Nature and me, both here on my blog and on Robin's blog, desiring real food.

I have a guest post today on Robin Easton’s blog and it fits beautifully with all the posts on intimacy and LOVE and what it means when I observe that my daughter doesn’t have a life.

It means my daughter is pursuing goal after goal with no real desire where to take her life. She is missing out on a life that is rich with diverse experiences and LOVE and she is fooled into thinking that distractions like holidays and material things are her desires.

I know how hollow life is that follows a predictable pattern, I once lived like that too and I was as Peggy Nolan said in her comment “a rat running around in a cage going nowhere“ until it finally dawned on me;
But damn it, I am NOT a rat, I am a creative being with a purpose who should follow her growing personal desires with actions of Love.

Within purpose I can achieve goals, but goals on their own are like dead end railroad tracks, useless for expansive travel plans.

When I was thirty I had it all but was bored. Ironically I worked in career counseling assisting people to find their desires and how to make them come true. How ironic indeed.

I was lucky enough to anchor one ‘unconscious’ desire and that was to be in nature. 
My annual seven week holiday in nature was the highlight of my life, there I blissed out and tasted what loving life meant and at the time I never gave it a second conscious thought why I did this.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked my job. It was a very good one. I had the privilege to hear a lot of life stories and learned a lot about how life never goes to plan.  BUT although the job had a noble goal to help people, it had nothing to do with a personal desire and it didn’t give my life a purpose. All it did was make me feel good, earn me money and give me status and security.

Thank God that I got a chance to experience the difference that following a heart felt desire can make to the quality and intensity of one’s life. 
The difference is huge BUT . . .
Like intimacy, committing and following a desire has consequences and requires letting go of the very things society says you must have.

A desire requires being intimate with pure heart-felt JOY. Money, security and a fixed waterproof plan have no place when pursuing desires. 
Desires lead you astray from what you have been taught you must have.
Desires take you into the unknown, they go against what the ego perceives as ‘good economical practice’.
THAT makes pursuing desires extremely difficult and not for the faint hearted.

I followed my desires twice in my life.

The first time was when I migrated to the abundant nature of New Zealand without really knowing what I was doing. 
The second time I am following my desires more consciously and I am doing it NOW. 
Both times had me scared witless, had people around me frown and I was and still am unable to explain and predict how it all would and will work out.

Pursuing my desire the first time has payed off. I adore living in New Zealand and that vague dream has grown into a very ambitious desire; to return to living on this Earth as we are meant to;  to co-create with the, until now, unknown intelligence of nature. This desire will make a huge difference to me and to the world as well. It is ME and yet far bigger than ME. 
It has me write this blog, it has me work on becoming a strong basecamp so I am resourced enough to make this happen despite the status quo, it made WomenLikeMe.
It urges me to think and act differently around money, security and who I am being.

THAT is what desire does.

It leads me into the unknown, it makes me courageous and committed to deal with insecurity and it makes me smart as I have to find my own unique solutions. It makes me grow in ways I could never have imagined and it gives my soul the experiences it longs for. In my case I am to fulfill my ultimate desire to live in God’s Garden of Eden, in my Space of Love in a way that God intended us to live with Nature as the mighty co-creator that it is.

Desire lets me live from the purest feeling of all, Love, all day every day as I go about ordinary daily life.
And yet there is nothing ordinary anymore about my ordinary life.

As I said there are consequences though when becoming intimate with your heart.
You have to learn to do things differently and become a strong basecamp to handle going out on a limb like some of my blogging buddies.

Peggy Nolan’s desire from Infinite Yoga and Reiki and The Stepmom’s Tool Box is very clear when you read her blogs. Peggy wants to teach. Her passion is definitely Self-Care and she too understands that only a strong base camp can create a life how it is meant to be. Peggy pays attention to what there is to learn and thus increases her own understanding and ability to become the change she wants to see.  She too has to go down paths unknown. When learning you obviously are not practicing things you already know! And of course teachers who learn from their own experiences are the best teachers!

