What makes someone an inspiration? And is it really fair to call them that?

Has anyone else noticed how often the word ‘inspirational’ is used these days? On the TV show The Voice recently a contestant was described as an inspiration  – which he absolutely was – so many times that it started to sound a little trite. It got me thinking – what actually makes someone inspiring? And if that description is based on someone’s physical disability, as it was in this case, is that label helpful?  I have a very personal reason to be cautious about my use of the word ‘inspiration’.

But let me backtrack.

I know a lot of my readers are overseas, so I’ll explain first up that The Voice is number one in Australia’s ratings every night it airs, so please forgive me for this reality TV reference – everybody is talking about this show. A few weeks back, a wonderful man called Tim moved us all with his soaring, angelic (and I do not use that descriptor lightly) rendition of Nessun Dorma. But although the coaches did speak highly of his vocal prowess, what dominated their appraisals on that night and on his two subsequent performances was the word ‘inspirational’. You see, Tim is in a wheelchair, paralysed from the chest down. This means he cannot feel his diaphragm – a muscle singers need to control in order to perfect their sound. This truly makes him inspirational because he refused to give up on his dream of singing, and displayed remarkable tenacity to find a way to attain such vocal purity.

But here’s where I had an issue (and yes, I know I’m focusing on the wrong thing) – it felt like he didn't get the same treatment as other contestants. I can certainly understand why the coaches focused on his remarkable story initially, but as he progressed in the competition they didn’t give him anything constructive to work on, or spur him on to greater things as they did for other contestants (although I realise this may be due to TV editing). I can’t speak for Tim but I did wonder whether he might have preferred that his voice be judged on its own merit, as it was for the able-bodied contestants. He did comment that he was proud to have the opportunity to inspire people to pursue their dreams no matter what obstacles they face, so it’s clear that he was happy to be seen as inspirational. This is only my opinion, but I think he deserved to be portrayed on the show as a talented singer, not a singer in a wheelchair. I say this because many disabled people yearn for people to see beyond their disability. Their deepest desire is to be accepted for what they are (talented, valuable) rather than what they are not (able bodied).

My sister is disabled. Her physical challenges are complicated and largely diagnosable but to give you a very broad overview, she has skeletal deformities which have given her a noticeable hunchback and impaired her lung function. With just 17 per cent lung capacity she is constantly short of breath, can’t walk far (she has a wheelchair for long distances) and is chronically low on energy.  If you should ever meet her – you should; she’s rad! – I would strongly suggest you never tell her inspires you. She will get very, very cross with you.

And this is why. Although she deals with challenges that most of us do not, she does not see herself as lacking in any way. She does not wake up every morning and decide to be heroic, she simply gets up and gets on with her day, the same as you and I do. She is not a battler, not a role model, and not special. Like all of us, she is simply playing the hand she’s been dealt. As she puts it: “I am not an inspiration, I am just living my life.”

As a society we have been known to put the disabled on a pedestal instead of treating them as equals, and there’s something inherently patronising about that. A random older lady once told my sister: “It’s lovely to see you people out and about.” This makes my blood boil. Firstly, anyone who uses the phrase ‘you people’ to isolate a group of humans can fuck off back to Judgment Town. Secondly, anyone who derives personal satisfaction from bearing witness to my sister's grocery purchases is clearly living a very small life.

I love my sister with a fierceness that I had not known possible before her arrival, and I deeply admire her for her buoyant spirit, her emotional resilience, her commitment to fighting for social justice and her beautiful heart, among countless other things. But she is not an inspiration to me. Saddling her with the label ‘inspirational’ would highlight the ways she is different from me instead of giving her the space to simply be herself. No one should be defined by their weight, skin colour or any other element concerning their physical body. The body, after all, is just a home that your soul lives in.

We all want to be loved and accepted for who we are. And we all absolutely deserve that.

Maybe, instead of looking to other people for inspiration, we should be our own heroes. That’s what an inspiration is, right? It’s someone who motivates you to be better than you are today. Maybe you could go ahead and just be that person yourself. Pretty radical, hey?  

Even if it's cold outside, you can make your own sunshine

Yes, it’s very cold. It’s winter; that happens. (Apologies to my northern hemisphere readers – I’ll direct you back to this post in December.) Since it’s harder to fall in love with life when the days are grey and your fingers are blue, I thought I’d share some of the ways I like to warm myself up. Not physically – I’d like to think you have your heating sitch sorted (if not, call your dad; I can’t help you) – but from within. Basing your happiness levels on what’s happening outdoors is a risky play, but bringing pockets of joy into your own world no matter what the temperature is a pretty good foundation. It starts with the little things, and gratitude and joy flow from there. Even if it’s summer where you are, seeking out ways to break up the ‘work/eat/sleep/rinse and repeat’ routine can give you a fresh lease on life.

Here are some of my favourite winter warmers:

·         Cheese and crackers on the floor – just for yourself. I love doing this on a Friday night… putting on a DVD and sitting on the floor with a doona (non-Aussie friends: that’s a quilt). If I had enough clean sheets, I’d be making a fort. (Play is not just for children, you know.)

