Listening to the melody of life

August 1, 2008 | 3 Comments

Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely

~The Land Before Time

We’ve all got beautiful music within us.

No, I’m not saying you could be a rock star, or conduct the London Symphony Orchestra. (Although, maybe you could?) But in each of us is a melody, just waiting to be heard. And not just in the shower.

Your melody is your calling. It’s your reason for getting out of bed every morning. It’s the song you sing, the words you write, the love you share, the person you help, the home you create, the child you nurture, the flowers you grow.

We feel the melody, deep within, calling out to us, longing to be heard.

Sometimes we hear a faint echo as we move through the chaos and busyness that is our day. A faint hint of possibility. Of what could be, if only we had the time. Or the energy. Or the courage.

This month, I’d like to encourage you to tune in to that inner possibility, to not only listen to the melody but to hear and to act.

Sometimes it’s as if we need a key to that melody… something that unlocks the hidden compartment and let’s our music soar. I’ve found music, listening, quiet, giving and nature to be some of the best:

  • Music. I had forgotten until recently how inspirational great music can be. I had gotten out of the habit of playing music and found myself anxious, plaugued by worry and tensing at the slightest pressure. Recently I remembered a time when I’d put beautiful music on, fairly loud, to play as I worked, as I did housework, as I relaxed. Music not only soothes frazzled nerves and calms an overstimulated mind, it opens a doorway to your soul. When was the last time you listened to something sublime, something achingly beautiful and let each note waft through your home on a direct path to your heart?
  • Listening. Sometimes we need to be heard. And sometimes we need to listen. Suspend judgement, turn off the inner voice that’s waiting to have it’s next turn to speak, and simply listen to someone you love until you really hear their soul. Tuning in to the soul of one you love - parent, child, lover or friend - allows your own heart to echo with their joy at being heard.
  • Quiet. Solitude and quiet are balms to our weary mind and heart. Our days are full of noise, hustle and bustle, busyness. I think Sarah Ban Breathnach says it so well “Deliberately seeking solitude—quality time spent away from family and friends—may seem selfish. It is not. Solitude is as necessary for our creative spirits to develop and flourish as are sleep and food for our bodies“
  • Giving. Mother Theresa said it best “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” When we share what we have and who we are, we find we have more and more to give.
  • Nature. Watching the beauty of a sunset, breathing deeply in the middle of a forest, smelling the glory of a full blown rose, feeling the texture of bark on a ghost gum, vibrating with the pounding of waves on the beach. Mother Nature has the key to our hearts, and can open that door to the possibilities that reside within. Let her show you the beauty of your own melody.

Knock on the sky

and listen to the sound

~Zen saying

Posted by karen | Filed Under August 08, Serenity Space 

Keeping it simple…

July 1, 2008 | 3 Comments

How hard is it to keep things simple these days? Even here at The Calm Space, where Simplicity is one of our key values, we sometimes find it hard to keep things simple.

Complicated just seems to be the way of things, doesn’t it?

It doesn’t have to be that way!

I’m a bit of a rebel (my kids have different words for it - they call me ‘weird’ and ‘hippy’… in a loving way, of course.) And when I’m being rebellious, it’s usually against the status-quo, against the ‘that’s the way things are done’ brigade. I like to do things the simple way. (And the natural way).

Copyright Karen Wallace 2008

Of course, sometimes even the best intentions can be subverted or complicated. And I accept that as part of life. Like the fact that our ’simple’ home renovations last year haven’t ended yet. The painter disappeared before the woodwork had it’s gloss coat - we’re living with undercoat-only timber throughout the house. The books, good china, glassware, various childrens ’stuff’ and most of the contents of my office are still stored away in boxes in our shed, at the mercy of the ravenous rats that seem immune to normal extermination methods!

You see? Rats, painters, various builders and the weather all conspire to complicate matters around here. But I am not deterred.

Simplicity isn’t about not having dramas.

To me, it’s about how you view those dramas. And how you think about them.

Simplicity is a state of mind.

Simplicity is about uncomplicatedness (if there’s such a word).

It’s about finding the easy way.

It’s about believing in the goodness of people.

It’s about attracting that goodness to us, always, no matter what.

Here’s five ways I find simplicity and joy, every single day:

copyright Karen Wallace 2008

Being Grateful

I live with gratitude. Wonderful people come into my life, and I am grateful for their love, their giving and their being.

