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JUST SURVIVING

4/28/2013

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"I remind myself, while feeling afraid, to love life anyway, to retain the certain knowledge that I will die someday and use that to open to the preciousness of what I see and feel right in front of me. Now I might feel afraid but am determined to have that fear serve as a counterpoint to my tendency to procrastinate. If I have to apologize, tell someone 'I love you', try to make a difference, I need to do it without delay"
                                                          -     Sharon Saltzberg, meditation teacher
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Don't just survive......BE.....
Yesterday I gave a bit of a talk to a group of maybe a couple of hundred people. One of the subjects I talked about was how I retracted into a little ball of nothingness when rock bottom hit. It was the low point when THE questions get asked. The self pity NEGOBS run riot. "Why?, What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose? How am I going to survive? When will it all end?". You know the ones I'm sure. The pain of how I felt back then will never leave me. It can't. The EXPERIENCES become a part of who you are, even though they are baaaad experiences. Of course when you are faced with a pretty bad rock bottom like mine and you don't have any comforts to help ease the pain, it is the mental anguish that causes the baaaad stuff, the stuff that makes you question whether you really want to survive. The physical discomforts like hunger, poor or no accommodation, hygiene, and the other 'missing' stuff, only ADD TO THE MENTAL ANGUISH. But it's important to understand that the pain, the suffering, the devastation, will help you grow...... but it can take a long time and while the anguish is happening the 'things will get better' bits are only words. So what I want you to do is REMEMBER NOW for later on. I hope you are in a wonderful place right now. I hope life is good. Everybody deserves to be happy. But as happens in life it is likely to throw in some baaaad times. And what happens before you even realize it is that your resistance turns itself off. You weaken mentally. Your defence mechanism crashes.  So............
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Knowledge NOW beats pain later
BE AWARE NOW... for later
When the obstacle appears be ready for it. Any amount of pain from the OBSTACLE will cause NEGATIVITY. That is a certainty. But what you can do NOW is understand that you can lessen the time it takes to repair by TRAINING YOUR MIND. Understand that your MIND is in charge of everything you do. It creates the THOUGHTS you have, both GOOD and BAD. If I had been aware of the destruction caused by the MIND, or more specifically the WAY THAT I THINK, I would have been in much better shape a lot faster because I would have known HOW TO THINK to feel better. And that's what all of us want to do when we are going through tough times because of LOSS...... we want to feel better. 
But there is another reason to make yourself aware of your own THOUGHTS created by your MIND. As I have said soooo often pain and suffering provide life lessons. They are thrown at us to MAKE US LEARN so that it is easier next time. 
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The never ending question
And one HUUUGE lesson I have learned is that my LIFE is soooooo precious....... and LIMITED. I was not given my life JUST TO SURVIVE my way through it. And that's HOW I was living my life. Making more. Wanting more. JUST SURVIVING. Seriously what is the point in just living to survive? When I talk to people I quite often describe how I felt at my lowest point. I talk about how the reclusive pathway causes terrible loneliness because of the embarrassment and the self pity. I go even further and recall the ugly side of loneliness and describe the tears rolling down my cheeks when I wasn't even crying. I recall the deafening roar of silence, hour after hour. I recall wanting somebody to talk to but being too embarrassed, too proud.
And so I waited. And I suffered in silence while I tried to pick up the pieces of ME! 
As often happens when I talk there were many tears as I finished up. And that's good. It means people are listening to some of the misery I had EXPERIENCED. And if that can help lessen some of the misery for them later, well then,  mission accomplished! Oh by the way I almost made it through without tears myself. YEEEHAAAR......... well, as I said, ALMOST. I croaked and quivered as best I could.
So do me a BIIIIIG favor, dot. Keep watching my journey and learn about my pain to lessen yours as you travel along the length of your own LIFE. And look at where you are right now. With the Busyness of life, the work, the kids, the mortgage, the friends, the social life, ask yourself the question:
                                        AM I JUST SURVIVING ?
and if the answer is "YES" there is a very simple solution to your dilemma.....
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                 THINK......
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TO DREAM THE DREAM

