Brain Sparkles!

I am loving this idea!!

Ground Hog Day

Imagine if movies were all like Groundhog Day. Boring, right? No change. No lessons learned. No room for growth. No growth. Then comes suffering. Depression. Despair. Day after month after year. That’s what North Americans, nay, that’s what we human beings are doing to ourselves across our entire Pale Blue Dot, and we don’t want to see it. Because it scares us. And rightly so, it’s a scary thought to think that we are actually doing this to ourselves. But it begs a good think, anyway.

Here’s an idea, I’ll just throw it out there for fun. Instead of trying so darn hard to change the world, maybe pause for a minute. Take a break. Relax. Put your feet up. And put all your labels down. Your beliefs, causes, politics, religion or non religion, etc… these things are not you. They don’t follow you while you dream like some kind of crazed salesman, they only stick around at all because you’re giving them your attention. So if you’re taking them to the cosmos, maybe stop giving them quite so much of your precious attention while you’re doing your thing as a ‘human being’. ;) It takes  practice, but try it. it’s refreshing. Just drop everything, let it fall to the floor, until you’re not even a gender, not a parent, not even a human. You just are. Now, take a step inward, and change your world. Start here. :)

There is a lot of talk these days about consciousness and awakening, and a lot of different ideas being expressed about it, as well. My advice… inquire it all with insatiable vigour… give every one of them a fair taste test, and let your intuition guide you as to which one feels like a good fit. You’ll know because it won’t feel bad. :) The truth is, there is no right or wrong way to feel your way through… there are just different expressions of the same thing. If the intent is to go inward, how you get there is just flavour on the meal, some like salt, some like pepper… what ever… let the meal be your focus. Love. Self Love. Love for others. Love for all. One love. It’s a pretty simple path, you won’t get lost. In fact, you might just find your way home. *skips*

This waking up thing isn’t some spiritual or new-age thing (although it is), we are waking up because we have to. That’s how evolution works. So, there’s that. But don’t panic… just breathe and know that everything’s gonna be alright. We just need to start loving our selves and loving each other. That’s really all we need to do. <3

Watch this video. It’s a gooder. :)

Peace & Love

Jan 16 – Basking in Gratitude

Once I finally got myself on to the wave of inner peace & joy, I discovered that inner peace & joy have been serving as my inner compass all along. All along. Although I’ve always been aware of “that little feeling or voice” inside of me, I didn’t trust it, because I was raised in a society that is conditioned to be fearful of change and sceptic of others. But there is no freedom in fear or skepticism. None. At some point, I knew I had to let it all go if I wanted to be free. I came to understand that things like beliefs, labels, camps, banners, ideals, judgement, self pity… none of these things were serving my well being, in fact, they were standing between me and my well being. I had to let it all go, surrender it all, and simply free-fall into the universe with grace and trust and enthusiasm and child-like wonder. I had to be starry-eyed and curious, filled with vigour to taste the fruit of inner joy and love and peace. I had to stoke the furnace of joy! I had to become the face of joy! And then, one day… like sparkly cosmic magic… joy sailed right into my heart like a floating cloud coming home – and my heart smiled and danced and sang with such bliss, I couldn’t help but weep with gratitude. For the first time in my life, I knew what love was. Real love. Pure love. Unconditional love. And I knew it was love… because it felt like home.

I hope you like my daily doodle. I hope it makes your heart sing. :)

Peace & Love.

Take the Wheel

If there is one rock-star move that I’ve made in my life, it was making the conscious choice to get up and to take charge of it. Even though, at the time, I didn’t feel much like a rock-star. I felt scared. Lost. Ashamed that I’d neglected my self. And although I had decided to get up and ‘get happy’, there was still the little matter of ‘how’.

I had no idea. So, I made myself an appointment to see a psychologist. That felt like a good place to start. Since then I’ve come to realize there’s infinite ways to ‘get happy’ besides therapy. You just need to look for it with the intention of finding it. But therapy was helpful, too, albeit, very short lived. I was shocked to find out that even in my beloved country of Canada, psychology is not covered under health care. At $180.00 a pop… I was on to Plan B after the first visit. *sigh* This was a bit of a blow. To this point, I guess I’d assumed that the impending overhaul of ‘me’ would be some kind of joint venture between me and a professional… you know, someone who knows what they’re doing? I didn’t have the first clue where to even begin. I had fanciful visions of just unloading a big fat suitcase on her desk and huffing, “Here… please… help me sort this out, would ya? I can’t carry this crap, anymore.” And she’d wave her magic therapist wand a few times with a swishy zippity zappity zoo… and I’d be shiny and new, again.

Head’s up… that’s how it works in places like Oz and Kansas and wonderland. In the real world, not so much. You actually have to work for it.

*sigh* No matter… I didn’t waste a second even entertaining self pity (although I was tempted… not gonna lie) or use this as an excuse to give up (although I was tempted, not gonna lie)… those ‘poor me’ days were behind me, and I was not going back. Ever. So I took a deep breath and did the only thing I could do… breeeeathe some more. And when I felt calm, I asked myself where I was going. Ah, yes! I’m going to Happy-ness! If I have to walk uphill, barefoot, in the snow, hungry and blind… so be it. One frost-bitten step at a time, I’d get there, dammit. I had decided. And hey, at least I had that visit, right? It was a start. In fact, it was a really good start. I still had my big fat suitcase of woes to contend with, but that $180.00 bought me something I desperately needed, right then. It bought me hope. It was near the end of the session and we were just wrapping things up. I was feeling more fragile and naked than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I had just willingly allowed this total stranger to grope and paw and fiddle with my most delicate and private of parts… my mind. I think she could sense that I was a little bit terrified. She asked me if I had any questions. I did. I’d been thinking about it for the whole hour… trying to muster the gumption to ask. It wasn’t that I was afraid to ask a question… I just wasn’t sure if I could handle the answer or not. But I took a few deep breaths… until I could ask in one fluid sentence (without losing it). And then I just spit it out…

“Am I fixable?”