Hilary from Positive Letters is following her desire to be with her Mother, it sure is giving her ‘rich‘ experiences although some of them must have left her scared witless. But I see Hilary as vibrantly alive while she pays attention as her desire is taking her on a very unknown path. As a result she is curious, she is doing things she never dreamed of and she is creating a whole new future for herself.

Joy from Unfoldingyourpathtojoy is committed to her desire to sail and live on a boat. She too oozes Love and makes her life joyful despite what circumstances bring. But she is also honest enough to share the frights and uncertainties as she veers off the trodden path.  However Joy is also paying attention as she creates her life full of wealth and richness while letting go of security and old fashioned money ideas.

Then there is Robin Easton from Naked in Eden.
Robin committed to her desires when she lived in the Australian Rain Forest and ever since then Robin’s desires has kept her free, fully self-expressed and authentic in connection with Nature Intelligence. You only have to read the comments on Robin’s blog to know how her pursuit of her personal desire is inspiring others.

Desire filled people recognize each other, they live differently and they do things differently.

I have a guest post on Robin’s blog today where I show how accessing Love makes our lives rich and how ‘cold’ our lives are when we don’t. Of course I desire you to go and have a read.

What I am doing with WomenLikeMe is give women the strength and clarity on how to dream and go for it.

My biggest desire is to have you be a strong basecamp who is resourced enough to follow your desire; that is why WomenLikeMe is created for you and me.  I love you to join, why not give it a go for one month so that you can taste what is possible.

Following your desire is a personal path and yet it is the most generous act of Love you can give to yourself and your loved ones.

Their ego-thoughts are not preventing them from loving the piano. Not yet anyway.

As always many thanks to everyone who commented on the Monday post; ‘What are your issues with migrating to Heaven on Earth?’
It is a challenging post.
It is one thing to read about ‘Heaven on Earth’ in spiritual texts but it is quite different to actually aspire taking such a huge step in daily life.

And as for migrating there, well Angelia Sims was honest enough to say what was so for her;

I haven’t really stepped out of my southern Oklahoma/Texas culture comfort zone.

And then she went on to say what else was so, with stepping out of her comfort zone;

But I have had to really adjust at my new/old job… The ego definitely takes a beating.

But it also makes me perfect for this job, because I keep my calm and my ego in check.

Congratulations Angelia, because a job like this is a great training ground for moving on from your ego. Moving on from ego type thoughts requires a lot of practice and we need to take every opportunity we can get.
Go Angelia go.

Jan Lundy on the other hand has migrated and assimilated to Heaven on Earth and sees it this way;

A heaven, a hell, a little miserable clod of complaints, or pure gratitude for being here. It is how we choose to be and see and live….

Joy and Maryse too are clear that they are migrants to Heaven on Earth.

There is a prevailing and understandable confusion about the ego and where it fits into the scheme of things. Maryse brought this confusion to light with her comment;

I’m a migrant … to Ego-less land. I’m going to point [out] here that I do not take the ‘less’ as ‘absence of’ but as ‘not as much of’. I believe that my ego is here for a reason… In an ideal scenario, as I’m migrating to that new land, it’s with me to help me handle life as it comes. It keeps me organized and alert while I flow and co-create. Like we have two brain hemispheres (the left for human doings and the right for spiritual being), we have Love/God as our driver and the ego as the navigator. But migrating we must. Because an Ego driven life of control is not only exhausting, it’s doomed to fill us with stress, dread, and fear. So I’m joining the bus to Heaven on Earth.

There is general agreement that we have an ego, or ‘ego-thoughts’ as I prefer to call them and as Maryse says; “an Ego driven life of control is not only exhausting, it’s doomed to fill us with stress, dread, and fear.”

We are also in agreement that a life filled with stress, dread and fear is not what we want.

