Inside Out

Inside Out

As I approach the end of another calendar year, I find myself reflecting on the year that has been and marvelling at the complexity and the simplicity both locally and globally.

There can be no doubt that this year brought a multitude of fascinating, frustrating and illuminating mirrors in the form of various world leaders and local friends and foes.

When I found myself awash in the sheer lunacy of what I was seeing and experiencing, the only relief I sought was to go within and ask myself one key question: “What would love do now?” Because any other location or any other question was not going to deliver what I sought … peace.

And that, my friends, is what I am taking away with me for my annual holiday with family. That the only true path to peace is within. There is no sustainable peace or joy or happiness on offer when I am attached to and hell bent on making my external reality meet my expectations. After many years of relentlessly going down that rabbit hole, I have discovered that if I truly want inner peace then I must go within and choose to BE at peace.

There is nothing I can control or make happen in my external world. No amount of persuasion will make someone feel what I want them to feel or do what I want them to do or be how I want them to be. And yet the divine dichotomy in the paradigm of cause is that I have created all of it and yet I control none of it.

When I remember I create the whole of my own reality with love and wisdom – always – I can relax and let go and allow myself to appreciate the complexity and the simplicity of the whole and trust that there is purpose in all of it. Then I get to choose how I want to BE in relationship to whatever is occurring and thus transform not just my internal state but also my experience of my external reality including how I experience you.

Just need to remember … I get to choose.

Love Lorna

I Choose Peace and Quiet

I Choose Peace and Quiet

As this year draws to a close, I – like many of you – have been contemplating what I want for Christmas.

What I am clear about is that I don’t need or want any more stuff. I have spent the past 6 months decluttering my space and my life so to fill it up again with more stuff is just not on … for me.

So what do I want?

I want peace and quiet.
I want to sit in the shade with a good book and no noise and just BE quiet.
I want to wake to the sound of birds rather than heavy road working machinery or leaf blowers or chainsaws or motorbikes or traffic.
I want to sink into the silence at the end of the day and feel quiet inside.
I want space to just BE without having to do anything in particular.
I want stillness and calm.

For the holidays, I am going away with my extended family to the south coast. There will be more than a dozen of us together for the Christmas week. There will be the usual cooking and preparation and gift wrapping and beach going and talking and laughing and just hanging out. Lots of fun and lots of energy and lots of people (and some animals too).

So how am I going to get what I want for Christmas?

Simple … I get to choose.
It’s my choice whether I experience peace or not.
It’s my choice to go to the coast with the family and it’s my choice how that is for me.
It’s my choice to feel quiet inside even when there is noise outside.

As for the silence … I have some earplugs so I can shut out the noise.
Or I can choose to let it wash over me without reacting.
It’s always my choice.

Love Lorna

Choosing Peace

Choosing Peace

According to the Gregorian Calendar we use in our culture, it’s a “new year” and the habit of many is to make resolutions, plans, goals and lists of things to do in the coming 12 months. And as anecdotal evidence suggests, the majority of resolutions, plans and goals fall by the wayside before too long.

Some years ago, I realised I was making mostly content based resolutions every new year out of habit and a sense that “I should”. I also noticed I became very attached to them as a way of measuring my worth and value. This strategy did not ever deliver what I had hoped for which was to simply experience myself as lovable, valuable and ok, no matter what was going on.

So I decided to let go of my “lists of shoulds” and start each year by choosing a personal context that supports whatever I am choosing to do rather than focusing on all the content issues and “stuff” to resolve or do or achieve.

This year I choose the context of peace. I choose to experience deep, unshakeable inner peace no matter what’s going on inside or outside of me. What this requires is my willingness to BE peaceful, to detach from personalising everything from my ego’s view, even when there is temptation all around me to get plugged in and react. Not easy.

As the integrity of our human process dictates, as soon as I chose peace I began to experience lots of “not peace”! A friend’s dog nipped my toe; a man honked and glared at me in the traffic; the builder across the road brought in a rock-breaker going hell-for-leather hour upon hour, etc. I could react and get stressed or I could choose peace. Again, not always easy and certainly I had some moments of strong feelings and reactions, yet as soon as I reconnected with my context of peace I returned to being peaceful and things began to change without any effort or stress on my part. That’s peace.

Love Lorna

I could choose peace instead of this

A Course in Miracles

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