Death......has left its mark on me....

Firstly I must say a huge thank you to the brilliant person who invented sat nav. That little piece of gadgetry has given me freedom to travel and be independent. For someone like me who has no sense of direction and would go into orbit when being asked to read a map that little piece of equipment is the same to me as the blind man is about his white stick. It's really improved my quality of life.

I got up early yesterday morning and keyed in the name of the church where my friend was being burried. Delighted I got a postcode so I knew that the sat nav would be accurate. I set off in plenty of time and it was a brilliant sunny day. I felt so at peace and I knew deep down that Tracey has forgiven me for being such a lousy friend. I knew that the church was in Abbess Roding but for some reason when I put in the cost code and Loughton came up I completely forgot about Abbess Roding. I arrived in Loughton at what I thought was the correct St Edmunds church and it looked really quiet to me, but then again I was extremely early. I wanted to be early to make up in a clumsy way for not being there. I wanted to be there early so I could be with her coffin when it was taken out of the hearse.

At about 2.25pm when the funeral was due to be there I began to panic and the horrible thought dawned on me for the first time that maybe I was at the wrong place. I saw a couple of workmen and said to them questioningly 'St Edmunds, Abbess Roding'. One guy said I've seen you around here for a long time, there's nothing happening here today and anyway this is Loughton, not Abbess Roding. I went hot and cold and glanced quickly at my watch...noooo....it was 2.30pm and I was nowhere near where I had to go. Not getting to that church was not an option so I raced back to my car. Rigged up the sat nav typed in Abbess Roding which I should have done in the first place and put my foot on the accelerator and sped off. Luckily the roads around there are similar to the ones in Ireland so I was safe in my manic overtaking. I arrived at the church and was shaking like a leaf. It was a small country church with the entry to go in right in the middle so when I made my grand entrance a myriad of heads turned to look. I stood there awkwardly taking in quickly that there was no-where for me to sit.

Then I caught the stern eye of my former boss who motioned to me that I could squeeze in beside her. She felt me shaking and said 'where were you'. I said 'don't, I've been in the wrong church'. I don't think I have ever felt so stupid in my entire life. I was just in time for the final hymn and the burial of the coffin. I read the tributes that were paid to Tracey in the memorial booklet her husband had done and they were so moving. After reading this the whole enormity of not being there for her even for her funeral was just too much and I broke down and cried. I had wanted it to be so different....or did I. Had I said to myself that I didn't deserve to be at her funeral and then went and sabotaged it. The truth is that I don't know. What I do take from the fiasco is that I am creating being more responsible in the future. If I had been responsible and made sure that I knew where I was going that wouldn't have happened. I was struck as the coffin was being lowered into the ground by the shortness of life, 48 short years, where she made a difference to a few people but in the end was put in a box and dirt was thrown on her face and then we all went and had a drink. Put this way, I know that it sounds callous and doesn't make death glamorous but that is truly how I saw it. Is this the lot of human being, is this the only thing we have been put on this earth for. Surely there must be more.....

I went with the others for a drink and it was lovely meeting some old familiar faces that I hadn't seen for a very long time. After a while I said my goodbyes and left because I had another commitment that evening in central London. Driving to London I suddenly felt so drained and tired. I arrived at the place where I had to and parked up. My mind was still thinking about how I could have been so stupid as to spend an hour and a half at the wrong church. I was still reeling from that. When I finished I came out to the car to find that a kind parking attendant had slapped a parking ticket on my windscreen for parking in a residents bay....it was yet another lesson to me about not being responsible.

I arrived back in Brighton at 2am tired and dejected having set off in the morning feeling like I could do anything......

I woke up this morning with the humiliation of yesterday still uppermost in my mind. I dragged my carcass out of bed and into the shower. I was meeting the lady I met on the train who wants to set up a meditation centre in Brighton in the afternoon and wasn't feeling in a great space for the meeting. But I had given my word and more than anything I know how life works when I honour my word and do what I said I would do instead of honouring my thoughts or feelings. So at 3pm I was ringing the doorbell. The woman came down the stairs and opened the door and when I saw her again I was really glad that I had come. She brought me upstairs to a small but lovely decorated room and we sat down. She explained that she wanted to base the centre on the work of the Buddhist writer Tich Nat Hahn. I had heard of this Buddhist man but haven't read any of his work. She brought me downstairs to show me the room that she is having done up as a meditation room and I could see that while it was still very much in a building state that it had lots of potential.

We went back upstairs to discuss how the centre would happen. The woman came up with a name for it which I liked very much which is called 'Deep connection'. We talked about the importance of setting a date by which the first evening would happen which would give a reason to have everything ready which is Wednesday 4 November.....thank you Tracey...all of this has happened between the days of your death and your funeral.....you will always and forever be in my heart...

It's the funeral of my dear friend Tracey today....a very sad loss to me and the world

I woke up early this morning with a deep sadness and the face of my dear friend Tracey sprang into my mind, closely followed by a despair that I will never see her again to say what a fool I was for not keeping up the close friendship we enjoyed for over 15 years. Since she died such a lot has been happening. I am meeting with the lady I met on a train to speak about setting up a meditation centre tomorrow afternoon. I have been asked to submit ideas for a regular column for a magazine. Things are now moving around me which have never moved and I am sure that it is her. I had terrible blackness the days after she died but that has now lifted and I am looking forward today to meeting her friends and family who she had talked so much about.

I know and accept that there will be awkward moments and I am prepared for the questions for why I lost contact. I can't undo the past, that has happened and I did what I did but out of it I can create myself as a powerful and compassionate friend for my other friends. Tracey taught me that friendship is not 50/50 the way I saw it, but it is me taking 100% responsibility for having my friendships work and be rewarding. This is a great gift that Tracey has left me. So 10.30am me and my trusty sat nav are going on a 2 hour journey to Tracey's funeral. I know that she will know that I am there. I have felt her presence so strongly since she died and more importantly I know that she has forgiven me.

The body dies, but the consciousness and soul lives on. I don't have proof of this I just feel so strongly intuitively that this is the way it is. Tracey was the kindest, warmest, funniest, most compassionate woman and a dear dear friend.....today and always may she rest in peace....