However like Maryse, many of us have great difficulty in imagining a world completely without ego-thoughts. It is hard for us to imagine a world where the word ‘ego’ relates to an extinct civilization where ‘ego-thoughts’ were once prevalent. This is especially difficult for us to imagine because for most of us, our Little Voice is our ego; it is part of us and therefore hard to have it disappear.
Its survival is the egos only concern. The ego is very well established in our mind and very  cunning; it has all of our intellect at its disposal, so it has many ways of retelling the story to keep itself alive and keep its seat on the bus. Maryse very astutely noticed that her ego for example is even claiming the navigator’s seat in her mind. Yours too will want a seat on the bus to Heaven, even if it is a small hard-to-see seat at the back of the bus and your mind, but it still wants a seat and it’s not going to let you get on that bus alone if it can possibly help it.

Argue as the ego may, the logic of the situation is against the ego. Heaven on Earth is a place of Love, it knows no fear. As Jan says; it is a land of pure gratitude. In a land of Love there is no place for ego.

Life without our so called ego is possible; it did exist once and will exist again. The challenge for each of us is to be clear about that.
Our so called ‘ego’ must go. Just like you can’t be half pregnant, you can’t live in Heaven on Earth with a little bit of the old ego thought pattern hanging around. One excludes the other.

I agree that this takes some doing, as for most of us the ego thought pattern is firmly in control.
This journey to Heaven on Earth (without our ego) is not something we can achieve alone. As Joy says;

I am actually surrounded by these new inhabitants, some of whom are trying to welcome me with open arms, but I had no idea until this moment…because I *was using* my old vision finders…

We at WomenLikeMe are welcoming you with open arms; however if you look with your ‘ego’ vision finders you will not see us.
WomenLikeMe is fatal to the ‘ego’ and ‘it’ knows that.

Hanging out with inhabitants of 'Heaven on Earth', an Oyster Catcher family.

Currently we live in ‘Ego-land’ where ego culture shapes our lives and dictates our behavior. Behavior that attacks, competes, has us being inauthentic and creates a world of lack, defensiveness and fear. Some of us are paying enough attention to notice the destructive culture we live in, a culture that leaves us feeling fearful and oppressed; some of us notice enough to long for a more attractive ‘country’ to live in.
Some of us notice that there is an enticing new ‘country’ appearing. Eckhart Tolle calls it ‘A New Earth‘, I like the name ‘Heaven on Earth‘, a land where ego-type thoughts have no place.

The natives of ‘Heaven on Earth’ have banished their ego and instead they come from love while co-creating dreams based on win/win for all as their life’s purpose.
Although some of us are settling in well to living in ‘Heaven on Earth‘, most of us are not successful migrants yet. We are having trouble adjusting to its ego-less way of behaving and as a result we are still outcasts.

Migrating and adjusting to a new land obviously has its issues; I know.
In my past as a career consultant I often was approached to deal with unsuccessful migrants. They were highly skilled professionals but unable to adjust to New Zealand’s culture, to assimilate and find work. They were hopelessly lost, all self confidence gone and they had become increasingly resentful of New Zealand and what they perceived as its false promises to migrants. For them there was nothing promising about New Zealand at all.

A migrant myself I too had experienced how inaccessible New Zealand can be for foreigners.
As I had transcended the misery and had found ways to adjust to ‘wonderful’ New Zealand, it was me to the rescue.

I will share one of those migrant stories as an analogy for your inability to adjust to ego-less living in ‘Heaven on Earth‘.

He was a Russian nuclear physicist, 40 years old with wife and two young children, 6 and 8 years old. You would expect him to be capable of thinking and being able to assess this new country and find his way in. He wasn’t and he didn’t. 
My strategy was always to get to see the partners together and let them talk first. It gave me a chance to see how they related and what their preoccupations were. 
I observed and listened while he went to town spilling his misery and showing the tension between him and his wife. 
After he had run out of steam and while catching his breath for the next round, I took my chance. 
“What language do you speak at home?”, I asked knowing full well it was Russian as his English conversational vocabulary was limited. This rhetorical question was always worth asking, would he get my drift?
“What language do you -migrant to Ego-less land- speak at home, ego talk?

