To start I would like to acknowledge that this post has been beautiful and profoundly inspired by
7 – How Many Days Can Be Extraordinary” by Dan Zadra and Kobi Yamada! Furthermore I would like to honour the creator of the image above, whomever you are :)

How old are you?

• A new born babe (in which case, congrats on your prodigious ability to read)
• A 26 year old….or maybe
• A 54 year old?

If you are not these ages exactly, pick the closest…it will all make sense in the end J

30,000 mornings, 30,000 sunrises that herald another day of opportunity for you. Why 30,000 you ask? Well because 30,000 mornings is the average number that a person will see in their lifetime.

If you are 26, you likely still have about 20,000 mornings to get up and get doing.

If you are 54 years young, you still have an average 10,000 sunrises to bring a sparkle to your eye and put a spring in your step.

Just to clarify I am not writing this post to put more pressure on your, or depress you! I am actually writing it to give you the opportunity to step back into awareness about whether you are living, or dying. About whether you are spending these precious mornings the way you really want to?

When working through Dan and Kobi’s rather fantastic little awareness exercise of a book, just after finishing up yet another hectic semester of study I realised that for weeks I was doing the zombie thing. I had no awareness of my surroundings, my much loved sunsets, my family, friends or myself. I was turning into a zombie, I was a zombie.

Now I can hear you saying, but sometimes life’s just too busy, you ‘can’t’ always stop and smell the roses.

To that I ask this;

You get this one moment, that’s it – nothing more is guaranteed; are you really going to deny yourself the pleasure of one minute enjoying the sunrise, those infamous roses or a hug from the people that make your heart sing?

Neither option is impossible and neither is wrong, it’s not about right and wrong, it’s ALL possible – you just need to choose the life you want to be living and be in action to make it happen!

Now, go find yourself a sunrise to be happy about, or a sunset to be grateful for – let these two daily events start and finish your days with an open, inspired, grateful mind & heart.

How many more times will you see a full moon?

Love & Peace,

Ally

and I would like to start by acknowledging my absence, I have now finished uni for this semester and all is returning to equilibrium!

To celebrate…my next post - in a few minutes… 30,000 Mornings

Enjoy!

Love & Peace

Ally

Would you be starting on you plans to picket my house and drive me off the net & out of town or would you be the one knocking on my door right now…just kidding.

OR

Are you sitting there thinking ok, keep writing, I’m not convinced, I am however willing to entertain the conversation.

If you’re in the first category then continue reading, or not…it’s up to you! This is my view, its challenge and it’s not right for everyone right now. If you’re in the second category, consider the following statements;

Without your health you impair/lose your body, without your body – you die! Simple.

You are what you eat!

You choose what your reaction is in every single situation! (Even those one’s that have you convinced you are not at fault but the world is definitely going down for this one!)

The first statement is hard to argue with and its pretty freaking obvious, well at least I think so! The second one is also pretty obvious – if you fill you unleaded petrol car with cod-liver oil is it going to work like a V8 Supercar? Probably not! Likewise if you are eating fake, pretend, 10 x removed, plastic, microwaved food that is available on mass and tastes the same everywhere on the planet – what do you HONESTLY think is going on inside?

Bush mechanic’s use a certain popular brown/black soft drink to clean a dirty car engine because it’s cheap and effective. You can clean a dirty coin in it AND you can totally dissolve a human tooth in it?

Now I am going to bet that you’re not about to take your Rum with Draino so what makes this popular nutritionally corrupt (and it’s not the only one) drink an exception to that rule.

Is it the chemically enhanced flavouring that tricks your brain into believing its delish or is it the fact that its destruction of your inside is a lot subtler and slower than the old Draino?

If you think about all this then answer for me this one question – answer it aloud, tell a friend, whatever!

“Why are you letting these nutritionally devoid products pass your lips at all, let alone as regularly as our society seems to consume them?”

Obesity, diabetes, depression, poor skin health, addiction, organ failure/toxicity & cancer – all these conditions are affected by the quality or lack-there-off of your diet? The same for the amount of exercise you do and the way you honour yourself and your mental health.

My food addictions are many but the kickers are coffee, chocolate and salty over processed rubbish. I have grown up with it and believe me I know how hard it can be to kick this stuff if you don’t have a good why…but more about that another time.

Sure it’s fine to ‘blame’ your upbringing, your parents/guardians, your experience, your trauma’s, the media, the community you live in or the people you idolise. That’s actually going to do you no favours…you’re handing your power to change to another person who may not realise it and/or doesn’t care (worst case they might keep trying to hurt you for their benefit), second – You. Are. Responsible. You choose how to budget your time, you choose who and what you listen to, what you purchase and what passes your lips – no body is there at your dinner table forcing this crap down your throat and pinching your nose till you swallow it! Nobody!

You CHOOSE it!

You PURCHASE it!

You EAT it!

See how you are the only person in this process…that’s because NO-ONE else is involved, at every stop you have a choice – to listen, or not! to buy, or not! to eat, or not! You CHOOSE busy-ness, you CHOOSE to watch TV/Ads/promotions, you CHOOSE to attend the establishments, you CHOOSE to order and you CHOOSE to eat!

That’s it…simple – it’s your commitment to the action, that’s the complex bit – figure that out the rest is a matter of process guided by the light of your commitment to yourself.

