Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished....• Lao Tzu

I was down with a terrible cold and was in bed most of the day. 

After his afternoon tea, Adam came into our bedroom and sat beside me to see if I am OK. He knows I don't normally sleeps during the day unless I am really sick. He then began....

“Mum, is it possible, that my attention is very - maybe a little too much - self concentrated?  What do you think????”  - asked Adam my 16 year old

“Could be, I also believe that you are a decent young man who respects people and adds value to their lives. The more clarity and awareness you hold, the more you can contribute. So maybe this self concentration is precondition for being smart ” –  I replied 

“Neither do I think actively looking for a mate is very productive.  Some of my friends are so into this. 

Why?  

Why get married, family and kids must to be a challenge? 

Life is not just that...life is more than that...we humans sometimes close our own possibilities to see more, explore and grow” explained the 16 year old

“What about travel, study, living the life deeply, that could be a wonderful challenge Adam, gets crosses over and finds a real challenge. 

Don´t follow traditional goals, make your own way of life...make every moment of your life something that you could remember forever.” Said I

Then he said “I believe in following my heart, excitement and living in integrity to myself. 

To be comfortable with loneliness, to be bold and open to influences. 

To make an effort developing social talents and relationship skills, and most of all; make my priorities and values clear, before going after what I think I want.”

"The challenge will present itself when the scholar is ready to meet it. The thing is that when you think you are ready – you're not. And if you wait until you feel ready, you will either wait a very long time, or you have set your ambitions too low. 

Ready or not; get moving, start stuff, live now.

 You've got this moment, everything else is uncertain. The secret is that you must not think. You will feel it, when the moment is right! I am just past the point of being uncertain and going into THE MOVE right now, life is exciting!

And remember to be kind to the most important person to be kind to: Yourself. If you want to have the energy to be present for others, you have to take care of yourself, your body and way of thinking. Kindness starts within you." said I

With a big smile he said - 'thanks mum, I better get some homework done now' and off he went.

I know in that very moment, that I have done my job with flying colours....

ps/smoh

Approval is the currency of the mind market. I'm so broke I can't shop there any more....

Walking with Tracey and Sue this afternoon, I thought it was going to be all downhill but the first two hours were actually uphill which challenged my legs all over again. The view looking down upon the gorgeous valley below made it easy to forget the incline.

Just before we left Tracey made me pulled a card from a deck. I picked up many cities ago created by Paolo Coelho called The Way, each card offering a thought or meditation for the day.

The card I pulled advised me not to fear the criticism of others.  As I walked I reflected on that advice.

It struck me deeply just how much of my life I have detested criticism of others. I have felt its sting pierce my heart and shoot terror into my bones.

I have stood burned by its welts from people who neither understood let alone approved of my gifts of spirit and the work I do most of my life, some from those very close to me.

I have sealed myself against it by working harder, acted as though it didn't matter and trying to prove my detractors wrong.

I have secretly dislike intensely and questioned if, in the end they, those who criticized, were right after all.

And with that I criticized myself more harshly than the rest. 

I should do better. 

I should have been more aware. More 'normal' and without my second sight and deep intuition. I should have..... 

On and on and on.

I am also acutely aware of how I've flung the arrows of criticism right back at others with equal energy. I've done it out of arrogance, righteous indignation, self defence, and at the core, fear.

Fear that I wouldn't, couldn't be loved and accepted for

Simply being me.

I'm so sorry for those words now. As I walk I can feel the injury my own criticisms must have caused others. To judge another is simply insane.

The great gift of this life is that I am no longer afraid if the criticisms of others.

They will keep coming, that I know but they are never about me. They never were.

As for criticizing myself...well I will work on that one. I know I hold myself to standards and cannot allow those to ever slide.

And I won't.

But most of myself criticism is just an internalization of the crazy words and beliefs of others who don't know me at all.

