Wishing you a Happy Holiday Season and a Happy, Safe and Hopeful start to the New Year. And a massive thank you too, to everyone who took the time to continue to read my thoughts and come to my events in 2023. I appreciate you.


As I start writing this on Christmas morning, I am sitting with a view from my balcony out to Middle Harbour, recovering from some fun respiratory virus I managed to pick up in the process of Event Managing tens of thousands of people in recent weeks. I was ready and stocked up for sharing an Orphans Christmas with a few other Sydney non natives. But slight change of plans to having time and room to sit alone on this balcony. No complaints at all about the balcony, just not the plan I had planned. Yet another lesson in surrendering control, to make way for a new one.



Speaking of which, I think there's a reminder for us all within that for 2024, about the importance of surrendering out of trying so hard to strive and control the creation of outcomes. Stick with me, because I think there’s some more thoughts that are relevant to all of our navigating 2024 “gracefully” within this. Five of them precisely. 



Dare I say it, I have a feeling that there is going to be yet more stuff go on in 2024 that does it’s best to get in the way of our best intentioned earthly plans. In the same way that a pandemic, a natural disaster, a war zone (or several), an Optus, bank or VPN outage, can get in the way of our best intentioned earthy plans. SO part of that for us all, might be remembering once again to tough love hug and manage that inner 2 year old tanty of “BUT I WANTED IT MY WAY! AND I WANTED IT NOW!”  Instead, letting go and surrendering to a better, higher plan, than I or we could’ve imagined, wanted, or decided is how it SHOULD turn out.  In a world in which many of us have been raised, on the power of mind, to, with committed, consistent effort, go after what we want, and to be addicted to the pay offs of achievement, status and popularity as the answer to fulfilment and success, this is becoming an increasingly hard pill to swallow for some. But there are a few things that I wonder if “life” is going to give us yet another opportunity to remember how to practice en masse in 2024. If we didn’t already get the download?



1- Operating from higher guidance (over trying to control everything from the mind)


In 2024 and beyond, I have a feeling that full stop, this skill is going to be the saving grace that gets us back on track in the kinds of confusing chaotic times that leave us rocked in our faith and questioning our mastery over our own destiny. Tuning into the higher part of us for guidance on how to be of service and things like how and when to act, when to sit still and just be in the moment, when to surrender to receive what’s trying to get to us, in all aspects of personal and professional life.  It’s a remembering that ok yes, we can be mentally proactive in business and life planning to the hilt our success and fulfilment STRATEGY. But remembering, that our souls and higher guidance system actually have a different, more 360 view of this, than our earthy minds ever will ‘on the ground.’ And very often, they can spot a much better way for all involved to get there optimally, than we in the maze of it so to speak, sitting at our laptops overthinking it, can see. 


The intuitive way might save us and others a whole lot of extra misery, or get us there a whole lot faster too. But one thing is absolutely certain too, it will be grounded in what is the truest, most authentic way for us and others to realise our highest potential. Minus so much of our ego’s playing out so much “stuff” trying to resolve our wounds and defences along the way. Or getting pulled into the resolution of others' 'stuff'. While some of that might indeed be just as needed and our actual destiny to learn and grow through, higher guidance will still help us navigate the lessons with far more speed, ease and grace, than it might take “our powerful minds” to trial and error their way to figuring it out “the hard way” 17 times in a row, with 17 different parties, all potentially ending is comparable heartbreak, while we try and get the download. Get my drift?  Intuition makes growth more graceful, period. 


And then sometimes it’s just a far better ‘productivity hack’ too. In the way of the difference between random busy action, trying to prove to ourselves that we’re slaying it, doing something vaguely related to a goal, and tuning in to get a download on the people one could contact and the specific actions that one can take today that immediately put us and them on course to that. It’s the difference between ringing 100 relevant people, and ringing the 5 that will be at their phones in the next 30 mins and are also trying to manifest whatever it is that we bring to the table too. 


It might be time in 2024 (now that so many are so far now past burned out to the point of so very many having literally no patience left to even speak to complete strangers with the most basic of courtesy, decency and respect) to stop “efforting” so hard, trying to control every single last aspect of our lives and others. And connect back in with higher consciousness. 


