Breathe Connect Create

🐒My mind is a monkey 🐒
Thoughts in, thoughts out
Chattering endlessly
Demanding bananas 🍌
Never satisfied.
Following me around, always vying for my attention.
Needy fu***ng monkey.

The more it talks, the more I talk back, saying "you're wrong", "you're right" and trying to make sense of it all.

But I don't speak monkey. So I can't. I can't make sense of any of it. And I'm smart. I have a big human brain and it holds lots of information and lots of answers to lots of problems - but I have no answers at all to the problems my monkey keeps throwing at me as if it were flinging over-ripe berries to the ground, from the high above branches of a tree, trying to hit me as I walk below. 🌴

And so it flings and flings and I keep getting smashed berries in my face and it kinda hurts. I'm just trying to walk through the jungle! I don't want to cause any harm.

So here I am walking around with berry juice all over my face and in my hair and it's getting sticky and I'm getting annoyed and I start screaming at the monkey to stop and I try to bribe her with bananas. "I will give you all the bananas in the world if you will just leave me alone!" 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌

And she just laughs because she knows I can't possibly get my hands on ALL the bananas and, even if I could, she STILL wouldn't stop. Because she's a monkey. And she can do whatever the f**k she wants. And it's kind of her job to demand bananas and fling berries and cause a cheeky ruckus.

So if I want to walk in the jungle, and the monkey will follow me wherever I go, with her endless supply of berries and her ongoing demands for bananas then what hope do I have? The monkey refuses to stop.

So I stop. ✋️

And I look up at the monkey and I realise she's not throwing berries all the time. She throws, picks another, throws, picks another. There's a space between her picking and her throwing where I am walking in the beautiful jungle, with no berries catapaulting towards my face.

In that moment I breathe. I take one step towards wherever I'm walking. Then I feel a berry on the back of my head. Squish.

Hello berry. Then, silence. I take two more steps. Squish.

Oh yes berry, I've been expecting you. Silence. I take another step, this time I turn around and pull a face at the monkey. Berry in the face. The monkey laughs.

I wipe the juice from my cheek. I taste it. It's a little bit tart but palatable. Thanks monkey.

Berry in the chest. I wipe the juice from my sternum. I taste it. This one is sweet. I start to laugh.

I take my hat off. The monkey throws a berry. I catch it in my hat. The monkey throws another. I catch it in my hat. I do some tasting. 🎩

I learn which berries are tart. I learn which berries are sweet. I learn which berries are rotten. I throw those ones on the jungle floor. I keep walking, keeping one eye on the monkey, one eye on the path, catching the berries in my hat.

This is the power of the space between. 🙏🏻

For a few years I've been wanting to start a blog where I share thoughts, info & stories on living a mindful, connected, creative life. And today I did!

So the first post is up at my new blog site BreatheConnectCreate, excerpt below, all about cultivating a higher love. Happy Monday y'all

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Here's what I've noticed in myself.

The more I focus on being loved by someone else (romantic or otherwise), the less I love myself. The less I love myself, the less I show up for my life. The less I show up for my life, the less my life shows up for me.

And here’s what else I’ve noticed.

The more I focus on giving love to everyone I interact with, the more I love myself. The more I love myself, the more I show up for my life. The more I show up for my life, the more my life shows up for me.

The only difference between the two is that I’m not trying to be loved. I’m trying to BE LOVE.

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