Category Archives: spirituality

The yin-yang of career: how to turn contradictory into complementary

Posted on by inktuition
1

If you’re in a career you’re meant to be single-minded. If you’re a therapist you’re meant to be caring. What’s the problem about combining them both?

I’ve struggled with years with people who compartmentalise their lives, splitting off their work persona from their private person. Split being the operative word. They are cut off from who they truly are.

Life has to be black or white. Grey is unpleasant, fuzzy and depressing. Extremes seem contradictory. Polarities seem impossible.

Except what if you get your meaning from opposing things, who is to challenge you otherwise. A boss of mind summed this up today as the business (writer/editor) side and the softer (therapist side) as providing the ideal yin/yang healthy combination of how people can and should operate.

Details aside, it’s nice to be open about one’s self, and be appreciated for it. And, instead of castigating the side of oneself that is perhaps out of step with the other, to perhaps for a second consider the beauty of the opposite. Instead of the ‘you’re wrong’ versus the ‘I’m right.” Think instead of the yin to the yang.

My soul’s lesson for today: what you do, you get more of (whether you want it or not)

Posted on by inktuition
Reply

On the train to work this morning, I wondered why the person who sat down opposite me needed to finish off eating his tube of mango ice cream (yes, at 8.30 in the morning!) with his fingers (yes, on a crowded train!) The sucking and slurping turned my stomach, and distracted me from a paper I was reading for my project.

Fast forward a couple of hours and I am sitting in a fairly quiet sandwich shop with my laptop, trying to work on said project, and a big bloke sits down beside me, chomps his tuna and cucumber wrap loudly, and licks his fingers with aplomb every time he takes a bite. I only wanted a quiet corner to work on some writing, not to be interrupted by other people’s noisy eating habits!

It’s so annoying to keep magnetising experiences in my life I’d rather do without. (pic: istockphoto.com/michelangelus)

Why have I attracted two annoying people with questionable manners to sit down near me and interrupt me? I can’t think of any reason why I magnetised the noisy eaters into my energy field, other than the fact that I have been delaying putting the finishing touches to my project. And these aural and visual assaults are a consequence of not having committed to my day. Distraction breeds more distraction.

I pressed the snooze button on my alarm one too many times this morning, and so I was late getting the train. I needed to read and take notes but couldn’t do that easily because I had to stand up all the way. Lateness breeds more lateness.

I had my mid-morning snack later than usual today, so I wasn’t hungry when I ordered my lunch. Today they gave me a huge portion that I couldn’t finish because I was still full from earlier. Fullness breeds more fullness.

I think the lesson my soul wants me to remember today is Continue reading →

Why do we only truly appreciate the BIG moments in life…?

Posted on by inktuition
Reply

I attended the Paralympic Games this week. It was hard enough to get tickets to the Olympic Stadium, given the success of London 2012, and I was full of awe at just being there.

The Paralympics in London have been awesome on so many levels.

My eight-year-old daughter was beside herself with excitement: she’d been looking forward to it for weeks. She throws herself into whatever event, party or park she’s at, wholeheartedly and whole-bodily present. In comparison, I often find my mind wandering, and my body shifting to get comfortable. I envy her ability to truly live her moment.

Except at the Paralympic athletics this week, I lived mine. From the moment I entered the stadium – watching strong men in wheelchairs power across the finish line, one-legged men effortlessly clearing high jumps, and the whole crowd cheering for every other country’s anthems – I felt humbled to be human. Especially given the superhuman feats taking place in the stadium in front of me.

It was a hot evening, but a friendly and uplifting one. I breathed in each moment I was there, knowing there wouldn’t be any others like this. I didn’t want the lights to come on, because I knew that would signal home time.

I truly lived my BIG moment because I knew my chance to watch Paralympic athletics at the London 2012 Olympic stadium would never come again. So why don’t I appreciate all moments in the same way – big, small or otherwise – even though I know they won’t be repeated either…?

When you’re ready to follow your Soul, synchronicities will show you the way

Posted on by inktuition
9

As a journalist, I know when I’m onto a good story when I hear it from three different sources. That’s why I know my Soul’s telling me something when the synchronicities line up in threes (often in one day!)

My Soul talks to me in ‘meaningful coincidences’ that often come in threes. (pic: istockphoto.com/kellyreekolibry)

Synchronicity, in the words of the wonderful Carl Gustav Jung, are “meaningful coincidences”. They’re stuff that happen to you that can’t possibly be a coincidence, but they have a pattern and some meaning to you personally. They’re external happenings that have symbolic significance for what’s going on internally for you.

