Tag: #lovingkindness

PATTERNS OF TRANSITION PART 2

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PART 2

Let go of who you think you should be, in order to be who you are.

~ Brenè Brown.

A step back, to transcend the present moment, this particular period in my life, in order to better see the bigger pattern. How did I get here? How did it get to that point? Stepping off the professional cliff, the windowsill of my corporate career, where it looked high enough to kill most…

…the great resignation…

Taking a different perspective in understanding what is happening for me right now. I need to ‘get on the balcony’ of it all.

I’m beginning this reflection at 25 years of age; prior to this was all school/higher education and casual work. While including lecturing and tutoring at university, I also cooked a lot of burgers…. I still cook a damn fine burger… (hey btw, did anyone else have to look up ‘coatigan’?).

Ok. So Let’s talk a walk through the last 21 years of my life, from a ‘professional’ perspective…

In 2001, despite loving teaching and research, I realize, before finishing my PhD that academia is not the right environment for me and I start working in the public service.

I land an APS 6 role (if that means anything) as a Senior Research Officer in the Office of Road Safety in a state government department. I don’t mind the work, I stay friends with a couple of the people, but more than anything, the bureaucracy and administrative processes drive me up the wall.

While working full time I  focus my energy and complete my PhD in Social Psychology which is conferred in 2002.

In 2003 I come to terms with the fact I’m not a great employee (I don’t like being told what to do …) and would rather work for myself.

I start and run a successful small business with national coverage. This business runs for  almost 10 years, it is very well regarded and supported by clients and other professionals.

By 2007, however, I realize I need to learn more and go back to studying to grow myself and my business. My business morphs as I switch focus and I find myself running a small, boutique but highly popular yoga studio and school.

I eventually walk away from the business. I leave client programs, train the trainer programs, and professional development workshops. A reach that includes a published book, meditation CDs, websites, social media and many magazine articles and other publications…

I feel like I have reached the limits of my business know how and need to learn  more and/or re-direct my energy. In 2014 I re-enter academia to become a business school academic. I see only in hindsight how this is a pivotal moment in my life.

In this period I am a Senior Lecturer (Level C), an academic at Australia’s national university. Teaching management, leadership and organisational change, researching identity and transformation leadership, learning from leading academics around me.

I receive three awards for excellence in education as a university lecturer (my students give me a standing ovation as I receive one of the awards, just wow). I manage also to get a few well regarded publications and, despite not having a piece of paper to prove it, an MBA level education in business simply from being immersed in the environment for years.

My professional identity blossoms in 2018 when I co-design, develop and deliver a world leading executive education program around organisational leadership and transformation. The program is backed by two of Australia’s leading universities at different times, and by the peak industry body for organisational transformation in Australia. But things shift and change, and my world begins to dissolve again.

In 2021 I finally realise, in the midst of my second experience of burn-out since returning to academia, this is not the right environment for me, and leave again.

It is now 2022 and I have no idea what’s happening. And I’m mostly ok with that.

I started this blog:  And She Flies… partly as a way of working out where I’m at. Sharing my working out in case it is useful for others to see. A way for both of us to learn.

The years have gifted me with many thank you notes, cards, emails, now empty bottles of wine, I don’t think about them often and look at them even less. But each is a feather in the wings that carry me forward in this journey.  The strength of self belief that every single person who ever thanked me helped build.

The courage to look and see the patterns of constraint and release, containment and freedom. To see that I have been exploring the boundaries of this space, where my abilities intersect with opportunities and my preferences create friction in my environment.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

~ Carl Jung.

So, in liberating my self from the expectations of ‘career’,  what’s left to show for all that I’ve done?

Everything that I am.

Everything that I stand for.

All that I have learned and become capable of, can never be taken from me, nor can I walk from it or even give it away. Believe me, I tried.

This is who I am, this is my journey. This is the mind I was given to work with, the spirit that came into being.

And this is the answer to the question: if I am not my professional self, if I am not all that I have trained and studied and practiced to be, then what am I? What is left of me to love?

The answer is ‘me’. I am enough.

I follow my Dharma. My calling, the path I am here to tread.

The journey I, my self, am on. It is spiritual, not professional.

This is the pull of the great resignation. This is the wake up call so many now heed.