·         Buying new music. Music has the ability to take you someplace else. You can never have too much of it in your life. Get downloading (legally, obvs).

·         Wearing sexy undies under trackpants. Because, in case no one has told you this lately, you are really hot. Don’t forget that.

·         Rearrange the furniture in your room or your house. Make a wall montage by printing off a bunch of rad pictures from Pinterest, and interspersing them with snaps of your favourite people. If this isn’t a good reminder of what matters in life, I don’t know what is.

·         Drink new herbal teas. Never, ever underestimate the power of tea. I call it a hug in a mug, for good reason.

·         Candles. Burning a fragrant candle can completely change the energy of your house = instant mood lift. Remember to buy only soy or beeswax candles though – paraffin is toxic.

·         Book a holiday, and start planning it. Sometimes having something to look forward to is all it takes to break up a sense of routine.

·         Buy a luxe lifestyle magazine. Then sit and read it, from cover to cover. You guys remember what magazines are, right? I hope so.

·         Start a happiness jar, like Liz Gilbert. She swears by it.

·         Movement – in any form. Dance around your house. Go to a dance class. Go for a run. Getting your body moving will lift your endorphins.

Got any suggestions? Post to my Facebook page or my Instagram post. 

All about that base! How your attitudes to money and your parents affect your emotional health

If you’ve done yoga, meditation, reiki, kinesiology or acupuncture, you’ll likely have heard a bit about chakras. Having a bit of extra knowledge about their function can really help you identify where you might be hitting emotional blocks in your life. 

Chakras are located in the energy field just outside your physical body and are the avenues through which your life force (chi, prana etc) flows. Or not, as the case may be.

The first major one is the base chakra, known to some as the root chakra. It’s concerned with our material needs (money, food and shelter), our family, our safety and our connection with our bodies. So people who have an imbalance of energy in this chakra might struggle attracting and keeping money, could be materialistic and struggle to sit still (ie unable to stay grounded).

This chakra is located near the base of your spine and because  it is the first energy centre in the body to develop (up until one year of age), it is heavily influenced by your parents. People who had one or both parents absent in their lives, or whose parents had a volatile relationship, often end up with a base chakra imbalance because that affected how they shaped their concepts of belonging and safety. 

This chakra is also influenced by your parents’ attitudes. If your parents constantly complained about a lack of money you may grow up to be overly fearful about ending up in poverty – or even resigned to it as a fait accompli (the attitude of ‘people like us will never have enough money’). Equally, if your mother was constantly worried about all the myriad things that could go wrong in the world, you may have absorbed that energy in the base chakra (because it’s all about safety).

Just to make it clear, this doesn’t mean that your parents are responsible for your lot in life. Even though you may have taken on their beliefs or been influenced by your upbringing on an unconscious level, you’re not destined to follow your parents’ example – you determine your own path. Your choices are your own. However if a belief has taken hold at a young age it may have created an energy block without your awareness, and energy healing can be a helpful way to shift it.

(Image: the base chakra symbol)

The base chakra is also associated with belonging and how you fit in to the world. If you are not at peace with where you came from – particularly if you are disconnected from your ancestry or ethnic make-up in ways that make you feel lost – that will manifest in the base chakra.

People who have a deficient energy flow in the base chakra often have some of these characteristics:

·        Poor attention span

·        Difficulty sitting still  (the overachiever, who never feels like they have enough or are enough)

·        Refusal to listen to their body (particularly in messages about nutrition and rest)

·        Exaggerated fears about their safety

·        Chronically disorganised lives

·        Lack of boundaries

·        Perennial financial struggles (they can never ‘catch a break’; whenever they come into money they lose it somehow)

Some of the qualities of people who have excessive energy in the base chakra include:

·        Hoarding

·        Obese

·        Obsessed with material items, and constantly upgrading cars, electronic gadgets (FYI there is nothing wrong with enjoying objects, but attaching your value to your material possessions is problematic)

·        Fearful of change

·        Rigid ideas about how the world ‘should’ be

To rebalance your base chakra, here are some ways you can ground yourself and find balance:

·        Spending lots of time in nature

·        Learning how to be still regularly (meditation and yoga are helpful)

·        Addressing your attitudes towards money – remember that it’s great to ask the Universe for more money, but the pursuit of it as a means to happiness is flawed

·        Practising acceptance and learning to let go

·        Using regular affirmations to assure your subconscious that you are safe, you have everything you need, you belong and you are enough.

So there it is – all about that base.

If you’d like to work with me to heal any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about how I work is available here.  

In praise of writing. How to make every moment count

If you’ve read my weekly Tuesday lists, you’ll know that I am a big advocate for using writing to acknowledge and celebrate what’s going on my world. Last week I used a similar approach to tackling a feeling of flatness and general life dissatisfaction. Instead of writing about external elements, as I do on Tuesdays, I sat and wrote down all the ways that I'm a more connected, more resilient, gentler and generally more likeable person than I was a year ago. I did this because I believe, as Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner declares, that “if you can write, you can change your life”.

