Be life, rather than watching life. Rather than sitting next to it, feeling anxious as the fruits of life ripen and fall to your feet. Be life creating the fruit. Creating the opportunities. Be the tree. Your roots firmly in the ground, nourished by the soil around you. Soaking up the sunshine and the rain. Be the tree. Let the wind rustle your branches and leaves, breathe in what is around you and breathe out what you want around you. Be the tree. Fruit your creations. And let any which fall, nourish your soil, to feed your next season of fruit.

There is an old tale. About a man. Who loves a woman. Dearly. He hands her his heart. For her to hold. Forever. Vows are spoken. A veil lifted and their love sealed with a kiss. They live life for many years dreaming together. Until one day, she slips through his fingers. Stolen by an illness. Death and dust. And he mourns her. His heart a pile of ash sitting deep inside his chest. His private tears unending.

An old tale of love, teaching us the way of the universe.

Sometimes in life something small and unseen will derail us, and in those times it is so important to have someone to carry us home. To not be too proud to take their care and their help. To allow our friends and family to know when we are hurting. By something small and unseen. To let them know we don’t know why walking in life is difficult right now, but that we accept their support. Their love. Their care. And allow them to hold us for a while. For as long as we need.

I have a friend. We call her M. An affectionate, diminutive of her name. A shortened form of the name she was given when her lungs first took on air. And she let out her earliest cry into the world. Announcing her arrival. Claiming her existence. M really suits her. It is perfectly her. As most nicknames are.

There is a reason parents tell or read stories out loud to their children at night, before they go to sleep. It helps relax them. It makes them feel safe and secure. It helps with language as well as social and emotional development. It bonds them. It activates their brains in healthy ways. Which can last for days. It releases the cuddle and love hormones which turn up when we kiss and hug. I am so grateful that all these beautiful benefits of the traditions of oral storytelling have returned for adults to enjoy. It will foster human bonding, for a better world.

Dogs teach us how to be better humans. How to treat ourselves and others with respect and loyalty. And how to make the most of life. We have always taken on rescue dogs. And those, who have blessed our family, have come into our homes with open hearts, regardless of their past story. Ready to be loved and a willingness to love us unconditionally, forever. I am grateful for their cuddles, and to have them sit by my side. Grateful for their precious little souls.

At the very centre of the fruit is where you will find its seed. It is at the middle of a cross, where you will find its strength. The centre of a mandala is what draws the eye. And when a seesaw or set of scales matches their midpoint. You have perfect balance. I am in the marvellous middle. The sweet spot. The middle of life. And all it has to offer. Possibility. Strength. Focus. Balance. Everything you need for a wonderful launching pad. To dive into a sea of creativity. And what the world has on offer.

When you listen to Eva Maria sing. It captures your imagination. Her voice is magical. She has a gift. When I first heard her sing, it took me somewhere beyond. I heard her soul. In her singing. And it touched my soul. It is easy to hear past the notes when Eva Maria sings.

I don’t know about you, but some days, I wake up out of balance. With a heaviness in my heart that spreads to my bones. Or with an unnamable anxiety buzzing in my muscles. The cause, a mystery. Or perhaps I wake up with both. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Just a pinch. And I am off-kilter. And my job for the rest of the day, alongside the general task of living, is to reclaim the balance. To not fall off the tightrope.

In two weeks it will be one year since my husband and I started eating only plant-based food. It was meant to be just two weeks of vegetarian cooking to balance a high meat diet (and accomodate the fact that no one wanted to go to the market to shop that week). The vegetarian meals turned into plant-based meals. Two weeks turned into a year. It’s been an interesting journey dramatically changing our diet, and not without its challenges. But I am really glad we did it.

A mantra is a truism. You know a truism has found you by the way it makes you and others feel. How you react to it. How others react to it. And so it is for this one. ‘It’s OK to grow while people are watching’. Whenever I share this mantra with people I get the same reaction, I see them have a moment as it lands. As the realisation hits them.

Life is our story to write, no one else’s. We are the hero of our own journey in life and we decide what kind of hero we are going to be. This is a story of how, with an open heart, trusting the world again, I realised the full potential of my life had been sitting right beside me the entire time, just waiting for me to be ready to welcome it into my heart. And with my unconscious singing in harmony with the universe, things started to happen as I finally woke up to myself.

We are creatures of conversation. Conversations are at the very core of our being. There is something spectacularly special about a good conversation. It has the power to nurture us, spark creativity and drive our motivation for change. A good conversation is, at its simplest, just so damn enjoyable. I love them. They energise me. Inspire me. I can carry them for days. They can carry me for days. A good conversation can lodge in your soul, building the essence of who you are and who you will become.

