Welcome to May Mantown,

It hardly feels like Autumn in our little beachside town this week…

Paradise is so kind.

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

My closest friends have often observed that I seem to feel a need to explain myself. In many circumstances they are quite right. I guess this is why I sit here expressing the elaborate rollercoaster fluctuations of my head today. The question is…why do I feel this need to explain?

Am I trying to defend myself? 

Sometimes yes.

Do I not feel understood?

Sometimes yes.

Do I not feel seen?

Sometimes yes.

Can’t I just leave people to interpret their experiences of me without a desire to respond?

Most of the time, to be honest – No.

Well, now that I’ve humbly identified one of my limiting personality quirks, let’s get on with it!

Loving myself.

We’ve all heard the wise people everywhere speaking of loving yourself fully prior to inviting the love of another in.

So blond girl – Do you love yourself?

I think I do…I mean I’m pretty sure I do. I know for sure that I love myself more today than I ever have before. What does it mean to love oneself? What does that actually look like?

What I am positive of is that I accept myself. I accept the idiosyncrasies of my quirky personality. I’ve fought them for years but hey, they aren’t going anywhere are they? I might as well give them some room in my bed.

I think I am an interesting and compassionate person. What is the difference between an egoistic love affair with self and pure self-acceptance? When is it selfish to acknowledge my benefit in this world and when is it purely sustenance for my soul?

I have chosen this life. I am thirty-six and it’s Sunday morning and I’ve woken up sprawled across the middle of my warm bed, sensing the sunbeams’ request to crawl through my blinds, “Please open me!” they say.

So I do, and I sit here, letting the intermitted light pierce through and blind my right eye and I’m ok with it. I’ve always wanted to wake up with sunshine on my face.

I look around my bedroom, decorated with so much thoughtfulness – my hanging English Ivy sneakily creeping along the top of my full-length mirror, almost suffocating the abstract portrait of the lady in purple. I chose her, the ivy, because she apparently refuses mould to live within ten metres of her leaves.

I glance at my bed-side table – topped with at least four or five crystals and about four or five books half read. One about science, three about yoga. None of them completed.

I thank my Father for passing on his gift of constantly craving wisdom whilst lacking the motivation to receive all of it.

My sister peers at me through her three-year old eyes, the picture of us together at Disney World as children. I’m wearing my “Life is a Beach” T-shirt. Maybe I should get that t-shirt made again and wear it everyday to remind myself that life at the beach can in fact be life as a beach?

Is happiness always a choice?

I am very happy today. I woke up and chose it today.

It’s funny, my admittance of desire for a boyfriend today doesn’t stem from lack but from an acknowledgement of feeling entirely full. The longing did stem from emptiness maybe even as little as half a year ago and it may very well stem from loneliness at some point again. The thing is that I am so madly in love with my life right now that I have even considered my greatest fear is not loneliness but letting go of my independence.

And so I’ve come to the conclusion that in feeling open to consistently develop myself I will say to the world, out loud, on this page, “Ok life, if connection is what it is all about then let’s see if I remember how to connect?”

(Let me be clear world – I’m not asking for a one-night stand with a hot surfer guy ten years my junior, but an actual relationship where we talk to each other everyday and go out for dinner and wake up together)

You see it’s been about four years since breaking up from my seven-year long ‘almost marriage’ in Canada. I have thought I was ready for love everyday since that ending. I even tried it a few times. It didn’t work. I fell in love like I always let myself do with everyone and they didn’t choose me back because I said they weren’t ready to connect. Maybe I wasn’t ready to communicate? Maybe it just wasn’t supposed to be?

It’s fine. I can see it now and my friend reminded me yesterday that I will most certainly look back on this time of freedom and space and choice today and long for it again.

I will be in another relationship, who knows what it will look like but I will long for these days when I can wake up and lie alone in my bed and meditate or go for a surf or meet a friend for a coffee or go for a walk or just lie here and stare at the ceiling and no one can suggest that I should do anything else.