At the end of this experience, I felt like my compass had returned to true north. Like I had twisted the end of a kaleidoscope (kids, ask your parents) and was suddenly dazzled by captivating colours and patterns. Colours and patterns which had, of course, been there all along. But I had not seen them because I was too preoccupied by the darkness. I was looking at the hole instead of the doughnut.

Even if your washing hamper is overflowing and your fridge contains only expired mustard and a mutated chilli*, you have much to be proud of. You are doing better at life than you realise. You are succeeding in ways that you likely do not recognise. You are learning more about yourself and your place in the world. You are contributing to the lives of strangers and acquaintances in ways that you will never fully understand. You are making choices to expand yourself and your world, and, ideally, learning from them. You are caring for yourself and the people around you – and this is no small thing. This is the biggest thing of all. This is what we are here to do.

Writing is how we can bear witness to that growth and also account for the actions that might be taking us far away from the people we want to grow into. It’s through the act of recording our experiences that we recognise that at any given moment, there is always more right than there is wrong. It’s how we hit the pause button on a world that seems to spin faster every year. It’s how we celebrate all that we are and all that we have. It’s how we can make the little moments count.

In a letter to her younger self, Cheryl Strayed – aka my spirit animal – writes: “The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.”

And it’s through writing that the becoming comes to light.

If you feel lost, putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, can help you find your way home. This blog does that for me. I have to be totally honest with you at this juncture: this blog is not always a joy. It steals sleep and leisure time from me, and it yields precious little in terms of bankable business. BUT the act of diarising my attempt to find meaning in my life has resulted in me discovering that meaning, every day, in ways big and small. By translating my observations and disparate thoughts into tangible and (hopefully) fluid articles, I am living more consciously and less on autopilot. Writing can do that. I highly recommend it.

*Me, currently.

One for the sensitive types. How your weakness can be your strength

Confession: I hate parties. I’m awkward when it comes to small talk because I’m rubbish at ‘playing the game’, and I find meeting new people terrifying. Christmas parties are a battle of endurance for me, and summer barbecues with people I don’t know are acutely uncomfortable. For a long time I labelled this as shyness however I’ve realised that, yes, I am slow to relax in other people’s company and don’t enjoy talking about myself, but I actually don’t fit into the category of ‘shy’. I also attributed this mild social anxiety to being an introvert – which is true, I am – but this doesn’t completely explain my level of discomfort in social settings. 

A month ago I read an article in Elephant Journal that made all the pieces fall into place. My preference for short, one-on-one interactions – or none at all – is nothing to do with shyness or introversion, it’s all about being highly sensitive. It’s about the way I respond to social exchanges on an emotional level.

This is what it means to be highly sensitive:

* You need massive amounts of time alone

* You pick up on other people’s moods instantly, and usually absorb them

* You feel overwhelmed by social situations and crowds

* You feel emotions deeply

* You appreciate and respond to art, music and beauty at a very deep level

That’s a tick, tick, tick, tick and a half-tick for me.

The fact that I’m highly sensitive means I can’t work for long periods in offices that are super bitchy or super negative because that drags down my mood and drains my energy. I can’t have a packed social calendar, because I need lots of time in solitude to recharge. I can’t watch news footage of tragedies or disasters because I am seized by intense despair. I can’t enjoy boxing or sports where violence is encouraged because I find the aggression really confronting. 

In a society that prizes physical dominance and discourages displays of emotion, sensitivity is regarded as a weakness. I vividly recall being told: "Don’t be so sensitive," as an adolescent when I complained about being bullied. (Um, thanks, really helpful. Nothing like a spot of victim shaming to avoid tackling an issue.)

What I understand now is that being sensitive is not a weakness, it’s a strength. It’s what helps me to perceive, via my intuition, when people need help, extra kindness or just space. It’s also the thing that allows me to tune into other people’s energy fields to help them identify emotional blocks – hence my affinity with reiki and angel card readings. (It also means I can be prone to taking those energies on board, but I have measures to avoid that.)

Highly sensitive types are the ones who create dazzling works of art, poetry and performance that allow us to see the world in entirely new ways. They are terrible at dating but excellent at long-term relationships. They have a small group of friends who they forge strong connections with. They listen far more than they speak. They are very protective of their personal space and don't react well to being touched by strangers or people they don’t know well. 

For me, being sensitive means I need plenty of self-care. It’s about lots of sleep, lots of water, lots of exercise, and lots of time on my own. It’s also vital to make time to be creative and to be still. It feels good to be at an age where I don’t have to make an excuse for choosing, and enjoying, these activities. I know I feel better for them. I also do a shielding ritual as part of my daily morning meditation, to protect myself, my physical space and my energetic space. This means I can face the day knowing that no matter who I’m around, I’m not going to get dragged down by their mood or their ‘stuff'’. (Happy to give tips on this to anyone who’d like to know more about how to do this, just drop me an email.)

If this post resonates with you, I hope you can find ways to embrace and nurture your sensitivity too.