4/27/2013

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"Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing; it comes and goes. But if one believes then miracles occur"
                                                 -     Henry Miller, writer/painter
"What you believe has more power than what you dream or wish or hope for. You become what you believe"
                                                 -     Oprah
"I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation I can let go of everything. I'm not Hugh Jackman. I'm not a dad. I'm not a husband. I'm just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it"
                                                 -     Hugh Jackman, actor
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Dream. And BIG.......
I really get a buzz because you are all watching me grow into something I never even knew I was. And the reason is simple. Financially I am no better off than I was three years ago. No worse off either. Financially I am rock bottom still. Broke as. Lots of debt to family and friends. Emotionally it is a completely different story. I am stronger than I have ever been in my life. And emotionally will fix the financially every time. See, I haven't done anything particularly radical and I was given a helping hand by the hand of fate. The hand that gave me a bit of hardship. The hand that gave be a bit of pain and suffering. The hand that dealt me a cruel blow. The hand that made me change the WAY I THINK. The hand that made me ask questions about the way I was living my life. The hand that took my hand and has guided me forward ever since. The hand that helped me find ME.
See, the reason I get a buzz out of it is because when you are having a tough time like I was and still am, I want you to think about MY LIFE, and then smile when you look at yours. I want you to KNOW that there is life, and a more fulfilling one after hardship. There is a life after tragedy. A life away from the devastation. Like me you will learn and you will LIVE............ like ME!
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If you can't STEP.... then ROW!
And you can DREAM THE DREAM. It's not just OhK to DREAM. It is your destiny to DREAM. It will be your guiding star. You can SEE the star. It is a little speck of LIGHT in the sky. That little speck of light is in fact sometimes millions of light years away and sometimes  thousands times bigger than our planet Earth. Your DREAM is THAT LIGHT. It is as real as your own body. It is your VISION OF HAPPINESS and you deserve to have that dream in your life. If you can SEE that light you can reach it. Like me you just have to keep STEPPING forward without looking backwards. The light will get bigger and the reality of your dream will get closer. Your DREAM is your DESTIN-EE. Without that dream you have no star to guide you to happiness and away from heartbreak, tragic loss, and devastation. So DREAM and DREAM BIG. Make it that big that it distracts you away from the stuff that hurts. Watch me.......
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Just look into your LIFE......
Mister SomeOne Out-There is in you. Call him out of you and accept his gifts. There is nothing radical in doing that. I needed 'SomeOne Out-There' when I had my fall. I needed 'SomeOne Out-There' to show me how to get out of the mess, not tell me a story about how they had problems years ago before the big comeback. Now you have a REAL working model. I am doing stuff I NEVER DREAMED I could do, like talking to you now on BLOG thingie. Soon I will receive mass exposure with my songs. The songs are simply STEPS toward that little speck of light. STEPS toward my DREAM TO DREAM. No there is nothing radical at all. Every single one of you can do it. Maybe not write or perform songs. Only YOU KNOW what you are capable of. You just need someone to guide you through all the hurt, the loss, the tears. And like they say in those quotes above, all you need is FAITH. All you need is to BELIEVE in YOU and your DREAM. It's a tough gig but as Steve Jobs would say:

                        THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD.........

So may as well get started, huh?
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O DIEM PRAECLARUM  (Lat.)

4/24/2013

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"My image of God may not be the personal God that so many pray to. But yes I do believe in the everyday preciousness of life. That is what i call God. But faith. Do I have faith?... I have faith that it's not what you believe but how you live your life that matters. I have faith in my ability to love and be loved..... Most important, I have faith that helping other people is the true key to fulfillment. Certainly to mine."
                                                                      -    Sally Quinn, journalist
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...O Diem Praeclarum....
OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY ! (English)
It was sooooo beautiful I have to share it with you. I wake up lots during the night in La Chateau Tento but that's to be expected when you live in a tent on uneven ground, with mold, bugs, creepy crawlies and the beat goes on. Last night was no different. After nearly 4 years living in the bush you get used to the light which is your clock. I can usually pick within 15 minutes or so what the time is. Last night I woke at 12.30 then 3.00. The first thing I always hear is the roar of the waves which must be veeeery loud given I'm half deaf (left ear only has 20%!). I couldn't go back to sleep for a while so I just lay there and listened. After a while I dozed off again and woke at 5.15 or so. The day was breaking but I could tell this was going to be one very fine day indeed. The orange sun was forcing its way over the horizon. Time for me to rise to the sunshine. I went for some boiling water and made a cuppa back in La Chateau. But today was beyond beautiful. I went to the beach for a look. The tide was out a little already. It was a good day to lose myself in meditation for a while. Sometimes I just meditate in La Chateau, sometimes on the beach if weather permits. But his morning was special and so I had no hesitation in going to my favorite meditation spot sitting on the edge of a sand dune overlooking the beach. On a fine day the view simply takes my breath away..........
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.....You Whooo...Triiiigger.....
Meditation has become very important in my life since rock bottomsville. In fact it is a very private and personal part of my being. I self taught simply from reading and then I have adapted it to suit my NEEDS. In fact I call my method MEDIPRAYTION as I firstly lose myself in peace and calmness meditation, followed by insight meditation followed by prayer. But as I said it is personal. Today was special. At the end of my peace and calmness meditation I put my arms outstretched and repeat the last two lines of my third paragraph of my poem "Dear Mister SomeOne Out-There":

              'So take my hand and guide me on the trip I want to share
               Please come with me on my Journey, Mister SomeOne Out-There'

But this morning I reeeeally got lost in TIME. The focus of my meditation is always the sound of the waves, not my breathing which is the normal focus. I have become good in LOSING MYSELF which is the purpose of course. However when I became conscious and aware I found tears had been running down my cheeks which I cannot comprehend because my focus was not directed on any other thoughts. The other strange thing was that I had been meditative for well over an hour just in the peace and calmness state. I had truly gone INSIDE myself. When I stretched my arms out and repeated my mantra (above) I felt tears fall on my chest. Believe me I freaked out........