So I love my freedom. I love my freedom so much that lately, I have come to the conclusion that my love for freedom might actually be stronger than my love for connection.

Sometimes connection isn’t easy. I would have to be vulnerable and let someone see me fully. What if they didn’t like what they saw? What if I open myself again fully to someone and he says, “Not really loving this baby. You’re too much for me!” and he walks away.

I have always walked away. I am afraid this means that it’s my turn to be walked away from. Maybe this is what is holding me back? It’s only fair isn’t it – If I get to walk away with my head held high twice, then surely I’m bound to be kicked to the gutter next time round?

Um, I don’t actually think life works this way. I think I can drop that useless excuse. Candy coating fear of letting someone in with fear of being left is quite clever blond girl – good work!

So I can see my attachment to my independence and my fear of losing my independence in a relationship. I can see the fear of not liking who I might become in a relationship because of whom I became in a previous one.

I can see my fear of falling deeply in love with someone and becoming attached to them and then being left alone again. I can see it all. Fear is standing in front of me naked, but he is me and I am naked in front of everyone I’ve ever known in my life and there’s nowhere to hide.

So fear, where do we go from here?

Maybe nowhere?

Maybe I sit this morning and let the sunlight illuminate my imperfections and I let myself be in love with them too.

I am a strong-willed independent woman. I like my freedom and my time and I like to feel that I always have a choice everyday about how to move through life.

Blond girl don’t you get it? No one is threatening this!

I am also a complete romantic and a painter and a contradiction. I love to imagine myself on a dance floor freely swinging my limbs around, accompanied by my favourite dance buddies.

I would love to glance across the floor and see you seeing me and I would love for you to walk up to me and pull me out of my fears and say, “Blond Girl, I see all of your walls and they don’t keep me out. I am stronger than your walls. You can dance and smile and laugh and flip your long hair over your shoulder flirting with every gawking man from the dark corners of the room and I am willing to stand up for your letting go.

It’s time now, to let go. I will catch you and you no longer have to be so strong. You will not lose your independence because you decide to love me. Your dreams for your life will not disintegrate. I will compliment your life. We can maybe even work together on our dreams?”

And he will not pull me off of the dance floor. He will let me stay there, dripping sweat and swirling my hips until I am done. And he will stand there waiting for me in one of the dark corners and when I feel complete he will step forward into the foggy spotlight from the stage and say, “Ok now, let’s go blond girl. I’ll take you home. Everything is going to be alright.”

Hmmmm. I like him.

What if he is already here beside me right now? Maybe he is in me right now? Maybe I am him? Maybe I am both him and myself and so then, well, we are pretty complete aren’t we?

Maybe this is what it means to love myself?

…Yes, today I feel complete, drenched in sunlight on a cool Sunday morning in bed – no longer alone, but completely by myself.

xx

 

Happy Friday Mantown,

Just Another Blond Girl here reporting on the ups and downs of living in paradise…

So a little bit about me:

I am a blond girl living in paradise.

Wait – I’m a single, blond girl living in paradise.

Um, best to add I’m a single, blond yoga teacher living in paradise.

Ok, Last try – I am a single, blond, surfing yoga teacher, in her mid-thirties living in paradise.

Yes, that pretty much sums me up.

Today I shall share my insights on one of the most confusing human tribulations –

Expectations.

They are the ‘ball breakers’ of potential connection…

Yesterday I started to feel quite sick. I couldn’t tell if it was the beginning of actual physical illness or another typical ‘bubble boy’ episode where the energy of my life and brain drains me so much that my body shuts down anyways. Sometimes, it’s not very easy being a hyper-sensitive blond girl…

I decided that after teaching my morning yoga class that a potential shut-down was in the cards. I looked guilt in the eye and chose to ignore her for the rest of the day. I went home, crawled into bed and slept the afternoon warmth away.

Waking up this morning my body was weak and my mind felt even more helpless.

Over-analysis had sucked me dry. I had nothing left to give. Especially at work.

A sick day it is!