A relaxed mind.....is a creative mind

As readers of this blog might have guessed I have been very upset over the death of my friend Tracey. Not so much her death, but that I wasn't there for her. What is amazing to me is that many of my other friends have been so supportive of me at this time. I can't understand this because I have proved what an awful friend I am so why should all this support be around me like this. One of these friends is the Brazilian woman I stayed with when I first moved from London. I was inclined to lose touch and so I sent her a long email saying everything about how much she means and how happy I was when I stayed there. She came to visit me and brought some flowers, bread and herbal tea. Her warmth and friendship was so unconditional in spite of me losing contact with Tracey for my own selfish and childish reasons. I looked at her with renewed love and appreciation like it might be the last time I would see her. Tracey's death has really shifted something in me.

Tonight I took out the herbal tea she had given me and to my absolute amazement it turns out that it is a tea which the kundalini yoga master Yogi Bhajan used to give to his students after they did the kundalini yoga. There is no way that she could have known this because I never told her that I was doing kundalini yoga. Her reasoning when I asked her 'why that tea' was that it said 'Bedtime tea' and she bought it for me in case I wasn't sleeping. I am in training not to make things mean anything but for some reason I made this very significant in terms of support for me to get through what is happening. And it worked, today I am feeling so much better. The blackness that was everywhere has lifted and I am thinking of things I can do in Tracey's memory.

Each of these teabags comes with a thought and I have been wondering how to continue this blog without referring specifically to the training I am doing. Having a different thought on each teabag has given me the idea of writing my blog posts around the thoughts. This is also going to be a challenge for me because they will be my explorations around these thoughts and they will be just my views. Take this blog entry- the thought for tonight is 'a relaxed mind is a creative mind'. Why should this be? What is is the link between relaxation and creativity. Immediately what springs to mind is Einsteins 'Eureka' when he was in a very relaxed state. I think he was drinking red wine, or else he was in the bath but his state was relaxed. Energy flows naturally and easily when the mind is relaxed. A tense mind freezes energy so it is not free to flow and be creative. The aim of meditation is to relax the mind by seeing that the thoughts and feelings that make up the structure of the mind are not who we are. The tense mind identifies itself with thoughts and feelings and becomes obsessed with these and then there is very little creativity.

Creating some space of silence and stillness is important for the mind to relax. and creativity to emerge. In todays busy world silence is unfortunately very underrated.

Have just seen....interview with Gordon Brown

I've just watched a snippet of an interview with Gordon Brown where he was asked about his vision. He said that he had 'lost the sight in one of his eyes'. Why didn't he say that he had no sight in his left eye. There is something about his not revealing which eye that has left me feeling uncomfortable. Is it a co-incidence that the lack of sight in his left eye (going to the right brain) has meant that his left brain has compensated to the extent that before Prime Minister he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is it any surprise that with the superior left brain functioning that he was the man who put together a package to take the UK out of recession which other countries soon emulated. Is it any co-incidence that his lack of right brain abilities in terms of charisma and charm maybe the cause of the alleged refusal by the American President to meet him. The right brain qualities are not there because the sight through the left eye to stimulate the right side of the brain is not possible due to the non-conductance of the visual stimulus to the brain.

I liken it to the two kidneys. When one kidney fails the other kidney takes over. No difference in functioning is found because both kidneys peform the same function. The right and left side of the brain performs different functions so when one half is not operating effectively the other side takes over to compensate. This results in accentuated right or left brain abilities. It makes perfect sense to me and I feel frustrated that nobody else can see it. Everything happens in the brain. There is nothing else but the stimulation of different areas of the brain that result in different experiences and perceptions.

I am the other side of the spectrum. The lack of sight in my right eye has meant that my left brain abilities are limited. In contrast the abilities of the right brain are advanced which is why I can have powerful spiritual experiences and still be grounded. I can read all kinds of spiritual texts and there is no learning involved. I have no proof for what I write here just a gut feeling. There are just too many 'co-incidences' for me to think that Gordon Brown having had the highest left brain job in the land but unable to demonstrate the right brain abilities of charm, charisma and me having powerful spiritual experiences that are usually attributed to the right brain is merely co-incidence. There is something else at play in this. I am sure of this. Why didn't he say which eye he had lost the vision in.....something about this is bugging me....

Maybe I will find an answer in my dreams.....

My friend Tracey might be dead....but I have never felt her so close

Since hearing of the death of my friend Tracey I have been in a very black space. I pride myself on always being there for my friends and the truth was that I wasn't there for her. I dedicated my kundalini class last night to her and at one point I thought I could hear her laughing at some of positions I was putting myself into. The postures we did last night were all to develop tolerance and it seemed apt in that it was tolerance for ourselves for when we don't behave in the way that we want to. Tolerance starts with tolerance for ourselves and then we can have tolerance for others. If I want to know how much tolerance I have towards others I have only to look at how tolerant I am of myself. I have moments where I am OK and then others where I dissolve into tears and beat myself up. I am so used to being able to call up my friends and fess up about how bad I have been at keeping in touch and its usually been OK. This time I can't do it. I am never going to hear her voice or see her smiling face and the finality of that has been very hard for me to take and bounce back from. But the strangest thing is that I feel her so close.

On Monday morning I didn't want to get out of bed. I knew though that I had given my word to do certain things and part of me also knew that these feelings of not wanting to do anything were not me. It was a strange experience watching that part of me that had the feelings of not wanting to engage with the world and that part that knew that I had given my word to do things. The battle between these two parts was raging and I was the witness of it all. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and had a shower. I took out my list of things I said I would do and methodically went through them. All the while I had Tracey's face before me. I was committed to do an agreement in London and I had a real struggle to get myself ready and go. At East Croydon a woman got on the train and came into the same seat as me. She smiled at me and I said 'hello'. We both busied ourselves with doing our own thing until she took out a book which I saw was a Buddhist book. She caught my eye and I asked if she was a Buddhist. It turned out from our brief conversation that she wanted to start a meditation and spiritual centre in Brighton, had premises that she had just finished renovating and was a filmaker, interested in making spiritual films. I told her a little about me and she asked me for my contact details and asked if I would be interested in creating something new with her.

