Celebrate Life
Love life and live it to the full. Learn kindness, compassion and the joy of adventure. Stay curious. Keep an open mind. Laugh. Those are universal values for a happy life that most people know.
Another key to finding peace and happiness comes from nurturing faith, nurturing strength of spirit, believing in something greater than us, no matter what it is. Every great motivator, every great leader, every wise person says the same thing. “Believe. Have faith.”
Other obvious keys to a happy life are things like having a healthy diet, exercise, having family and community to connect with, and, as the Japanese put it, finding our “Ikagai“. That purpose in life that keeps us focussed on what makes us tick, brings us an income, brings us emotional and physical nourishment, and brings something of value to the community around us.
Ikigai; something that makes us deeply happy inside.
Ikigai; For each of us that life purpose that is different and unique. For you that may be being a teacher, a mother or carer, or a researcher, or a painter, or a mechanic, or a doctor or care assistant. Something that brings nourishment and meaning.
The Oxford Dictionary describes Ikigai as ” a motivating force; something or someone that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living”.
For me my Ikigai has morphed into what the Japanese call an Iyashi. It sounds a bit mysterious, but really its quite simple. It’s a person living a full life with an open heart, addressing personal challenge and change, and engaging deeply and significantly with others to follow a path of emotional and spiritual growth. Becoming a healer in the process.
My Ikigai has always been about challenging myself to grow spiritually, (not necessarily religiously) to be a better person, to achieve, and to work on the completion of “the journey to the centre of my heart” when I can say that I truly know myself, and through that to be a facilitator for others to do the same. To be able to go deep and connect with the unconscious. To be a shadow worker. Unafraid of connecting with our dark sides in order to find its true gifts and bring those gifts out into the light.
Of course most people don’t see this part of me because I’m just the person that they’ve come to know over the years. Connecting with me possibly as a family member, an adventurer, or a partner, a business man, a traveller, a writer, a photographer, a friend, a motorcyclist, even just a free spirit.
I’ve been all of those and more, but what really counts to me is fulfilling my highest purpose in life, that Ikigai, carved from the events and challenges that have gone before, are yet to come, and the aspirations I have of the future.
It’s about living life enjoyably, peacefully yet with fun, without detracting from the lives of others or at a cost to others, and yet being able to connect with others and maybe help them in some small way on their journey too.
Much of my most important work is helping others do what I call “Crossing the Bridge Of Fire”. Finding their authentic selves and core passions. Dealing on the way with trauma, ego, anxiety, fear and negative thoughts.
My toolbox of modalities and therapies includes journalling, talking, gestalt, reiki, transactional analysis, person centred therapy, massage, art, meditation, breath work, dreamwork, creative visualisation, music, dance, the power of silence, connecting with nature, road trips, experiential living and a few more that escape me as I write.
Much of it I do quietly, out of the gaze of others, simply because that is my way; it’s easier that way and inoffensive to those who choose to follow a different path.
Some of my purpose is now is given to creating a healing space, that is my my own living space, for others to enjoy and find comfort, peace and healing in. Many people come to enjoy this welcoming space, the joy and the company.
It’s a small but natural wooden bungalow nestling in the dunes of the Northumberland Coast in England that has a sunken garden ready for meditation, quiet contemplation, sharings and watching nature.
I often refer to it as #mychurch.
So that’s me in a nutshell.
What follows are links to my growing number of blogs should you want to know more, with a short description of each:
Blog 1 “Dancing Above the Parapet”
About the blog:
Holistically speaking the whole-lifetime path of a person exposed to a series of conscious awakenings typically ends in a beautiful, humbling, and enriching experience. It doesn’t go unnoticed by the world at large though, as greater levels of harmony, joy and peace become the hallmark of the growing soul involved, even though it will most likely go misunderstood by others as to WHY they have come about.
Practically though on a year by year basis the processes of conscious or spiritual awakening are gnarly; ones that takes a lot of energy, guts and faith to hang on to and assimilate positively. Like a rodeo bull that wants to upturn its rider at every opportunity, each new awakening brings challenges, u-turns, chaotic relationships, and odd behaviours as dark energies come to light that need healing and integration.
I’ve encased some of my own personal chaotic and sometimes terrifying events of my own as examples for anyone else interested, including details of the mental and emotional restructuring that needed to take place as old wounds and early life traumas become reawakened, healed and set free.
It’s called “Dancing Over The Parapet” and starts with the concept of cognitive restructuring in “The Jigsaw of Life”.
The next blog is a growing compendium of the stories that anyone who’s been in the military gets the bragging rights to recount over and over again, plus a few extras from my time outside the mob.
I’m not sure this manuscript will ever go into print, but it might end up on the kindle store.
Click here if you fancy having a read of some of them. Loads yet to be uploaded!
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Love is an Action 