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.....I'm Cuuuuming......
But the surprises didn't stop there. Normally I would go on to the insight but because I had spent soooo long I went back to La Chateau and had something to eat and another cuppa before having a shower and heading to the Library. I thought back on what had happened wondering if I was 'one fruit loop short of a full breakfast', if you get my drift! But then the strangest thing. Without even thinking I put my swimmers on and next thing I was in the water. By this time the tide was way out and the waves were breaking on a formed sand bank further out so there was this beautiful blue deep water I was floating in. Now this is where YOU as well will probably question the shortage of the fruit loop. I began to sing. Mmmm Hmmm... sing! And I didn't stop. First "Nursery Rhymes" and then three other coooool songs I have written "Boppa Stoppa" then "Mad Like Your Dad" then "Nuts" which I am sure you are thinking is appropriate considering my very questionable state of mind. Mmmm Hmmm.... NUTS! But wait there's more..........
I sang every one of those songs without missing a beat even though the only one I have been MINDful of recently is "Nursery Rhymes". And why the older songs I have written and not the newer ones which you would think would be in my MIND????When I had finished doing my Freddie Mercury impersonation I went for a long walk along the beach. And guess what I did? I collected shells without even thinking about it. If you remember when I hit my rock bottom and was seeking help from 'SomeOne Out-There' my unknowing THERAPY at the time was guess what?
Mmm Hmm.... you got it... COLLECTING SHELLS!
So. What's it all mean?
Weeeell, FULL CIRCLE ring a bell????
MSOT ring a bell????
I sit here with the biggest grin on my face KNOWING that MSOT is guiding me and giving me these special little days for me to ponder my future and how to combat the confusion I have had of late. Today was a great day. Now all I have to do is.........

                                 .....CARPE  DIEM !         
                                                                   ....... Mmmmmm Hmmmmm.........
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SAY WHAT ?

4/23/2013

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"Sometimes you have to make your own opportunities, and that's why I'm on TV. I wasn't going to sit around anymore waiting for the damn phone to ring. I had to create my own place. I've always done that."
                                                                   -    Bette Midler, actress
"Every time a heart cracks.... somewhere something beautiful is being born"
                                                                    -   A friend of Oprah's ???
"Your mind controls every single thing you do during your lifetime. It controls your thoughts which control  your actions which control  your destiny which is where you want to end up, right?  So to make sure you get to where you are destined Work Backwards and control your mind through peace, calmness, serenity, meditation and prayer and give your mind the maximum opportunity to create your own happiness in life"
                                                                     -   Deep TriggerDot
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....all things Buddha....
BFF and I went to a beautiful event last night. A Tibetan monk was in town and will be for the next couple of months so we are going to see him every fortnight and seek his wisdom while we have access to him. It was just at somebody's house with Buddha type memorabilia around the walls including, obviously, HRH The Dalai Lama. I removed my new  joggers (phew!) at the front door as you do with anything Buddha. Upon entering we were ushered to our seats and seated at the front staring at me was this beautiful smiling man. Dressed in full holy man regalia (bright orange) was our Tibetan monk whose name I think was Greshla or something like that. BFF tried to pronounce his name and I asked her about 16 times and not one of them sounded like 'Greshla', but that's because BFF can talk Buddha Bop or whatever it's called. Anyway BFF having been a budding little Buddha girl herself from a young age, happened to know our little Tibetan friend from previous meetings, and had a little Buddha type tete a tete with him.
Anyway we said a few little Buddha prayers from a little handout we were given. You could say the prayers in Buddha Bop happy talk or English. I didn't pray anything because I was in a state of utter confusious. BFF kept pointing to where we were up to but by the time I figured it out they were all finished!
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....BFF after the Buddha classes???
Now I'm sorta into all of this meditational Buddha and other type stuff from all of the books I have been reading lately but I haven't done any classes or such to cement my relationship with all things spiritual and mystical. So anyway I was actually looking forward to experiencing some experiences I haven't experienced before...... if you get my drift.
Anyway, after missing the prayer nuptual, the smiling holy man HRH Grechla started an hour long talk on a whole lotta stuff that I philosophize about including the mind, meditation and form. But that's about all that I really understood. Those three words, MIND, MEDITATION and FORM.  See, HRH being the very calm, peaceful and serene man of wisdom that he is, happens to be also VERY QUIET. Now this turned into a bit of a probrem for Brother Trigger who happens to be going as deaf as a post which is exacerbated at the moment because of his chronic sinusitis  and 'this time of the year' allergies caused by molding tents, coochie grass, freezing temperatures and so on. Then HRH Grechla also had a distinct Tibetan  accent which in the end didn't really matter because I couldn't hear what he was saying anyway. Still it was OK because as I tried to point my one good ear as close to the action as I could like Jumbo The Elephant, HRH kept smiling whenever he said anything humorous and that was all I needed as it turned out. The serene look of peace and tranquility did the trick. Everytime HRH said something ending in a flash of white pearly munchers larger than Luna Park, it was simply enough to know that just to be in HRH Grechla's presence was all that I needed.
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...Brother Trigger after graduation ?????
After it was all over I went over and he took my hand in both his. I could feel the holiness run through me. He gave me one of his most beautiful smiles and said............... aaarrgghhmm........ something soulful and enduring I'm sure! But THAT smile. Oh Brother. THAT smile. It was as if it had been hand delivered by God's own Angels. The picture of THAT smile says a thousand words, I'm sure. However to be better equipped in two weeks time I will be heading straight to the doctors to have my ears syringed, the hearing aid specialist and the chemist for anti histamene (soooo, I'm not a chemist, go look up the dictionary yourself!). If I was able to get the mystical buzz that I got just from those three words and a smile, imagine how holy I will get if I hear a few of the wise words and can say a few of the prayers. Nup. Uh uh. I'm not all Buddha'd out yet. Not by a long shot. Me and BFF might still get the hair shaven off the head and the orange robes to celebrate our magical mystical tour. If I can inspire people with three words and a SMILE like I was inspired last night, then LIFE IS GOOD......

