24. This’n’that

Today’s blog is a bit of a medley: a veritable pot pourri of bric-a-brac, based on my journal entry from February 25, 2015 –                               “Last night’s dream: I’ve moved into a new house.” Very cool !   To me, these house dreams are always about a new part of myself opening up. Often I’ve had dreams of discovering a new room in my house—a beautiful, fully furnished one that’s been there all the time, but one that I’ve only just discovered. But today, to have a totally new house that I’ve moved into—wow!  Must be a big internal shift.

Not much new to report, only that the mind-character (see blog-post 15) is still busy planning the endless detail of many, many projected future events or things that need organizing (things that may never even exist, mind you). He’s still banging on, but seems further away now, like he’s shouting at me from a distance, trying to be heard.

I continue to bring my attention back to the present. There’s a breeze on my skin today. Here I am savouring the sweet, juicy mandarin I had with my lunch. Mandarins are spectacular at the moment. Here I am actually doing the dishes. Here’s me actually brushing my teeth. I remember reading once about a strategy that can help put us back into mindfulness, paying attention to the moment: it was a suggestion to use your non-dominant hand for a day.

Brush my teeth with my left hand, swap my knife and fork hands, wear my watch on my other wrist, mix things up a little so that the neural pathways in my brain wake up and do something new. I decide to adopt this with gusto today, and even go all out with the radical notion of doing something completely outrageous— I’ve swapped the toilet paper so that it goes over instead of under !  I know ! Living on the edge !

On a completely different note, one of the
things that pop into my head today, on that theme of “Surrendering to Feelings”, was the dance I choreographed way back in 1991.

This was the era when I had my own Ballet school, and used to put on an extravaganza concert at the Performing Arts Centre every second year. Most concerts, I would give myself a solo. Why?   Because I could.

I fish out the old program from 1991. My solo that year was simply titled ‘Surrender’. I gave no other program notes. In the dance I was trying to avoid a big-bad-spider which kept getting closer and closer to me, and more and more impossible to cover up or run away from. (picture a home-made spider made out of stuffed garbage bags. Not a huge budget for props, obviously.)                                                                    Finally I’m exhausted by my efforts to escape, and I give up and surrender. With the black-plastic-bag-spider right on top of me, I kind of ‘become’ the spider (You’ve figured out by now it’s a symbol for the fear… ) What happens after that is a joy to behold, if I do say so myself.

Afterwards I remember one of the Dads was congratulating me on the show, and he eventually came around to saying, “And that solo of yours ….. that was ….. er … that was …. really ……. Um …. Deep.” I just smiled. “Yes it was.” There was no compulsion in me to impart any life lessons or parables, it was simply me fully expressing my insights, without any censoring. Because no-one really got what I was on about, it could remain my secret in a way, just leaving the audience to make of it what they will.

 A REAL-TIME NOTE:-    This week I’m making final preparations for my official BOOK LAUNCH !  

It’s on Friday, October 23rd, and it will be theatrical, thought-provoking, and so heartwarming to have my friends and family there to help me send Good Choice – A Soul’s Story on its way.  You’ll get to see a Youtube clip soon. Every day I practice mindfulness and notice the feelings that are coming up around this.  So far there’s been fear, terror, nervousness, (is wetting my pants an emotion?) , what-the-heck-are-you-doing, neutrality/just doing it, as well as excitement, anticipation and feeling so humble and grateful for all the support I’m receiving.