Despite the recognition of my empty petrol tank, I accepted my friends invitation to surf. It felt like an odd and slightly irresponsible decision – not only because I was actually feeling like death but also, living in this small beachside town, surfing whilst pulling off a sick day isn’t the most highly recommended professional choice.

Alas, I chose it anyways (Classic blond girl move!)

I admitted the defeat of my muscles and committed to nothing more than a ‘bob’ in the glassy morning waves. I thought, my ocean can’t do me any harm, she is the greatest healer of them all…and so we jumped in and I lazily threw my arms around, barely resembling a paddle stroke and we managed to glide out beyond the surf break.

To my absolute absolute surprise I had one of the best surfs of my life. I couldn’t believe it!

I managed to jump on and ride at least ten waves in a row – there weren’t any of the typical grunts and swear words and humbling laughter. The ocean and I were one today – she told me where to be at the right time and I listened. I jumped on her back and she guided me into shore. And then I did it again, and again and again.

Surfing is so funny. It says so much about my state of mind. I can think that I am in a good place and then Mother Ocean quickly shows me the truth.

On any given day I can walk down the street, board in hand feeling sexy and confident and strong and leave the surf a mere hour later feeling immature, humiliated and broken.

The only truth I have deciphered is that when I don’t care, when I let go, when I am chatting about yoga and boys and engaged in something other than ‘trying’ to surf really well, then I actually am able to surf really well.

When I leap into the water having meditated and visualised my pop-ups and feel myself glide along a wave in advance and pump myself up to take on the green room with style and class, I am usually a giant piece of flailing shit.

I mean it – absolute crap!

So what does this mean? Where do all of my tried and true practices leave me now?

After spending twelve years as a high performance athlete, practicing positive visualisation and mental preparations and manifestation techniques from my buddy Wayne Dyer and years of Intuitive counselling and yoga teaching – where does this fit in?

I think life is simpler that I make it at times. I think that everything ‘I think’ to be fact is actually a load of you know what.

I am pretty sure when effort, desire and attachment precede the actual manifestation in reality than it is quite unlikely to unfold in that exact desired manner.

I’m not saying that manifestation is ineffective – of course there is a place for it. I think, however, the way I have been trying to manifest has been ineffective.

So where do I go from here? Do I have to drop everything I’ve ever learnt about life?

What if everything I believe to be true about achieving happiness and success is actually getting in my way?

What if I am actually wrong about it all?

What if I don’t have to do anything?

What if, in the words of one of my wisest friends, “What is mine, I can’t miss out on?”

What if I were to trust life? What if I were to trust myself?

So where Manly does this leave us thirty-something yoga teaching, surfing blond girls? Where do we go from here?

Do we wake up in the morning and continue to try to do the right thing all day long or do we just stop trying at all?

What if we all stopped trying so hard together and just starting being together?

Maybe, one day I can stop the over-analysis and grand fairytales created within the most creative corners of my mind and instead stand on the street and look into the eyes of the people walking by.

What if I could modernise the last scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s where the ‘Cat’ is thrown out into the rain and Fred confesses his mad love for her, whilst calling her out not on fearing being put in a cage but fearing letting herself out of the cage of her own making?

What if I opened the door to my cage and crawled out? What if I no longer spent any of my energy and time trying to deduct the perfect boyfriend in my head and instead started talking to the beautiful men walking around me every single day?

What if I actually asked one of them out on a date? What if we actually spoke the truth to each other about how we felt and laughed and shared and even if we didn’t find each other attractive and even if we don’t fall madly in love, we had a fulfilling evening together – Connecting. Laughing. Being?

After sleeping all day in self-indulgence maybe my energetic flu is entirely of my own making and I can release myself from my weak immunity anytime I choose?

Maybe I shall.

Maybe I’m finally ready to look you in the eye and love you for real. Not the bedtime story of you that I have created on my mediation cushion but the actual you who I finally allow myself to get to know and see for real, just like I so desperately desire for you to see me too.

Maybe?