                                   PEACE, Brothers and Sisters.............. 
(and remember........
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NUTS

4/22/2013

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"I write fiction mostly to try to make sense of my own petty and profound misery, and I fail every time, but every time I come away with a peculiar sort of contentment, as if it was just the trying that mattered. And maybe that's the best answer to the patently ridiculous problem of trying to reconcile all the very visible evil and suffering in the world with the existence of a God who is not actually out to get us; we suffer and we don't give up"
                                                             -     Chris Adrian, medical doctor and author
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Who me? NUTS?????
Heee Heee Heee, that's a funny quote. Sounds soooo much like moi!
I think I have written a BLOG thingie with a "NUTS" title. If not, the reason I'm writing one now is primarily because I'm sitting at the computer munching on a nut muesli bar. Good enough reason I guess. Now I've just gotta expand it a little into a subject. Let's seeee noooow....... Hmmmmm.....
I think I have told you I have created a song called "NUTS". It was the second song I created after 'Broken Man' which I reproduced in the book. I like it. It's sorta about me but in a lighthearted way. I intend to use it later probably at the beginning of my film or documentary but I have to get "Nursery Rhymes" going first. That will give me the exposure to begin the other projects. The song "NUTS' basically tells the tale of Trigger who is having lotsa problems (that's the first line, in fact) and is living in the bush and sleeping in a tent after being evicted by the landlord. He goes to see his doctor (an ex) who does some tests and finds out he's 'nuts'. It has a good ending though because he ends up repairing himself and writes books and poems and sings in a band. Pretty much spot on lyrics about the real me, except.......
I'm not nuts. Not yet. I don't think. Although. Hmmmm..... Maybe I am sorta kinda when I think about it. I ramble on like it sometimes don't I dot? I wonder if I really am? I haven't really talked to anyone about my mental condition because most of them have mental conditions themselves and I try to stay away from negativity. 
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Still lookin' OK don'tcha think?
But come to think about it I have had a lotta stress and pressure over the last few years. And I don't really talk to many people about my projects like the songs and DotsHQ because they are such big dreams that people will probably think I'm "NUTS" if I tell them about them. Hmmmm.....
I wonder if I should get checked by a shrink, you know one of those counselor type thingies? I mean still living in a tent after more than three years. That's not 'eggs actly' normal is it dot? But I don't go to the soup kitchens (much) any more. That has to be a plus for normality don't you think? Keeping to myself away from all of the other nutt...... Oooops. Oh oh. Maybe I should see someone. Are shrinks someones or somethings? I don't think long periods of sustained solidarity are very good for stimulation of the neutrons and sensors in the Dopamine pathway in the cranium. I wonder.......
Nuh. Uh uh. I'm sure I'm not nuts. I know what to look for with depression, schizophrenia, and all other types of looney tunes activity. I'm sure I would have picked up by now if I was as mad as a snake, even though I live near them. I wonder. Bit scary now that I've given it a little thought. Nuuuh. No way. My sanity is within the required limits to not call myself insane. Is "NUTS" the same as insane? Oh. Mama mia. Now I am starting to worry a bit. I forget stuff every now and then. And I'm going a bit deaf which is something to do with the auditory part of the cranium which is in the same area as the insanity sensor....
Oh oh......
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......lookin' good, huh?.......
"NUTS" ?????
Naar. Couldn't be. I haven't watched any television for over three years. I've read lotsa books, listened to motivational and inspirational tapes at the Library. I've written a book and poems and this BLOG thingie. I mean people that are nuts or insane couldn't do that could they dot? Huh? Dot?.......
I check the internet every day to keep up with the latest news. Every day there are stories of bombings and murder and this and that. Without doubt there are a lot of people living on the edge but I'm sure that I'm not one of them......
Am I? Dot? Huh? D'ya think I might have turned into one craaaazzeee sonof?
No. No way. I'm doing well considering the environment I live and work in. Nup. Uh uh. I couldn't be "NUTS"......
                                                                  D'Ya THINK Dot ????
Who?
Ted Bundy....... the serial killer?
Huh? Like me?
Reeeeally...... "NUTS"?
Like Me??????
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GUT FEELINGS