We exchanged details and when I returned I sent her an email stating that I would like to meet up for a longer chat to see what we can create. She replied and next week we are meeting up to discuss possibilities. She sent me her website url and when I looked she is an experienced documentary and filmaker which is amazing because I have talked about making a film of my own experience that would inspire others to really take on the spiritual as opposed to the religious. I feel sure that it was Tracey that made this happen for me. I had been feeling so bad and wrong for breaking contact with her and it was her way of showing me that I'm not a bad person for not keeping in touch. I'm always aware also that my ego will take any negativity on my part and use it for its own ends so I have to manage that also. There is also a payoff in me keeping myself in a powerless position and that is that I don't have to take responsibility to generate or create anything new. By staying in the victim mode and making myself bad and wrong I can take myself out of the game of being responsible and the temptation not to be responsible is very strong at the moment.

What I also see from the way that I cut off contact with Tracey when she didn't respond to my texts or messages was that this was very much like how a child would behave; a kind of tit for tat and I was reminded of what was said to me when I was removed from being accountable for a team about a year ago. I was told that having me in charge of a team was 'like having a five year old in charge'. At the time I dismissed the comment but seeing my behaviour with Tracey - it is all coming from the same consciousness, the right brain consciousness, the childlike consciousness. What there is for me to do so it try to get more of a balance. But how on earth am I going to do this given how right brain dominant I am.

The worry for me is that as I get older I seem to be getting more childlike not less. I'm beginning to have a wariness when speaking with adults that wasn't there before. It's like before I even begin I have told myself that they won't understand me. It's getting to the stage that I would much rather listen than speak at all. I think I can understand people like Sri Aurobindo who took himself away from the world, retreating into his right brain when the consciousness shifted. I don't want to do this because I believe that I can make a difference to people but I'm also aware that as I get older my right brain consciousness is likely to get stronger which is probably going to lead to adults feeling more frustrated with me than they already do. .....

What is ironic is that in order for me to be a powerful leader for children and young people I have to be a powerful leader for adults first.....how likely is my dream now.....not very I would think........

Two years ago my friend was diagnosed with cancer....today she is dead....she was 48..RIP Tracey Wotton - my dear friend

This entry is a sad entry for me because of the death of my good friend Tracey. My sadness is also tinged with guilt because since Christmas I had no contact with her. I knew that she had the cancer diagnosis, and I didn't keep in touch and that is something I am finding it hard to forgive myself for. I moved away and never gave her my forwarding number or address and am now tormented with thoughts that she had tried to get in touch with me before she died and she couldn't. The news was given to me by a former boss who phoned me when I was walking on the street and it was all I could do to get myself back home. Once in home my flatmate was great, she made me some sweet tea because I was shaking so much. Tracey had been on my mind for a lot of the day on Thursday and I had said to myself that I must send an email and see how she was getting on. She died Thursday night.

I think the shock of this has created a shift in that I feel different. I really see the impact of me not being responsible around giving my new number and address has had. I said she was a friend, yet I wasn't a friend to her. And yet, even as I write this I can see her smiling face and her saying 'don't be silly'. It's hard to believe that I'm never going to hear her voice or see her smiling face again. Tracey is the first friend I have lost to the grim reaper and when it happens something in life shifts. I feel numb and really really sad. I feel sad, restless and unsettled. I thought that I had experienced the utmost in certainty but with Tracey's death I have plumbed new depths.

I'm sure that I will come out of this and bounce back but it has taught me one thing and that is the value of relationships and not to take them for granted. There are so many people I have lost touch with who I was good friends with while we were able to meet but once either they or I moved, the contact stopped and it was stopped from my side. I can be responsible for not nurturing many of my relationships. It is only when I have lost one that I see the value of all of them. So when I have finished writing this blog I am going to root out all of the people I have lost contact with and clean up what a fickle friend I have been.

I don't know if it's this training I am doing that seems to be throwing up a lot of the past up at me to deal with but this is what I seem to be spending a lot of time doing. While I did receive authorisation to continue this blog and it was commended which I was pleased about, the point was made that I am now representing Landmark Education and for me to have integrity around what I write about this training programme. I completely understood and agreed with what was said and requested of me and from here on in this blog is not going to be specific about this training. I will write around it and it will come from a spiritual perspective and will be along my usual theme of the game that is played between the ego and the soul in spiritual language but it won't directly reference this training. I'm also going to give serious consideration to writing a fictional novel which will render more palatable what this blog is trying to achieve!

So tomorrow Monday I am going to an agency to see about some work temping. Some structure is what I most need now. I'm feeling very fragile and yet I know that this is part and parcel of the spiritual path, and all that is required of me is courage, trust and surrender......

Every morning I wake up with the same question.....how badly do I want to be a Landmark Forum leader for children and young people

The title of my blog entry is how I wake up each morning. Having declared that this is what I want to be I am finding myself so challenged by everything. I am doing this training in the grip of huge physical and emotional tension and also with much more awareness than I have ever had before. I have written of how I was gripped to do this when I was sitting on a tube. I had a flash and a strong inner instruction that this is the path I am to go. How do I know this? How can I be so sure that it is an instruction from higher intuition. I know.... because it is not the first time it has happened. The last time it happened....it resulted in my book.

In 1988 when I first heard the Buddhist concept of the Bodhissatva I was gripped with a burning desire to be a Bodhissatva and I remember the inner shift that came with that desire. But because it was something I had never experienced before I quickly forgot about it and lived the life I lived which was to study and practice Mahayana Buddhism for nine years. That intense desire was not kept active by me but it must have been the power of the initial desire that has brought me to where I am today. Where I am today has happened in spite of me really and not because of me. Yes, I believed firmly that enlightenment is possible in one lifetime, the Buddha declared this and there was no doubt in my mind that it is achievable. I still have faith that this can be accomplished.

What is present for me now from this powerful inner intuition or instruction is that it is going to take something from me to achieve. What it is going to take is a massive breakthrough in structures and statistics, things I have firmly relegated to the left brain which I maintain I have a very poor functioning of. It is also going to take me keeping active a burning desire for this result and to take actions to make it possible when I least feel like taking any action. In other words, it is going to require a level of co-operation from me that there hasn't been in the past. In the past I was guided, this time it is down to me and to how badly I want to be this kind of leader. One thing I am clear about, is that I am serving a purpose, the exact nature of it I am not sure but this is always the way it has been through history. The Divine has a purpose or more to the point a game for the consciousness, a receptive consciousness becomes the vehicle for the game, but the game is not personal. The vehicle is there for the game, for no other reason and when the game is over, so is the vehicle through which the game was played. And yet it is the ONE playing a game with its many parts, one part playing a more significant part than the others for a certain time and then another of its parts at another time. But ultimately there is no tragedy because it is only the ONE which has split itself into parts to play the game.

