It’s another superb afternoon in Manly –

Just another blond girl here reporting on the ups and downs of living in paradise…

So now that I’ve exposed the periodic hysteria existing in the inside of a blond girls’ mind, it doesn’t seem like an easy place to live, does it?

This week I decided to shift gears. I woke up on Tuesday and said, “Enough is bloody enough!”

I believe that despite living in paradise I might struggle from the same life lessons as anyone has the potential to endure, regardless of where we are in the world . We all know this is true.

On the other hand, why I am continuing to waste so much energy, every single day over-analysing things that are out of my control?

What a massive waste of energy and time!

So I went back into my good old life-coaching tickle trunk and pulled out the ‘Gratitude Commitment’.

Each morning, when I wake up, I have to pause and reflect on five unique aspects of my life that I am thankful for.

(It’s a great exercise)

In addition to seeing the missing thankfulness, I have recognised that I have a deep-seated fear of having all the good things in my life being stripped away from me.

Now I could bore you with the details of my life, sharing the circumstances developing the limiting beliefs within my personality that generated this current out of context terror. You could peer behind the curtains of my mind and witness the incessant whispering in my ear, “Don’t get too attached to that blond girl…It will most likely be taken away.”

I could go into this story and I won’t.

The fact is, in truth, that my negative and insecure mind-speak is actually one hundred percent correct on this one.

At some point, everything will go.

Maybe, what I have considered to be a fear-based limitation has actually generated a superior ability to practice non-attachment in this life?

And here I promised I wouldn’t philosophise again, damn it! Sorry everyone…

Ultimately, the acknowledgment of having a fear of things being taken away from me has offered me the realisation that I hold onto things quite tightly.

How this shows up in my life is that I latch on to you and you and you and I latch on to things and food and my surfboards and my family and potential lovers and I can give you a five star menu of reassurance why this is one hundred percent necessary in every single situation.

This week, to compliment my Gratitude Commitment I have also decided to be of greater service to the people around me. It’s all just little things but hey, I have to start somewhere if I expect anything to change…

So I have been waking up and looking around my bedroom and saying thank you to the things that I feel very fortunate to have.

Thank you Ivy.

Thank you painting of the Lady in Purple.

Thank you wardrobe filled with beautiful clothes.

Thank you fridge stocked with avocados, dark chocolate and leftover rice.

Thank you hot water in my shower.

Thank you silly housemate cooking eggs while dancing.

Thank you bicycle with the basket and bell.

Thank you sunshine and crushed grass on the pavement.

Thank you neurotic woman decorating the neighbourhood tree with painted rocks and colourful flags.

Thank you cross walk guiding me swiftly onto the beachfront.

Thank you ocean.

I have also been walking around my life and offering things. Little things, but they are things nonetheless.

Would you like a bite of my meal?

Can I fold your laundry for you?

Let me hold the door for you?

None of the gestures are grand by any means but it’s a practice I am ready to engage with.

After a few days of this practice, I walked through the streets of my little hometown. I was falling in love all over again. Not because he has changed or committed to loving me more, but because I am opening my eyes to his beauty today and not asking him to change a thing.

I wandered out to meet my friend for dinner the other evening, sticky from the unseasonably warm evening air, sunlight already extinguished, preparing us to head inside very soon for the winter hours. I began to notice the sound of my long gypsy skirt rustling along the crooked pavement.

I looked up at the stars and inhaled deeply.

“I think that must be Orion’s Belt. Yes, that must be it. I always know Orion’s Belt.”

The sky is upside down here…just like so many other things in this isolated desert country surrounded by blue and yet it twinkles just the same as it does in the North and so I let her lights entertain me regardless of whether I can identify them by name.

My headphones were cheekily pumping uplifting tunes into my chest and fingers and toes. That’s where you feel the music, isn’t it?

The wafting Frangipani petals coated the sidewalk as I strutted along at a generous pace.

These are the moments I wait for. They are unpredictable and cannot be controlled. They come by complete surprise and depart just as quickly.

These moments can be named contentment – contentment not with any one thing but contentment with everything.

It’s not an experience that words can fairly convey. It’s a feeling. My legs become longer, my spine is perfectly straight. My blond hair trails in the wind. People around me can’t help but smile because of the size of the smile across my face. There isn’t even one thing I am thinking about. I am simply happy.

And so this charmed moment washed over me and I delighted in its presence and I strolled along, humming out of tune to the vibrations in my ears. The night went on, with laughter and friends and glasses of wine and we all drifted quietly off to sleep.

xx