4/20/2013

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"We have so little tolerance for uncomfortable feelings. I'm not even talking about unpleasant outer circumstances, but that feeling in your stomach of I don't want this to be happening. You try to escape it in some way, but if somehow you could stay present and touch the rawness of the experience, you can really learn something"
                                                              -    Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun
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..... he had the GUTS......
In my book I talk about VIPER POISON, my acronym for the ingredients to prepare a successful life recipe. The "I" in VIPER is for 'Intestinal Fortitude'. The other name for it is "GUTS". I probably wouldn't be writing this BLOG thingie today if I didn't have some of it. Changing your life around is hard, very, very hard if you are coming off a rock bottom. It's almost impossible if you don't have the 'guts' to do it. But the funny thing is that you don't have to have much of it when you start. I certainly didn't. But let me clarify what I mean by 'GUTS'. Before my Journey began I thought guts was nerve. Having the nerve to take on a challenge. A bit like Rocky Balboa or Rambo, even though they are fictional characters. Maaaan, those guys had guts. BAM WHAM SMASH GUTS. They could take on the world and win. Heroes with GUTS.
Weeeell anyway, that's what I was led to believe.
See Rocky and Rambo are wonderful films to watch the underdog come through in the end, but they are a long way off the mark when it comes to the  reality of life.
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...... Only TIME.........
Rock bottoms in real life involve pain and suffering, grief, tragedy and devastation, to name but a few. Bad ones leave you nothing to fight your way out like Rocky and Rambo. They still had some tools to work with like the physiques and fitness to get them to their DREAMS to become the best. But in real life the pain and suffering are sooooo baaaaad that you become a spent force. There is nothing left to fight back. So you sorta live like a zombie in Devil's Dip. Nothing matters anymore. You just don't care. Maybe even time to go. To expire. Many of you will relate to what I am talking about. Few of us escape an experience like LOSS of something or someone at some point in their lives. But there is one thing that all of us have at the bottom of that rock as long as we keep breathing under that doona cover in the Dip......
                                                                         TIME
Now this is something I can assure you. I don't know why it happens, or how, or when. But TIME allows the pain to decrease, maybe just the tiniest little bit a day. At first it doesn't appear that way. But after a while something inexplainable will happen.......... Your MIND will give you something. It could be the sound of wind chimes. It could be an awareness of your breathing. It may be the sound of rain on the roof. But it will happen. That will CHANGE you. You will have some sort of awareness come over you.......
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.....Only GUTS.....
....... your MIND will begin to generate some THOUGHTS. You have beaten the "it's time to go" NEGOB and you have survived. That awareness itself will develop the GUTS you need. The guts to move, the guts to eat, the guts to let some light in under the doona, the guts to ring your BFF, the guts to get out of bed, 
                                                                         THE GUTS TO LIVE !
When I look back on the bad stuff that has happened to me, the broken hearts, broken marriage, broken home, and just plain BROKE, I can tell you an AHA moment that got me going again. Call it a karma moment, the Holy Spirit, God, love, destiny or anything you want to call it. But during that TIME you have, the TIME that makes up your one and only life, someone or something will give you the GUTS. The guts to LET GO of the pain. The GUTS to have a crack at this amazing thing called LIFE and the precious TIME it gives you.....
See the reason I am telling you all of this is because of what I have LEARNED through EXPERIENCE. It is my responsibility to SHARE MY EXPERIENCES, as I will in DotsHQ. And by doing that I can make you AWARE that, no matter how BAAAAAAD things get, TIME is going to give you something to make you go on. TIME will give you.......
                                                  ....... THE GUTS.......
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THE GIFT