I have to be aware too that I am living with a raised and awakened kundalini. Some of the energy is in my heart and is what gives me my connection to people, but some is also in my brain and is giving me insights and intuitions. I am aware that this energy has also been linked to mental illness and I am careful always to have the witness - that which watches me have different thoughts. I must also be careful to maintain balance. The kundalini energy can manifest as obsession. Yes, I want to be a Landmark Forum leader more than anything but what is it that is really driving that - what am I being used as a vehicle for. The moment I lose sight of that distinction is when my boundaries and my world as I know it disappears. So the level of self-awareness I have these days is painful in its clarity.

I've informed Landmark Education about my book and about this blog. There are policies for graduates on mentioning Landmark in their websites and I want to be clear that I am not breaking any policy with what I am writing. I don't feel I am but for some reason I am feeling very uncertain about the impact this blog and book is going to have at corporate headquarters. I feel like I did many years ago when I was in boarding school and a young girl was caught reading a book she shouldn't have. The girl under pressure confessed that the book was mine. She came to find me distraught that she had said who the owner of the book was because I had warned her when I gave her the book that if she was caught with it, it wasn't mine!

I reassured her that it was OK but my heart had plummeted to the floor. I went back to class and waited for what I knew was inevitable now. I watched the corridor through the top of the window. I watched and waited. It wasn't long before I saw the figure of a tall woman all in black sail up the corridor and knock on the door. She came in and said something to the nun who had been taking the class. The nun looked shocked and then the eyes of both of them bored into me. The nun who was the head of the school came up and asked me to leave what I was doing and go with her. The rest of the story is not important I just want to illustrate that awful feeling of sitting... waiting for something.... to happen.

Now again...so many years later as I wait for something to happen I have those awful feelings of uncertainty. What is it in me that is driving me to make life so difficult. I am giving everything I've got to make a difference to human being in a world which has no idea what it is I am trying to show never mind take on in a serious way exposing the game of human being so that the consciousness can move to the next level. Looking at it rationally it is completely mad. How much easier life would be for me if I turned my back on all of this and played small........but something won't let me do it.

By taking action to clear up my integrity.....I have gained a powerful listening

Yesterday was a really great day. I met with a friend I used to work with for lunch and I was amazed at my ability to listen and be with her. This friend knows about the training I have been doing with Landmark Education and while I always spoke about what it was giving me I was never sure whether any of it was making any impact. When we met yesterday she told me how a management course she had been on recently reminded her of things that I used to say. At one point she said to the trainer 'that sounds very like Landmark'. To his credit he didn't respond then but afterwards went up to her and confirmed that he had done a Landmark Course. This is in keeping with the policy of Landmark in that graduates are requested not to use having done Landmark courses to aid any kind of promotional activity. It is permissible to state the training on a CV or to mention it in a job interview but not to use any reference to it to promote or grow one's own business. I was proud that this guy showed that integrity when I'm sure the temptation was there to speak about it when there is someone there who recognised some of the concepts. The joy I felt when she told me this was great. I know now that there is a listening for what is possible for her and that at some point in the future she may give it some serious consideration.

This to me is what being a stand is all about. Winston Churchill said 'success is being able to go from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm'. I would adapt that to say that this to me is what being a stand is. Being committed to everyone having the access to living a life they love and living it powerfully. That access to me is the Landmark Forum so for my friend to be finally in that atmosphere was just so brilliant. I also saw from this that I don't have to do it alone. Once my stand and commitment are in place that other ways and means will be created that I am not directly involved with. I had no input into the decision to send my friend on that management course. But it was my continuous stand in the face of much resistance which enabled it to happen. I say this not to sound arrogant but to give the importance of taking a stand for something I believe in passionately and having it be present at all times and in all circumstances.

Since I wrote the letter where I said what I was pretending and what was the truth my ability to listen powerfully has grown. I suddenly saw that being a leader is getting into another persons world. What is life like for them, what are they dealing with, what matters to them. I knew all this before but writing the letter has provided the space for a new understanding and experience of powerful listening. This was validated last night when I left a fellow course colleague after a training agreement and she said to me 'you are a great listener'. Up to this point my assessment of myself was that I was a good listener but no-one had ever said it to me, last night I owned my ability to listen and I understand in a whole new way what it means to be a powerful listener. Powerful listening is essential for bold leadership - what I want to achieve at the end of this programme to be an effective Landmark Forum leader for children and young people.....

I've been through something major......but I've come out the other side..

I am doing a course which is going to train me to be a Landmark Forum leader for children and young people. By doing this course I am a representative of Landmark Education. I want to make it clear that the views that I present or what I write about is not necessarily the view of Landmark Education. What is offered in this blog are just views, nothing is the truth just points of views or places to stand to open up something new in thinking. I in no way want anything of what I write to be taken as authorised by Landmark. In my book I wrote a chapter about the Landmark technology which I sent to Landmark headquarters to have approved. I was amazed at the positive response that came back and the thanks I got for writing what I did. What I have written in that chapter is representative of Landmark Education everything else I write is not and I want to make that crystal clear.

Up to now I was basically a free agent with what I wrote and what I scribed did lean heavily on what this technology was giving me in terms of me seeing the human game of identity and possibility. There was no consequences to this because I was not in training to be a Landmark leader. Now I am and as I deeply respect the technology and what it has enabled me to achieve the last thing I want is any of my views to be seen as representative of Landmark and used to damage or harm the organisation. Landmark is my ashram but that is just the way it is occuring for me, it is not the way it is.

To be a leader nothing must be in the way of a person being fully self-expressed. Where integrity is out full self-expression is not possible. Some time ago I fell out with someone very special to me because of the way I dealt with a money issue. For the last two weeks this lack of contact has affected me and my self-expression with people. I ignored it really resisting doing anything about it. Then I became so tired. I fell asleep on the train and had to be woken at Victoria Station by a guard (it was 16.15!) and then fell asleep again when I was being driven back by a friend. Then couldn't get up the next morning. There was no blog because my self-expression was completely blocked. I once heard you can know whether your integrity is in or out by the way you sleep and wake up. If you can sleep quickly and wake up quickly in the morning then integrity is in. I knew by my resistance to getting up that this was something that was in the way of me being the powerful leader for children and young people that I have declared myself to be.