How had he decided on his job hunting techniques and were they based on his former Russian experience? Another rhetorical question, of course he did it the Russian way, he after all was a physicist from Russia!  Ahum, but, but wasn’t he in New Zealand which firstly is against nuclear power and secondly specialized jobs of high caliber are  few and far between, often a closed shop and only available if you are one of the in-crowd? Well, he would have none of that, he was granted entry and thus there should be a nuclear job for him, period. A man of his caliber did not have to jump through hoops to get a job or accept one of lower professional status. His wife threw me a look and I knew he was a handful for her too.
Can you -migrant to Ego-less land- imagine the question I would ask you on this subject and how you would answer it? Are you forcing results instead of going with the flow knowing there is a bigger plan you have to trust?

How much time did he spend on his job hunting? I expected him to say 24/7 and he didn’t disappoint me.  His search for work had become an obsession leaving no time to relax and enjoy this beautiful country with his wife and children. No time for some peace from his relentless but hopeless pursuit. He also had no time to connect with the community so he could practice conversational English, learn the culture and get to know some New Zealand friends. Of course that left him terribly isolated with nobody to introduce him to New Zealand ways, to soften his Russian temperament and judgments. He just stuck to the same old same old job hunting techniques even if he had no results to show for his efforts. A man of his caliber?! Hmm. 
To put the death nail in his coffin I asked how his wife and children were getting on. He growled; “They are doing fine!” 
No surprises there either AND there was no sign of him paying any attention to what they were doing differently while they successfully settled into their new homeland.
Are you paying attention to how you are adjusting from Ego-land to ‘Heaven on Earth’?

Sometimes I succeeded to guide them through and we parted as friends, sometimes I failed miserably and the migrant returned to a private hell, feeling offended and misunderstood.

There is not much difference between this highly intelligent Russian migrant and those of us who too are seeking to enter a new country, A New Earth, the ego-less ‘Heaven on Earth‘.

It is very much the same process believe it or not.  
I am again transcending my old culture to enter a new one. I once again am learning how to adjust and the WomenLikeMe program is my current vehicle to guide migrants. 
I make people realize once more that they do already live in their new country of choice, ‘Heaven on Earth’, if only they could assimilate and adjust to its way.

If you recognize yourself as a ‘Heaven on Earth’ migrant then check out how you are getting on with assimilation via these questions:

• Are you paying careful attention to the wholesome ‘what is so’ of your daily life?
• Are you practicing at home with your family the new language of love, appreciation and acceptance. Have you given up speaking your old ego language of judgment and attack?
• Are you taking time out to relax, to build faith knowing that all is well and to enjoy everyone and everything around you?

To adjust, you need to hang out with the inhabitants of your new country, you need to emerge yourself into their context and pay attention. To adjust to ‘Heaven on Earth, you need guidance;  you need to be encouraged to practice the ego-less ways.
That is what the WomenLikeMe program and its community can do for you, for less than the price of a latte a day. Your choice!

On the road to an unknown future.

This Monday’s post; ‘We are looking for our new home the WomenLikeMe way’ was a little different from usual. I took the opportunity to report on how John and I are getting on with living our daily life differently.

It seems like a straight forward exercise, reporting; I’ve written lots of reports on people’s lives in my former work as a Careers Consultant.
But I notice that it is not easy at all to report what is going on for me behind the scenes, about the bumps and hurdles I experience along the way, especially as I have not yet safely reached the harbor yet and I have certainly not reached all the wisdom of hindsight yet either. I am still in the middle of the storm so to speak, oscillating between feeling confident and being totally freaked out. I did notice while writing the post that fortunately my confidence is becoming stronger by the day.
However it is still so delightful to have your comments support me in this as you too are honestly addressing your ‘behind the scene’ dilemmas and hurdles.