Give thanks, every single day, and the world will give you more to be thankful for.

Keep a Gratitude Diary. Write in it five things you are grateful for, every single night. It will change your life. What are you grateful for, today?

Clearing Clutter

This one I am sure my colleague and friend, Angela from Creating Order from Chaos (and our superlative contributor to The Organising Space) would support me in. If you are surrounded by junk, things aren’t simple. You have to store the junk. Insure the junk. Dust or clean or ignore the junk. And whether you like it or not, the junk will take up a little corner of your mind. Can you afford the space?

Last week, we had one of those kerbside cleanups in our area. Everyone was able to put all the junk they no longer wanted (up to 2 cubic metres) on the nature strip, and the council sent someone to take it all away.

Driving through our suburb I noticed the quantity of junk piled up on the street. How long had this been kept in garages and sheds and cupboards (or even in plain sight)?

Are you waiting for the next kerbside cleanup? For the next long weekend? For the next total eclipse of the sun? Get rid of it today! Toss it, donate it, give it away… just get it out of your life!

Copyright Karen Wallace 2008

Clearing Space

There is a fine line between clearing clutter and clearing space… once you’ve cleared the clutter from your life you’ve done part one. The physical.

Clearing space is about not only getting rid of your old clothes, furniture, bric-a-brac… it’s about other aspects of your life too. Like clearing space in your to-do list. Clearing space in your diary. Clearing space in your relationships. Clearing space in your mind.

You know what I mean, and you know, intimately, what space needs clearing in your life. (Um, yes, I am talking to you. You only need sit quietly for a minute and you’ll realise it).

When you clear space - physical, mental, emotional, time, relationship - you create a void. Apparently voids are one of those things that nature abhors. Something always rushes in to fill it.

So you’re unhappy with a part of your life. It could be money. It could be love. It could be sheer busyness. It could be health or low energy. Once you clear out the old, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional ’stuff’, you create a space. A void.

And the universe rushes in to fill that space… with the very thing you’ve been thinking about and dreaming of.

What are you afraid to let go of?

Could that be the very thing you need to jettison in order to create space for what you really want?

Living Now

Life was pretty simple when we were kids, wasn’t it? We’d do what we wanted, roam the neighborhood and hang out with our friends, and the only thing we had to worry about was being home in time for tea.

There’s a simplicity in living in the moment.

When we leave the past behind - where it belongs - and concentrate on now, suddenly the world is more colourful, more full of joy.

When we let go of our concerns for the future, and focus on what we can do, dream and be, right now - we open space in our hearts for beauty and wonder.

copyright Karen Wallace 2008

Back to Basics

Sometimes we let the speed of life take away our enjoyment of simple things. Getting in touch with nature can ground us and allow us to find joy in little things.

Take a walk in the sunshine, feel the wind in your hair, walk barefoot on the lawn, watch the ocean ebb and flow, get your hands dirty. Throw a ball for your dog, ride a horse or climb a mountain.

The photos illustrating this article are ones I have taken in the past month, in my winter garden. I am finding a whole new appreciation for nature when looking at her beauty through a lens. Have you really looked at Mother Nature in all her wondrous simplicity lately?

Posted by karen | Filed Under July 08, Serenity Space 

Freedom - it’s your choice

June 2, 2008 | 1 Comment

Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm

~unknown

Freedom. It conjures up so many thoughts and images, doesn’t it?

This month, as I was mulling over what to write about here in Serenity Space about our theme of the month - Freedom - I realised I was starting to letting my inner perfectionist take over. Do you have one of them? You know, the “it won’t be good enough” and the “it needs to be perfect” and the “why do you think you can write on this?” voices in your head?

And then I realised what I was doing. I call it catastrophising… thinking about what would happen if the words didn’t come. And how terrible that would be. (I won’t go into details, because really, they were pathetic. Suffice to say they didn’t make me feel good at all… as those holes we sink ourselves in are never positive.)

Once I’d yelled at myself (quietly) it came to me.

Possibly the most precious, and certainly the most personal of all freedoms is the freedom to think our own thoughts.

We have the power to choose what thoughts we allow in our heads.

And this freedom, more than any other, is the foundation of a happy, successful, fulfilling life. Every single day.

What we think - about what has happened, what is happening right now, and what may or may not happen in the future - is our choice.

