The reward for bravery is not always instant…sometimes you have to sit in it for a while.

I’m trying things differently. I’m saying things that I want to say to others which I wouldn’t have said before. And the effect is not patently different yet. As a result my mind (my unconditionally loving ego) is trying, at every opportunity, to convince me that it is not worth it.

“You see”, I hear it say to me, “he responded badly. You should not have said that!”

And so the cage starts to form around me. An imaginary cage created from my concern, my worry, my angst. Every day that goes by feels like torture. My mind plays it all over to me, again and again.

How often have you heard people say that “the truth will set you free”? Do you really believe them? Do you understand what it means: the truth? The truth is what you keep from yourself, hidden in the shadows you don’t want to look at. Truth is what scares you. Truth is what sets you free. “Yes, yes, you’ve said that already”, I hear you say in unison. I have, but did you hear it?

You also have a cage around you…a cage of fear and lies.

I see my mind racing onto the next level, telling me what to do, what I should have done, what I should have said. It upsets me. Tears well up in my eyes. Why does this happen when all I want is peace? All I want is to be happy. And I am…happy. I think. Oops, there it goes again… analysing… criticising. It never stops. There is a lesson there: it never stops. So there is no benefit in trying to stop it. Sit and watch it. Watch the movie in your mind, realising you are a spectator. Then you will notice just how damaging it is to your truth. That is not its intention; it is an all-loving protective energy that just wants to keep you safe because it loves you so much. Allow it that. Give it that. But never allow it to be your master. The mind as master is a cage like no other that can drive you to the point of distraction.

I sit and I cry. “I should not have said it”, my mind tells me. Yet I know it was right. It is what I want.

No man is an island and so saying what you want and the resultant experience can be quite surprising because you are speaking to people when you say it; you are relating to people on their own journey, living in their own self-created cage, enjoying the safety of their lies and the refuge of their minds. They bring with them their own history and experiences, which their mind has created during its journey of protecting them. Yet their interpretation does not take away from your truth. However, if you are unable to cope with their reaction then you are trying to control the situation and then you are once again in the mind and not your truth. Your truth is so free that it has no expectations. It does not need the other person to say or do anything. It does not even need acknowledgement. It only needs to be voiced.

Be happy, be free, and always speak your truth to yourself and others. It is easier said than done. And the effect is not always instant. I am still waiting to see the effect of my words….

As South Africans go to the polls to vote in a new government many are wondering what the truth is about the arms deal which has been causing such controversy. Is the soon to be new president really as innocent as he claims to be or is there really fire where there is smoke?

We all have many things in our lives that are a mystery and will never be solved and we feel that had we the answers then things would be different…we would be able to let it go. But this may not be the case because if we heard the truth we may still not believe it. We may dispute it and continue on our search for the truth; the truth that we hope for and want to hear.

So is it possible to ever discover the truth about your greatest questions? Who are you really? Why are you here? What is your purpose? If you received the answers to these questions in a dream would you believe them anyway…and so would they really then be the truth?

The truth is what you know it is; nothing more and nothing less. So if you know that you know nothing then that is the truth. Nothing is then the truth. If you are confused as to what your truth is then confusion is your truth. But there will always be truth even though you may surround yourself with lies – those lies are then the truth.

So, back to my original question about the arms deal and the soon to be South African president: what is your truth? Once you have that then it does not matter what stories you hear. So why not make the truth constructive? Make your truth about South Africa the most beneficial you can make it for you. Make it so brilliant that you influence the way that South Africa thinks and is. Be your truth.

Positivity is killing Truth

One day, a long, long time ago, Truth lived happily in this land. He was a satisfied and strong fella who knew exactly what he wanted and who he was. Until one day he met Positivity. Now Positivity was a bolshie, smooth-talking guy who could make even the most diabolical situation pleasant. All the people in the land started to prefer Positivity to Truth because it meant that they could always wear a smile and look on the bright side. However, always being on the bright side started to become an issue for Positivity and his crew because on the bright side everyone was the same; everyone was saying the same thing and everyone didn’t fully know the meaning of what Positivity was telling them.

Now Truth, who is a genuine fella, could not cope with the lies, especially because Positivity’s followers would not allow him to be sad when he felt sad and angry when something had made him really cross. Positivity did not want him to introduce negativity because that would mean that they would then have to feel and feeling always made them feel down. And so it continued until one day Truth came across Positivity, surprising him. Positivity was not feeling great and was crying quietly to himself but then immediately put on a brave face and told Truth how peachy everything is. So Truth left him. But more and more, Truth would surprise Positivity, finding him shaken and uncomfortable, yearning for something else. Until one day, having had enough, Truth explained to Positivity that all he needs to do is allow him to be around and then the act will not be necessary. All Positivity needed to be real is Truth.