Love your reason for being. This is who you are. Your authentic self.

Love the things that excite and delight you, that make your heart sing and give you a place to belong in the world. These feelings, these emotions are the signs, the sparks of light that show you the path. Your path.

Follow the light of your joy, not through rose colored glasses, blindly bumping into life as you go, but in small, incremental ways that move you closer, one step at a time, to a more fulfilled, more peaceful state of being. A state of being that honors and respects your natural rhythms and helps prevent you from dissociating and heading down a path of ill health.

For me, my patterns and experiences bring me back now to self employment, back to a direct connection with the means of production.

To autonomy and self-determination.

To sovereignty and freedom.

Let go of all that you are, so that you may become all that you might be.

May you be happy,

may you be healthy,

may you be free of suffering.

Namaste

S x

In the end, only three things matter; how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

~ Buddha.
Let go of all that you are, then you may become all that you might be. ~ Simone B’Free

Allowing for emergence and embracing one’s own complexity

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Something I have observed about my experience of sovereignty is that the feeling of it comes and goes.

As if my conditioning were a landslide of mud and debris, I become entangled and triggered,  scrabbling and alert, lashing out and fighting back at everything coming in my direction.

As I imagine it, what it would be like to go back into the Matrix after being extracted, knowing that anyone you interact with could turn out to be an agent. It is not my usual MO. Until recently I have always assumed the best in people, to my own detriment many times. One of my living spirit guides once told me, ‘they’re not your friends’.  For so long I wanted to believe this wasn’t true, then for just as long I grieved at the loss of perceived trust and my naive sense of safety in the world. But then I realised how my own narrative still held me in place, deep within, the story I still told my self was that if I was just good enough…

So despite my understanding of sovereignty, and fresh memories of how it feels, my mind is still so full of hooks and potholes, I get caught up and trip over myself time and time again. I am a sovereign being with a conditioned mind, the accumulation of small traumas leaving craters on my heart, imprints on my soul.

I am observing that to be free we have to transcend our selves, our ego. As Viktor Frankl noted, freedom lies in choosing our responses, but in order to have access to all of the possible responses we must be able to transcend our own conditioning, to see when the only thing preventing our freedom, is us and the limits and restrictions we place on our selves.

This applies both collectively and individually of course. Such a salient theme as history plays out before us in this present time. Norms and expectations being questioned. Identity politics, left and right, right and wrong, black and white….

So many voices, of theorists, thinkers and contemplatives, flooding our awareness, like a meteor shower to the collective conscious, voices from the past, hearts and minds, planet and people.

A plea, for a revolution so desperately needed.

A cry from the Earth her self, the roar of a mother protecting her young.

As a sovereign being, I choose to rise above my anxiety, my fears, and turn towards my hope. I choose to harness my strengths, gather my gifts and continue in the direction of faith, in human kind and our collective evolution. It is hard work. Some days it flows, other days I have no energy for the fight, but every day I believe in what I stand for, I strive to be intentional in my actions, I think big, I aim high. But am I free in doing so?

With a certain level of cognitive maturity it becomes possible to  continually rewrite and updates one’s own narrative, not to delude or omit, but to evolve and develop. To grow. A type of complex adaptive reasoning, that experiences identity as pliable, like modelling clay. You only have one particular lump of clay to work with, but you get to craft, shape and mold it.

The trick seems to be in nuanced, intentional crafting – gently, subtly altering your relational self to help others be at their best, to be free from suffering, to enable, facilitate, and navigate complexity.  The complexity in the world around us, the complexities that arise between us and those we carry within.

I’m starting to believe that understanding  and being able to intentionally ‘drive’ or manage your own complexity is the ultimate secret to navigating the world around us. To embrace all that you are, the shadows, the paradoxes, the reactive, hurt child. The saint and the sinner, the Madonna and the whore.

Women’s sovereignty in particular is attached to the social norms and expectations around the division of labour. If a woman is expected to raise children, prepare food, clean the house, the clothes, how does she find time to pursue grand ideas? In this way, her ideas are kept small by her circumstances.

(In much the same way, corporate roles and reputations keep people from ever knowing who they really are).