If the recent Optus outage showed us anything, it’s how far down the rabbit hole we’ve got with outsourcing our intuition to devices. So while the devices are getting ever more clever, maybe it’s time to put down the devices a little more often and remember how to tune in and tap our intuitive guidance again for ourselves. (I think that it’s a mistake to think that our intuition is somehow inferior to the industrial complex’s might behind a bunch of A.I., based on a few hundred years of data gathered mainly by humans on one planet called Earth. When our intuition has access to the vast universe wide web of all knowledge, across every dimension and aspect of existence that ever was, is and will be, over trillions and trillions of years and cycles of existence? Feels a little limiting of our full potential to me actually to NOT use it?  But each to their own?)



2- Re-centering and grounding ourselves for the wellbeing and basic safety and wellbeing of others 


Re-centering and grounding ourselves full stop is an essential skill to relax our nervous system out of the constant state of fight-flight they are often now in, in busy cities. Working with tens of thousands of the general public 7 days a week often this last year as a mere mortal again (because most Sydney siders treat you a whole OTHER way if they’re think you’re ‘a someone’), it was completely obvious to me that many people are so far past their own limits on stress and exhaustion now, that the second you say anything that isn’t exactly what they wanted to hear, how they wanted to hear it, they go off on you like toddlers in the supermarket 30 minutes past their afternoon nap now, yelling, spitting, and throwing things at you in the process. As Australian Retail Association surveys of retail, customer service and fast food workers across the country backed up that this was also the experience of 85-92% of others too on the front lines this year, I would say that it is now mission critical to not just our own health and wellbeing now, but also to the basic safety and wellbeing of others, that we ALL commit to learning how to state manage and emotionally re-regulate ourselves during stressful times. (Under the new 2023 workplace health and safety code of practice upgrades coming in this week, and under the newest law IN NSW and SA protecting Australia's 1 in 10 people working on the front facing front lines, anyone who still thinks this doesn't apply to them, might literally find themselves in either HR or being questioned by Police now as a prompt to "self awareness.")  



3- Grounding and re-entering ourselves to connect with our intuition


 (Amazing how auto-correct just changed “centering” to re-entering ourselves…..same thing, so I’m going to leave it as it is!?) As well as grounding ourselves, shifting our state is essential to being able to hear our inner intuitive voice mentioned above.  Like trying to answer a mobile phone in the middle of a crowd at a concert, how much of it do you hear when you’re surrounded by outer chaos and noise? Not as much as you could? That’s why practicing both mindfulness and meditation are so critical now as skills, to be able to pin point that inner voice, amidst all the other noise and signals of the world, others and the deafening sound of the shadow antics of a few thousand years of patriarchy coming apart at the seams too.



4- Grounding ourselves and staying in “our lane” over getting pulled into the fight


Which brings me to the next point. When so much of world right now, face to face and online, is so constantly spoiling for a fight right now, how we NOT let ourselves get pulled into the fight, feels more relevant than ever. To do that, we also have to be able to slow down, ground and centre ourselves, to switch out of “mental” and “fight flight” gears and deliberately choose to stay connected to the power of heart, soul and higher consciousness. And then keep engaging others and calling others to engage with us in this state. 


It takes a whole lot of self discipline to choose self responsibility in the face of someone working either massively overtime or massively under effort to push our buttons, and to look in the mirror at what we might not even realise that we’re playing out and why (until someone else becomes the mirror?) And then choose not to play into things like judging and stereotyping, blame and victim consciousness, unleashing our own stuff for catharsis, competitiveness, tribalism and the endless need to put someone (often ourselves) into the box of righteousness and superiority and someone into the box of “lesser than” and “enemy’ and dehumanise them completely.  To justify then doing whatever is necessary, in a world where competition, "Saying it like it is", survival of the fittest, the zero sum game and war have long been marketed as both a necessity and and the answer we all need.  While we reach a break through point of the masses realising how much they really aren’t. But then not really understanding either how to disengage from the mind games and the war?


Simultaneously, we’re reaching a breaking point of tension right now over our differing views in 5 areas in particular; over our political views, religious and spiritual world views, personal development related views, diversity, equality and inclusivity views, and of course, scientific views over what is the most evidence based and scientifically credible vs ‘disinformation’. The breaking point being in how stubbornly and rigidly we’re hanging onto that our way is THE way and how frustrated we’re letting ourselves become over why the other can’t just get it and change to our way? Or is such a d1#$ about it at least?