4/17/2013

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"Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is bliss, taste it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it."                                                                            - Mother Teresa
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....yep, Mother Teresa alright....
I probably appear like an overheated marshmallow the way I have softened over the last few years. I was never like this. I honestly am trying to toughen up. I need to. This crying when I talk to the public is just not on. I mean I can't do it in front of big crowds and I will be doing it soon, as well as the media. I have done soooo much public speaking before but more in the way of investment seminars and so on. I never cried when I gave those presentations but then I suppose not many would cry about risk versus return. Then again I suppose you could shed a few tears finding out your entire Super fund had been wiped out by the stock market? Hmmm.... maybe?
But since I have been living in the homeless world the subject matter has changed a lot. All of a sudden my emotions have been thrown into utter chaos. First I suppose with the way I live. From nice Queen size bed with fluffy pillows to a bit of foam in a tent (a moldy one at that!). Lamb roast to a bit of bread. BMW to walking everywhere. Hmmmm.... well I suppose at the beginning that was a culture shock. But like anything in life do it long enough and you get used to it. In fact I don't think I shed any tears over it. Good came out of it. It made me look for MSOT (ME!). Really it toughened me up. So.....
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LOVE and LIFE.... a Spiritual Journey
What has softened me up? What has turned me into a mumbling bumbling cream puff? Why can't I make it through an entire presentation without the dreaded heeby jeeby emotional turmoil of sobbing? Weeeell, see it's like this. I am lacking in something which I am only coming to terms with now. I still don't understand it but my incessant reading and study shows me that just about every single icon that I read about devotes a lot of time to this one single NEED in life. It's something that is missing among the poor and underprivileged. It is something which I had no idea about until I began my Journey. All it was in fact was a word which we overused to explain a fuzzy feeling inside. I think by now you have worked out that one thing that I am lacking. I spoke of it the other day in BLOG thingie. Yep........
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......LOVE LIFE and LIVE LOVE.....
See I'm beginning to learn the REAL meaning of 
L-O-V-E. It's why I bumble and stumble when I talk about the people in my life over the last few years, the homeless, the addicted, the mentally challenged, the depressed, the bashed, the street kids, the unemployed. Everyone of those people have a life, the same as a lot of other privileged dots. But things have gone wrong somewhere. Every single story involves a LACK or LOSS OF LOVE. But what the key is in all of this trauma of life is to FIND the REAL MEANING OF LOVE. It's much much more than holding hands and smooching. It's what causes me to cry. Because I relate all of the sadness, all of the heartache, all of the tragedy to the LACK OF LOVE IN OUR LIVES. If you read Victor Frankl's books like "A Will To Meaning", you will see that he found the same thing that I have. There is no separation of LIFE and LOVE. When you take on a Spiritual path after the pain, the suffering, the devastation your MIND begins to show you what LIFE is really about. You need to find out yourself but the meaning will show you that LOVE IS LIFE and that LIFE IS LOVE. I hope then that you will find what I am beginning to find. And, like me, you will cry................. WITHOUT SHAME.
My BFF gave me this most beautiful card for my birthday. On the front of the card were the words from Mother Teresa I have shared with you above. As Mother Teresa is up there with my most inspirational people I can't understand how I have not seen these most beautiful words before. So I Googled it and there they were, larger than life itself ('scuse the pun!). BFF wrote me a lovely poem to match the words on the front. See BFF isn't just BFF. There is something mystical about her coming back into my life after soooo many years. BFF is very very Spiritual and different to me, she has
 L-O-V-E everywhere in her L-I-F-E, her family, her friends, her ...... weeeelll...... every part of her. And she is teaching me a whole lotta stuff that I didn't understand but I am just beginning to.......
The words above from Mother Teresa? Read them again but do one thing for me. Replace the word LIFE with the word LOVE. I know enough about Mother Teresa from my reading that she, of all the saints in heaven, knew that 
                                                         LIFE is LOVE...........
   and                                              LOVE is LIFE...........
and when I get to truly understand this meaning in our lives then my tears of sorrow for my friends will stop, or at least CHANGE, into........ 
                                                       TEARS OF JOY........
and hopefully I will get through an entire presentation without Niagara Falls!
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GETTING EXTRAORDINARY

4/16/2013

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"Women have skills that we don't even know we have. You've got to learn to reinvent yourself. Write 'new' on the box. Never be complacent. Stay ready to go to the next step. Think the way Americans thought in the early days of our nation. We are entrepreneurs, grasping opportunity, unafraid of rejection. We've got to get into the habit of constantly learning something new"
                                                                   -    Joan Hamburg, radio host
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.....born 'ordinary'.....
Is 'ordinary' a good way to be dot?
Hmmmm...... 'spose it depends a lot on who we are talking about. I'm sure there are a lot of high profile people who are under the public spotlight, and subject to unacceptable invasion of privacy, who would do anything to be 'ordinary'. Take Princess Dianna for example. What a beautiful person she seemed to be. Such a cute, shy little girl when she met Charlie. OMG. Then life went downhill in a lot of ways. In THAT interview she was screaming out to be ordinary again. But extraordinary ended up taking her life. Pretty sad huh?
And then there's the rest of us that aren't extraordinary. So I guess that makes us ordinary. There's nothing ......absolutely nothing ...... wrong with 'ordinary'. In fact if you are....... CONGRATS. To overcome all of the pressures of life and become 'ordinary' is something to be proud of. Most of Western civilization is 'ordinary' so we're probably looking at in excess of two billion dots. Of course then there's the other less fortunate one's who were born into poverty in our third world countries and never had the OPPORTUNITY to become 'ordinary'. And oh how they deserve to get to 'ordinary' but just never have the chance. That accounts for over three billion dots who are not 'ordinary' but do not fit into the category of 'extraordinary'. Those three billion or so would love to have the opportunities that we Westerners have but for some reason the world just doesn't know how to fix the problem. As I have said sooooo many times before, every single one of those three billion dots are......... ???????
Good you're getting it.......... DOTS. All born, all die. THE SAME. So......
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....getting 'extraordinary'.......
What of the lucky ones. The one in two billion dots. YOU and ME for instance. The ORDINARY two billion. Each one of us is a DOT, the same as the other three billion but for whatever reason, which we will never know during our lifetimes, we have been privileged to become ordinary. Simply because we have been given OPPORTUNITIES. Now that we have been blessed with getting 'ordinary' there is a responsibility we all share. And that is to help the other three billion become ordinary as well. That is our challenge. So among 'WE' ordinary dots we need some to become EXTRAORDINARY so that we can show the others how to become ORDINARY. It's called SHARING THE LOVE. Helping us help each other.
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but DOTS....ALL THE SAME.....just like ME!
It's why some of us are hit with the big 'tragedy' stick. Pain and suffering becomes a call to the ordinaries to become extraordinaries. A call to use the special "GIFTS" inside each and every one of us.
Mmmmm Hmmmmm. When it all gets too much for we lucky 'ordinaries' we shrink into Devil's Dip and feel sorry for ourselves. It is the beginning. The beginning where we THINK how to become 'extraordinary'. We look for Mister SomeOne Out-There who lives in us and keeps knocking from the inside because he wants to come out and give us THE GIFTS. Those gifts will help you become extraordinary so that you can....
                          ......GIVE BACK TO THE ORDINARY
So, if things are not so good at the moment, even if you are feeling a bit down in Devil's Dip, don't cry for too long. Smile even. Because now you have been given the OPPORTUNITY to become EXTRAORDINARY. And say "THANK YOU", for you are truly BLESSED.......

