Faith

Uncertainty...is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom. Uncertainty means stepping into the unknown in every moment of our existence. The unknown is the field of all possibilities, ever fresh, ever new, always open to the creation of new manifestations. Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just a stale repetition of outworn memories. Deepak Chopra from The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

This month has been about letting go and embracing the unknown. My department is restructuring and my job is looking unsafe. So my question has been, facing uncertainty and change, how do I stay strong and let go at the same time? In three short weeks, I have made the decision to move back to Spain, have arranged an interview with a company I used to work for, have contacted friends there and am starting to build up a network of coaching friends that I will thrive in when I'm out there. One week after making my decision, I found out that two coaches who I hugely admire and would love to work with are moving out to Spain next year too. Not only that, but I plan to do a course next year and I found out that one of those coaches will be leading that course in Spain next year (she lives in the States).

The answer to that question has been by enjoying the unknown, staying creative around possibilities and being really clear about my vision, while just doing what I need to do to keep moving in the right direction without knowing that I may ever get to the destination has been the way for me. This is the way that I have stayed strong while letting go. Its been thrilling!

On Being Brave

A few days ago I read about a new project on Maddie's blog, inspired by this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

Do one thing every day that scares you.

I immediately realised the thing that I most long to do that scares me more than anything else would be to give up my job and really committ to creating the life of my dreams. So I wrote the project off straight away as not being for me because its impossible right now, I'm not ready, its too big, I have to wait until January, its easy for them, I can't even do small acts of bravery because there really is only one act to do and so on and so on.

The idea stayed with me though. Every night while writing out my dreams of what I'd like a year from now, I'd write "I live in Grananda..." and think "That's going to take much longer than a year". Why? Is anything really stopping me? So, I've let bravery take over my thinking. There is a big restructure going on at work at the moment and even if I keep my job, it will be very different to the job I have now. My real passion is coaching and I will still get to do that, but only privately. When I got back to work after a few days holiday last week, the old sick feeling came back and I started to feel panicky so I decided it was time to be brave and get creative.

What are some of the great possibilities that could come out of this change and how could I start getting the life I really want?

I could move to Spain and work teaching English in companies which I loved when I was there which would mean I'd get to build good relationships with people in lots of different companies and build up a coaching practice out there. I'd also get to assist on Spanish coaching training and possibly even start interpreting on courses. And I'd be truly in love with my life! If my long term goal is to live in Spain and work full time as a coach, does my nice job with a big company get me closer to that dream or keep me stuck?

So thank you to Maddie and Jessie, I've joined the be brave project and today applied for jobs in Madrid and Seville!

Inspired by a True Bohemian*

"Love is not a thing to understand. Love is not a thing to feel. Love is not a thing to give and receive. Love is a thing only to become And eternally be." Sri Chinmoy

Love has always been an obsession of mine ever since I was a little child, I've always been led by my heart. So, without wanting to quote Whitney Houston, here are ten things that I do for myself to feel loved:

1. Eat well and consciously. Cook food using fresh ingredients while listening to music and eat every mouthful awake and in the moment.

2. Clear away all the useless objects and clutter to create a clean and clear space where I can breathe. Infact any homemaking activities like putting photos in albums, mending, sorting and I feel really looked after.

3. Twenty minutes every morning focusing on my breathing and getting really connected and and centred, acknowledging whatever is there and accepting it.

4. When I write every day, I wake up like a person in love, on fire and lit up with the anticipation of spending that sacred time creating and discovering.

5. Reading my favourite blogs religiously keeps me on course, inspired and creative.

6. Walking in nature. I just don't get to do that nearly enough. It keeps me feeling alive and awake.

7. Yoga gets the energy flowing all over my body. Yum!

8. Spending time with people I love and laughing. Sharing champagne and Turkish delight.

9. Being kind and being my own best friend when times get tough.

10. Staying present. Being in each moment filled with possibility and choice, knowing that we only really have right now.

*Thank you Boho Girl

Who in the world...

I've been avoiding my own blog, so busy devouring others' worlds, I've neglected my own with the question "Who in the world would really be interested in what I might have to say?" Then I got the kindest comment from a person on the otherside of the world, just to answer my question! So thank you Lubna and please come again soon. And to really say thank you, here are some of the other gifts your country gave me...

to have every sense awakened simultaneously with the smells of street sellers' making eggs, jelabis, puris. Coloured powders, curly writing more like a design than a script, shiny, black hair and the noise of 10,000 horns beeping. and the heat, the nearness of so many other humans, gazes so close it becomes intimate, just one body among hundreds, never unseen. to wake up on train, look out of the window and see two boys' laughing faces, waving hands and on, melting through the afternoon and coming to a stop. a woman wrapped in a purple sari, standing in a rice field so green. to go to bed in a bunk only knowing the name of your morning destination, anticipation dancing circles in your stomach, soothed by sweet, thick chai from a clay thumb pot.


Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. Anais Nin

143 Kinds of Yummilisciousness - Part One

1. Lindyboppers on the South Bank.

2. London. By the thames in the rain. Monochrome beauty.

3. Babies. I met a baby last weekend. An hour spent in constant wonder, suprise and simple pleasures. Oh and that silly baby skin that's so bright and new and smells so good!

Swinging the Lead

I have about two or three days until moving out. Almost everything from the house has gone, expect me and my things. I am the world's greatest procrastinator, especially when it comes to upheaval that I haven't asked for. So what are the things that I can't say goodbye to? I lived in this house while my father was dying. I moved here in September 2005, four months before he died. He visited me here when he was much more ill than I realised and I made him roast chicken and apple crumble and he lost his voice trying to hide his tears. This house was here when I got back each night from the hospital. Numb and exhuasted, I was offered food and homemade wine before I went to bed letting music wash over my tears and lull me to sleep. I came home to this house on the evening that he died. Someone lit a fire and we watched a film that I can't remember, I just remember the room full of people held me together. I'd moved back to London just in time to spend my father's last few months with him. It was a gift. I got to spend some time with him everyday, to experience a closeness that went beyond words that we hardly had in all our years as father and daughter and I got to do something for him before he died.

It was also at that time that I started a writing class and discovered how much I love poetry. I started writing everyday on the train until it became a best friend. My senses so sharpened by pain and fear, I saw fragility and temporality in everything and a voice that I knew but had never heard, came spilling out onto the page. I even got a poem published this year. So another gift from my father who had always wanted to be a writer.

The turning point to the greiving came when I started my coaches training with CTI. I'd spent a week in Spain on a yoga retreat with www.yogaunderthesky.com in the heat, eating delicious food, talking, chanting and sun bathing and met a friend who had done the courses. I knew they were for me. I started them in November and came back after the first weekend feeling truly and blissfully conscious and alive. Fireworks night lit up my window with the all possibilities of a juicy, technicolour life. Four courses later and I've made life long friends, I have found something that I really brings me to life and met some of the most grounded, vibrant and wise people who lead the way to others. And that's what's led me here! I was in New York after the last of the Intermediate courses and I looked up Co-Active coaching on Blogger.com. I found Jamie and her Starshyne Productions blog. That led me to More to Me, then Boho Girl, Ink on My Fingers and my friend ScruffyMummy so many other really inspiring women leading inspired lives.

So here's to new beginings and new friends!

The House of Belonging

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.

~ David Whyte, 1997

Leaving Home

I got woken up this morning by a bright, summer sky and a flood of birdsong. 5.00 am and I felt like I'd fallen asleep in a meadow. My last weekend in this house!