This is what I choose to experience during this festive season and beyond.

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.

It appears that the concept of enough is enough is foreign to many people in the world today. There is a huge amount of advertising and marketing and spin based on the idea that more is better and even more is even better.

And yet, the more people seem to acquire, the more they want and the more they want the more they have to acquire and on it goes with no end in sight.
So when is enough … enough?

The irony to me is that we have enough for everyone to be fed and housed and educated and looked after in a way that enhances life on our planet for all human beings. We do!
So why do some have so much more than enough and others have almost nothing?
Because we won’t share.

And the reason we won’t share is because we are scared that we might end up with not enough if we do. This ridiculous notion is based on the primal wounding of the inner child … I am not good enough but if I do this or that, succeed in this or that, get enough, have enough then maybe I will feel good enough. It doesn’t work because there is no way out of this loop until you realise, it’s not true.

Here’s the truth about you and me (and everyone else on our planet):
I am ok, I am loveable and valuable because I AM and I feel anything but ok a lot.
The feelings of not good enough are feelings, not facts. They cannot be responded to in any way that works by doing more, having more, getting more and holding onto much more than I need. That only reinforces my feelings of lack and not good enough.

So, what can I do? Change my mind, clean my filter. Remember who I am is ok and what I feel is what I feel.

For me the rigour required to remember this and live like I am ok is a daily practice using my favourite mantra: I am enough, I have enough, there is always enough.

And that’s enough for me.