Jeeze. *sigh* Brings tears to my eyes remembering that. If there was ever a vulnerable moment… goodness… that was it. I was so sure she was going to say, “No… I’m sorry…. you’re just too broken, Vonnie.” But I had to know. I just had to know the truth.

She didn’t even blink. She didn’t miss a beat. I think she already knew what I was going to ask. She paused for half a second (that felt like infinity), flashed me a doctor-like smile… but it was a warm smile… then she passed me the box of tissue and kind of leaned forward to close the gap between us, and then looked right into my soul and said… “It took you a long time to get ‘here’, so it’s going to take you a while to get ‘there’, too. You’re going to have to work hard, every single day. But I promise you, you’re not broken. You are absolutely fixable. Your life is in your hands… and it always has been.”

*happy tears* I cried… for like… a really long time.

Happy day. I was fixable. I wasn’t broken… I was fixable!

By the time I got home… I knew I was going to be ok. In fact, by the time I went to bed… I was ready to take the wheel. It’s like she’d given me the keys to the car! I hadn’t realized all these years I had been trying to drive… from the passenger’s seat. Goodness. No wonder I’d been going all over the road and bumping in to light posts and trees and on coming traffic… omg! Are you kidding me? All this time… I could have been driving!!!

*more happy tears*

And so, it began. Happy-ness was on its way home to me. All I had to do was take the wheel.

Ready, Re-Set, Go!

Do you ever wish you could just re-set your life? Me too. Or at least I used to. Until one day… I just did. This is my story. I hope sharing this empowers at least one person out there. You’re not alone. I did it, and so can you.

This time last year, I was 42, had a pretty good job, pretty good friends, a roof over my head, a car, a healthy son… I was maybe your average person living an average life. And one day, just an ordinary ho-hum day in my ordinary ho-hum life… my whole world as I knew it came caving in on me…in one instant of a second… a life time of baggage: labels, beliefs, thoughts, impressions, scars, wounds, conditional thinking, shitty happenings in general, and a fairly shitty outlook about myself and of the world… all of it… it all came crumbling down on top of me. I felt like I was dying and waking up at the same time.

This came as a surprise to me. Unlike some people who seem to be fully aware of the fact that they are suffering from depression, I didn’t know. And apparently, this is pretty common. I believe the technical term my therapist used was: denial. And yeah… oh, yeah, I was in deep denial. Truckloads of it. I guess I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that I was weak. Unlovable. Inadequate. Broken.

I’ve since learned that the flames we fan the most out of fear or rejection or protest, etc., are the very things we reinforce, and the very things that haunt us. (This works the other way around, too… where attention goes, energy flows. So, the happier you are, the happier you will be. Just don’t mistake a smiley face for happy. That’s just a smiley face.)

Anyway, my particular flavour of denial was to fake it. Just slap on a smile and get through the ordinary ho-hum day… nothing but rainbows and skittles here, folks! And I have to admit, I was really convincing. Anyone who knows me, and happens to be reading this blog, is probably gasping in shock as we speak. I didn’t even know I was depressed, that’s how convincing I was.

I thought I had cleverly found a loop hole and beat the system. I could just avoid my ten-ton sack of baggage forever, and nobody would ever be the wiser. It seemed like a great plan at the time.

But, alas, I was a big fat faker, and deep down, I was beginning to know it. ‘Truth’ is pretty sneaky… it would catch me off guard, especially at night, in the dark, in the quiet… when I’d finally said goodnight to Twitter and put the phone down… when there was nothing left to distract me… and I was all alone… alone… with just my self. I sometimes wondered, in those moments with my self…, “who am I? Who am I, really?” Was I really a fake? I was so good at letting on to the world that I was a super-woman… but was I really kidding anyone? All this time, had I been projecting all my fears, anyway? All my baggage? While strutting around like I was some kind of something? Uh. Lordy. I couldn’t look… but sometimes I would peer, ever so cautiously glance, from the corner of my eye… and then I’d look away.

When the whole thing came caving in… goodness, it was not a pretty sight. And I was not prepared. Which, in hind sight, I’m grateful for. Because had I had some other trick up my sleeve to ‘spare’ me from looking within, I might still be coasting on auto-pilot, today. I had no safe plan… I was crashing… absolutely, head first, into some kind of mother-load of hurt, and all I could do was throw my hands up and say, “OK!!!!! Fine! OK!!! I give up!! I give! I’ll change. I’ll get up. I’ll get up. I’ll get up.”

This was THE moment. Right there. That moment where I felt like I was dying and waking at the same time. Prior to throwing up my hands, when I was still kicking and screaming to hold on to what ever it was that I thought I was holding on to… I felt like I was dying. The second I said those words to myself (to my SELF) that I would get up… something happened. Something switched on or off, I’m not sure. Something within me re-set. And I felt an overwhelming want to actually get UP.

I had no idea at that time, but I believe that moment was absolutely necessary for my growth. And I will forever be grateful it happened. I’m not gonna lie, I ever so briefly toyed with the idea of whether or not my son could get on without me. I did. I thought about it ever so briefly. But that made me feel sick to my stomach. I immediately waved it away, and thought “NO. Not an option.” So, then there was one. One other option that I intuitively knew had always been the only option for me.

Get up. No more self pity. No more excuses. No more pretending. No more blaming the world. No more waiting for that magical day when I’d wake up and not secretly wish I were someone else. No more. This was it. It was time to get up.