Just as Virginia Wolfe exposes in A Room Of One’s Own, not only does one need physical space to think, write, and create, but one also needs the mental space to allow for emergence, to wonder, to experiment, to meditate and contemplate and be inspired by the world around.

But with this physical space then comes the freedom to explore other things, to wonder about other aspects of one’s identity, other interests or passions, desires not yet explored….imagine a world where all women everywhere were liberated in their sexuality, felt free to dress and express themselves authentically, with no concern about shape or size, or fear of men’s interpretations, perceptions and reactions, or the sneers and snide remarks of other women.

Just the freedom that comes from the confidence gained from truly loving one’s self. Not through the lens of the ego, but the compassionate understanding of the heart and soul. Unconditional, ego-less, self love.

In my mind, the path to sovereignty is paved by love.

Learning to love your self unconditionally is the work.

The work is the continual process of knowing and re-learning everyday, who you are. Identity work develops deep self awareness and requires us to be willing to acknowledge both the light and the dark, learning to harness each as they are needed, to respond intelligently, with both wisdom and compassion, to the world you find yourself in.

In this lies freedom.

Here you will find sovereignty.

“I am not one and simple, I am complex and many”

~ Virginia Woolf
Identity work is about developing awareness of, acknowledging, accepting and loving one’s whole complex self. And then using that awareness with intent, to show up as the best version of yourself you can be.
~ Simone B’free.

Album #2 – Transcending

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Namaste Friends, I hope this finds you well and using your energy to find all the ways you can, to thrive in this rapidly changing world.

This album (2 of 12 to date) reflects the realization that I could use my body to express myself through images, and that nudity enhanced or expanded what i could say, as did new photographic skills, accessorizing, and better equipment, my storytelling tools.

This is me coming home, and re-discovering a sense of confidence in my own skin. This is when I realized my body was beautiful, and not the horrid, defective, source of betrayal I had come to regard it as being. I had tried to make myself believe it before, with some success, however this is me capturing a newfound love of my whole self, my image, my body, my ability to capture what I was feeling; and my courage for trying to do so.

This is me realizing I could be whoever I wanted to be, that I didn’t have to be who I’d been told I was; too loud and smart to be ignored but too young and pretty to be taken seriously. Thighs and butt too big and lumpy to be sexy, but a face and smile to draw a crowd. A body not good enough for commercial purposes, a mind too quick to be contained. I am grateful they dared suggest my irrelevance, the slap in the face woke me up. This is me realising they don’t get to sideline me in my own life.

This is my story to tell.

I felt alive, free, playful, and exuberant. I was breathing in the world as it turned its monolithic head, and glanced at me. A nod , a sign post to indicate I was heading in the right direction.

There was a sense of something coming out and showing itself to the world, I was overcoming beliefs about my body that  I learned in my formative years, comparisons made, unhelpful, critical comments, sexist inappropriate, unnecessary remarks. I see now how they made their insecurities mine.

Well fuck them.

I am taking back my body.

My right to live as I please.

I take back my sovereignty and the right to write my own story, to reject their criticisms and their perspectives of me. I will not doubt myself like that again.

This gallery is a reflection of the moments in which I started to really see my self.

This gallery is a reflection of the moments in which I started to really believe in myself.

In these moments I started to fully love myself again, and through this process I began to transcend.

To a place more peaceful than where I had been.

A place where I could lay the pieces of myself out and see them in a way they’d never been seen.

In these moments of deep reflection, I started to make sense of my self, for myself.

Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Each step brings a fresh breeze.

Each step makes a flower bloom.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Bring the Earth your love and happiness.

The Earth will be safe

when we feel safe in ourselves.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Gallery 2 – Simone B’Free – Transcending.

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May you be happy, healthy and free from suffering.

Namaste.

The Photographic Journey to here

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Namaste Friends,

Thank you for your patience, my processes paused as I noticed my reaction to world events. More disruption all over our planet: shifting political power, weaponized economics, ongoing pandemic, severe weather events due to climate change, and civil unrest in so many parts of the world… my heart has been heavy, my thoughts have been with those who are suffering.

However, in honour of those who do not currently have the freedom to continue to do the things that need to be done, and who instead must get on with the most important work of survival, I shall get on with the tasks before me…

Before enlightenment – chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment – chop wood, carry water.

Zen Buddhist proverb.