As for the blah blah that my mind likes to fling at me, I can now ignore it. Of that I am now also clear I'm also feeling genuinely free of my urge to criticize.

If it comes up I shoo it away like the black flies that filled the path today. 

I pray for us all. 

We are all such beautiful beings underneath it all and with nothing to criticize and everything to appreciate.

My vulnerability, releasing, realizing and truly being just like everyone; a vibrant beautiful soul sharing a human experience....

ps/smoh

Fortunately or unfortunately, that goes for all of us....

The truth is not what anyone tells me it is. 

It is what I know it to be.

Another mouth mouthing 

"This is how it is" or 

"This is what I know about you" can only speak from an interpretation, and not from any direct experience, of my life.

The "us", what is that? 

I know what the word means, but this is the only experience I can honestly speak for.

Can you speak for other people and if so, who and would they be able to confirm your accuracy? 

That would be fascinating.

I would love to hear how it is possible for someone else to speak for another because it seems impossible to me.

I know it could appear I am being an idiot, but that is the furthest thing from my intention. I am sincerely curious because I hear a person say things like "we" and "us" and "them" and I have no experience of that being possible.

"When I wrote "us" what I was thinking was how every human being can say to another "The truth is not what anyone tells me it is. It is what I know it to be. Another mouth mouthing "This is how it is" or "This is what I know about you" can only speak from an interpretation, and not from any direct experience, of my life." is all. I know that's how I feel." said Gina

It is quite possible there is a person on earth who can speak for another with total accuracy. I am open to it. I just don't know how it could be; said I

"When I became more aware of this and began speaking only of my own experience, my mum described me as one of the most self-centred people she knew. She could be right. How would I know?" - responded Rose.

Maybe I was actually looking in the mirror and seeing myself and what do I think? Are you self centred sometimes, I know I am sometimes.

Is there a way to not be self-cantered?

If I put my attention on to you, I am putting my attention on to what I think your "self" is. This doesn't solve the problem of being self-cantered; it just changes the supposed self that benefits from the attention.

Perhaps the language could be changed to:

Personality-cantered, to delineate the story that gets the attention.

My story is what I focus on because it is the one I actually have a little say in.

It appears there is only one self in seven billion bodies, each with a personality story. Since any story ends up not being true, who gives a shit if I focus on you or me? 

Neither one is really that big of a deal.

Since it is easier to eat the food I have access to, I focus on me.

The thing that appears most useful in pondering is the end of true selfishness, which wants others to focus on me. 

I will focus on me, you will focus on you, and mutual benefits between you and I will create an honest world.

ps/smoh

Yes, ego is automatic and compulsive, unconscious...

Let's be honest, we like our egos, and the ego is important...I have found that the best way to deal with the ego is to LOVE it to death. 

The ego loves the whole spiritual game. 

It even enjoys the thought of its own "death". 

Ego loves spiritual drama. 

Who is the one that "loves the ego to death"? 

It is a big game, no? 

Is it not the so-called ego that that thinks it is the lover? 

If the ego is an unnecessary defence mechanism you can rely on it to engage in all kinds of hanky panky to preserve itself including the thought that it doesn't exist and that just has to be realized, or the thought that it does exist and must be annihilated. 

It is all a distraction. 

Who is it that pays attention to the ego and who is it that wants to be spiritual? Who is it that wants to be free?

Ego may understand its own futility and be silent, and then there is space for the other.

What we call ego is a moment of spasm like a panic attack, the content of thought motivated by a compulsive quality of it contraction, to give it identity makes no sense. 

It is obscuring fear that wraps in upon it. 

It isn't a person. 

Thinking sometimes sits at the table of consciousness, but that doesn't make it conscious.

We act as egos out of compulsive unconscious movements of the conditioning, past, program we have input in our brains. 

The serial killer or the general are a result of that human conditioning, that’s what I call ego. It has a sense of ‘I’ in it. 

When we are aware of that, we maybe change and are free from it.

ps/smoh

Yet another undesirable byproduct of 'if'....

