I’m going home. All I want for Christmas is… peace

In a recent post I talked about the tension and pain that can occur at family gatherings over the holiday period. This post is on a similar theme. It’s about returning to your hometown, which I’m about to do, and how that can stir up a complicated mix of memories that be both comforting and confronting.

Geographical places carry vibrations all their own. This is why you can visit a location and instantly feel at home there, while other cities leave you cold or feeling on guard.

I have great affection for the town I grew up in. I could not live there again – it’s too small for me, and I get bored there – but I love returning and immersing myself in its sleepy, beachy vibe. It’s the place where my internal compass resets to true north. Of course it helps that many of my favourite humans and dogs reside there.

However, many of my other favourite humans live in a city that raises my heart rate for all the wrong reasons. This place makes me feel on edge. I lived there for 11 years, all up, but never felt a connection with it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this city. In fact, there’s a lot that’s right with it. It boasts beautiful coastlines, wide skies and expansive parks. But it just never felt right for me. Living there was like putting on a coat every morning that didn’t sit right on my shoulders and didn’t hang close enough to keep me warm. Although I made some wonderful friends in my time there, I never felt like I truly belonged in that city.

I am nervous about returning to this place over the Christmas period because the last two years that I lived there, I was miserable. It is difficult for me to separate my feelings about all that is great about this city from the way it made me feel (not that I’m blaming the city for that!).  When I go back there, my past sadness tugs at my sleeves. It’s a weighty, intangible thing that bounces between the volcanoes, striking an echo only I can hear. I’ve visited only once since I moved to Sydney, and although I loved catching up with friends and was sad to say goodbye to them, I could not wait to leave.

This time I have planned my trip to make sure that peace, not unease, is my overall experience. I fly in close to Christmas so that I can head straight to my hometown. I have limited the amount of time I spend in the city after Christmas and am making sure I only catch up with people who I truly want to see, as opposed to people I feel obliged to see. This time around, there are no big gatherings at pubs or cafes. I am only seeing people on a one-to-one basis, mostly at their homes or at beaches, where we can have solid conversations and actually connect.

Of course there will still be some encounters that leave me feeling uncomfortable. You cannot, after all, edit experiences – life is not an Instagram feed (unfortunately). The past is a nice place to visit but you cannot stay there. And I think that’s for the best. 

I wish you peace this holiday period. Wherever you go, whoever you see, I hope that you remember to carry peace with you. Hold on to that. 

Amazing grace. I want it

For most of my life I have longed to be graceful. I wished I could glide into a room emanating such allure that every man would stop what he was doing to admire me. To dress impeccably and with such class I could have just stepped off a billboard. To hold myself with such poise that there would be no need for me to even speak.

I possess none of these attributes. My sense of style is less about style and more about whatever items I can rustle up that don’t make me look like I’m in the middle of a reality TV home renovation. My inability to match garments is renowned. Instead of sitting neatly in place, my hair behaves like your wild teenage daughter – i.e. it’s never where it’s supposed to be. And despite being blessed with long, slender legs I am unable to wear heels that would gift me the feminine appeal I long for. In heels, I have all the finesse of a newborn foal stepping on butter. In my beloved ballet flats I have good control but the refinement of a truck driver.

What I have realised, though, is that no matter how unruly my appearance and disposition, I can live in a state of grace – although not in the way the majority of people define the word.

Last Christmas I wrote a post about grace as associated with redemption, and my definition of the word has broadened further since. Our society loves to hold up Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's as the epitome of grace and elegance. Yet that role – as a character who displayed precious little regard for other people’s feelings – is far removed from what made this celebrated actress truly graceful. It’s true that she was mesmerisingly beautiful, but her grace had nothing to do with her face or her wardrobe, and everything to do with her heart. 

Audrey worked tirelessly as a UNICEF ambassador, fulfilling the call she felt from within to bring hope and

worldwide attention to the plight of starving children in countries such as Ethiopia – a humanitarian mission I admit I didn’t know about until I read about it on social media. Rather than focusing on looking fair, she implored the world to BE fair… in the way it distributes its resources and opportunities.

This, to me, is grace. No longer do I aspire to be chic or elegant (that’s probably for the best, all considered), but there’s opportunity for me to build towards a state of grace in my thoughts, attitudes and behaviour. Certainly I’ll never reach Audrey’s levels but that doesn’t mean I can’t maximise opportunities to show and feel grace in my everyday life. Grace is gently leaning forward when I want to retreat. Grace is showing kindness to myself and to others even when I don’t feel like it. Grace is finding peace in my heart amid a cacophony of criticism, fear and drama. Grace is gently reminding myself on my bad days that tomorrow is another day and it will be better.

That’s my understanding of grace – and it truly is amazing.

On silencing my inner control freak, and letting go

I did battle with my inner control freak this week, and I’m not sure who won.

One minute I was embracing the chaos of my currently crazy-busy life and setting very clear priorities for my time; the next I was seriously considering setting my alarm for 4.30am so I could fit in a workout before starting work at 7.30. I had to give myself a stern talking to at that point. In the unlikely event that any of you needed a reminder on this: 4.30am is a time for going to sleep after a massively unhealthy night. It is not a time for waking up and commencing massively healthy activity.  

The part of me that wanted to make every minute of my life useful – hello, control freak! – did not want to accept the fact that, at a time when work is ridiculously (but temporarily) busy, I do not have the time for my lengthy fitness sessions. A one-hour yoga class after work: yes, but only once a week. Ninety-minute sweat sessions followed by the palaver of getting my body into a workplace-appropriate state then travelling into the city: no, not right now.