Right now is a time to listen. This is the time to hear the song of the trees. Of those stark and bare, alongside those filled with greenery, flowers and birds. To be overcome by the harmony of bark and leaves. A time to listen to the hum of the clouds as a constant musical note in our day. To discover the messages in the rain. We must listen to our collective knowing, pause and reflect in order to rediscover our place in the world.

Plato said ‘our need will be the real creator’. Once again in human history, we are experiencing the truth of these words collectively and acutely. The way people have reacted to what is happening at the moment, affirms for me how adaptable we are as humans; and how quickly we adjust. This need to adapt is driven by the deep desire we all hold within us as social beings, our desire to be connected to one another.

Meditation can manifest a state of mind and an energy. It can change not only how we perceive the world, but what happens around us. What happens around us close by, for us as individuals; and more broadly in a larger scale way, for us as a society. I am a big believer in the power of the collective. I just know in my heart it works.

I have always been fascinated by mandalas. The mandala is our connection to our true selves, our collective unconscious and to everything: nature, the world and the universe . According to Jung, the mandala is the ultimate archetype. The ultimate universal symbolic pattern to explain the nature of the world and life. Regardless of the meaning human-kind has placed upon the mandala, and our use of this archetype, nature has been creating mandalas since the beginning of time. This is a celebration of mandalas and everything they have to teach us.

Sitting in my library after meditation, looking at all my books I realised something significant had changed. Over the last couple of months there has been a shift in my relationship with books. My books. And books in general. I feel differently about them. And this difference, I realised as I contemplated how it felt, was not just about the books which surrounded me. It was about every aspect of my life.

Recently, I did something really stupid. A direct result of doing too much. A consequence of not being in the present moment. A reminder to take my time when doing things and to pay attention, my stupidity forced me to slow down. It also reminded me of how much I take for granted. And how in life, sometimes it is important to learn to sit with the uneasy, to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Seeing things differently alone is not enough to create conflict. But an unwillingness to see something else, an inflexibility towards another point of view, coupled by a lack of understanding feeds divisions as small as minor disagreements right through to world wars, and everything in the middle. Including our own inner personal wars we fight each day. Encouraging a shift in perception at times of conflict and to go beyond the looking glass.

It seems like very year, more and more people hate Christmas. They have lost the joy. And they aren’t shy about sharing it. And it isn’t Christmas per se they dislike, but what it has become. It’s time to reclaim the joy of Christmas by being thoughtful. Thinking deeply about Christmas, a time to hold space for others in our hearts.

Hope is one of the most powerful sources of change available. Particularly collective hope. Anything is possible when there is a conviction of hope. Reflecting on hope when I needed it most.

As I enter my third week of eating only whole-food and plant-based foods, I thought I’d capture how I am feeling and what I have learnt about myself, my health and the environment. A story about the unlimited generosity of plants.

Confidence is a skill. A slow burning, long lasting skill. One you develop over time with practice, patience and persistence. In the lead up to the Women in Leadership Summit 2019, I thought I would share my thoughts on the quality and the dance of confidence.

A good guide is a subtle guide. One who will make suggestions but allow you to make the call about what you explore. One who steps back at the right time to let you experience the place you have chosen. Writing about guided meditations and the subtle guide.

So, this is an invitation to anyone inspired to join me to try one plant-based meal a day, or do a week of meat-free dinners, if you don’t already. You don’t have to become fanatical about things or make sweeping changes to your life. But we can all make a difference even through some of the small changes we make in our lives. Let’s make a difference to our health and the health of the planet.

What is there not to like about the word ‘grace’ and what it is reminding us? To walk through life, gently holding grace in the palm of your hand. To reach out with grace. For grace to be what greets people first. In every interaction. In every situation. To live with grace. To die with grace. To be remembered with grace.

It is not as the idiom states. It is not ‘time that heals all wounds’. We aren’t passive participants in our recovery. It isn’t time which heals, it is life. Living our life is what heals the wounds, both physically and emotionally.

With nine days to go of Blogtober, I thought it might be time to honour my dear friend and his love of camping and dogs! Thanks for giving me the okay to use you as inspiration. Writing about resisting the things we love.

Life is not a race. We aren’t all in our set lanes competing with each other. Comparing our times and performances and place. A caution about comparison.

Placebo Power is part of ABC Radio National's All in the Mind series, exploring exactly what its title suggests. The podcast is a cracker. Unexpectedly, it got me thinking about the power of communication.

Games have always been part of our story. Vikings, for example, played all sorts of games, some were even like baseball and rugby we play today! They would’ve been tough rugby opponents for sure.

I have always wanted to be a fortune teller, the very idea awakens my gypsy soul - so join me on a journey using the past to understand the future.

So how did the humble number sign become such a big part of our lexicon? And why is there sometimes so much emotion around its use? #let'stalkhashtags

A friend recently asked a group of us at dinner 'Am I meant to read all those little pictures and funny faces that people text me, are they part of the message?' - she received a resounding 'Yes' from all of us.