                                                      ........... LIKE  ME !
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THE EXECUTION OF A DREAMER

4/16/2013

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"You may feel stuck - trapped in a bad relationship, grieving over a divorce, miserably and interminably single - but it is in your power, and your best health interest, to choose joy. Okay so you can't find romance. Or your soul mate doesn't feel the same way about you. But you can put yourself in the path of happiness. You can fall in love with life"
                                                         -    Lesley Dorman, journalist
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first off...... just THINK....
You know how when you meet somebody you don't know and you have nothing to say after "Oh hello, pleased to meet you". Hmmm.... A bit awkward, no? Well when there is nothing you know about this foreign person a regular ice-breaker is often "So what do you do?" Now that could mean anything, right? Hmmmm.... now, let's see. You answer. "Aaarrgghhmm, I eat. I sleep. I tell lies. I DO lots of things". But that's not how we usually interpret the question. As it is a normal question after the hello bit we are really asking what they do for a living so that should normally get some conversation happening. So our awkward little meeting continues. "Oh I'm a Financial Planner". Or "Oh I'm a Bank Manager" or "Oh, I'm in the Sex Industry, I sell sex toys and stuff". Now the first two will generate an instant reaction in your mind of "Oh seriously how boring for you, as if I give a rats arse", but you will come out with something like "Oh how interesting, what a fantastic career!". Nice and polite ice-breaking. 
Now that last response could cause anything to happen depending on the appearance and sex of the respondent. But I have had it happen to me and the two of us both smiled together and had this fantastic, and very very funny interchange. Of course she didn't work in THAT industry at all and in fact was a very attractive Solicitor. She just hated the bs in business etiquette and so now do I. It is FINISHED business as far as I am concerned.
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next.....start dreaming (simple really!)
When people ask me what I do now I tell them I'm a DREAMER. Seriously, I do. It is the greatest lead-in to conversation one could imagine. After a little giggle people ask what I mean and I tell them my story. Because my life for the last few years has been anything but Corporate, I was asked a few times what I did and after a while I began to reply "A writer", which in fact I am. But then I am also a producer, a director, a visionary, a singer, a poet, a song writer, an entertainer and a creator who dabbles in web sites and BLOG thingies. So began considerable confusion in my already over active MIND. Of course the answer to THAT question "So what do you do" had to be interesting, informative and more importantly, it had to be an HONEST appraisal of the new ME I've turned out to BE. So...... answer ?.......
                                             ........ I DREAM  or
                                                                     ........ I'M A DREAMER.........
OhK.
Now I am who I REEEEEALLY am. No bs in business anymore. No NEED for the bs anymore because I am the REAL ME. And I'll let you all in on a very very BIIIG secret if you are wondering about me doing all of this re-inventing of my very BEING, and if you are thinking along those lines yourself.....
DO IT.
BECOME A DREAMER.
Get rid of the BS in BUSINESS and become    u- INESS.   Yep, YOU  !
And once you have got rid of all of the bs in your business YOU will become.....
                                                       .... the  REAL  YOU....
and your REAL LIFE will begin. 
Coooooooool, huh?
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Finally....The EXECUTION....
But with the good news comes the bad news. Oh yeah, here we go.....
 (stop that dot!)
It is hard. Almost impossible to do. It will take forever and even longer. It will eat well into the 30,000 DAYS OF YOUR LIFE. You have to find your MSOT. You have to DREAM BIG and have the greatest SELF-BELIEF in yourself that you can to make your dream manifest into REALITY. You may have to live rough for a while. You may get lonely, hungry, depressed, angry, bored, tired and devastated. The hardship may be unbearable.......Doesn't sound good so far does it dot? 
But the upside is huuuuge. No bs and the u in YOU is biggererer than huuuuuge. See it goes like this......

