do a bit of a hike in the bush and find some Char Siu Bao on the way home. 

I spent two hours in each direction travelling to the Dandys (as I like to call them), but it was so worth it! I went up the summit of Mt Dandenong, had a picnic morning tea, took lots of photos, did a forest walk and just "was" for an hour and a half. Too many screaming, running and yelling free-range children challenged my patience and sadly my phone died randomly while I was taking photos of the gardens, so I couldn't drown them out with headphones and music. Hmph.

Next stop was the gorgeous mountain town of Olinda, where I oohed and aahed at gorgeous shops filled with Turkish trinkets, soy candles, crystals, Nepalese clothes and all manner of new age supplies. I'll be back, Olinda, with cash this time! Turns out Eftpos ain't too popular in them there parts of the bush.

In one shop in Olinda I met Jennifer Bailey, a Homeopath, Naturopath, Meditation Teacher and Healer with 26 years of vast experience. I bought a copy of her book "New Healing Secrets of Angels and Herbs", which she kindly autographed and dedicated. We had a great chat about astrology, Angels, herbs, healing, coaching and a million other things. 

The lady that runs the shop and I had a yarn about astrology too. She picked that I had Gemini in my sign due to my friendly and outgoing nature, which according to Tibetan Astrology (which I had a look at this morning and is based on the Tibetan Calendar) is my sign, although Western Astrology says I'm Cancer based on the Gregorian Calendar! Fascinating stuff - I'll be back to see these two gorgeous ladies again soon.

After Olinda, I caught the bus to Upper Ferntree Gully and after a quick look at the market, I took the train to Box Hill for some Char Siu Bao (steam pork buns) and a quick trip to Woolworths for supplies. I love the fact that Char Siu Bao were just $1.80 and all steamy and fluffy and delicious. I need to find a place on this side of town that has them also; the supermarket ones are gross and I'd rather go somewhere to get them fresh. Mmm...BBQ Pork in a fluffy bun. Magic!

Next stop was Doncaster as my phone needed a trip to the Apple Hospital. It turns out the battery is cactus (helpful tip: iPhone batteries are only good for 400 charging cycles. Be prepared to fork out $90 or so for a new battery after that) having been used past its use by date and needs to be replaced, which was why it turned itself off mid-photo at 46% battery charge. I'm not keen on the need to throw $89 at a piece of technology instead of spending it on study or yoga or a holiday, but if it stops my mind becoming more disturbed by this battery situation and gives me less stress and more peace of mind, then I suppose it is worth it. 

I really enjoyed my day out in the bush, even with the cactus phone and the side trip to a mall that really wasn't necessary. I've decided that I will be making this a monthly event now (except for the mall trip and the cactus phone bits, of course). 

I may live by the sea, but sometimes you just need to go bush, go walkabout, go up a mountain; in fact, sometimes you need to just go and just be. 

Creating a peaceful sanctuary with space to live

I spent most of yesterday re-arranging and de-cluttering the living room at home. I had a hair appointment in the middle of the afternoon, but I'm happy to say that after picking up a few groceries I came home and kept working on it. I am totally stoked with the finished product. 

I've been thinking about doing this for about two weeks - pretty much continuously since the decision to cut off Foxtel, as the TV had to be in a certain spot to reach the aerial cables and all that jazz. Having cruised through the week with no Foxtel or TV, I was finally able to unplug and re-jig. 

It feels good to come home and not feel obligated to plonk in front of the idiot box. I can now honestly say "I don't watch TV". I didn't miss it while I was in Malaysia and I'm not missing it now. If I need information, I can get it from the internet. I don't feel the need to be constantly bombarded with information, advertisements and be hypnotised with suggestions to go and buy the latest whatever!

