Another Year All Wrapped Up

I am grateful to be here, sharing who I am and what I know with so many willing gorgeous humans. Thank you one and all for your commitment to LOVE as a context while navigating and experiencing the splendour of the messy humanness.

To my wonderful, open and fearless clients, thank you for trusting me to give you what you want, when you want it … even when it’s uncomfortable!

To Maxine, Jane and Rae … you are the gifts that keep on giving. Your commitment to supporting me to do what I want, the way I want to is inspiring and wholeheartedly received. Thank you much for who you are and all you do.

My beautiful family are always there for me, and with me on this journey, loving me no matter what I choose to do.

I love you all to the moon and back.

I am still reeling over the spate of violence in my city, in my country and in the world that has been all over the news in recent weeks. The messy human me is feeling all of it acutely … shocked, scared and very, very sad.

And I know there is a huge opportunity for me and you and everyone to make a considerable difference to this dynamic, if I am willing to feel my feelings and let them go … and get present to what I know is possible when I remember WHO I AM in the matter and what’s possible when I respond from love rather than agreeing with my fear.

I have worked with a lot of people over the past 40 years who have experienced various levels of domestic violence and it’s shattering consequences.  Almost everyone I have questioned about when they first knew something was off, not ok or just plain dangerous, the response has been “… way before something violent occurred … but I thought it was just me being paranoid or me saying or doing something I shouldn’t have …”

That’s when things get really messy because when I choose to agree with my fearful ego mind, that it’s my fault rather than something I can be responsible for, I will fight hard to prove I am good enough by staying in the situation and doing whatever I can to be better, do better and make things ok.

It doesn’t work and often results in the sort of violent behaviour that ends in increased abuse, violence and ultimately, tragedy.

So what can I do differently?

First and foremost remember: I create the whole of my own reality which means I am responsible for what occurs and how I respond. When I trust what I know, (not what I think or feel, what I know)* , when I pay attention to the “niggle” that something is off, I tell someone, I ask for help and take action to take care of myself first …  from love. When I choose to love myself and trust what I know … love for myself first and foremost, I can change what happens next.

It’s not easy and if I am willing to trust when I know something is not ok, in spite of any hard evidence and in spite of my thinking mind pushing back hard. When I am willing to speak up and take action consistent with what I know rather than what I fear, I am firmly centred in the paradigm of BEING cause and therefore able to respond from love and create something different in the next moment.

And you can too.

* If you want to know more, Jenny’s book and website are the place to go!

No matter what is going on, whether it be inside me or outside me, I get to choose the thoughts I think, the feelings I feel, the choices I make and the actions I take.

And so do you.

Right now, the world is reflecting all the fearful thinking we messy humans relentlessly engage in and agree with on a daily basis.

I don’t control anything going on outside of me … and I can choose whether I agree with my fearful thoughts or acknowledge them, I can choose to remember I am choosing them (even though it doesn’t feel like it because mostly it’s deeply unconscious and automatic) and then I can choose, I can decide whether I am going to keep thinking/feeling this way or let them go.

It’s not easy and it is possible with rigour and practice.

What it takes is my willingness to BE the cause of everything that I am experiencing.

To stop … take a breath and BE here now, in my body.

To remember WHO I AM is powerful, and loveable, and valuable and creative (even though I don’t always show up that way) and then consciously choose … the thoughts I think, the feelings I feel, the choices I make in response and the actions I take as a result.

I choose peace, and joy and love.

The short, simple answer is no.

As long as you seek to become “good enough” or get something to be “good enough” you are on a relentless roller-coaster of “not quite good enough … yet”.

And therein lies the seductive trap of your fearful thinking mind which says: “if I could just do enough, have enough, succeed enough, create enough … blah, blah, blah … than I would feel good enough.”

And then I would be happy.

Doesn’t work though … does it?

The loving response to this relentless game of “not good enough” is to remember who you are … loveable, valuable, powerful … and to accept that although you don’t feel that way all the time, that is WHO you are.

As with all things in this paradigm of cause, it’s simple and requires a willingness to accept the whole of who you are irrespective of what you think and how you feel. Thoughts and feelings come and go, WHO you are is constant.

You are the one who chooses to think the thoughts you think and you also choose whether to agree with them or not. Same with your feelings. You choose to feel the feelings you feel. You get to choose whether to agree or not.

When you tell the truth about who you are and what you are choosing to think and feel and do… when you choose to respond to your “not good enough” stuff from love rather than fear, everything changes.

And right now, we humans could certainly do with changing a lot of the “not good enough/not enough” conflict that’s going on in our world. The most effective way to for me to respond, is to ask myself: “Where am I in conflict/at war with myself/others?” and then let the answers come to me … and they do!

It’s uncomfortable and sometimes it feels pointless when I see and feel all the fear and pain in the world and yet I know that the only way I/we can truly resolve and transform any conflict is to first go within. When I choose to remember who I am, when I choose to love myself, tell the truth and be responsible for everything I am choosing to create and experience, I am at peace.

Imagine, if every human being simply chose love over fear …
We can … and it starts with me.

… is the title of my new poetry book which you can buy on amazon from today!
Spoiler alert: it’s hard copy only, no kindle or e-reader versions.

I am thrilled, delighted and very satisfied at having finally gathered all the poems I have been writing over the past dozen years as well as creating some new ones and putting them into a book to share with you and the world.

when I get squeezed

poems from the inside

by Lorna Patten

Poetry is not something I had a yearning for or a passion to produce. In fact, I was completely taken aback when I found myself holding what was to become my first book of poems, opened up.

I remember thinking “I can’t share this with the world, it’s far too personal, it’s my journal, my deeper thoughts and feelings all laid bare … it’s not poetry really”. Yet with much support from many people, I self-published opened up in 1999. (You can get it on my website)

Since then, I have noticed that there are times when I am moved to write more poetry. I don’t sit and think about what I will write, should write, could write … I simply sit and write whatever is coming through, whatever words I hear inside I write. No editing, tweaking, changing or altering … just as it comes.

It’s really pretty simple yet when I start to think about what I am writing, when I choose to let my very fine analytical mind take hold, the words don’t flow and I end up stuck in a cycle of thinking about what I am writing and then writing what I am thinking. It doesn’t work and it’s certainly not poetry!

What works for me is to simply allow the words to flow when they do and stay mindful that when I start telling myself I have to write something now, I don’t.
Then I stop, take a breath and let go.

It’s simple and not always easy, yet when I do, everything flows … and that’s poetry.