When something isn't working in an area of life what there is to do is to look and see where is integrity out. My integrity was out because I didn't take responsibility for the rift with this person by clearing up that I pretended that this person was the one at fault and not me. So yesterday I took out my pen and paper (because my number has been blocked) and I wrote a letter in which I really laid bare just what a bitch I had been and how much I missed the relationship. The minute I had finished typing I felt this huge sense of relief and some of the blackness that had been around me lifted. It was really quite amazing. I read through it a couple of times and satisfied myself that there was no making this person wrong for any of what had happened in the past, printed it off and posted it. I got home and was struck immediately by how much energy I had. I had been dreading the kundalini yoga because I didn't think I had the energy. Now I was so excited about going to do it.

I can't prove that the law of integrity is as real and operational as gravity - I just know. I know it from being the witness of myself. What my life is like when my integrity is in and I have been true to myself and others and what it's like when it's out. The training required to use this technology to be a forum leader demands 100% integrity because of the power of what it provides.

I went to the kundalini yoga full of energy and aliveness. The first thing that was said to me when I arrived was 'good news, the gym is not withdrawing the kundalini yoga from Sunday morning'. I smiled and said 'that's good' and barking as it may seem I saw that result as confirmation that the courage it took me to write the kind of letter that I did where I have left myself more vulnerable than I have ever done in my life has had an effect in the decision of the gym not to withdraw the kundalini yoga class from Sunday morning. As I write this I can just imagine my childhood friend snorting and saying 'oh for God's sake, stop reading into things'. And I can see how any left brained person reading this would think that, but I am right brained and this is how I intuit that everything is connected. When we take actions to restore integrity it is like a stone being thrown into a pond, the ripples extend out beyond anything we could imagine.......

Play a game today.....take one action to clean up something that has been nagging at you and you have been resisting and see what happens......

The more I consider it....the more convinced I am about right brain/left brain difference

Since writing my blog entry a couple of days ago, I have been pondering hard on the left brain/right brain split and the different functions each side of the brain performs. I have noticed that once a young person reaches puberty that I don't seem to relate to them as well as I did when they were young. I had a painful example of this with the child of a friend of mine. I got to know this child from when he was a young boy. When he was young we had great chats about magic and being anything that he wanted to be. He loved those programmes about superhero's with special powers and I love these too. I told him that it is possible for humans to have those powers, he can have those powers. These times were magical.

Then he hit puberty and one time I went to visit and he was different with me. Eventually he said to me 'you lied to me'. I was so shocked I just said 'what did I lie about'. He said 'you told me that I could have special powers but that's all a lie, there is no special powers there is just technology, this is where the power is'. I was so shocked. How could I explain to this young adult now that I firmly believe in magic and the ability of humans to have special powers and that I hadn't lied. Since then that young adult boy has never been there when I have called and has refused invitations to come to visit me. I am sad about this but I see it as the shift of consciousness that characterises puberty. I've seen it happen in my nieces also and I have been powerless to change it.

The consciousness continues to operate mostly from the left side of the brain in most adults until old age is reached where I assert the consciousness shifts back to the right. The lack of sight in my right eye has in some way not been able to shift the consciousness from the right to the left and so I live in the spiritual/mystical consciousness of the right brain. I think spiritual awakening and transformation such as that which happened to Eckhart Tolle is nothing more than the shift of consciousness from the left to the right brain. The consciousness is so totally different from that of the left side of the brain that the person zones out in a state of bliss finally coming back and integrating all of the experiences. Eckhart is now very grounded but he will admit that when his consciousness first shifted that he spent a couple of years living on park benches in a state of bliss. I haven't had this shift so that I don't zone out in states sof bliss. I am the witness of it all. I am aware it is there but I never lose my groundedness and for that I am so grateful.

I've had my second weekend of my training to be a leader and I am amazed at how everything is coming together for this training in a way that hasn't happened before. The power of the vision I had that this is what I was going to do has given me a power and potency that is not of me. I am the possibility of powerful listening and bold leadership and it feels so good to declare that at the beginning of this training. I met the woman I used to live with yesterday and I was amazed at how clearly I was able to see what was going on in her world and to be straight about what she was saying occurred to me without the fear of disapproval or of upsetting her and the conversation was just so great. When I was leaving her, she confirmed my possibility when she said 'you are such a great listener, calms me down'. I thought my heart would burst with happiness and I realised that this is the whole purpose for life as a human being and that is to make a difference. To leave everyone I speak to satisfied, complete, appreciated and respected and in this process I grow in power, freedom and self-expression.....

The wait is finally over....I didn't get the job

This morning I received a phone call giving me the news that I hadn't got the six months maternity cover job I had applied for. Some time ago the guy from the gym gave me an ipod as a present and on it he had uploaded many motivational audio-books. I had started listening to them for an hour each morning before I got up. This morning I was listening to Stephen Covey's book 'The 7 habits of highly effective people'. I really became alert when the section started on brain dominance and was amazed when he said about the differences between the left brain and the right brain. He said that the left brain is for management and the right brain is for leadership. Something about this statement resonated strongly with me. The eye and the brain are connected and I have long asserted that because I don't have sight in my right eye that my left brain is not as developed as my right, which has developed more to compensate for the lack of activity in the left. This is why I feel so at home with spiritual energy and there is no learning involved for me. On the other hand this blog is littered with instances where I have struggled with spreadsheets and things of a management flavour. I saw in a flash that I have everything it takes for leadership and nothing for management.

So when the phone call came today I was much less disappointed than I would have been if I hadn't had this insight. In fact, there was some relief. This is not the first time I have made this link. I have written letters to optometrists asking them about the link between the eye and the brain and the few answers I have got have been vague. But I am sure that there is a link between the lack of sight in my right eye and my very poor left brain abilities. And to think....that I was once again going to put myself in a high level management position. That would have been crazy. So not being successful in getting this job has been a blessing for me. I would have been happy going back to see everyone I left behind and thank you once again to that kind person who sent me the link to the job description but it wouldn't have been too long before the reality of the lack of left brain abilities would emerge. I am going to own my huge potential to be a leader and have the full self-expression that characterises a leader. I am aware that the path of someone like me who is right brain dominant is not as easy or smooth as someone who is left brain dominant but I'm tired of being like a square peg forcing myself all the time to fit into a round hole.