Good Night Mantown. Good Night Moon. Good Night Cat. Goodnight Spoon.

xx

 

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

I’m just short of four years as an indulgent Manly local. I say indulgent because let’s be honest – we live in a small town, next to one of the grandest cities on Earth safely  embraced by an idealistic bubble of sand, waves and beautiful people.

True Mantown fans will convince you of how magnificent and special our little world next to the beach is and therefore, we rarely find ourselves leaving it.

I think being engrossed in the community for a few years earns me the privilege to shed light on some of the characteristics of this exceptionally conflicted Northern Beaches Hot Spot…

You see, the truth about Manly is that it is, in fact, paradise. Another truth about Manly is that it can be a very difficult place to live. I can’t begin to explain this without an example so I guess I’ll start at the beginning of the week?

Monday.

I had another free Monday afternoon to do whatever I liked (see…indulgent right?!)

I found myself blankly wandering down the same beach-kissed Corso that I wander down almost everyday. My Havaiana flip-flops clopped along the same concrete pathway. I wandered through the same shops; barely able to fake a smile at the same bored overly tanned and barely fed shop clerks.

I paused impatiently at the same stoplight that strictly refuses the same pedestrians from illegally crossing a barely dangerous street all day, everyday. I snubbed the same touristy storefronts and had to make the same decision I make every Monday – Shall I wander down Whistler Street or go to the Wharf?

I had a belly full of the same green smoothie that I make myself each morning after mixing up my same vitamin C supplement drink. I was wearing the same cut-off denim shorts that I wear every weekend – the same shorts that every other blond girl in Manly wears on every weekend. I see the same familiar yet distant faces of people who wander past me over and over again, week after week.

I still ignore them and they still ignore me.

I head over to one of the three same coffee shops that I order my same coffee from every day. I smile impatiently at the same Barista who almost knows my drink by memory but not quite. I wait awkwardly the same way I do every time I order my coffee here. I’m never quite sure where to stand.

I don’t want to seem impatient (although I am), or in the way of the other same patrons who seem relaxed (but aren’t) shuffling between the tables trying desperately not to catch each other’s stares.

Instead, we look at our phones. Yes, that’s safe, let’s check Instagram…

I am rescued by the beep of mine – it’s a message from one of the same four friends that I repeat the same stories to over and over again every day. My friends have been bored with the deep ins and outs of every thought I’ve had since I landed in this charming town.

I wander down the same cobblestone streets, behind the same orange, blue, green and black painted wall, past the same Brazilian man sitting on the bench, past the same daggy bar, ignoring the unsolicited stares of slightly tipsy Australian men.

I head to the ocean. I walk down the same path to the south end of the beach. I stop and sit on one of the same three benches that I usually sit on. I sit and stare out beyond the brilliant aquamarine waves, curvaceous peach beach line and repeating headlands and ponder, why on earth am I unsettled today?

Being just another blond girl in paradise isn’t as easy as it looks.

I know.

I hear it.

The disgusted grunts from ninety-eight percent of the rest of the world’s population who live in a seemingly far less amazing spot than this and I say to them, “Yes! I know what it seems like…just another flaky blond girl, born into privilege, having lived such an overly indulgent life that she can’t even be grateful for her dazzling home. How dare she complain about her life? How dare she complain about anything at all?”

…And I say to them, to people everywhere around the world, in castles and skyscrapers and five star hotels, and snowstorms and unbearable slums and cardboard boxes coated with filth and despair and I say, “Without purpose, we can suffer.” 

Beautiful landscapes and daily Yoga classes and fresh juices don’t excuse me from moments of emptiness. I realise this sounds depressing but we must admit the non-negotiable fact – the human condition proves that wherever there is a human being unfulfilled, there is potential for suffering.

(One may also point out that wherever people gather there is also potential for love and joy and passion).

Well this is absolutely true and I will have lots of those stories to share as well.

So now that I’ve shared a slightly gloomy perspective of life in Manly on those days when we aren’t quite sure where to turn I will get on to the more entertaining observations about this little beach-side town…

Maybe tomorrow?

xx