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself”

Simone de Beauvoir

I started looking for myself in places where I knew I’d seen me before. I thought perhaps there would be clues left behind, or perhaps I’d get lucky and find I was still there.

In yoga. I saw my shape, my body, the crafting of age telling a story of it’s own.

In the garden I saw the crone, smiling as she welcomed me home. The witch standing close behind, ever sultry and full of sass, came first from private moments and then out into the world to play.

She reminded me of the desperate attempts the maiden had made to keep herself relevant, to hold on. To find good in the mistakes she and the child had made, instead finding grace in the lessons she learned, from all the times she fell.

I started to see more than the context and form. I started to see the way the different settings inspired me to hold my body or angle my head. I started to notice the different types of energy that flowed through me as I felt the sun on my naked skin, warmth in places that had never been warmed, changing the colours of my body, the tone of my hair.

I started seeing myself in the conversations that came from sharing the images. The therapist, the teacher, the coach, the nurturer, the healer.

I had lost myself in the trauma, not just my own, in fact by then my own had retracted and retreated to the peripheral of my mind, perspective taking hold. Now the storm had passed, I had rested and I started feeling ready.

This was me creeping back out into the sun to play. After too many years of turmoil, after spending far too long dwelling in the shadow of social expectations and dominant gender norms. After realising that I needed to choose to live ‘my best life’, that I needed to wake up and do the thing I want to do, the things that bring joy and love to me, my family and the world.

The images show a clear release and outward expression, the energy and playfulness abundant in moments of total liberation, uninhibited in my experimentation. Both joyful and irreverent in this moment of re-claiming and re-awakening the sovereign being within.

In these moments I was breaking trauma bonds with people central to my narrative and my identity. I was reclaiming the story of my body, what it means to me, how others saw it,  how I see it, the stories I tell myself about size and shape, colour and texture. I was ignoring expectations for how a woman of my age and professional standing should behave and enjoying every moment, embracing the abundant freedom of being as authentic in my anger as I was in the exhilaration of the release.

Crazy cat lady.

Cranky old hippie.

Crackpot yogi.

Oddball. Weirdo….I’ll take them all.

The first album of this project, some might say, ‘somewhat like the first pancake’, exposes my naivety and ignorance, as a model and photographer, and also as a woman who brings beginner’s mind to the things she does, willing to fail, make mistakes, be ‘good enough’ to make a start and learn and grow in the process of becoming rather than waiting to share perfection, which she may never attain.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. 

John Dewey

Through the process of taking nude selfies and sharing them online with other people who identify as nudists and/or naturists I stumbled, very awkwardly, into a safe space for identity work. And found a community of people asking similar questions to myself, ‘why is society so hung up about nudity, with people seeing them?’. And as I experimented with different styles of photos, imitating others, coming up with my own crazy ideas, seeking inspiration from my environment, I started to see the different things that make up my identity the different parts of myself; and the things I have never shared before.

While I looked very outward facing in the photos, this was a time of deep introspection. I’ve always been comfortable alone. And this time and space I have given myself for this project has been like a retreat for my soul. A practice, a journey and a reflection, integrated into a process of un-learning and re-emerging.

The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.

Simone de Beauvoir

May all beings everywhere know freedom from suffering,

Namaste.

Gallery 1 – Simone B’Free – Re-Awakening.

Being shot by an other

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The next set of photos I share (next post) will be those I very first shared online with a community of naturists (and some others…). As I share the various albums I have created for this project, I will toggle back and forth between reflection on now and then. I will share where I was at in my journey when the photo was taken, what I saw in the image at the time, and if anything has changed. As well, I will check in regularly with a mindful pause, an update of where things are at with the project real time and a few new pics as the opportunities to collaborate with more experienced artists emerge and unfold.

As an activist, I am finding my voice and I recently had the opportunity to use it. I hope I was heard, but if ultimately there is no action, that just provides me with more information about the leadership culture at play in this situation. So far, they are not naked in their truth, do not allow themselves to be seen, their authentic voice heard. I believe leaders, particularly those in public institutions, should be expected to demonstrate their integrity (alignment between espoused and enacted values) in every situation, to show that they are able to learn as they go, and accept full responsibility and accountability for their actions and decisions, particularly those that detract value from others in some way.