Joy opened up the inquiry with;

My question of the day to God/the Universe is: where is the love?…

Exactly Joy, you talk a lot about love and yet you are honest enough to share that you still have this question popping up, a question many of us ask often.
And you too oscillate between doubt and the confidence of knowing as you then go on to say;

the Love is right here, within, in Faith, in all that I know…

We have the words alright regarding love, but the hurdle is; are we allowing ourselves to experience this on a daily basis? We obviously are still sabotaging ourselves to fully and always experience the knowing we have.

SuZen shared this hurdle;

…we don’t HAVE problems, we CREATE them – with our fears, insecurities, egos or baggage attached nonsense.

Spot on SuZen, it takes rigor and honest observations to see how I am the obstacle in doing it the WomenLikeMe way and how I am creating the problems. Annoying as it is for both of us; it is good to see I am not alone in this. I hear myself sigh with relief.

Maryse too could see that there is a significant dilemma to address first;

the hardest first step? Figuring out what I really wanted. The ‘intent’ you talk about here.

Oh Maryse, I so agree with you; for so long I could not figure out what I really wanted. Something had to give way first. In two weeks I’m publishing a post on ‘honesty’. I now realize I didn’t have any chance of figuring out what I wanted till I got honest with  myself and my life.

Evita brought up the dilemma of ‘trust’, we all know to trust but as she says, do we really believe that all will work out?

Trusting Source, is an amazing process. It seems like the “right” thing to do, and yet so many of us have trouble doing it. At the end of the day, do we really believe that all will work out?

Well at times I am really hard pressed to belief that WomenLikeMe and getting our piece of land will work out and yet we know the answer to this too, as Evita reminded us;

But there is that space – that place, where we can get to and just let go and trust. And then lo and behold things start to flow, and move at indeed a jaw-dropping pace

The secret to all this – we simply have to be aligned, and listen to all those fine tuned messages that nature/our environment/Source gives us.

And just as with love, are we experiencing alignment and listening on a daily basis? I am getting there but I still have to pay attention because I am still so wired to force, to feel solely responsible to make things happen and to have all these old blah blah blah conversations in my head.

You can see how I appreciate your input for the ‘behind the scenes’ details of my ‘report’. Living my life the WomenLikeMe way has not been that easy. I’ve had to resolve the dilemmas, jump the hurdles, get honest and own up. I’ve had to find out what I want, stop creating problems, learn to trust that all is well and experience love in my daily life; all these huge new learnings took a lot of patience and courage to apply and implement.

Jillian can see the opportunity;

It would so help me calm down and take it easy on myself,

I agree Jillian, I am slowly but surely seeing the huge advantages of becoming congruent in applying these new ways into my life. There is no comparison with how I used to live, my efforts are paying of.
What I do know is that I could never have done this on my own, the power of status quo is huge, the scaremongery that is going on is sometimes too overwhelming, the invisible pull towards the old ways so strong at times.
Only with support it is possible to live life in a different way that is so much more authentic, it is that knowing that is giving me the confidence and the courage to keep inviting you to join me on WomenLikeMe. It is so easy :~) .

John paying attention to the tide.

Paying attention, being alert and performing at our best only happens when something is at stake, like in a crisis or getting safely home from a sailing trip. You too probably know the feeling, eyes see, ears hear, you are on full alert;  you are awake and performing brilliantly, you are alive!

Does that mean that somehow in our daily life we do not pay attention, be alert and fully alive?
Yes, that is exactly what I mean! Marianne Williamson agrees as she keeps reminding us over and over again that we are not paying attention to the fact that we all have the ability to always perform like the brilliant, gorgeous, talented basecamps we all in principle are. 
She often exasperates at how we are not taking ourselves seriously enough, how we are not working hard enough to be who we truly are, amazing capable beings who live brilliant wonderful lives and have glorious relationships.  
Ouch, the halo seems to escape us . . .  again!