I had a few criteria for the "new" space, which are:

• I wanted as much free space as possible in the centre of the room so that energy can flow freely
• I must have a peaceful sanctuary on one side of the room
• A reading and lounging area where I don't have my back to the doors and windows (feels like someone is going to sneak up on me, which is bad Feng Shui)
• A dedicated space for my yoga mat where I can practice at home and don't have to roll it up when I'm finished using it. 
• A high space for my shrine, with enough room to get everything I want on it. I also wanted to get the new photo of His Holiness 14th Dalai Lama and offering bowls on it too. 
• Space at shoulder height for my Tibetan Singing Bowl and Tingshas for meditation
• Room for my meditation stool and space to meditate without having to rearrange the room and room for my oil burner so I can have my soy melts burning in the background
• Space to pop out an airbed for any visitors who may wish to stay over, without having to rearrange the whole room

Here's the finished product:

Since I don't watch TV anymore, I was able to move my recliner against a wall and still have a little wall space available to use for shoulder stands, until I have the strength and skill to enter them from my mat. I'm thinking that I could use the grey ottoman now for support instead of the wall as I work my way up from the mat. We'll see. 

The whole house has a totally different vibe and Qi flow about it now. It feels less stuffy, less cluttered, less stagnant and less stifling. I got rid of some furniture and have a massive empty floor space now. I could picnic on the floor if I feel like it, but I won't throw a wok burner on the carpet and cook my veggies on the floor like the last guy living in here did two years ago!

I had already pimped out the space with red accessories, as the boring beige/yellow paint throughout the house really does my head in. There's lots of green (earth energy) on the shrine to balance out the fire energy of the red, just so things don't get too energetic!

They say change is as good as a holiday, and it's nice to walk in the front door and see this first thing. 

For goodness sake, I've got the hippie hippie shake

I made a few important decisions recently and have taken some action to follow through. I am no longer prepared to accept the levels of negativity that have been creeping into my life and that I have been allowing to disturb my mind. I'm simplifying my life, focusing on developing wisdom, compassion, kindness, happiness and balance. 

I'm turning into a bit of a hippie. A tree-hugging, sandal wearing, yoga-going, recycling, crystal-wearing, aura-cleansing-spray misting, happiness-journalling, eco-yoga-mat-toting, meditating, chanting, ujayyi breathing, Feng Shui studying, Dharma reading, soy melt loving, candle and dried sage burning, Nepalese wool wearing, semi-vegetarian, Tibetan Buddhist hippie with a penchant for de-cluttering my home, mind, body and soul. 

Here's how.

What I want:

I'm not going to obsess over every minor detail in life anymore, I refuse to have excess clutter and stuff around me (either physically or mentally), I need some peace, calm, focus and more gratitude in my life.  

I need to learn and grow and appreciate and smile and laugh and sing and dance and love and give and do more yoga. I need to drink more green tea, consume less sugar, get more sleep, nourish my body, be more mindful, cultivate an awareness of my environment and surroundings, read more books, learn more things, play more and have more FUN!

I'll focus on a new thing every few days so that I don't overwhelm myself with change, but here are the updates so far. 

Step 1: Be more mindful of the environment

Since returning from Malaysia, I'm recycling pretty much everything now. I saw so many plastic bottles and flotsam in the waters of the Langkawi Archipelago islands that it broke my heart. The last bastion of recycling now for me is soft plastics, which apparently the local supermarket has a recycling bin for. I must go check out what can go in it, as although it will be a pain in the posterior to lug stuff down there, it's better than it ending up in landfill or on the beach. 

I'm down to about one physical trash bag a week now, which means I can put my bin out fortnightly if I choose to. If I had a garden, I'd love a compost bin, but green things and I are not good friends and there's no space for a garden here. Maybe some window boxes...hmmm...there's an idea! A few houseplants won't go astray either, so I guess I'm off to Bunnings soon. 

I was lucky to acquire a Manduka super light travel mat before I went to Malaysia so I could take it with me, which I did. It didn't get nearly enough airtime while I was away, thanks in part to my choice of tiny little hotel rooms with no free space. It's fantastic for being really, really light. It's also fantastic for being super eco-friendly. "Manduka’s eKO Series yoga mats are produced sustainably from harvested tree rubber. Unlike other rubber yoga mats, no toxic foaming agents are used in their manufacture and no toxic chemicals are used to soften the rubber. eKO Mats are 100% biodegradable and leave behind no toxic residue. Manduka have also chosen to use a natural cotton and recycled silk reinforcing centre instead of a synthetic polyester."  