As I share openly, who I am and what I stand for, I hope to role model some of what I believe should be the norm among world leaders. A willingness to be both strong and soft, connected and open with the people you are striving to represent, to serve. I hope to be someone who is able to hold a signpost for those on the path; ‘Right way keep going’, ‘Road widens ahead’, ‘Welcome, merging traffic’.

Namaste

S’BF x

For the first few months of this project I only took my own photos and had never had a nude photo taken of my by anyone else before, ever.

The original idea had been to find someone who would be interested in using me as a nude model for a landscape type shoot (ie. I would be off in the distance) or a life drawing session (where in any perceived imperfections could be accounted for by the interpretation of the artist rather than my own inadequacies…)

Instead I found myself, day after day,  taking photos of myself, for myself.

Coming across the online community for nudists gave me a way to share the photos and receive feedback.

I grappled with the sexual nature of social nudism but, with a little time, found a way to present my profile, and the images I shared, that seems to ward off a lot of the sexual harassment type communication. And with the few that still get through, I get to practice setting boundaries and ‘using my words’. Particularly that really hard one, ‘no’.

This virtual experience helped prepare me for my first actual photoshoot with an actual photographer. I’ll share more about the shoot itself in a later post together with a few of the images from the shoot.  What I would like to reflect on here is the opportunity this lovely, calm, slow first shoot provided me.

I quickly discovered that the practices of yoga and meditation are excellent training for life as a model. To be able to slip into a light meditative state and focus on breath while holding a pose, and be supported by good core strength, an understanding of concepts like base of support, centre of gravity, range of movement. Knowing how to use the bandhas, intentional muscle locks, and the energetic scaffolding of our bodies.

Being in this state, you notice different things, your awareness is altered. I noticed the things I had given up, the things that the other photographer now had control over. when the shutter opened and closed, how the light reflected off my curves and body parts, which photos would be examined and edited…

This was something I had not reckoned on grappling with. Noticing the tension within myself created, not by being nude in a room with a clothed stranger (though that was slightly awkward the first time…), but the giving over of control of the way my essence is seen, captured and interpreted.

With this new understanding and awareness of control primed in my mind, I began seeing the invitations for collaboration in a different light. I tested the boundaries again, reflected, contemplated, reset them.

I started to see myself in a different light, I started to ask more difficult questions. I still have more to learn. But I can see now how women are conditioned to say yes to men and men are conditioned to pushing at women’s boundaries until they do. And a woman that says ‘no’ is difficult, rude, brattish, out of control, hormonal and/or a raging lesbian. Or just a source of more frustration, a hassle, a burden.

I don’t mind any of those terms. I now know where I start and finish and how to notice when other people’s baggage has become mixed up with mine. I see now, how you put your bag down a little too close. How your small request becomes a larger one, how you negotiate your way to yes, sometimes with charm, sometimes with military precision. You are on a mission to fulfil your goal, achieve your outcome.

You trample all over my boundaries in your big clumsy boots.

You are used to me bending to your will.

You nudge me again.

I smile politely (fuck I did it again).

You relax, back on track. I notice the tension leave your face. Your words less anxious.

Your dominance, at ease, at the wait.

I am also now ‘at the wait’. That shit now gets no closer than the first time I say no. I did the experiment and turns out I am right the first time, and if I’m wrong, we’ll both learn something. If you push, if you keep at it, if you try to win me over or even if you throw a fucking tantrum, cut the conversation short, stop communicating or threaten to leave me altogether? Ok.

Your trauma is not mine.

This has been such a crucial realisation for my project. A project about women’s sovereignty in the midst of global upheaval.

Men are being displaced, women are finding their voices, children, teenagers, young adults, sick from being treated like an inconvenient necessity, are experiencing a collective mental health crisis.

This, what is happening in the world, affects everyone. However, if you only feel your pain without seeing the places that it is coming from, it is hard to keep it contained and refrain from misfiring. It is hard to disentangle the threads in your mind, trauma loops and new information, confused and confounded. Your psychology unknown to you. Your focus is only on the outcome of your pursuit.