I think she has a point and a big one at that.

When I met John I thought he was too serious. He did a lot of interesting things but everything he did, he did with intent. He paid attention to me, to what was going on around him and he always prepared whatever he did. My ego had a lot to say about that. I found him pedantic and anal and I thought I was actually more flexible and relaxed? Was I?

I remember a kayak trip with my daughters when I was proud of my laissez-faire attitude but totally unaware of the extent of my ignorance. We had never kayaked before and what was there to prepare anyway. It was on a calm river and we could stick a paddle in the water and move forward, couldn’t we?
Well, as it so happened, we could NOT, we did NOT do much kayaking at all because the river was tidal and there was no water in sight for miles. Sloshing through the mud soon lost its appeal, let me tell you that much. I was no longer relaxed either.

I saw how things can be done differently when I went kayaking with John years later. With him we left with water in the river and we arrived back with enough water in the river.  When I commented that he was a lucky guy to have not made me walk in the mud as I have been there and done that and I would not take kindly to a repeat, he looked at me in amazement. 
“Luck?”, he asked, “what has luck got to do with tides? They work on timetables and I knew exactly when we had to get back before the tide went out.” 
“Oh, is that so?”, my ego type thoughts attacked; “My daughters and I were not unlucky; I was just ignorant and not anal enough, was I?” 
In fact according to the wholesome ‘what is so’ which the ego never sees, yes I was and not only with kayaking either. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything at all; I wasn’t taking a lot of things very seriously back then and the results showed it. 
If things didn’t work out, oh well bad luck. . . .  What?
Yeah, yeah I know luck had often nothing to do with it, but that is what I thought back then, until of course I met John who took life seriously and paid attention.

Since that time I have had many eye opening moments, I no longer blame results on luck, bad or good. 
My current great relationship is not a matter of luck. It is a result of paying attention and I have learned about setting boundaries, about Self-Care, knowing how to communicate and all the other skills that allow me to make life happen the way I want.

I am not kidding. 
Paying attention means taking myself and my life seriously. 
I had to get rid of my preference for laissez-faire in so many areas. Once I started paying attention I saw that I had a lot of learning to do, to give you an idea we have 14 topics in the WomenLikeMe program! Yes fourteen!
I am sharing a lot of what I have learned on this blog and I hope to God you are paying attention. Life is not about luck, life is about taking yourself seriously enough and seeing beyond the ego thoughts. Life is about making yourself a strong basecamp so you can create a brilliant life for you and your loved ones. 
I have so much more to offer my precious girls now I am being brilliant, gorgeous and talented. I so wish for you the same.

Let’s see how much you pay attention to yourself and others;

• Are you aware of the people around you, their agendas, their manipulations, their victimhood?
• If you feel that in one particular relationship you are playing the martyr and not gaining anything but always giving, are you paying attention enough to commit to learning how to set boundaries, stand up for yourself,  or are you just carrying on and accepting your bad luck?
• How much attention are you paying to your own life? Are you speaking cynical about your job, friends, your partner, family or yourself? If so, how come you are not paying enough attention to act so you can eventually talk positively about your job, friends, partner and yourself? It IS your life!

I am a stand for all of you to pay attention, to take yourselves seriously, to LIVE. Oh how I know the difference that that makes.

I quote Peggy Nolan from The Stepmom’s Tool Box as I couldn’t have said it any better.

I want to support you. But as I go about helping others, I realize that not all of you want help. As much as I want to bring all my sisters to a place of peace, harmony and greatness, not all of you want to go. That’s okay because your life is your choice. When you decide to join me on the happy side of life, I’ll be here –and here at WomenLikeMe.