A theme keeps coming up for me - I was alerted to this a few years ago by a well meaning friend - and since then a special someone keeps pushing me back to it - relentlessly but lovingly so.  Showing up, really showing up as yourself, that's harder than it looks. It made me think of these words;

"Mining the moment for something that feels good, something to appreciate, something to savour, something to take in, that's what moments are about. They've not about justifying your existence. It's justified, you exist. It's not about proving your worthiness. It's done - you're worthy. It's not about achieving success, you never get it done. It's about 'how much can this moment deliver to me?'. Some of us like it fast, some slow, no-one's taking score. We get to choose. The only measurement is between desire and allowing. And our emotions tell us everything about that."

I have a busy life, blessed by a work and home life that never ceases to amaze and push me into more and more. This past weekend was no different - every waking moment crammed with busy-ness and it seems, at times, that I'm speeding along a track laid down by others, going so fast that I'm passing everything by in a blur.

But I was also pulled into a stark reality that I need to slow it all down, to really be present, for myself and the people I love. That is where the real growth, the real life is. So I'm not going to do that - blur anything - anymore.

My very very very best friend got hijacked yesterday and it took that to make me realise she's my very very very best friend. I don't want to be that person - the one who has an ephiphany because of a shock but in this instance I am.

I've always fought against titles, famously saying 'Just call me Alex and pay me double' when someone else was responsible for my salary. The title of girlfriend, best friend, any friend always seems to rub up against me. I've bucked against the idea that a relationship needs to have a definition in order to give it the space needed and I still believe that.

But all at the same time there comes a time when you need to just pick - something, someone, some direction and throw yourself all in. And this is that time.

"...Life is such a curious dichotomy. I don't think I understand it any more clearly than I ever did I just ride the storm a little more gracefully; feast and famine are part of the patchwork that is slowly sewing the quilt that will, I suppose, tell my life story.

I get it wrong, stumbling and falling with the "getting up" often messy and awkward but I'm up again. All the while my loves are running their own race and, more often, I find myself falling into their footsteps, running every so calmly with them until one of our paths digress and we're running alone again.

Living your own life is frightening and most of the time, if we're honest, we're lost. But here's the thing - living any other way is a wasted life. I am who I am because of the loves in my life. The people who see all of me and love me anyway"..

I will never be a well behaved woman.
I would rather pass my days lying in the middle of dirt roads, staring at the full moon with a bottle of summer red in my palms.
I would rather have kids when it suits me, not when society expects or throws shoulds.
I would rather stretch my spirit and live like my soul means it.
I would rather own moments, than investments.
I would rather eat alone, than sit with women who bore me at “Wives’ Night.”
I would rather swim naked with bioluminescence, have it fall like fireflies from my hair, my breasts, my back.
I would rather do handstands naked in the moonlight when no one’s watching than pick bridesmaid dresses.
I would rather drink seven year old rum from a sandy bottle, smell of smoke and ash than sit in church.
I would rather learn from life than rack up debt, in a desk.
I would rather drink the ocean, again and again—celebrate being madly alive.
I would rather my love be defined by love itself, and nothing more or less.
I don’t need a ring on my finger to prove that I am in love.
I do not need a degree to prove that I am intelligent.
I have my own approval.
My savings account has diddly to do with my richness.
I build my own box.
I will take a job I love and freedom over a pension, any day.
I will not work and work and work to live when my body is old and I am tired.
Stocks are for people who get boners from money.
Not everyone should have kids, and my eggs aren’t expiring.
I will not drink the societal Kool-Aid on a bus, nor will I drink it on a train.
Not on a plane, with a goat, in the rain, in the dark, in a tree, with a fox, in a box!
I will not jump through societies’ hoops and red tape, the treasure hunt in the rat race we chase.
If we must have milestones—mine will be measured by how much joy I have collected at the end of each day and how often in this life I have truly, deeply, opened.
Seek, see, love, do.

~ Janne Robinson

Dan Pallotta's extradinary TED talk is bold in the extreme; standing up there amongst peers and people bearing his soul whilst encouraging us to step into the same space is inspirational. Some of his words are too powerful not to share here:

"...I'm talking about dreaming as boldly in the dimension of our being as we do about industry and technology. I'm talking about an audacious authenticity that allows us to cry with one another, a heroic humility that allows us to remove our masks and be real. It is our inability to be with one another, our fear of crying with one another, that gives rise to so many of the problems we are frantically trying to solve in the first place, from Congressional gridlock to economic inhumanity.

Now, we're all here to dream, but maybe if we're honest about it, each of us chasing our own dream. You know, looking at the name tags to see who can help me with my dream, sometimes looking right through one another's humanity. I can't be bothered with you right now. I have an idea for saving the world. Right?

Imagine living in a world where we simply recognize that deep, existential fear in one another and love one another boldly because we know that to be human is to live with that fear. It's time for us to dream in multiple dimensions simultaneously, and somewhere that transcends all of the wondrous things we can and will and must do lies the domain of all the unbelievable things we could be..."

Watch his full talk, it is time well spent.