Psychology affects the way I am seen by a male photographer and thus the way they set up, capture and interpret the images. A dominant, trauma-laden male will see something very different in a nude female model, will take a very different photo of me, than someone who understands and respects individual sovereignty. Who is looking for a unique artistic angle as opposed to soft warm curves (or perhaps as well as…more on this). Someone who understands how to hold a space for the experience of freedom and courageous vulnerability in exposing yourself, not just your physical body, but your soul, the energy flowing through and around you. To really let someone else see, the authentic you.

When I am in this state of openness I need to be in a safe place.

If you are always putting your needs before mine, I can’t be sure I’m safe with you.

If you can’t hear me say no to the little things, I can’t be sure I’m safe with you.

If you see my openness and think it is an opening, I’m not safe with you.

If you see the warm softness in me and come after it…

I see you now. I know how you see me.

And now, with my own eyes, I see myself.

Now I will show you.

I pause.

I’m not finished. I wasn’t sure why. But then a conversation in a driveway occurred. A man sharing with a woman, two humans caught up in it all, his grief, his devotion. He shared with me why.

His why, my why. We have both been shot by an other, made out to be the other. Our identities cast by the trauma of others.

Being male doesn’t protect you from harm and being female doesn’t preclude me being the predator.  The generational trauma of living inauthentic lives plays out in and around each of us in various ways. Sometimes you are the lead, sometimes you are backstage. Sometimes you sit in the stalls and pretend that none of it is yours.

But there is no way to freedom without walking through the door of self-realisation, of realising you are both self and Self; both player and audience. Playing a role, one with a script that you know. Taking you down a path with no end. A path that keeps you holding on, yet, without letting go  you cannot move on.

Let go, and as you cross the threshold from unknowing to becoming aware, you realise.

It happens.

In that space in between.

Reconciling my desire to give with my need for safety I reset my boundaries.

My heart filled with compassion for us both.

A brief overview of the journey thus far...

October 2021
November 2021
December 2021
January 2022
February 2022
February 2022
Almost every story has a beginning, middle and end…. all images taken by Simone B’Free, herself.

In love’s shadow, anger is a powerful ally

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A new energy is washing through and taking with it the raw edges of anger.

Standing with strength, forged like the steel in a sharpened blade.

Ready for battle, yet wanting not for blood but for peace.

I want to rest and play, knowing the world is safe, that my daughters are welcomed in their community and my sisters are treated with respect.

And while I wish for nothing more than my mother’s freedom, some journeys aren’t about us.

My grandmothers are speaking to me now. One showed up in an artist’s drawing. My face, her reflection. A still life sitting, the crone at ease in her pose.

She looks back over the many images that have each formed a stepping stone, out into the lake of acceptance and love.

The soft light a spectacular reflection of the inner glow that comes from acknowledging the source, the essence, life.

Still life drawing by artist Brett Poulsen

Over the course of the next series of posts I will share the journey of images that have acted as pavers on this yellow brick road.

A road that has been at times dark and lonely, bright and busy, and now joyful and liberating.

The practice of self awareness, self study, is referred to by yogis as Svadhyaya.

“Knowing ourself is the path to freedom. The fact that seven sages etched it into a temple in Ancient Greece is one clue in thousands. It’s written in every scripture, it falls off the tongues of poets. It has driven mankind across the world and into outer space in search of answers: Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? ” – The practice is explained beautifully here: https://wanderlust.com/journal/svadhyaya-getting-to-know-your-true-self/

Svadhyaya, the fourth Niyama on the path of the Yoga Sutras asks us to have faith. To trust that our true nature is what we are seeking, and to make a commitment to finding it.

The big existential questions addressed by yogis and other contemplatives overlap with the curiosities of philosophers and great minds throughout time. Why are we here? Why do I seek a sense of meaning and purpose? What is this experience I am having?

In the galleries that I will share in the coming posts, I will expose, with as much grace and courage as I can, the way self-study liberated me from many years and layering of conditioning, from the fear of being too much, the fear of rejection, and the fear of being alone.

How it uncovered a burning rage deep within, one that has burned for generations, one that motivates me to act as a cycle breaker, an agent of change.

And how it released my voice, opened my mind, and reminded my heart that passion comes in many forms; and that anger that arises from love, is the most powerful force in the universe to those you act to protect.