Always around this time of year there is much discussion about the school results of December. The varying views of the results are always fascinating and prove how it is possible to prove anything you want to with statistics. What came out of this year’s discussions for me is that politicians are always overly politically correct when commenting on the results. Okay, no surprises there but there has been an exception that was highlighted in this year’s commentary. Naledi Pandor, current Minister of Education broke with tradition when she was appointed to the post by changing the way the results were reported. The previous minister had been inflating the results to make himself appear better. When Pandor came along she insisted that the true results be reflected, which made it appear as though the results were dropping under her watch. This did not deter her, being determined to reflect the truth.

Being positive on a personal level retains the illusion, the lie, around you. Tell yourself and society the truth that you are not what society wants you to be. There will be widespread condemnation (as there was when Naledi Pandor started to alter the work of her predecessor and results appeared to drop) but you will be in your truth!

This is an example of something that has also become prevalent since the release of “The Secret”. “Never be negative as this will attract negativity” is how people have interpreted the message. As a result, no one tells themselves the truth and when “bad things” continue to happen they either perceive themselves to be doing something wrong or that the whole thing doesn’t work. All that is happening is that the truth is trying to be heard. When all the lies are dropped we are only left with the truth.

I am reading one of Osho’s works: Being in love. Wow, mind blowing stuff. There is no love in the world, is what he says. You are born knowing nothing but love, but you are vulnerable because you depend on your parents for everything. And that is where the corruption starts. That is where the beliefs of your parents, their friends, your friends, your teachers and all the other members of your collective unconscious start to take hold of you and you get lost. You get lost in all the beliefs that once were justified and relevant but now are just believed. You lose your innocence, your love and the uniqueness and individuality of who you are.

The reason for this is control. We all know someone who has an “uncontrollable” child; a child who fails to conform to acceptable behaviour; one who does their own thing “with no respect for others”. Look at how we are trying to control the child to get them to conform. And we want them to conform to standards and norms that lack the love that we are capable of; standards and norms that have been in place for so long that few know the significance of them. How loving is it to take a child filled with innocence and love and drum the ways of this world into them? No matter what your religion or belief you have to believe that a child is born from a place of more love than what we currently live in. Surely? So what are we doing…unconsciously? We are removing the innocence and uniqueness of a being so that they can fit into a society that we spend everyday trying to fit into in denial of our truth and our very being.

For years I have been living a life for others because of this conditioning. I have always wanted to make people like me and to see them happy as a result of my actions. This has included my parents. In fact, they are the ones I have been most concerned about disappointing. So much so, that I reached a point of going into relationships for the other; because the other wanted to. In so doing, I lost myself and forgot what it is that I want. Fortunately this realisation is never too late as the truth is always with you; you only have to drop the lies. It is easier than it sounds. How do you know whether it is a lie or not? If you can defend yourself when under heavy questioning with a clear heart, then it is your truth. If you see yourself getting overly defensive because you are filled with fear of the illusion crashing around you, then you have found one of the lies to drop. Congratulations! Oh, and it is only difficult to drop them if you hold onto them. Otherwise, they simply fall away!

Okay, so this is meant to be a view on the world. What has been going on? What lies have we been fed and held onto? How have we given our choice away and conformed to the collective? Is YOUR financial situation as bad as THEY believe? Has YOUR life changed for the worst as was predicted? If it has, you have to ask yourself just how much you rely on the opinion of others to determine your health, wealth and happiness. Take back the responsibility for your life and know that you are in charge because it is your life, despite all the conditioning you have carried for all this time – it is still your life and always will be!

Gazing out the window of our holiday cottage in the mountains I watched a swallow being buffeted high in the sky by the afternoon breeze. It didn’t look graceful. It didn’t look fun. It was being thrown from one side to the next and then up and down. Yet I could see that it had complete faith in itself and the process. Despite how bumpy and rough its ride was, it was not giving up, nor was it preparing to land and effectively stop what it had set out to do.

This made me realise how much I had started to doubt the process when it had only just begun. I had been so excited by the launch of the website and everything else that was going on in my life that you could have said I was flying like that swallow: high and free. Yet the first blast of a breeze and I was considering giving it all up. When that is when more strength, determination and, above all, faith, is required.

So I give birth to the concept that we are all responsible for absolutely everything that we manifest in our lives: Oh God Knows. Even the breeze that buffets us when we are flying like that swallow is a complete manifestation of our greatness. The very things that make our journey uncomfortable are placed there by ourselves to remind us of the lessons we need to learn to achieve our own greatness… with which we created ourselves.

Trust me: you know exactly what is going on in your life and why. Tell yourself the truth, focus on your own greatness and enjoy the ride in the world you created. Congratulations.