And what we think, as we’re learning more and more, directly affects not only our behaviour, but all that happens in our life.

Stop for a minute and just think about how powerful exercising this simple, very personal, freedom can be…

(I’ll pop the thinking music on for you)

You’re back?

So, did you find the power resonate with you? Or are you like so many of us, that as soon as you had ‘thinking time’ your mind took off with thoughts unbidden? Did you start to think about all those times when those horrible, sad, worrying, anxious thoughts crowd your mind and make you feel terrible? Did you think “I cannot control my thoughts… they come unbidden… my thoughts are me, so how can I control what I think?”

I am the first to admit it can be difficult. Especially at three in the morning when you awake to a terrible feeling of imminent doom.

But you can do it. You are not your thoughts.

You can grasp this freedom with both hands and take control of your mind.

Three simple ways to gain freedom over your thoughts

Make up your own mind. Don’t let anyone tell you what to think. Listen to them, then make up your own mind. That includes making up your own mind about what you’re reading here :-)

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting

~Alan Dean Foster “To The Vanishing Point”

Notice when your thoughts are out of control. It’s about stepping outside yourself for long enough to see what your thoughts are doing. I believe it’s a learned skill - I can stop myself much more quickly now than ever before. Noticing may be enough to stop those nasty, terrible thoughts in their tracks - or you may need a simple strategy to distract yourself. I like to do a crossword puzzle or read a book to quieten my mind. Find something that works for you.

When unattended, our thinking runs our lives without our even knowing it. Attended with mindful awareness, we have a chance not only to know ourselves better, and see what is on our minds, but also to hold our thoughts differently, with greater wisdom, so they no longer rule our lives.

~Jon Kabat-Zinn “Arriving at your own Door”

Stay in the present moment. Don’t get lost somewhere in another place, time or dimension. More than likely, if you’re even a little like the rest of us, your mind gets out of control when you let it brood about the past or fret about the future. If you stay in the right here, right now - all those regrets and maybe’s don’t have a chance to invade.

Would you share with us your ways of taking control of your thoughts? Let’s get the conversation happening…

Posted by karen | Filed Under June 08, Serenity Space 

The thrill of the ride - why being out of balance can be more fun!

May 1, 2008 | 6 Comments

Hmm… Balance. I have always thought the term ‘balance’ and especially ‘work-life balance’ very misleading.

I could almost touch the sky…Balance denotes a place where things are in equilibrium. Where both sides of a scale are matching. Where the seesaw of life has equally weighted players sitting in mid-air on either end. Not moving.

And we all know that never happens in our life.

When I was a child, I loved to go to the park. I loved playing on the ‘equipment’. The merry-go-round powered by big Dads or desperate Mums or some other lucky kids big brother. Running alongside, round and round until we had enough velocity to spin on our own.

And the slippery dip! I recall one slippery dip that was so tall - the ladder required a feat of bravery just to climb its metal rungs. Flying down the shiny silver slide felt like sliding off the earth. But I always went back for more.

Then there was the swing. When I was very young, I’d love my Dad pushing me on that swing. Higher and higher I would fly until I’d squeal for him to stop.

But then he taught me how to power myself and I’d push and push myself until I felt like any minute I’d be flying and could surely reach the clouds.

There was one piece of park equipment I could never master on my own, no matter how hard I tried. I always needed another person. The seesaw was designed for two.

What a thrilling adventure this is!!Even if you managed to get even weighted kids on both ends, it still didn’t mean you were static. That was when the fun started!

You’d push off the ground and up you’d go. Way up high. Often with a jolt at the top as those on the other end hit the ground.

It was no fun unless you were moving. Up. Down. Up. Down. The thrill was part of the package, no thrill, no enjoyment. Jolts, pushes and laughter - it made it all so much fun.

Life’s like that, isn’t it?

It’s no fun at all if we’re sitting on one end of the seesaw, feet firmly planted on the ground and the other empty end high in the sky - way out of reach.

And standing in the middle, trying to get the thing to rock isn’t much fun at all - you’re pretty well stuck in the same place and it’s only your knees that are taking turns bending. OK, you’re off the ground, and you don’t experience that thud as you hit the bottom, but neither do you experience the highs of soaring way up in the clouds.

Which do you chose?

Posted by karen | Filed Under May 08, Serenity Space