Strong and soft…

May all beings everywhere know freedom from suffering,

Namaste

SB’F x

Image taken by Squidmonster
Image by Rocketpixs
Image taken by Squidmonster
SImone B’Free sits in loving kindness for all. Image by Simone B’Free.

Please subscribe if you’d like to follow along. Namaste, SB’F x

Expand, contract…breathe.

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In a quiet moment on my own,

My mind occupied with other things,

I was shown the way my life breathes.


I expand and contract.

I open up, and then I withdraw.

I explore and uncover.

I sit and reflect.

I advance. I retreat.

I reach out. I look in.

I inhale. I exhale.

My natural rhythm a guide on the path,

The ebb and flow of an energetic tide,

Comes in, goes out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The space to explore my own spaces,

The pauses between my breaths,

My life between these moments.

Time is my only need,

And for that my only need is breath,

And so I breathe.

Breathe and move with your natural rhythms. Images by Rocketpixs

Sit. Until I am Done.

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I wrote this piece in February 2013. It provides some insight into where I was at that time with regard to my journey to radical freedom. It was before re-entering academia. I was immersed in motherhood, yoga and Buddhism. I could see the world around me in pain and felt helpless to do anything about it. My arms were full. My heart was breaking, for myself and the world. But in this moment, I was becoming.

A window into becoming intentional…

It’s almost like finding out that, years ago, you were hypnotised to believe that you are wrong, defective, bad, useless, and then someday, something pulls you out of the fog of hypnosis. However, to begin with you can’t be sure that you’re not still in the fog, is this just another trick? Something feels different though, there is a new sense of hope perhaps, a strong sense that you can’t go back. You wouldn’t want to, but even if you did, you couldn’t.

So the trance is broken, or more like breaking, so many layers, so many lies. Who am I? Was that really me in there? Holy crap what happened?

The trouble with this work of self-discovery is that, because of the nature of what you are working with, many times, you have to go back through the past and, in some regard, re-live, re-experience the trauma before you can fully appreciate what it is that you went through, to be fully aware of the cause and effect, to be fully aware and awake you have to follow through the experience watching as your body responds to the unconscious processes of the mind, catching the clues, feeling the pattern and rythym, up and down, down and churned up, gut wrenching fear, heart-breaking pain. All of it all over again.

Sit. Sit. Sit. Let it flow by. Sit. Breathe. Be here. Breathe now. Now. Here. Sit.

Fear. What am I afraid of? This process. I can live life in ignorance. Most do. Why bother? Because the fears don’t leave, we have to transform them to find peace. We have to face and accept them to be free. Ok. So what and I afraid of? 

– I want to help but I am scared of being used.

– I want to give, but I am scared of being taken from.

– I want to live my dreams, but I am scared that they’re not really mine.

– I want to succeed but I am scared that the needs of my loved ones will mean that I have to give up my dreams because my need to give is bigger than my need to succeed.


I am a good person. Aren’t I?

I don’t know who I am because all that I was, was torn apart with criticism, negativity, negligence and abuse. The scattered pieces fit so beautifully together but the process of picking them up and re-aligning them is painful, exhausting and seemingly never-ending. The hurt and fatigue fuel the fire of self-doubt, maybe it is me, I despair. Maybe it was always me. 

No. Now I know. It was them. It was always them. I was a child, a small, scared, lonely child without someone to hold me and tell me how good and clever I was. Without someone who said with their arms, their eyes and their heart that they loved me, completely, unconditionally, without question. I was the child left, abandoned, 5 minutes, an hour, 3 hours, days, weeks and then months. What needs could I have had? What could I possibly have needed from them? I couldn’t say. I’d lost my voice. I was voiceless.

I feel lost again. 

Sit. Sit. Sit. Let it flow by. Sit. Breathe. Be here. Breathe now. Now. Here. Sit.

Can you see what I’m saying? Can you see me? Can you tell me who I am?

Sit. Sit. Sit. Let it flow by. Sit. Breathe. Be here. Breathe now. Now. Here. Sit.

There is trauma. I need to heal and that will take time. I’m scared of time and all that it will bring, but I have nothing else. All that we have is this stretched out, drawn out, moment in slow motion, a fleeting window of opportunity in which to find ourselves, our not-selves, our true selves. My relative self is tired. Mature wisdom will have to wait. I need to sleep. Tomorrow. I will Sit. Sit. Sit. Let it flow by. Sit. Breathe. Be here. Breathe now. Now. Here. Sit.