But that’s the thing. What if we don’t even need to argue? Because what if they’re not MEANT TO surrender to our way, or us to theirs? What if the whole point is them journeying and learning from THEIR way? And part of our journey as humans is to learn to be totally okay with that? To appreciate both the journey and difference, and ask what we too can learn from it, instead of getting so frustrated with and wanting to change constantly the points of difference? 


5- Remembering how to learn, NOT just how to educate and influence

What if learning actually happens to be a two way dynamic, involving 2 teachers and 2 students, not just a 1 way one? And every time we progress to a fight, we’re actually missing the whole lesson and the whole point?


True influence is still such a misunderstood concept in our world.  But true influence I think is actually dependent upon and happens only when, we’ve first established connection, after attempting to truly see the human being in front of us. And after listening to understand, and coming to understand, and then sharing from a place of more mutual agreeability, one’s own particular viewpoint. When we speak to the higher part of them, with and from heart and the higher part of us and build that connection, based on our willingness to listen and learn, as much as to share, we create a space where others are more willing to truly hear us out and genuinely consider our point of view too. Plus where they feel safe enough to sit through the process of inner discomfort, in letting it brush up against their own world view, and seeing where it does or doesn’t fit in. 


But I say again, the development of that space, is also actually contingent upon as being as willing to see them for the whole of who they are and their vast capacity as the Teacher that they are too (yes literally EVERYONE, and to learn too from them and respect and receive all that they’re willing to teach us too. Whether it looks and feels how we expect it to and want it to. Or that teaching takes a route that we might not have wanted, but that we realise in hindsight that we actually needed. Sometimes that route may involve the willingness to let go of needing to be sitting in the position of superiority or righteousness, in order to feel safe and in control? It might mean our egos need to eat a bit of humble pie, to let go of attachment to our achievements and statuses, or to let go of needing to achieve any particular outcome? And as it relates to our own greatness as Teachers, what gives us the audacity to think that we someone know better than them, what is the right way for them, better than they themselves might know, anyway?  Or can experience it for themselves?


The longer i’ve been in this game, as any form of human growth facilitator, whether an an Artist, or a Practitioner of some sort, the more I’ve surrendered to the fact that my job is not to teach people “the right ultimate way” of anything. So much as, beyond offering any particular set of practices or experiences, my ultimate job is to help people reconnect and come home to themselves. To remember who and what they really are, to their own truth and experiencing for themselves, directly, first hand, their truth and higher nature. And then to reconnect with the world from that pure place. Minus all the bull$h1t. 


I'm becoming like a broken record on this, but when we connect to that place, and look out to the world at interact from that place, no one would ever hurt anyone again. Because it’s damn near impossible to do harm, when you’re seeing and remembering that you and others, are both raw, pure, expressions of love, embodied in physical form, trying to experience itself and reconnect with it's endless expressions of self, in countless different ways. 


There is beauty again to be rediscovered in each and every moment of being with and experiencing that presence in others too, the joy of giving and being of service just for the sake of it. So much of the light we shine out into the world comes from how we show up in those moments and what that inspires and moves in others. Paradoxically, the harder though we try and grasp, to prove something to anyone,  or to influence making an impact, funny, sometimes the more elusive actually doing so becomes? 


Whatever you choose to be and how you choose to show up in 2024, wishing you so much, love, peace, ease, grace, many miracles and much abundance in how it comes to pass.


Until next year….

Anger has a distinct purpose as an inner communication signal, in that it’s most common job is to alert us to circumstances in which something has occurred that is way off base with our ideas of how things should work, how we, or others should conduct ourselves, and or be treated. But where we often get stuck in communicating about that thing with others, is that noticing the feeling of that initial warning bell, is only about 15% of the way along the journey to uncovering the full extent of what that warning bell is really trying to communicate, relative to what actually needs to be communicated to the other. Hence communicating based on that initial impulse, before we’ve had enough time to fully download the whole message RE what it’s really about, can end up being about as effective in getting us the outcome we really want, as trying to install and run a program on our laptop when it’s only 15% downloaded? Does that work? Unfortunately, no. 