Of course, this wasn’t really about exercise at all. Although fitness is important to me, I’m fairly blasé about it, and it’s not unusual for me to flag a workout due to time constraints. So for me to consider depriving myself of the sleep I so badly need to get through this busy period, in order to squeeze in gym time, was not about maintaining my physical fitness but about maintaining a routine. My inner control freak does not like the unexpected. It likes order. It likes familiarity. It believes it can keep me safe by restricting me to a predictable path. It is wrong.

Last weekend I tried floatation therapy which demonstrated my struggle to let go in a fairly obvious way. This involves stepping into a dark, silent chamber filled with highly salted water for an hour and just floating (side note: you guys really need to get in on this action). In other words, letting go. Not letting your body steer you. Not letting your brain be distracted by what’s around you (you are virtually deprived of sensory stimulation). Not letting your brain obsess about the time or grocery lists or deadlines or upcoming family birthdays or whether your boss is shitty with you or whether she was just overtired when she was a bit short with you yesterday. Should be easy, right?

Floating on the surface, going in deep.

Yeah, it should be.

I struggled with this so much. First, my body didn’t want to accept that it wasn’t required to move. That it was fully supported and perfectly safe. It’s a very strange sensation to be partially submerged and not have to do anything to keep yourself in that state. I kept trying to push my bum downwards to the bottom of the chamber, just to reassure myself that I couldn’t sink (yeah I know, that doesn’t even make sense). I also kept lifting my arms up behind me because I was worried I’d hit my head on the edge.

Then my stupid brain started up. It didn’t want to be present in this moment, it wanted to race ahead and plan everything everything everything. The week ahead. New projects to pitch for. What to say to friends who are going through challenging times. My inner control freak was not checking out of this hotel anytime soon.

Then something funny happened – I hit my head on the edge of the chamber. It didn’t hurt because I was drifting across the water very slowly, but it did give me a bit of a fright. The reason I found this amusing was because it was such an obvious message from the Universe: GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD.

So I did. After I’d composed the grocery list.

After I finally let go, the most beautiful sense of peace washed over me, and even though it took me more than half the session to get to that point, it was so worth it. I felt so relaxed, in every molecule of my body, that I almost fell asleep on the train on the way home (this never happens – normally I’m furiously scribbling in my notebook or on high alert for weirdos) and that night I had the best sleep I’ve had for months.

So in other words, letting go and trusting that I will be fully supported is something I really need to get better at. If only I could figure out a way to do that without having to almost drown myself…

Dear Mercury retrograde. You suck. (un)Kind regards, me.

Mercury, you are killing me right now. Yes, I know you love to screw with transport systems when you go into retrograde (Jan 21 through to Feb 11, and again later this year – boo!), and I know to expect that, but… seriously?! Yesterday I had FOUR buses not show up. They weren’t late, they just didn’t show up. They vanished into thin air, like they were cast in a Harry Potter storyline, despite my online app telling me they would be here in two minutes. And that made my day a giant poopy mess. Also, my vacuum cleaner died a quiet death (RIP), which I’m really pissed about because I’ll have to replace it, and who wants to spend large sums of money on a vacuum cleaner? Sooo boring and adult.

You guys are feeling this too, right? The Mercury retrograde is incredibly frustrating. And besides allowing extra time for travel hiccups – which I clearly failed to do, d’oh! – there is only one thing you can do. Surrender. Stop checking your unhelpful bus timetable obsessively and pull out a magazine to read while you wait. Breathe deeply. Smile at strangers. Listen to Uptown Funk on repeat. (OK, that’s more than one thing... pretty sure my shoddy arithmetic skills are not Mercury’s fault.)

This is an important lesson for me in just about every area of my life, so instead of getting angry at planetary forces beyond my control, I’m choosing to see Mercury as my teacher. It’s not easy. And sure, letting go of my frustration at having to wait half an hour for a bus is not quite the same as letting go of my attachments to the bigger-scale things I could really benefit from letting go of (habitual self-criticism, regrets over failed relationships, ideas about how my future *should* look, just to name a few) but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. It reminds me that while I don’t have the power to change what life throws at me, I always have the power to choose how I respond to it, which is an extremely powerful concept. If nothing else, it reminds me how good it feels to be at peace with the world (even for short bursts of time) – that’s the place where wisdom starts to flow.

There are just over 10 days left of this hot mess, and I’m declaring right now that I’m not going to let it turn ME into a mess. Obviously I’ll be avoiding potential problem areas (hint: do not go signing any contracts or making large financial outlays at this time) but beyond that, just surrendering to whatever happens. And allowing extra time for travel.

Good luck out there everyone!

BTW, for an excellent reference on how the mercury retrograde nightmare affects us (causing communication breakdowns and technology fails), check out this helpful post by sparkly blogger Gala Darling. 

Blame it on the weather

In this part of the world, we talk about the weather A LOT. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, you’ll regularly hear comments like: “Oh no – it’s going to rain this weekend”, “I hope it’s nice tomorrow” and “What a miserable day”. For so many people, it seems like they need a day of blazing sunshine before they can feel content.

I understand the interest in Mother Nature’s moods – after all, I never make a wardrobe choice without checking the forecast, so I can choose pants over floaty dresses in gale conditions and avoid a Marilyn moment – but I don’t understand the amount of power we give to external conditions. I find it odd that something which we have zero control over not only features heavily in social interactions but is the determinant of whether it is a “good day” or a “bad day”.

Here are the factors that typically amount to a good day for me:

·         Waking up alive

·         Feeling loved

·         Feeling a sense of purpose

·         Laughing at least a couple of times (ideally more)

Neither the absence of rain nor a high temperature are prerequisites for my day-to-day happiness.

Why do we care so much about the weather? As far as what Mother Nature throws at us, we have sunhats and sunglasses and umbrellas and coats. As far as what life throws at us, we have the power to determine our own forecast.

The sunshine is within us – it’s our job to bring the warmth and the light to each day.