Q: Do you experience regret? 

A: 
NO!!!.
Any time I start to complain about what I didn't do in the past, I just slap myself in the face and say, 
"What the fuck are you thinking!? Where is the time machine, dip shit?!" 

This tends to produce a chunk of laughter and an 
"Oh yeah. I'm so silly." 
I don't regret this kind reminder because it is the fastest way I know of to get right through that enthusiasm-sucking line of thinking. 
Slap! Slap! "Come on, fool!" 

This also tends to bring attention to the immediate sensation of "stinging", which makes it tough to remember the thing I wish I could go back and re-try.

I find regret is the fear of the current situation. 

Anything I wish I could have done differently would only be lingering in the field because there is resistance to the way things are at present. 
This resistance costs the opposite of regret, which is some version of greatitude *__^

The time and energy spent hoping there is a way to squeeze a do-over out of the past is like donating money to a cemetery. 
Useless! 
There is no Time Machine. I don't get another shot at what I did. I do, however, get a shot at what I can do today.

ps/smoh

Children are actually ignorant little beasts for the most part. Worth the respect, but not worth the idolatry.

Something is off about modern society and it is the absolutely ridiculous notion of the fragility of children's minds. Teach them about what people really do here and how life is fucking tough and how everything is made using reason and imagination and I bet the future they create will be legendary.

The irony is that children can usually take more than parents can. They are starving for authentic interaction - starving! Kids are constantly shifting between being demons and angels... like all of us but uncensored.

""Don't quote the living"", and I'll stop quoting the dead..or we can just both quote what we like makes no odds either way.

Children are not frail until adults transmit that vibe to them. I remember very clearly knowing I was perfect until society convinced me otherwise.

Children are not fragile; our culture is yucko for kids in my opinion. I'm doing my part to educate the child I conceived, birthed and am living with.

We don't even need to label it "tough"; it's just here it is, this is how it works.

There is no valence to life, it's just this and to stop with the constant push to "be something when you grow up"...as if growing up is the point, and to stop numbing the kids to nature and the natural world through too much screen time, TV and games.

My hope is to see how literally choosing to feel how you want to feel every single moment and how what you feel can't touch what you are and how what you are can't be fucked with.

And what you are is not lonely, unhappy and bored.

What you are is life itself.

Have you ever noticed when you're playing some dumb made up game with your kids, and suddenly they realise they're not winning, they make up some rule; just pull it out of thin air so they can regain the upper hand?

It’s a shame, but mostly the grownups carry on with this tactic...but as for the point of fragility, only in body...in mind they are just as robust as most adults..Sometimes more.

Kids have super bull shit detectors and know the truth in them and minds no matter what drivel adults feed them.

It's a bona fide sickness we actively inculcate in our kids...but they have excellent bull shit filters for the very reason that they're not all clogged up with outgoing bull shit, like their older counterparts. The occasional nod and a wink of validation from a trusted adult let them know they're not nuts...or at least no more than anybody else.

We tend to think in extremes. Perhaps the suggestion is to simply lean back a little on trying to "protect" children so much... but that is not to say that we should resort to the other extreme of "pushing things in their face."

Black or white thinking is so common!

When you start a statement with "I don't agree" you're implying that it's about agreement or disagreement. But not all exchanges have to be about that.

We can just share perspectives without the agreeing disagreeing... we can just put our thoughts together.

ps/smoh

No one's words can replace the authority of my heart. This mouth opens and spiders crawl out. Tangled in the webs of thought, God so kindly hands me the scissors.

And we cut the cord, float away from the shore, until we are so far gone, there is no land to bind to.

God is real. It is so clear now. 

The smokescreen of awareness is the most enticing of the distractions used to keep us from surrendering to Him. 

I know this sounds nuts, and I am as baffled as anyone could be that these words leave my mouth, but I cannot tell you how clear it is. Crystal.

Namaste

ps/smoh