What is also interesting is that some years ago I sent off a book proposal to many editors for a book that I was going to call 'Right brained woman living in a left brained world', but I didn't have any success with this either. Maybe it's going to be after I shuffle off this mortal coil that the link between the eye, brain and spirituality will be discovered....I feel certain that the profound spiritual/mystical experiences I have is more to do with advanced right brain development than a Divine throw of the dice where I got lucky. I suppose I did get lucky in that my refusal to wear horrible glasses when the condition was diagnosed when I was a child meant that I have co-operated with everything that has happened...

What a strange day....

wow....I really feel....like I have come home...

This weekend was without doubt the most powerful weekend I have ever done. It was challenging, confronting, rewarding and transformational. When I started on the weekend I was a bag of self-consciousness. I have emerged burning with the desire to listen to what people are dealing with and what matters to them and to reliably deliver that which will make a difference and in the process leave each person transformed with more power, freedom and self-expression and I can't think of a better purpose or game to have for the rest of my life. The training is no longer about me but about how I can deliver that which reliably makes a difference and yet it is all about me. It is about me because if there is any area in which my integrity is out the universe will not enable me to make this difference. Integrity is just as real a law as gravity and like gravity cannot be violated without consequence.

I also recognise that this training is about my life, it is not about training with an organisation, for an organisation but it is the training that is going to make me powerful, free and fully self-expressed in every situation to make a difference. In the past I separated this training from my life and what resulted was overwhelm as there is not enough space for both. This has shifted my entire context and from the weekend I re-committed to being a leader for children and young people. Many at the weekend were young people and their energy and commitment and love of life was just so infectious and I want to do my part in having more happy young people like were on this weekend. I think of how different my life might have been if I had the tools to be happy, free and self-expressed in every situation. There is a definite difference between those whose parents had them do this training at an early age and us adults who found it late in life. There is an ease, joy, confidence and fun because they have understood at an early age that life is essentially empty and meaningless and so they are having fun in life and creating and playing big games and this is so inspiring to me.

I have often written about the inner conflict that we all experience as human beings. There is a part of us that doesn't want to grow and expand and it will do everything in its power to ensure that this doesn't happen. I had a first hand experience of this which I want to write about here. At the weekend we had to put together a schedule of commitments. I took care with mine and handed it in. I got the confirmed one back and put all of the commitments in my diary and I didn't notice anything amiss. Returned home on Sunday night so happy with my choice for the next six months. On Monday morning I woke up and briefly looked at my schedule....noooo...it's not possible.....how could I have double-booked myself. Immediately my identity went 'see, you can't even put together a proper schedule, how are you going to do these six months that are going to demand more of you than anything ever has. you should leave'. I am so grateful to my Buddhist training which gave me the concept of 'the witness' so I could watch this rant with more amusement than panic. I had a direct experience of how that part of me that doesn't want me to grow and expand was out to sabotage it if I let it. I did experience frustration and a sense of 'not being able to do anything right'. But then I realised that it wasn't me, it was the identity that is hell bent on survival and not on expansion.

I acknowledged this inner rant and then made the choice to clean up this lack of integrity. To my surprise when I spoke to the person who had put in all the work to ensure that the schedules worked she was so great, laughed and said 'you have had your first breakdown, what will you put in place in the future to ensure it doesn't happen again'. I realised that if I had put in all of my appointments into my diary that wouldn't have happened so I committed to have everything in my diary and re-scheduled my botched up commitment and that was it. I didn't make myself bad or wrong which is where I usually go when I find that I have messed up. All there was to do was to re-commit and put in place something so it wouldn't happen again. This was such a useful lesson for me, I really saw what lengths the identity will go to to sabotage the whole process. I didn't see the error when I was in a position to do something about it. I saw it when there was nothing I could do immediately and the identity could get in there with all kinds of negative self-talk about me and my capacity to do this training. Hell bent to make me give it up. I would really like to acknowledge my Buddhist training that gave me the concept of the witness because from it I can see exactly the game that is being played out in human being.

I am not unique. I would assert that when we quit anything it is because the identity senses in whatever it is that there is the potential for growth and expansion and as it's main purpose is its own survival, it then puts into the mind all kinds of thoughts about quitting. Another weapon it has is that of finding fault about whatever it is which can become so strong that the person finds themselves leaving and using all kinds of reasons as a justification. I don't know this to be true and I'm not asserting that it is...just something to consider. This is how it occurs for me.

When I look back, I began this training with the aim of doing the training to work with children. The first weekend I helped out to see what went on before I committed myself, I had a vicious argument with a woman there (I don't have vicious arguments) and I ended up walking out. It was only the persistent contact of the organisation with me for no reason other than to keep in contact which slowly brought me back. What I see now is that my identity saw the threat here and I didn't have enough self-awareness at that time to see what was really going on and make the choice to stay. The identity won the battle round that time.....but its time is up now. Although, I can't say that because all that happens is that it gets exposed in one form, goes underground to recover, and then emerges as another form, far more subtle and this is the game....the game the ONE PLAYS WITH THE MANY.......

Tonight I have my kundalini yoga which I am looking forward to. I can really feel the effects of this energy in the sharpness of my intuitions and insights. What is strange given all that I intuit is why it's not my path to share any of this openly and not just through a blog. I didn't receive one phone call from anyone about the talk last Thursday night nor any interest in the meditation course. But as it happens, I'm so busy and am going to put some energy into putting together ideas for articles. I've come back from this weekend with so much energy and eagerness to put together ideas and send them to editors. I have a list of editors for magazines in mind, body, spirit and so will send off some ideas and then create a game for if any of them are successful. I've also made the choice not to speak on You Tube....at least...not for now.......