Don’t kill me (and any readers under 18, please look away), but I thus also liken progressing straight to hasty expressions of intense bursts of emotion based on this initial alarm bell (and any consequential activation of our inner defence system) to the emotional equivalent of premature ejaculation.  Or in this case, the (made up) word that came to mind is “projaculation.” Because it involves both an often spontaneous emission of a whole lot of projected emotionally reactive energy, typically discharged AT another, often based on a need for immediate relief and catharsis. 


Just like the experience of pleasure and the deeper layers of energetic, soulful connection and the host of experiences that can also accompany the body’s experience of shared physical intimacy, the experience of anger also has layers of both physical reactivity, attachments to loving bonds and our heart (if we didn’t care, why would we be so bothered), plus insights and gifts attached to it, that lay in the depths underneath the initial indulgence of that early compulsive urge to unleash it. The message that it’s trying to share is also layered. And it’s rarely just about the thing that we are pointing our finger at. While 3 fingers commonly, remain pointing back at ourselves. 

“They did this to me!” the victim mentality screams.  
“What lead to them doing that to you?" I ask.
“They chose to do that”. 
"And?" I ask
"And what?"
"Did you also take the time at some point to fully explain to them what you needed? And your expectations? Or how the job is ideally, or optimally performed? Did you follow up to clarify and confirm that this was understood? And could therefore be enacted?"
“No.”
"Then who else are you really angry at?
“Me”
"What for?"
"For failing to ask for what I really needed earlier. For failing to do the best job I could of educating and teaching them how I/we expected them to show up."
"So you’re also really angry at?"
“Me.”
“For?”
“Also failing to honour myself and how I expect to be treated, to live up to my expectations about how I should behave and treat others, and for not doing what I really needed to do earlier”
So who do you need to have the conversation with to resolve that?
“Me.”
“Do you need to unleash the anger associated with that on the other party to get the message across?”
“They need to know that I’m upset.
But?
“They also need to know how to do something differently.  What doing better looks like.
“So…”
“I’m better off taking a moment to think through and reframe the message”
“To?”
“Reflect on what the real issue is, but also what is needed instead, to get the outcome we both want. As well as what I need."


And there you have it. Following through just one conversation with that anger as an example, if we listened to the voice of our inner anger a little longer, it had more to say. And what it had to say in full, was about to lead to a much better outcome for both parties, on the other side of the projected frustration at the other, that was also a misdirected expression of frustration at self. And us ideally, as well as them, getting our needs met too.


Conversely, if we just yelled at them based on our initial reaction, what might have happened instead, is the activation in return of the other parties defence system in response and the blocking of the willingness to give audience to our voice and needs under those circumstances. Might have.


I say this as an example, as its one of the the instances I’ve struggling with most in my life, on the expression end, and on the receiving end of others expression of frustration and anger. As a massive over-feeler of feelings, in person, it’s never subtle to others when something with me is either very right, or very wrong. But the number of conflicts I’ve had from childhood onwards, in which I was shut down and other parties refused to listen, because they could see and hear the growing frustration in my tone, and called it abuse, became too long a relational list at one point.  (And fair enough, because there were times in which I was a) progressing straight to projection of hurt, instead of owning what I’d never originally proactively communicated that I needed, and b) that the frustration was either often born of assuming that they didn’t care enough to notice or do anything about it, and therefore that I NEEDED to go too hard on the negative reinforcement aspect in volume, or in complaining, guilting and shaming to get the point across. Which you actually don’t.) 



And then there was the flip side of the coin on me being on the receiving end of others frustration and anger, in response to something I’d said and done, or their own projections and triggers. Which on many occasions from childhood onwards, I’d had the raising of legitimate concerns, turn into and end with me having my stuff thrown and broken, being group beaten and group sexually assaulted, or on other occasions, raped, or drunk beaten and kicked in my sleep, for some thing somewhere, that hadn’t been resolved earlier. I got then so used to being on the receiving end of other’s loss of control, that I went also to the other extreme of learning all the ways to manage and control in them what they couldn’t. Until I felt confident that I could moderate both their stuff if I had to AND better state manage and communicate mine. But in the process, also often stopped trusting in other’s ability to control their anger and frustration. Often at times (like so many in our culture now do) bowing out at the instance of it’s emergence, saying that I’m sorry, but I’m just not ready to deal with this again. 