Until I am done.

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A mindful pause

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Some of you reading this blog will be familiar with my mindful pauses from class. I will use them throughout this project to indicate a moment of reflection. As I explore the different aspects of my identity and share the story with you, I am receiving feedback of various sorts. It is essential that I take the time to reflect on this feedback, assess it in terms of relevance and  importance, consider the lesson, and then integrate and update my approach …..it has taken long time to develop a practice to support this reflexive cycle happening fairly naturally now.

A mindful pause can be as long as a deep breath, 5 seconds, 2 minutes…
3 months…


I would argue that it is an essential practice for mindful leaders, leaders of innovation, leaders of transformation, leaders who are trying to lead through this ambiguous, complex, uncertain, volatile world.


Step 1. Take time to think, simple yet radical.
Not ruminate. Not plan. Not worry. Not rehash or replay or regret….
Just sit and think. Walk and think. Stand and think.
Just allow the thoughts, watch them, notice, be curious. Let them go.
Space out for a bit….
And then, after that sitting, you might find there has been a sort of sifting of the mind. A settling perhaps. And you can go over the bigger pieces remaining, to see what is left to examine and explore.


And so here I reflect on the first days of this journey being public, the words of support, the tokens and symbols of solitude and shared conviction; and with curiosity I watch the little sprinkling of self-doubt flutter over me. We all know it, when we’ve stepped over the edge, outside our comfort zone, a scary place of risk and growth. The little voice that would like to remind you of all the reasons why you shouldn’t.


The volume at which my negative self-talk voice is at  these days is a 0-2/10, depending on the day. This is down from I’d say about a screaming, ALL CAPS 10/10 during my adolescence.


But still I hold dear, the words of love from my sisters and brothers in transformation, each word a feather in our collective wings. 


Already I can see the network of networks beginning to form. My inner circle, people I haven’t communicated with directly in years, people who have only known me in passing, people who know people who know me….


The theory underlying the famous Diffusion of Innovation Curve (Rogers, 1962), reminds us that momentum is built slowly and that effort is required in the early days to ensure the innovation, the new idea or technology, continues to spread. Transformation requires many new ideas, and arguably, a reimagined approach to leadership and management is a whole new technology.


Integrated with an understanding of social structures from Social Network Analysis, you can start to piece together a multi-dimensional understanding of how your innovation is spreading through your core network and into your peripheral networks.


Likewise, with insight into the social cognition of groups and the psychology underlying Social Identity Theory, you can start to appreciate who the innovators are around you and who the early adopters (and influencers) are likely to be, and in what ways they identify with you and your message. And as you are reading this you are either thinking you’d like to know more or you’re wondering if you’ve been manipulated….I’ll share more, and I’m not manipulating you. But I am appealing to the parts of you that are the same or similar to parts of me.


And for some, the parts of you that are different but maybe a little bit similar to me (think Venn diagram), are the ones starting to make you feel a little uncomfortable.  Perhaps you’ve distanced yourself from my ‘little project’ in some way, maybe you’ve made a joke about it to a colleague, but here you are, back reading this again. Perhaps, you are ready to explore or resolve the dissonance you feel.

So, upon reflection, I am grateful for every word of support and love that has been shared with me, I feel the energy of them. I am aware that some discomfort is arising and I remind myself that it always does, this is how change happens. First we have to feel uncomfortable enough with how things are to motivate ourselves to make them better…..sometimes we fight and deny this before we realise, it is the struggle that causes our suffering. The fear that holds us back.


This has always been the process. In the classroom, on the mat, in the yoga studio, in the dojo, in therapy, and now, in our jobs and our organisations.


It is time to surrender to the need for radical change.


To transform our mindsets and transcend old paradigms.


And to remember that sometimes it’s those who are crazy enough to think they can, that do.


May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you know freedom from suffering.


Namaste.

p.s. For those who recognise pieces of conversation, concepts, words, phrases… please know I am thinking of you as I write and send my gratitude for your influence on my thoughts and in my life.

Simone B’Free reflects on her first days …