Today I met a guy who was on the journalism course with me. He was without doubt one of the most talented of us but he told me that he still doesn't have a job as a reporter. I couldn't believe it because he got a great NCTJ qualification result and 100% accuracy at a high speed in shorthand. The irony is that by the time he does get a job his shorthand is likely to be rusty. He is young and when I saw how fed up he was I suggested the training I am doing. Not that it's the only thing but I know that it shifts things which are stuck and not going anywhere. And as I said to him 'what do you have to lose, whatever you're doing at the moment, it ain't working'. I was amazed at how free and easy I was about it. Since I declared my stand for children I am so free and easy speaking about it to adults. I know that it makes a difference in what's important to people. And it's the quickest route I know to bring about major shifts in life....but it's not.....the only one

My first full weekend.....of the leadership training....

I woke up this morning full of delicious anticipation for the weekend. I can't believe how organised I am for this training. Everything is flowing so well and I read somewhere that when life is easy and flows that whatever one is doing is in line with what the universe wishes. I had a dental appointment and then was meeting the people who are renting my flat. The woman has just been made redundant so I didn't know what to expect. But it was all great and everything is resolved to enable me to continue with the life I have. My dentist who I have been with for many years asked me what I was doing that I looked so well and happy. I said simply 'I am in integrity'. He looked a little bemused and said 'that's good, it's definitely working'.

I had been having pain in a tooth which is why I made the appointment and was dreading the word 'hundreds of pounds' for any dental work that I needed but to my surprise he said that he couldn't see any decay and it might be a small infection and gave me a prescription for anti-biotics so that was also a lovely welcome surprise.

And now I am early for the start of this training and am in an internet cafe. Earlier in the week I took out my manual and reading the principles on which the training is based brought a different level of clarity to something I knew intuitively was very powerful. Having the manual and seeing how the training is put together and learning off paragraphs has given me the access to looking at life in a whole different way. I was reminded about how much I love books and study and this training is not about the intellect and doing mental gymnastics it's about inspiring others to have these tools to have a life which is magical in every way. The life I now live is better than anything I could ever have imagined. But it took me the courage to trust in the benevolence of the universe and once that inner calling came to trust and act on it.

This morning before I left I looked on You Tube for videos on the Kundalini energy and I found one which quite shocked me. The lady who was doing it was so cavalier about waking the energy, it felt like she was teasing it and taunting it a little which really shocked me. I felt the strongest urge to find a way to warn her about what she was playing with having an attitude like that to such a powerful energy which is more a fire than an energy. But I am not here to rescue anyone. I have to trust in the innate intelligence of the energy and why it rises and when it rises. Me feeling like this is simply me being judgemental and superior.

My time is about out now........

Feeling uncertain and sad....

This evening was to be the evening where I gave a presentation on my book and also took bookings for the six week meditation course which was to start later in the month. None of that is now happening. My gut instinct about the shop not wanting to host it was correct. I had friends down on Saturday and a psychic shop is always a big draw and so they wanted to go in and look around when we were passing it. I went in as well and immediately saw the people who had taken the booking. It was so awkward. I just said hello to them. No mention was made about the booking. I had sent emails, none of which were returned so I knew that the initial enthusiasm that was shown to me for whatever reason is no longer. A poster I had put up in another place promoting the events had been taken down and when I asked 'why', no-one knew anything about it. So what am I to make all of this mean. It is not my path to spend the rest of my life speaking about the amazing powerful energy that rests at the base of all of our spines. That experience was for me personally and not to share. I have written everything in my book and am aware that I gave a promise to put a video of the entire event on you tube - something that I am now really resisting.

Yesterday, I got the programme from another mind, body spirit centre and was struck by how many people there are talking about stillness, consciousness, enlightenment. All of these people can manage to do it....what is it that is missing for me. Perhaps it is like this to clear the way so that I can commit fully to the intensity of what the next six months are going to bring. Every morning I wake up and my commitment to be a powerful leader for children and young people gets even stronger and burns even brighter. From now on, my life is not about me but about where I can make the best contribution and the biggest impact.....everything I need I will create...

I spent a lot of time today in the gym. This energy is powerful and I find that I also have to do some running and cycling to feel grounded after the yoga. I particularly love spinning and always have done. Today I did a class and really focussed on connecting with the energy at the base of the spine and and the second and third energy centres or what are called the chakras. The first three chakras are the human chakras and the remaining four are the Divine chakras. Life as a human consists of working to free the blocked energy from the first three so that the energy can rise unobstructed through the spine to the crown of the head where it triggers the awakening of normally dormant areas in the brain. The awakening of these areas results in spiritual insights and intuitions as well as psychic phenomena.

After the class I had booked in for a free revolutionary treatment called hypoxi. It works by targetting those areas of the body where the circulation is slow and as a result fat accumulates. I was shown into this room with a white pod like machine in the middle. The guy who was running it explained how it worked. I was strapped to a heart monitor and then this what I can only describe as a corset like thing was put over my head and I had to pull it down until it was at stomach level - then it was tightened - I'm lucky I have any breath left to write this. He opened up the door of this pod and i stepped into it. A complicated process of strapping me in and bringing this corset like thing up so that it wrapped around some kind of table in front of me completed the preparation. He set up a DVD and set the machine off. I had to pedal like I was cycling a bike which wasn't a problem given all the group cycling I have done in the past. Then this corset thing started to have a life of its own and began to squeeze me so tightly. At the point where I thought I would have to send out a red alert the pressure lifted and this was the format for the 20 minutes of this treatment. This incredible pressure and then release.

After 20 minutes I felt lightheaded but also good. It might have been my imagination but I also thought that my jeans felt looser around the waist. The treatment works by speeding up circulation to those areas where circulation is slow so that fat can burn. I began the treatment feeling quite sceptical but now I think given the choice of this and the surgeon's knife that this is definitely better. It costs £25 for 30 minutes which isn't at all bad given how much other treatments are. The snag is that a course of 12 sessions is recommended which makes it pricey, but it was a nice treat for myself on this disappointing and strange day.....

Aagh....no....it's not possible....the Kundalini yoga class at the gym is under threat.....nooo..

When I got to the gym last night the news was given that due to the low numbers of people coming to this class that it is under review and maybe withdrawn. I can't believe it. It took me so long to go near this kind of yoga and now that I finally conquered my fear of it and absolutely love it, it's in danger of being taken away. But this is so typical of the spiritual path. Nothing can be attached to. The whole of the spiritual journey is the journey of letting go. I have found Kundalini yoga now and if it is to go, then this is what is meant to happen. I will simply look on you tube and do some of the exercises from there. But the human aspect of me will be devastated if it is withdrawn. I have signed a petition to keep it going but the choice is not mine and I accept this.

