November 2016

This week I start Nanowrimo, this is where people from around the world spend the month of November writing 50,000 words for a novel. Each person downloads their word count of what they have writing each day and by the end of the month you hope you have reached your goal of 50,000 words. My daughter has done nanowrimo a few times and loves it, and as I have started writing my first novel and am already 20,000 words into my first draft, oh and the 20,000 words I have already done don't count, thought I would have a go. The bonus to doing NaNoWrimo is that if I get the 50,000 words done I will only have another 30,000 to go to finish my first draft. Plus it will push me to make sure I get some writing done each day, or if I don't get one day done then I know I need to make the effort to catch up as much as possible, so more than anything it keeps me accountable to my goal.

My writing has become such a central part of my life, as I take time out from marathon swimming and stay doing short course swimming instead. But as our Spring has been still more of an extended Winter the want to swim just hasn't been there, the drive for swimming hasn't been there either. Writing has become some where I can take myself to an imaginary place and life of my characters, feel their sadness, their joy, the laughter, and so much more. I can sit in my favourite coffee shop and plug in my computer, drink my coffee and allow myself to go, to leave my reality and go into an almost parallel world and be someone else for a little while with words, I can feel free, or restricted or just someone else for a few hours. Usually after a writing session I have this light feeling. Happiness that I have made it through another 2000 plus words and the story moves on and new characters arise, some leave and new things can happen. The hardest part of letting your intuition give you the words to write and the visuals of the story (well that is how it happens for me), is to let your mind get out of the way and let the deeper inner voice speak and show you what is possible.

As we step into a new month, and for some a month of trying to write 50,000 words for a novel, and others its the start of maybe a new job, a new dream, a new goal, what ever it is chase it with all your heart, hope, faith and believe that you can catch it with both hands and your heart. Have a wonderful week and be true to yourself.

DoryBlu

Enlightenment or inner understanding...

Over the last week I have felt a change in myself. I won't call it an enlightenment, more an understanding of inner quietness. For most of my life I have needed to have a lot of noise around me to stop myself from thinking. I have not been one to like thinking to much as I would always have my mind running over all the hurt and negative things in my life, not the positives and the happy things.

Currently I am reading an amazing book, "The Power of Now", by Eckhart Tolle, Its interesting to read a perspective as Eckhart Tolle's in the way he describes what enlightenment is, "your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form." For me I was and have been for many years so focused on my appearance and what others thought of me. I was wrapped up in being something, thinking there was more and was always searching outside of myself for the material and emotional needs. I never looked for it with in myself.

I have come to feel an inner change, one that looks for the moments of quiet, to be able to sit and ponder from with in myself, not to search the outer world for answers to feel happy or beautiful. I am my own person, I am unique, I am creative and I am me. I now love the moments I can sit in my garden, my mind quiet and being able to truly listen to natures whisper. Its been interesting also to begin writing my first fictional novel. Its wrapped around a garden and the relationships that it entwines with people who visit and work in the garden. Writing my novel has also spilled over into my reality, I have been spending my weekends weeding, clearing new garden beds and planting new plants. For this summer I am planning to be able to sit out under my patio and write, enjoying the birds singing, the breeze on a warm day and watching the butterflies, insects, lizards and more wonder around the garden and around me.

For me I wouldn't use the word 'enlightenment', I like better the use of Inner Understanding, the understanding that the material world isn't going to give what the soul needs, the soul needs us to be in quietness from our minds to be able to hear the soul, for its needs and solutions.

If you have the chance to find "The Power Of Now" please take the time to read it and find with in yourself just how wonderful life can be, once we start quietening our minds to be able to listen to our soul and in turn I believe our lives will be more fulfilling than what the material world can give us.

Hayley

What do we live by?

For so long I thought I was living by the words above. Well how wrong was I! These actually were the words I should have been living by, but instead, I was living a life full of what if's? I'm not good enough, my passion was in the wrong line of thought, my presence was always looking either in the past or to far in the future and not in the now. I had no clarity at all, I had compassion for others, but it might have been for my own gain, I hated the thought of being vulnerable, I had my moments of being creative, but in the wrong place. So where did I change and start living by the above mentioned 10 Words Everyone Should Live By...

That moment or moments that you realise that you can't control every aspect of your life, and you just need to let go of certain expectations of people and I guess in some way yourself, and believe that the universe has everything in hand and it will only give to you, what you can handle to learn from and experience. We fear the unknown in life, because of our need to have control, once we learn to let that fear go, and feel that we are worth so much to ourselves, we will take everyday that we have on earth to learn the lessons we need to, feel the experiences we can and feel every emotion under the sun. This is called living, not just existing, but really living.

Today I registered for a swim event for next February (2017) and for the first time I can say I am doing it because I want to and it will be fun, not because I have to, to keep my weight off, or its part of further training for a bigger event. Just for the pure fun that I know the event can be, for the place that it is held and for the atmosphere that is there on that weekend in February.

Its nice to finally be in a stage of my life where I am happy with myself more than anything else, that I am following my dreams and chasing my goals and even better living my life with purpose, not because of a mental illness, or emotional pain. Just because I am truly happy and loving life, even with some difficulties that are in it, but life isn't meant to be easy.

Have a wonderful week...

Hayley