I take synchronicity as a sign that my Soul is talking to me. It wants to tell me that I’m on the right road, that all doors I push against will open without force, and that I’m evolving beyond just the skin I’m in.

Anyone on a spiritual path will know that at some point the Ego will surrender to the Soul. That surrender can take a while, and it can involve months and years of battle. One’s defences can take some dismantling. They cling on with their fingernails, refusing to give up. But when it’s time for the Ego to wave the white flag and admit time’s up, that’s when the Soul steps in. Ever graceful, ever elusive, the Soul has symbolic messages that the Ego has to be in a mood and state to receive and interpret.

I’m often in awe of how Soul can communicate. Here’s how it reached me three times in one hour:  Continue reading →

Tonight’s the night to do something ‘once in a blue moon’

Posted on by inktuition
3

There’s a blue moon tonight. Not literally blue, but the kind of moon that only comes along now and again. A special kind of moon, when there are two full moons in a calendar month.

What would you do once in a blue moon…?    (pic: istockphoto.com/DougLemke)

I’ve been thinking I should honour the blue moon somehow. Do something I’ve been promising to do for a while. But then I realised that what I’ve been promising myself for some time is to take my focus off doing and instead concentrate on being. To remove that necessity to be busy. And instead enjoy the purity of a moment.

So tonight, for once in a blue moon, I’m going to just be.

Why I think my best writing has nothing to do with me at all

Posted on by inktuition
4

I kind of hate to say this, but I think my best writing comes from another place totally beyond my control, my life, my consciousness. I’m talking about the kind of writing I read back the next day and think ‘where the **** did that come from?!’ (in a good way, I mean).

My flashes of inspiration come from a dark cave of pedestrian writing. (pic: istockphoto.com/rozbyshaka)

I know I have flashes of brilliance in my creative writing: times when I’m in awe of the written word to convey a feeling, a moment, a heartbeat. But those flashes are little chinks of light in what can sometimes feel like a dark cave of inane drivel and self-obsessed tosh.

Getting out of the way

I’ve realised that my best writing comes when I Continue reading →

Breakfast in Trafalgar Square: the calm before the crowds

Posted on by inktuition
Reply

With all the hustle and bustle in London, and endless countdown to the start of the Olympic Games, I’d forgotten to stop and absorb it all. It’s far too easy to pass things by every day, to let them become the wallpaper of your world, and not notice the detail.

inktuition trafalgar square 1

It was 12 hours to go and Trafalgar Square was warm with anticipation.

So it was with my morning hot chocolate that I took a few minutes to sit in Trafalgar Square and absorb the atmosphere: the people in their pink outfits (Games stewards) greeting me with a smile that looked like they meant it; the growing number of tourists taking snaps of the Olympic countdown clock; and the young man who offered me his paper to sit on so I wouldn’t get my dress dirty on the concrete seats (above which pigeons are always hovering). Continue reading →

why I chose a bashed notebook over a pristine one

Posted on by inktuition
2

Oh, how many lovely new pristine notebooks do I have in my drawers, on my shelves, and lined up proudly on my desk.

A self-confessed notebook addict, I’m unable to pass a stationery store without a little peak at the perky new notebooks that could steal my attention, part me with my pounds, and then remain awesome but abandoned on my desk.

I got a posh notebook as a present for Christmas a couple of years ago –  complete with inscription from the gifter – and somehow I’ve never felt worthy of using it. There has never been an occasion when I thought this book would be suitable. So it sits, in its shiny-clothed isolation – like a posh dress waiting for a gold-rimmed invitation – not being used, loved or creative.

An already damaged notebook has more chance of encouraging my creative writing.

It was in the want, rather than need, of a new journal, that I passed by the lovely Paperchase and happened to spot the perfect notebook for me. Twice the price of what I would usually pay, but leather bound and worth it. The lines are closer together – I dislike those fat-lined notebooks, as they need so few words to fill a page, and I feel my thoughts need lines that are narrower and somehow more intimate. The leather is already damaged, as though someone had bent over the corner on the front and pressed a hairbrush to the back. The paper inside is yellowing, and perfect for use with a fountain pen.

My new purchase was not perfect. I checked out all three purple leather journals in the shop to see which one fitted me best. All three smelt of that ‘old’ leather that you get in second-hand shops. The book I chose felt wise: its pattern was innate, it had been around the block a few times, and it was comfortable with its lines, its bends, and its creases.

This felt like Continue reading →