The class last night was more strenuous and afterwards I felt quite spaced out. In the dressing room I spoke to a woman who had said in the class that it was only her second time to do Kundalini yoga. I asked her how she had found it. She looked at me and said 'it is very interesting'. Then I had a thought that I had lost my keys so as she continued saying 'the first time I did I found myself crying and now this time when we were relaxing at the end I was really shaking', I was feverishly rooting through my bag for my keys and so didn't really pay attention. As a result my reaction to this was very casual and non-significant. I said 'oh yes, this is usual' but my mind was on looking for what I thought was my lost keys. I found them as she was saying 'so I don't understand it, but I'm going to keep coming, bye see you next week'. Walking home I thought how funny it was that I thought I had lost my keys because I never lose my keys. What I saw was that if I hadn't been pre-occupied with my keys I would have got so excited and gone into all kinds of things about what caused the crying and shaking and perhaps scared her a little with my intensity. Being pre-occupied with my keys meant that my reaction to what she said was not significant and so she saw nothing unusual in my reaction to what had happened to her.

I think this is my main concern about Kundalini yoga is that it is intended to rise the energy that lies dormant at the base of all of our spines and people are not aware that it exists. They then come to a class and do intense exercises which are geared towards waking that which lies dormant, have reactions they they don't understand and in some ways are then at the mercy of this energy. From my experience I think that not having fear around this energy is the best way to ensure its safe rising. I am so glad that my reaction to this woman was so relaxed and non-reactive. It is a lesson I will take with me whenever anyone speaks to me about the signs of kundalini awakening....

It's been an amazing week in terms of ups and downs. Last Friday I started my training to be a leader for children and young people and from now on I have to be very careful about what I write about this training but I am so pleased that I have stayed steady with my choice to do it. I know that it's going to be the most intense few months of my life to date but I also know that out of it I will be a powerful leader for children and young people. I never like to share at the front of the room but on Friday I stood up and declared that this is what I was training for. I sat down and couldn't remember what I had said. It just seemed important somehow to find the courage to stand up and declare it in front of a room of 70 people. I was shaking when I sat down but was so glad that I had done it. I feel sure that with the help of the awakened energy there is within me that I have what it takes to make a difference to the lives of children and young people. All I have to do is to get myself out of the way.

My flatmate had some friends down for the bankholiday weekend and on Sunday night we watched 'The curious case of Benjamin Button' I was so struck by the way the story developed and the physical transition of beginning off with the physical appearance of an old man and the brain of a child ending with the physical appearance of a child with a brain suffering from dementia. I feel like that, that as I get older that I am getting younger both in appearance and in my thinking and attitude to life. Is this also what the energy does, does it make the consciousness more childlike and playful. There is definitely a shift in my consciousness towards being more childlike and it is showing itself in how well I get on with the children of my friends. It's such a fascinating process this whole thing.

There are occasions in my life where I receive an inner instruction which I simply have to obey. The first was to leave my job when I did and the second one was to train to be a leader for children. These instructions come to me in visual flashes and are different to the process I go through when choosing other actions. It is hard to write about the clarity of these flashes and their compelling nature. I have learned to distinguish these from others and act on these with surrender and complete confidence. For the first time in this training I have an empowering context that will keep me going when my identity wants me to quit. The guy from the gym is also doing this training with me which is ironic because I introduced him to the training a couple of years ago and he is now at the same level as me. This makes this an interesting dynamic for me because I have never done any training with someone who knows me outside of this training context. It introduces an emotional component which there hasn't been for me before. I saw him on Friday night for the first time in many months and there was both an ease and an anxiousness which I don't understand. I know that I was much more aware than I would have been at this training. He also pushed me to stand up and share which had an effect! So this is going to be an interesting six months. I will try to write as much as I can without breaking a policy but some may be cryptic.

I was also grateful anew to how my experience with kundalini has been so graceful when I spoke with a woman who had her kundalini awakened with very different effects. She has also published her story and she gave it to me to read on Friday night and when I had finished reading it I just looked at her in complete awe as to how she can be as grounded as she is given the intensity of the experience and what she went through. I don't know why I have been so lucky as to have had nothing but bliss, peace and calm from my experience of this energy and that is why I want to be the best leader that I can be. To be a great leader for me means me really being able to get into anothers world and for them to get their greatness. To see beyond the identity that wants to keep them small and unhappy to their soul which is waiting so patiently for the gifts it so wants to give. I know without a doubt that the training that I have started on is going to give me the tools for doing this.

Tonight I have my kundalini yoga and I am so excited. It seems hard to believe that I feel so comfortable with it given how I wrote in earlier blogs that I would never intentionally work with this energy and now I am looking at ways to continue it when the training means I have to travel and won't be around for the classes. On Sunday I was walking along the seafront and came across a stall that sold punjabi tops. Obeying a strong impulse I picked a white one from the hanger and held it against me. Up to now I have been doing the yoga gym clothes and it hasn't felt respectful. This was a long white respectable punjabi suit and I felt such a strong urge to buy it. I asked the man how much it was and he said £10. I haggled and said 'will you give it to me for £8. He said 'yes, for cash'. I looked in my purse and only had £5 in cash. We both stood there. I knew that I wanted that top. Then he looked at me and said 'I can see you are honest, if I give it to you for £5 will you come back next Sunday and given me the £3'. I looked at him straight in the eye and said 'yes, I promise I will come back the Sunday after next when I am here'. He took the top and put it into a bag and said 'I trust you'. I said 'you will see me again, took my bag and left. The friends I was with couldn't believe that he would have done that but I know the power of desire now and I was going to have that top no matter what it took so that I could work with the kundalini energy with respect. Aagh....this is completely barmy what is happening to me. Never did I think that I would get like this....

I am also lucky financially in that the tenants in my flat have said they like the energy of my flat and want to stay longer. I am so convinced that when our actions are in integrity that the universe provides everything that is needed. I have never felt so in integrity and as a result I am living a life which is so wonderful in every way....I have gratitude for this in every bone of my body.

I will write more because I have found a great coffee shop with free wi-fi that serves flatwhite coffee. I hadn't been able to find anywhere that served flatwhite coffee since I returned from Australia...so now.....my life is absolutely perfect!