... ritual cleanse ...

Recently my computer system has been gurgling and grumbling like a clogged cistern. It was time for some serious maintenance, rendering it impossible to use for the whole day ... it really is a task that I should have performed a while ago at the first signs of discomfort, but as we often do in busy schedules, we plough on through wishing upon wishes, and crossing our fingers that nothing will break down.

I had actually underestimated the time it would take to transfer some 50,000 image files. If anyone is interested it doesn't take an hour or so!

On a personal front, I will be the first to admit that housework is not my primarily forte. Over recent months as I have come to terms with flying solo, I have put into place a few systems to keep everything as low maintenance as possible. When I am being very creative or absorbed by a project, I am quite comfortable living in a state of chaos, but there are downsides. I used to lose things often, things that I needed urgently, and spend more time looking for things than probably the time I needed them for. This would cause me considerable stress and feed into my insecurities. Interestingly, if anyone asked me if I had some random object, I would be able to quickly find it for them - even if I had not seen the object for months or even years. A curious presentation of "I can do it for others, just not for myself".

End of last year, I realised that "losing things" was really one way in which I was sabotaging myself. I was feeling inadequate and hopeless, and losing things "proved" that I was. The realisation was so distressing that it was this behaviour that motivated me to sign up to a couple of courses earlier this year to understand why I was so persistent in engaging in these kind of behaviours.

As my stress levels have eased, I find that I now tend not to lose things. As of last count there are only three things that I have absolutely no idea where they have disappeared in the last couple of months. In the past, losing only three things in a day was a good day! As we de-stress, our mind does become clearer. It is easier for us to maintain the systems we put in place to create order in our lives which leads to even greater feelings of no stress, calm and sense of balance.

Some of my followers have probably already realised that I am just as interested in metaphysical matters as I am in the physical. I see one as the reflection of the other. Keeping a more ordered physical space (between the bursts of beautiful creative chaos) and cleansing the energy within that physical space are becoming increasing important to me. From a business perspective, this plays out in various rituals that I now see myself performing while preparing for each assignment - particularly in the studio. I am very conscious how closely welded are my personal and business life ... I run the business from home ... although I spend a reasonable amount of time on customer site, my home is also my work space subject to visit by clients. To get to the studio, customers do have to physically enter and walk through my personal living space. I am also very conscious that to keep some sense of balance between public and private, work and personal, that I have to create physically or symbolically a separation between the two.

There is one small ritual that I now do before every client visit. Before the arrival of an outsider, I burn a stick on incense to cleanse the energy in my home, and light a candle in the studio. While doing this, I am symbolically cleansing any personal negative or emotionally charged energy that I may have inside or around me that will detract from my ability to pay attention to my client; and secondly I mentally form a clear intention in my mind to bring energised focus to the photoshoot. Maybe it is mind over matter, but I am finding that the photoshoots flow with greater ease.

The act of cleaning reminds me of a vivid memory of when at 16, I was living in Sri Lanka as an exchange student. At the beginning of that year I was living with a family in Kalutara in Sri Lanka. Each morning I would wake to the sound of sweeping. Across the road was a small community of thatched shacks. Most of the huts did not have walls. The people who lived there were very poor. Yet every morning there was a wizened elderly lady who would sweep the ground with such serenity on her face, there was pride and purpose in her work as she would sweep patterns into the hardened earth. If we bring mindfulness to our cleaning and cleansing we give ourselves an opportunity to allow the turmoil in our inner lives to settle while we allow the chaos and turmoils in our outer lives and environment to ease into calmness. In doing so we honour ourselves and the space we inhabit.

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Flying Solo Tip 037365 : With mindfulness, the most humble tasks become the most noble.

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... just words ...

Last night my son and I had an interesting conversation about language, and how it changes over time and how the meaning of words evolve and morph with each generation. He loves to teach me the words of his generation ... mainly I think for the reaction that he gets from me. In many ways he speaks a different language. There are words he uses that I use, but the meaning is different. Sometimes those subtle differences lead to confusion or misunderstanding.

I asked him if he had heard about the guy that was trying to ban the use of the word guys when referring to a group of people of mixed gender because the use of the word was offensive and discriminatory to some people. I couldn't remember the name of the person and it had received some media attention here for about a nanosecond. So of course we googled it. (Don't you love the word googled ... a relatively new word in the English language). His name is David Morrison and is actually this year's Australian of the year. Debates around the use of certain words is not a new one, but Morrison's championing of this cause does make me wonder if sometimes we have gone too far with political correctness, and that by being oversensitive we are actually creating even finer divisions rather than learning how to broaden our respect and tolerance.

Words are just words, yet they can certainly get us into a lot of hot water, or inspire us to greatness. Sometimes words have two or more meanings and can easily create confusion. Some words are purely made up - pharmaceutical, food, beauty product and technology industries are classic at creating new words to create a demand for certain products. Some words lay dormant for years before they are accepted into the mainstream for example last night I was educated on the origins of the word "meme". I thought it was a recent word, but last night my son set the record straight and advised me that the word was coined by Richard Dawkins back in the 1970's in a book called "The Selfish Gene". It surprised me that, that word is nearly as old as me!

One of the saddest rhymes I think we teach children is "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me". The truth is that words can hurt. Over recent years there have been many international campaigns bringing awareness to the emotional scars that verbal abuse can cause such as the "Killing Me Softly with his Words" poster campaign (Ireland 2014), "Weapons of Choice" photography campaign (United States 2014), "Hitting with Words" campaign (Singapore 2008) and one of the most powerful I think is the HBC/MTV against verbal domestic violence (2008).

