Two months ago I left a job that I loved and moved from cultured Melbourne to oceanside Sydney. I did it to do something totally whack. I did it to invest the same effort and dedication that I had given to my job to my life…to finding me. Can you imagine? I felt self-indulgent, set loose, disconnected and sometimes lost. But in getting lost, living next to the ocean, being barefoot and slowing down enough to be still I found out some amazing things…and I didn’t just find them, I felt them.  The below list is my reminder of all the magic that has fallen out of the last few months and many times filled me to the point of bursting.

• Forgiveness in life is the simplest path to inner peace. It doesn’t have to be a fists-raised-bellowing-it-all-out kinda thing, it can be gentle and silent and completely within. And you never know where it can take you when you shift a big ugly block because it creates an empty space to fill with something new.
• The need to love your-self is so you don’t look to others to love you FOR you.
• Ego is exhausting to feed and maintain, it’s phat and heavy….love and acceptance are soft, gentle and simple on your head, heart and nervous system.
• We can never judge another because we have not lived with-IN that person’s life. We don’t know what their accumulated hurts and wounds are….how they protect themselves and how that shows up. Their life could have been harder then you could ever imagine. So work at not judging others because every time you back down from judgment and just allow a person to be you quietly say to them “you’re not a bad person” and then you actually bring more love into your life. Nice trade-off.
• Patience=heart (softness, trusting in the process and surrendering) and Impatience=ego/head (hardness, control and grasping). Seems so simple but it’s taken me two months to have all those words fit…to have them land and actually get it…feel it.
• Inner child stuff-never got it, felt stupid doing it then had this pop moment where I got it. I went back, in my mind, as an adult and did the things I would have loved an adult to do for me. My parents divorced when I was young and I remember this terrible feeling of my mom being “out there” but not knowing how to get to her. So I went and ‘got’ myself from my childhood home (included kicking in doors and being a general badass protector) and meticulously showed the younger me how to get to my mom’s place. Made a map, attached a couple of quarters to it (payphone change) and made a magic pocket in my pants for it that no one could see but me. It doesn’t have to make sense or be all lovely jubbly, it can be badass and silly so inner child stuff-check!
• To tune into nature you need to be s t i l l, silent and soft and for me that has taken a lot of practice but there has been this sweet surprise that has come from it. Since I was still enough I tuned into this wonderfully quiet version of myself that helped uncover a hidden piece of me.
• If you blame others for what happens in your life then you transfer your power to them…they get it because you’ve basically said “there was nothing I could do…they made me feel this way”…sorry but bullshit. How much easier and powerful is it to just own it and decide how you deal with it. When you choose to own it you instantly diffuse all the rage, sadness, hurt and victim-ness. That’s also why they say to own it ALL, everything, even the whack shit your stepmother did when you were a kid because when you own it it has absolutely no power over you and you drop all the hurt and anguish you carry around your whole life. THAT is freedom.
• You don’t just “get” meditation…you have to work at it…THAT is meditation. The beauty of it is being in the moment and observing you and your monkey mind…seeing where it takes you, how you react to it, how easily you can give your thoughts up without judgement…that is all part of what meditation is. It is never a good or bad session but another part of the journey. THAT is letting go.
• Changing a few words can make a thought so much more powerful. Instead of being open to love, BE love…instead of being open to forgiveness, BE forgiveness. You may feel like a putz saying it to yourself but for me closing my eyes and saying I AM forgiveness helps me to embody it and believe it.
• Doing “work” on yourself doesn’t look like you think it will…Baron Baptiste says “change is messy” and the last two months have been just that. I have had to surrender to it, go with it, not judge it, trust it and completely let go. Yep, messy.
• Last lesson: Deep down at my core, hidden behind my heart and tucked away in a dark corner, I have felt that I don’t deserve to be loved and that I am unlovable (man that is scary to say outloud) but in the last two months  I learned why. The reason why was that I didn’t known myself well enough to know what to love. I haven’t known the simple things that make my heart soar and, therefore, who I am. But after two months of meditating every day, writing till pens ran dry, being in the ocean and sitting in the fire of my own judgment and discomfort I can honestly say I now know and the beauty is, it was simple things that I needed to find out.

Huge thank you’s to those of you who have supported me during this journey. Those who drank coffee with me and just listened, those who talked me down from teetering mental ledges and those who hugged me when I was low and made me feel loved. You have helped me more then you know and given me such a gift. You helped me find me.

BAM! That is some good feeling shit to write!

xZ