I'm showering at work five days a week after exercising in the morning before I start work. That's cutting down on my energy and water consumption at home. From 1st October the only item that needs to stay on 24/7 at home is the fridge (goodbye Foxtel box, see previous post). I've been switching stuff off routinely for over a year, a habit born out of necessity from last year when I was made redundant and went to a 30 hour casual contract job and then wasn't working after my shoulder surgery. No point paying to run stuff when you're not home to use it. 

I'm thinking of doing a challenge involving using only three hours of electricity per day (mobile phone charger excluded, but that only runs overnight anyway). I can use 2hrs 45mins at night, then save 15 mins for the morning to make my coffee and green tea!  

On yoga nights sticking to three hours of electricity will be relatively easy, as I leave for work at 8.45am and don't get home until 9pm. This means that I can ration out my 21 hours of electricity per week and maybe, just maybe, survive on three hours per day on weekends too! My laptop has a great battery, as does my iPad and my modem. I have books and movies on my iPad, real books in the house and it's almost daylight savings, so this may well force me to get outdoors, get reading, get writing and get creative. Love it. 

I'll do some more research and figure out what else I can do to be more eco-friendly. There must be a way to up the eco stakes at work too. I just need to think of it!

Green tea - the last hippie bastion has finally fallen

Hell has finally frozen over. I'm drinking green tea and I am enjoying it. 

In my search to re-create moments from my amazing Malaysian adventure, I've been seeking out Lemongrass and Ginger tea, in the vain hope that I can find one that tastes like the amazing one that I had at Alun-Alun spa in Langkawi. So far, no good.

I bought a box of Lemongrass and Ginger tea in Tesco in KL but that doesn't taste like Alun-Alun's tea which I'm sure was black tea. Apparently the one I bought was green tea. Slight fail.

Green tea always tasted like crap before. Well, maybe not crap exactly. Perhaps more like rancid soy milk with stalks of gosh-only-knows-what steeped in it. Regardless, no good. Until now.

I bought a box of green tea with Lemon and Lemongrass in it one day at Safeway here in Melbourne and thought "well, stuff your ginger then". This tea also does not taste like Alun-Alun's tea, but guess what? I'm loving it.

As I'm sitting here typing this anecdote with a glass of green tea on the desk next to me, I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. Green tea is not the evil pond scum juice I remember it being years ago. Sure, it's not coconut water or Malaysian iced coffee, but it's pretty good. And it's not coffee. It's hydrating, relaxing and good for me. It's full of antioxidants and health benefits. It will help me flush out toxins. And so on and so forth.

What has this got to do with life coaching? Well, remember my quest to just say yes, have more fun, try new stuff, get over myself and have more adventures? Yes? Good! This was a bit of an adventure and I'm glad I got over myself, just said yes, tried something new and I am now enjoying green tea.

Baby steps eventually lead to a marathon. That is all.

The Malaysian Adventure

I'm not going to go into millions of details on this blog about my Malaysian adventures. Instead, you can head on over to my Adventure Blog and read all about it there.

I will however go into detail about how I went all smackdown on two fears that have plagued me for years - flying and heights.

The flying thing has been a serious mind pest since a particularly less than ideal flight from Auckland to Brisbane in 2000. It was the most violently turbulent and scariest flight I've ever experienced. It wasn't like the odd air pocket - this was almost diversion to another country material. I've flown over the Rockies in the USA and that had nothing on this one particular flight. Seriously, I've let myself be totally traumatised by turbulence for 13 years. Until this trip.

When I booked the flights, I made damn sure I had to get on as many planes as possible, and that they weren't the super familiar Boeing planes I've spent pretty much all my life flying on. I wanted Airbus planes, with their different noises and different layouts. I figured seven flights in 23 days should do it, with an overnight longhaul and a daytime longhaul at either end. I wanted short flights, medium flights and long flights. I wanted to see how I'd cope with total overload.

