Awareness

My son had a friend to sleep over. At 1am they woke me up saying that the friend was feeling anxious and wanted to go home. They told me this happens often on sleepovers and that he wakes up, feels frightened and the host of the sleepover drives him home or his parents come to collect him. He said, ‘I’m too anxious Clare, will you take me home?’

Fear.

Sometimes I look at my image in zoom meetings and see a reflection that is so ugly I can barely look at it. The thought of people seeing this is…

[Excerpt from SANE, getting real with reality]

The screenwriting expert Robert McKee, who has contributed to over 30 Oscar-winning films, talks of naive writers, who, knowing nothing about the category in which they are attempting to write, stumble blindly around in it, inadvertently trampling on the unspoken conventions that hold consistency and meaning for the viewer.

He compares them to the nervous writers, on the other hand, who are so scared of doing something wrong that they obey, withou…

My sister and I were in Costa one Sunday (we love a café). We were talking about holidays.

A memory came up of when we were in France in a swimming pool. I was waiting behind someone on the ladder to get out.

At the same time as I pulled myself up the ladder, the woman in front dipped down. Her foot went right down the top of my swimming costume.

In reality, it probably took less than a few seconds for her to extract her foot. In my memory it took so long that it is probably still there. My s…

[excerpt from HOME, the return to what you already are]

For Byron Katie, it was waking up on the floor of her residential care home watching a cockroach crawl over her foot.

For Eckhart Tolle, it was what he described as ‘an inner transformation’ after decades of depression.

For Jeff Foster, it was the point of absolute despair ‘transform or commit suicide. There was no other option.’

For Roger Linden, it was on a walk through Hamstead Heath in London ‘one second it was Roger - me - walking …

[Prologue from FREE]

At first, everything is an adventure. There is so much to explore and see and listen to and do and make and learn and take apart and experience. You reach and crawl and pull yourself up and toddle, investigating your world, awed by the miracles of light and sound and texture around you.

Sometimes you cry and sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you are cross and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you are tired and you sleep and sometimes you are wide awake and ready for adventure.…

[Excerpt from HOME]

I was on a non-duality retreat and the teacher began by standing up and saying “There is no point in your being here……It doesn’t matter if you come to any of the talks. There is nothing whatsoever to be gained. You might as well be outside in the gardens or in your room.”

There is absolute honesty in this because it is true that there is nothing for the self identity or ego to be gained – ever. The ego which is essentially the search for Peace, freedom and joy is obscuring …

[Excerpt from 'It's not you... and it's not me']

This is not an internet quick fix.

It is not a way to secure the undying love and commitment of the person who we think will make everything OK.

It is not a way to never feel rejected, lonely, sad or isolated.

It is not a way to get them back or to change their minds.

It is an orientation of healing and expansion for the rest of our life.

It is meeting each moment of suffering in its fullness, of seeing what it reveals and how it points the …

[Excerpt from SANE, getting real with reality: 'Why bother then?']

And as we dig deep into what is actually true it becomes clear that nothing is objective. There is nothing that is independent or separate from the observer. Everything that looks real and fixed is only always 100% subjective. A function of observation. Nothing more and nothing less.

This means that the closest we can get to seeing what is true is the realisation that life or being is the only constant. There is a knowing of ex…

[Excerpt from 'It's not you... and it's not me']

Ultimately, of course, we want to live in harmony, in love and absolute connection with the people in our life. Of course we do.

We tried one way to get there and it didn’t work. It pushed people away. It created conflict. It tried to fix in place people who didn’t want us. It lied and sulked. It rode over our deepest values.

Now we know the route to what we really want. We know that these loving relationships are created within us. They emerge…

[Excerpt from 'It's not you... and it's not me']

Imagine we are an animal out in the wild. We hear a rustling in the long grasses that could be a predator. Ears prick up. Vision focuses and narrows. Sense of smell hones in. Our own movements get very very still. The whole physical, psychological and emotional system is focused on that danger. Everything is trained into discerning what it could be. The freeze itself is safety, creating minimum disturbance that could lead to our detection. It is …