The emotional scars from verbal abuse can in some cases last a life time with serious ramifications. Children are most vulnerable, but even as adults we can find ourselves in verbally abusive situations in our workplace, in our social or home environments. Adults are not immune from the hurt and psychological trauma that words can cause.

There has been a period in my life when I lived in an environment of verbal abuse. No matter how resilient we are, and no matter how determined we are not to try and let the situation affect us, no matter how much we try to understand and how often we forgive when cycles of abuse and remorse repeat themselves in every increasingly vicious cycles, your emotional, physical and mental wellbeing are at risk. Words used in verbal abuse easily find companionship with our insecurities, fears and concerns - they form a symbiotic relationship and feed off each other. Every cycle of abuse makes it more difficult to leave. In my situation, I truly lost sight of who I was, and what I stood for. After every encounter of verbal abuse, I felt as though another small part of me had been stolen away. At one level I rationally knew that I did not deserve this treatment, my heart was hurting and confused, it was hard to reconcile the private words of pain with the public expressions of love, and as the confusion and hurt grew, in my head I doubted myself ... maybe I was to blame, maybe I was at fault, maybe in some way ... I do deserve this. Like many others who experience similar situations, I kept silent. I became complicit in the cycle. There is a phrase, "The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept". To challenge the situation was the feeling of standing in a minefield, never knowing what was the next thing that was going to set off the explosions. Towards the end it seemed inevitable that I was going to implode and they were going to explode and probably not with just words.

It takes time to heal from verbal abuse, even after we have extracted ourselves from the situation. Some of the healing has to do with reconciling the behaviours of the perpetrator, reconciling our own behaviours as the victim, but most of the healing has to come from inside and disassociating the words of abuse from our perceptions of ourselves. It is a matter of re-wiring our brains to stop the patterns of thinking that verbal abuse creates in our perceptions, filters and meaning we give to the world around us. When we have an off day or things aren't going so great, we have to be vigilant so that the poison of abuse does not echo in our minds, and that we do not enter sans perpetrator in the cycle of thinking, feeling and behaviour that we experienced while being in the abusive situation.

There are some words that are powerfully negative and cause considerable offence and are particularly painful when used in a derogatory or abusive manner. There is one word that is used in reference to women, and I am not talking about Aunt, which probably has the greatest infamy. Some women are so offended by the word, they cannot even verbalise it. Many years ago, when travelling through the States I bought a book with this single title. It discusses the ancient origins of this word from India, China, Ireland, Rome and Egypt and these words were titles of respect for women and priestesses to the position it holds today in our lexicon. When I was asked to empty my bag at one of the airport security checks, out spilled the book, title blaring. Those who passed by were curious as to why my bag was being searched and would peer to look at all my belongings strewn over the counter. I knew which ones had seen the title because they all literally took a step away from me ... I had become a dangerous or at least suspect criminal!

But Aunt is just a word. The word in itself has no power, but the meaning we give to it, and the context in which it is used brings it power. Like any other word, that power is enhanced or sharpened to either hurt or heal us depending on our own perceptual filters and experiences with the word. Emotional attachment to the word brings to it considerable power. To strip words, or the echo of words of their power on our thinking, feeling and being, we can educate ourselves on the origins of the word and attach a richer and more than likely diverse meanings to the word; we have to understand the contextual situation in which the word is being used; we have to understand how our perceptual filters are influencing how the word affects us and finally we have to detach emotion from the word. It is possible to neutralise the impact of words. It is important to remember that in our own individuality there is no single word or small group of words that is sufficient to describe who we are. No other person is able to describe us so two-dimensionally either.

There is a great exercise where you write down at least 150 positive words that describe you in a positive way. The key here is not to abandon the exercise, when when it feels as though you are running out of words and haven't met the minimum quota. Even if you are not 100% sure if that positive word applies to you, write it down. If you have to, make up words. After all they are only sounds clumped together. Words are just words.

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Flying Solo Tip 036365 : Bottom line, there is no excuse for verbal abuse.

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screen time down time

After three full days of editing images, my eyes are tired. Working on computers all day can cause eye strain. As technology advances, screens have also encroached into our night as well. It is now fairly common knowledge that looking at screens with backlit lights (such as computers and smartphones) at night can affect the quality of our sleep. There have been numerous studies that show that the production of melatonin is suppressed as a direct result of exposure to the blue light waves emitted from screen technology.

Melatonin is a hormone that is produced by the pineal gland in the brain. Melatonin levels vary cyclically and are controlled by our body clock. During the day time, our melatonin levels are almost non existent. However at night, the levels increase and helps to establish the conditions for sleep. Our core body temperature also goes down at this time.

Quality sleep is essential for well being. Personally, it is an area of health that I have tended to disregard but with my commitment now being well, I need to consider the ramifications more seriously. I tend to sleep little, but when fatigue set in I crash big time. In the past, I have often wondered how much my "unnatural" patterns of wakefulness and sleep contributed to my onset of MS.

Today I came across this interesting article which discusses the harm that we can cause ourselves by disrupting our natural production of melatonin. The reality is that few of us can readily extract ourselves from screen interaction at night - be it work driven or an obsession with our phones and lap tops. There are some simple solutions including wearing amber coloured glasses at night when doing screen work. These glasses block the blue light waves and allows for the natural production of melatonin. I am now considering buying myself some of these glasses to test the claims.

During the day time, light is essential to improve our wakefulness. Getting ourselves some sunshine exposure in the mornings, not only helps with getting our required dosage of Vitamin D, but also the natural sunlight (which contains a lot of blue lightwaves), prepared the body for the day ahead. I am sure you know the feeling of waking up to gorgeous sunshine streaming through the window - we get a natural burst of happiness.

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Flying Solo Tip 035365 : Seek simple solutions.

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