The flight from Melbourne to KL was okay, to a point. I had new anti-anxiety medication with me, actually it was stuff that was left over from my shoulder surgery which I didn't take because I was in a vulnerable enough state without adding a new medication I hadn't tried before into the mix. To cut a long story short, I didn't take Valpam with me. I took this new stuff instead.

At the boarding gate in Melbourne I started to freak out a little so I popped one pill. By the time we boarded and took off, I was okay calm. Not one Valpam calm, but okay calm. I had my dinner, watched a movie, started watching another movie, we had our snacks, we flew off the coast of Australia and the plane started bouncing. I popped another new pill and started reciting mantras to chill out. I took a nap-type thing and dozed off for a while.

About 4am, all hell broke loose. No, not turbulence - yes, it was bouncing and the seatbelt sign came on, but that was the least of my worries. I had to sprint to the bathroom and spew my guts out. Clearly the pills didn't agree with me, so I'm glad I hadn't tried them while convalescing after my shoulder surgery. However, this also meant two things - one, I was going to have to cope without them from here on in and two, they were of SFA use to me now.

We landed uneventfully in KL about three hours later and I felt like utter shite. I'd been able to get water and cans of 100 plus on the plane, but I was now sick and starving. I had something vaguely resembling food for breakfast and an iced coffee in a can a little later. I availed myself of the massage chairs, blogged and chilled until the new plane ride to Langkawi. It was only a one hour flight and totally uneventful. To be honest, I was too sick and tired to care about turbulence, which didn't really happen anyway.

Fast forward a few days and it was a silly 35 minute plane ride to Penang. Again, no turbulence and no issues.  Three days later, a butt crack of dawn two hour flight from Penang to Kuching, Borneo. This was a little more bouncy but I had movies and music and books and a cute baby in the seat next to me to entertain myself with.

Three more days went by and it was onto an evening 1.5hr flight to Senai in Johor State. Yes, it bounced, but you have to expect that flying in and out of Borneo and over Singapore. From Johor I caught a bus to Singapore, then flew from Changi to KL. Again, no hassles. By this stage the anxiety on planes was pretty much non-existent. However, the real test was yet to come.

I'd been working through Tony Robbins' programs and my NLP certification, so I was okay with pattern interrupters and anchors and the like. I did a flight simulator in KL which really helped - I learned just how much concentration and effort and training is required to fly a plane, so I had more faith in pilots after that.

This "real test" that I speak of was my flight from KL to Melbourne. It departed KL at 1:30pm and was eight hours' duration, so I'd be awake the whole time. I hoped it wouldn't bump too much and if it did, my idea was to do Buddhist practices and recite mantras and meditate, then do Zumba moves in my seat and shimmy along to the bumps. I also planned to update my travel blog entries on my iPad, ready to copy and paste when I got home.

I needn't' have concerned myself so much with plans for the worst case scenario, as it hardly bumped at all. Sure, there were the routine "we're over Indonesia, bring on the jumping castle" moments which you must expect but other than that the flight was totally uneventful. Well, until we landed and the pilot seemed to be coming in too fast and proceeded to overshoot the runway a few hundred metres as he had to SLAM (and I mean SLAM!) on the foot pedal brakes three times to stop us.

So, flying conquered.

While in Langkawi I tackled the world's steepest cable car. I didn't think I could do it without really freaking out, but I did - and with no chemical assistance at all. While in Singapore I tackled the world's tallest observation wheel. Same deal. I went up the Petronas Towers in KL and had no issues.

Turns out I'm not scared of heights and never was. I listened to a Tony Robbins tape and discovered that I was scared of falling from a great height if the doors weren't closed properly, or scared of being trapped and not being able to get down if something bad happened. Like, whatever dude! Slim to non-existent chances of that happening. I seem to have particularly good Karma for these things.

And, tall buildings, elevators and high structures were therefore also conquered.

Remember, FEAR is an acronym for False Expectations Appearing Real. It's all a product of your mind and in Dharma, we are taught that nothing exists separate from our minds - we make it all up. So, therefore, all these fears are total made-up crap.

Awesome.