When either side of either the expression of anger, or the side of resistance to expression of anger as a self defence, is not fully owned and managed though, we end up with a breakdown in the capacity to stay IN a relationship as whole humans and work through normal everyday confusions and challenges of work and personal life, well.   Because frustration and anger are a legitimate internal emotional communication signal, so it’s not realistic to expect others to NEVER feel them. Or to never have defensive responses to triggers within proximity of us, within the relationship WITH us. So we've got to find a way to get ok with the fact that humans are inevitably going to have negative feelings, triggers or defences, as a part of being human.


And getting to the next layers beyond the raw initial expression of anger, or defensive activation of triggers in relationship, involves at times, some self delay and a level of self discipline on our own part, to take the time first, to hear what our reactivity is truly trying to tell each of us IN FULL. And once we’ve got that download, to then communicate about that. 


So a part of mature connection and communication, also involves learning how to both stay in the room if another gets triggered, without making by default, their process about US and our safety. (And our sense of safety solely dependent upon their state.) As well as requires us learning how to “resolve things well.” Or in the case of those of us who’ve experienced others losing control of that anger and progressing to physical violence, learning how to be present again with the ‘normal’ range of negative human responses again, trusting in the capacity and commitment of other or future parties to own and manage them. Without us needing to erupt, or to shut them down prematurely, for our own perceived safety. 


Which, put into practice, at the initial signs of someone becoming triggered, might sound like acknowledging that "you see that they’re upset and you absolutely care about what they need and about resolving this. You want to understand what’s going on and how to be here for them/show up/love/care for them better/do better in this role that you’re in. But you also don’t need to have them punish, guilt and shame you in order for you to understand. As you already feel regretful that this hasn’t gone well and people have got hurt. But what you need to understand here is what do they need instead? So talk to me.... how can I give you what you need in this situation? What do you need from me here? How can I help?"


Instead of anybody shutting anybody down, this involves staying in the room with each other while either is angry or defensively triggered, but giving them time and space and the safety to go beyond communication “projaculation” so that they can listen to it and to hear what their anger is really trying to tell them. And then to still be there to have the dialogue about what comes next on the other side of that. The first few times, because projecting and defending are often such unconscious, on autopilot reactions, it might take a bit of loving boundary setting to name, lovingly, what we're witnessing is going on. 


But in emotional maturity and fighting well alike, there has got to be a commitment on BOTH sides, by each party, to owning their anger, and asking for the time and room to do a healthy process with the energy of it, within the relationship. Taking ownership of containing “the fire”, and doing anything with it, BUT what so often happens, in people using it to arm our words back to the other as weaponry. Bullets loaded full of blame, of accusation, of frustration, of score keeping and bringing back up past occurrences, of character attack, or weaponising vulnerable things the other shared against them.  


That might well be some breathing, some movement, asking for a minute and cutting a lap of the house/floor/the space and then returning, but at least some visualisation, to do something to flow the energy of it out of us.  Even if it’s us feeling, but then visualising chucking that energy at the sun, before then calling in the energy of peace, love, calmness and calling back the energy into us of the higher soulful version of us, who has some much more constructive responses to offer. And calling back in the energy of trust and (as with last week) whatever “support” and energy we need to re-embody our highest expression and be a vehicle for achieving the best possible outcomes, with and for each other.



Whatever “thing” we do with it, we're then embracing our responsibility to be a protector and guardian of the shared space between us, even and especially when it means doing something to protect the other from the volatility of ourselves.  Asking for the time to calm our system down long enough, to then give us room to listen to what our insides have to say. To use the power of insight to get the download on what is really going on. Once we’ve determined what the highest version of us (who’s playing for the team WE, not just team ME) has to say about the situation, then we communicate that back to the other. If at first, one party needs to withdraw within for a bit to get it, so be it, we need to learn to be patient with that, as a part of deescalating our inner defence systems, from DEFCON 2 (imminent nuclear war), back down to 5 (conflict's equivalent of 'rest and digest' mode.) Understanding that it’s harder to get the higher insight to download, when survival brain in running the show and we’re overcome with a cloud of feelings associated with the trigger. 



We would ideally then come back to each other with the insight about what is really needed, to grow the relationship, or get the job done well (depending on the personal or professional context.) And then work through the details of the HOW of that. Does that make some degree of sense?



Lord knows the world could use a little less premature projaculation right now, and use a little more premature self responsibility AND spontaneous emission of literally ANYTHING else from the heart. Just as each of our relationships could too. 'Just sayin.’


With love, until next time...