Bringing it back to responsibility as I sum up – if at every point it is your choice then it goes without saying that the results you create with you choice – are you responsibility. Owning your responsibility requires humility, openness, open-mindedness, gratitude and strength.

It’s a choice.

It’s a journey.

It’s worth it.

Give it a try and see what happens you might just enjoy the freedom.

Peace and Love x

Ally

Yesterday I was given a two week challenge by some very important people in my life, and it is a very important challenge, but first – some context.

Lately I have been experiencing a bout of stuff (thoughts, experiences, memories and beliefs) from my past muddy my current day experience, I have been getting angry, sad, depressed (yes there is a difference), I have felt like I was losing control, of my life and my experience of it. I was panicky, anxious and not a whole lot of fun to be around to be honest. Over the last couple of weeks I have also been feeling pretty unwell, generally tired and crappy with a bit of nausea and shakiness/weakness thrown in for good measure. I felt pretty much like a ticking time bomb that was ready to explode!

I went to visit a friend of mine who helps me to balance my chakra’s and sort out my energy when I on a regular basis – energy work is a form of alternative healing that works for me. After my session I was given the 2 week challenge mentioned above.

The challenge went a little like this:

“For 2 weeks, I have to completely abstain from any new, social media or conversation that is political or negative, in anyway what-so-ever; as well as abstaining from non-inspiring or just negative social media & any gossip or negative conversation. When I do end up in one of those situations I have to smile and say ‘it will all work out’.”

Now those of you that know me, would have read that and possibly had a similar reaction to me, something along the lines of ‘how on earth is Alison going to do that!’ Am I right?

My reaction certainly wasn’t far from that, I listen to 612ABC in the morning – politics, opinionated and – despite my love of the program – it’s not positive. I LOVE nothing more than a heady debate or conversation on politics – at the moment it is difficult to sustain a positive conversation around that. I engage in my fair share of gossip even when it’s just listen – and I’m not proud of it. I am also all for a thrilling crime-scene drama or a news program. Last but not least, whilst my news feed on Facebook is actually very inspiring and positive I am also heavily interested in the political sphere and I need to abstain for 2 whole weeks. At first I was a little overwhelmed though in my gut I knew this was important. I was being totally overwhelmed in my life and to deal with that, for reasons unknown (and known) I was surrounding myself with even more negativity and depressing information and problems that won’t go away overnight.

It was almost like I had been told I have the flu and need to rest so instead I decided to run around in an air-conditioned room full of people with the flu and other contagious bugs. I thought I’d feel at home, instead I was just creating a mountain out of a mole hill and ignoring what I needed right now.

So, how am I going with it?

Well reasonably good so far, my intention is definitely there, I spent all afternoon laughing at a funny TV Show, I made some rag rug coasters, I spent a lovely lunch at my parents’ house – my folks did a spectacular job of the spread! I had a sleep in this morning and I went and helped out a mate of mine. Yesterday went pretty well too. I am choosing to spend some more time outside as well, which I know will help too being that the worst of the blockage is in my root chakra which is related to my connection to earth.

This two weeks might not end up being sunshine and roses – it just won’t involve me trying to clean my internal house by metaphorically eating dirt.

Pretty logical, maybe not so easy and I have it on good authority it will be 100% worth it!

So today, I decided I wanted to head down totally self justified, righteous angry road. If I am honest, I am still on the road as I write this.

First of all I want to clarify a few assumptions/statements I have made so far!

1. yes, ‘totally justified self righteous anger’ is actually fear - at its base level - its fear plain and simple. When you get angry at someone/something next time, ask yourself, what is my fear in this situation?

2. Ummmmmm is because I don’t have an answer, I have some idea’s and thoughts that I am trying, and you are welcome to try. Some will work, other’s will not - maybe none of them will & then you are going to have to find that answer completely independently - the point of life is that we constantly go deeper into the problem in the search of understanding and resolution - and then when we do, we uncover the next layer of our human onion….its a process, stop resisting, get over your perceived injustices around the challenge and start enjoying the process!

3. ‘I decided I wan..’ decided I did, it wasn’t my partners fault for making me rush to get to work, it wasn’t somebody else’s fault I went to bed late, or that I slept in! I stopped at the start of the self destructive path (for a micro-second) and asked myself what I was doing and whether it was really going to do me any favours? It wasn’t but instead I stubbornly proceeded down that path…so yes, I decided!

My reflection as I have travelled down that path and started to slow down and think about what I am really doing is that this was actually an opportunity to replace my negativity and resistance with love, pure, simple, honest LOVE. That is when the second round of resistance hit - when I started listening to all the ‘well-founded’ justifications for why I had ended up in such a shitty place.

This is where I am at now, I am jumping between the victim paddock and the empowered responsible paddock. I know what will serve me, I know what will support me and I know what I, and others around me, will get more enjoyment out of. The hurdle is letting go of my fear long enough to experience all of these positive ‘side-effects’.

Right now I am using, music, university (distraction), reflection and conversations with trusted people to help me spend more time in the empowered/responsible paddock until I feel comfortable sitting there by myself.

So the question I leave you will today is this; where in your life are you ‘sitting in your shit’, where in your life are you choosing fear, where in your life are you sitting in the victim paddock?

AND (if your really courageous)

‘What are you going to do, to move next door into the empowered/responsible paddock - a place where you and those around you are having fun in life’s journey?

Peace & Love,

Ally