ioleen-l.... the blog

"I find peace in surrendering to the mystery of Life." * The energy of 2019 is that of The Hanged Man... of slowing down & surrender... of letting go & seeing life in a new light. This may or may not be a welcome respite for you; either way, Life is offering us an opportunity to take a step back & really look at our lives, & to re - evaluate what's truly important to us. THIS is what is meant by "sacrifice": What are you willing to sacrifice in order to truly live the life of your dreams? Are you willing to give up the biscuits so that you can lose those last few kilos, or to stop watching TV every night so that you have the time to learn that new language you've always wanted to? Could you cancel all of your magazine subscriptions to instead save money for that holiday you've dreamed of taking for years? Are you prepared to let go if your need to always be right, in favour of peace & harmony in your relationships? We may still experi...

This morning I received some invaluable advice. I was chatting to a friend about my "to do" list (we all have one of those, right?) and I was prattling on about how "I just need to do this thing", when she said: "H ow about you re-frame your words to 'I would really love to do this thing'?" A nd in that moment my light bulb went on & I was like "OMG! Of course!" I am a huge fan of Louis Hay's work, and she teaches "The thoughts we think & the words we speak are constantly shaping our world & our experiences." ¹; in particular that "what you put your attention on grows" ² - that "the more you dwell on what you don't want, the more of it you create" ². As in, thinking "I don't want to be fat" - you stay overweight. Telling yourself "I don't want to be broke" - you stay penniless. I' ve read/heard somewhere along the way that the mind doesn't recognise th...

An excerpt from my Morning Pages last week... Yeah, I know that part of me loves it and enjoys the feeling of superiority it gives... It's nice to have your hurt feelings validated by another... But it doesn't do anyone any good. Plus, its all just speculation (about what is/will be) and reminiscing/dredging up old hurts & memories (about what happened in the past) and none of it is actually true ! Plus I don't enjoy the idea of other people talking about me , so I know it's not fair for her... It occurs to me now that if I show her love, it's showing me love... and vice versa. The same is true of contempt – the more hate I sling her way, is just throwing that shiz in my own face... And I love myself too much to want to do that to myself! Love it is then... It's a slow process, but I'm getting there. ♥

We're all familiar with the imagery of the iceberg that's used to describe the subconscious mind right? That only 10% of it sits above water - that's the bit that we see & therefore are consciously aware of - whilst the remaining 90%  that we are not consciously aware of  is sitting underwater, lurking large & perilous, ready to sink the first boat that comes along... I know that all of the memories of every single moment of my life are stored somewhere in the iceberg of my mind. I can only recall a handful of them though, so it makes me wonder what the heck happened to the rest of them? Which got me thinking about that TV show... and what if my mind is like an episode of Survivor? I' m only remembering the bits that the show producers feel are relevant to the show – the bits that are entertaining – the things that are going to hook in my ego & get my conscious mind chewing on those memories like a dog with a bone, not wanting to let go. I only get to see t...

...This was originally the text on the home page of this blog... After a while it just didn't seem to "fit" anymore, so I changed it... but I love this little story so much that I wanted to keep it.  ♥ So here's the thing: I have SO many interests in SO many different areas & I had really been struggling to figure out what this blog is going to be about... of course it doesn't help much that I keep changing my mind, either! I totally blame my Sagittarius Moon, lol. But of course, life is amazing... and just when I was about ready to give up, I find this little quote by Dr. Maya Angelou that I'd written down years ago: " Prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you, may not dance your dances, or speak your language... but be a blessing to somebody ." A nd that's what I'd like to be: a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. P lus, I'm a huge fan of rainbows! ♥

These guys... my heart! Hubby usually feeds the animals in the mornings, but the other day he had to rush off to get to work a little earlier than normal... Leaving me to feed them instead. And so I went about my morning routine as per usual, intending to feed the muttleys as my last little chore before I left for work that morning. Except that they didn't know that. And my usually boisterous, barky, happy doggies were most un usually quiet and subdued. I could tell that they didn't quite know what to do with themselves.  Grant has left for the day without feeding us! Oh no!    I could see the little doggie-brain cogs whirring away behind their eyes - I could see that they weren't quite sure what the heck was going on, and that they were starting to worry about whether or not they were going to get any food at all. So, meanie that I am, carried on with what I was doing as if nothing was amiss...  Because nothing was amiss!   I had a plan in min...

Today was a pretty special day for me. Today I (almost) got to meet Bea Johnson of " Zero Waste Home " fame. I say "almost", because while I was in the same room as her, being thoroughly entranced by her Zero Waste presentation... I didn't actually get a chance to shake the woman's hand & tell her personally what an inspiration she is to me. Boo. But she got her message across + her enthusiasm spilled over + I'm feeling so inspired to get serious  about this zero waste concept - or at least a "heckuva lot less waste" for now - and implement some real changes in the lives of hubby + I. We are already pretty conscientious about our spending,and we recycle a lot of our packaging. We haven't gotten around to setting up the compost heap yet, but I'm totally blaming that on me being squeamish about worms... I'm dealing with it lol! But as good as recycling is, it's not the answer. It still utilises so much of our precious...