The new u all starts with a dream. The DREAM comes from a THOUGHT which comes from your MIND. You've heard it all before. So first step is to THINK. Pretty cooool and groovy so far, huh? Probably betterererer if you are coming off a tragedy, devastation, heartbreak or something (like MEEEE!) because it gets you in to Devil's Dip where you get time for plenty of thoughts and THINKING......
So you get bombarded with these thoughts. Some of these thoughts will be IDEAS which will feed your IMAGINATION. To CREATE the DREAM you need to have a place of REVERIE. That's why Devil's Dip is so helpful. Even though it is the worst place in Miser-ee, it also helps manifest the DREAM from the IMAGINATION. THIS is the beginning point of your JOURNEY to u....
So, we start the Journey because we have the dream. The biggererer the dream the bettererer...erer. So then we take a few (maybe millions!) of STEPS along the way (like MEEEEE!), trying to get to your Destin-ee, where your Dream will manifest. See, pretty easy when you THINK about it...... Oh.....
There is one little bit I forgot to mention. Aaaagghhmm, you can be the greatest DREAMER since BUZZ in TOY STORY, but if you don't EXECUTE your vision from your original thoughts then the dream will remain an IDEA. And ideas are not any good to anyone unless you keep working toward the CREATION, the MANIFESTATION of the dream.In other words THIS IS THE HARD BIT. It is where I am right at this very point in time with creating my song "Nursery Rhymes". Everything I am doing is dependent on the EXECUTION........

                   .....THE EXECUTION OF THE DREAMER.....
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DAYS OF OUR LIVES

4/14/2013

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"Know this: If you are following your own moral rules the very things you're ashamed of are likely the things about which you can feel most proud. Say you've battled obesity, mental illness, addiction, or abuse. Take pride in the extraordinary courage you've shown by surviving....."
                                                                        -    Martha Beck, life coach
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...... THE BEGINNING .....
Sorry about my little rant yesterday. I just get frustrated. Another one of "US" finished yesterday. US is WE homeless. Of all of the homeless 'basket cases', in other words the mentally challenged, the alcoholics, the bashed wives, the street kids, the unemployed, the LOST, the addicts, and the rest of the 'too hard' list of society's outcasts the Government has no idea what to do with, it seems the ones that get more attention than the other classes of 'THE FORGOTTEN' are the ADDICTS, as I said most of them 'multiples' with several addictions. Another lost soul overdosing found on the streets. Oh well. Probably won't have a funeral and the State will have to pay for the burial. I knew HER from the soup kitchens. She was a nice girl but very scared of men and had a bad heroine history. She had got off the habit for a while and put on a lot of weight, which she needed to, because she was 'deathly' skinny. She stopped going to the soup kitchens for probably a year and she seemed to be going OK. I saw her in the street one day and she had some shopping and seemed healthy and straight. Then I saw her again a couple of months ago and she looked like death warmed up to make a final appearance at one of the soup kitchens. Addictions have a 'habit' of pulling you back when you are clean. That's why alcoholics who have been dry for 20 years still get up each week at their regular AA meeting and say "Hey I'm Fred..... and I'm an alcoholic". The addictions become a part of you. They NEVER leave. She died with her addictions. I hope she died in peace. Just another street statistic I suppose.......
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..... THE MIDDLE .....
I don't go to the soup kitchens much any more. I already have the stories. I lived with them for over 3 years. They are not stories you ever forget. I certainly won't. My hope is to use them to help out. I HAVE THE EXPERIENCES. Now it is my duty to SHARE those experiences. But I have LIVED enough EXPERIENCES to last a lifetime. The soup kitchens are full of NEGATIVITY, as you would expect. The trouble with soup kitchens as I have said many times is that you BECOME one of patrons. You get dragged into the negativity. There comes a time when you MUST leave for your sanity's sake. You get to LIVE the stories while you go there. If you stay too long you can become a STORY, a homeless statistic, just like the girl who left us on the weekend. As you know I have seen a lot of stories and statistics in my time. I don't want to BECOME one of them........
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.....THE END ??????.....
If you are suffering for some reason there is always help. Sometimes it is not where you would expect. For example if you have trouble with your addictions you need to find your Mister SomeOne Out-There. MSOT will help you find WHY you are having trouble. That's what you need to find out. WHY are you taking the drugs? You NEED to FIND YOU. You need to find the reason for your BEING. You also NEED to have MSOT tell you about "THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES" because they are so very special. See if you are lucky you will live to around 80 yo. Eighty. That's about 30,000 days. Thirty Thousand. Sounds a lot, huh? 

                                  IT'S      NOT

Those kids on the street are not getting half that. They are not getting even 15,000 days and the first 5,000 are when you are a kid being brought up by Mum and Dad! It leaves you with 10,000 days if you can't handle the reality of life. THINK of EVERY SINGLE DAY with gratitude.THINK of WHY you are living each day. THINK of HOW you are living each day. 
See, the world is full of over 7 Billion dots. Each and every single one of those dots has a LIFE. That's 7 billion LIVES. EACH one of those lives is equally as important as every other LIFE. They are our most important GIFT and it is up to us to honor those GIFTS with gratitude. Whether we all have 30,000 DAYS or 10,000 days is not something we are blessed to know. So EACH and EVERY DAY of our lives is as important as EACH and EVERY other day. LIVE that way. HONOR your gift with thanks. Share your LOVE around by sharing your EXPERIENCES and remember every morning when you are blessed with the GIFT of another day that EACH and EVERY SINGLE DAY that we live is THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF ALL........

                               THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES
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    Trigger is on his comeback journey, and it's a very BIG one. Like a gripping suspense thriller, watch Trigger's life unfold in front of you.

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