Our ever so easy fuck…

OK, so the headline isn’t meant to read like that. It’s meant to say “our ever so easy frock” but dizzy here almost fell off the bed whilst reading it in an email, as of course I read it as the headline of this blog reads – in other words: our ever so easy fuck. If I can, I always put a fuck in the sentence, so the line didn’t shock me. The shock was that I thought my favorite interior decorating shop had put it in their headline. Anthropologie aren’t exactly known for their crazy headlines if you know what I mean.

The other day a bus had an ad on it that read “Dress to suit the town,” which I believed said “dress to shit the town.” I thought this a really weird ad, that’s why I looked twice and realized it was I that was weird, not the ad, which kind of sums up life right there: often life is beautiful, but our insides perceive it as anything but. That’s the spiritual lesson you get from seeing shit on the bus.

Now, of course I managed to draw some spiritual enlightenment from “our ever so easy fuck” as well. First of all I concluded fucks should be easy. In other words: don’t fuck fuck-nots. If there isn’t flow – if someone doesn’t love and adore you – fuck it. Don’t fuck them, fuck it.

Secondly, this reminded me of Branson’s “screw it let’s do it” – as an easy fuck means you just go for it, glide forward gracefully instead of getting stuck hiding.  You see, recently I’ve been reminded that life is this very moment. This very moment. And how I spend it is very important. It’s my life I’m spending. It’s not rich uncle Edward’s antique gold coins (if you know a rich uncle Edward, please tell him I’d love some gold coins), it’s my life. And my life is priceless. There is only one of me, which is why it’s priceless. You can’t exchange me. There is no substitute for me. I’m one hundred percent unique (at this point some people are sighing, wishing they could indeed exchange me, or get their money back – especially my dad who would like his money back for the years he kept this starving artist above starvation level) and my life is here and now – this is my only chance to spend it. It’s time to screw it and just fucking do it – stand up for myself and claim my birthright: the life of my dreams.

This came about partly because recently I did an intuitive exercise, a tune in, to reveal what was going on for me, and what I realized was that I was feeling ridiculous. I felt ridiculous for living my dreams – like I was this little girl in fairy tale land  (the land everyone used to tell me it was impossible to reach) and I was petrified people would ask me who the hell I think I am? Surely I’m just a silly dreamer and soon my dreams will crash around me and then everyone will laugh at my little invented fairy tale? What gives me the right to be so bloody happy? I’m not important enough to be that happy, am I? So instead of going full force forward claiming my dreams I got petrified and almost backed down. I was very far from “screw it let’s do it.” It was more like I was dressed to shit this town.

Looking at this I realized that I have been close to living my dreams before, but I have always backed down. As soon as someone doubted me, I doubted myself. I did not have the conviction to follow through. My companies are great proofs of this – I’ve been close to launch so many times and yet never done it.

I used to feel like a complete waste – people praised my talents wherever I went, but I always ended up working with something that did not serve my talents and made me feel miserable and inadequate. I had guys chasing me in every town, but never fell for anyone but the ones that didn’t want me. Time and time again I proved to myself how worthless I was. I was brave enough to do some things, like starting this blog, but crikey the book proposal for it has been sitting on my desk for A YEAR. I wrote it a year ago and never sent it. I felt it wasn’t perfect enough and now I’m a freelance writer but I only apply for the jobs I think I can get, not the ones I really want. Like my own published articles. Hallelujah.

I’m the kind of person that leaves a party if I sense someone dislikes me. I back down. I was going haywire for a while because some people did not agree with me mentoring/fostering the kids I now look after. It was my dream and yet I listened to them and question every blooming aspect of myself before saying yes to doing it. I know others will question the companies I want to launch. If I start dating someone, he will question me. That’s life. Every treasure comes with a threshold guardian and a few demons to boot.

I have been running around in circles for so long because I couldn’t stand facing other people’s dislike. I avoided dating, launching companies, publishing my book…I avoided truly pursuing what I loved, even if on the outside it looked like I was going for it. I never stood up for myself. I never told off the guys that messed me around, I never said I’m gonna launch my companies and publish my book so if it’s the last thing I do. I never showed up at a party feeling utterly pleased with myself, not caring what others thought of me. I just feverishly tried to make myself better so as to have everyone’s approval for everything. I mean it’s scary saying you will do something with the potentiality it will fail and all those non-believers will be having a party! But so what, then you learn and move on instead of regretting all the things you never did. Life is about exploring, not achieving. Of course you have to have the right purposes behind what you do and always question yourself, but that’s different from not believing in yourself.

A few years back I asked myself if I feared success and I thought I must, because I was already failing so that couldn’t be what frightened me. No, what frightened me was hearing others say how great I am and actually acknowledge it. Dare to believe in it. Not think they would turn around and start laughing and humiliating me two seconds later. I was scared of being exposed in the light. It was much easier hiding in the shadows.

I think it’s time for an ever so easy fuck, don’t you? I’ve been dressed to shit this town for way too long – hiding in my own shit and behind my ever so complicated fuck-nots. It’s time to shine my light. I feel ridiculous just saying that, but it really is time. Maybe I will stand up on my high heels and fall straight into a duck pond (that was blocking the road, clearly) classic blondie style, but if I do, then I want to do so in the light, enjoying my splashing. Enjoying living life to the full – experiencing all it has to offer. Besides, what could be sexier than a blonde in a duck pond…erm…a blonde proudly walking with her head up into a party?

Freedom!

Sensual…

Can’t believe I will be in London in two weeks!!! Eeeek. I’m so excited to go and yet it feels so weird as my life is here now and just realizing that feels weird. Sometimes things change…you change…but you don’t really know how until you meet your past and I think London will be like that. Similarly, when I come back here I will have perspective on my life here. That’s partly why I love traveling – it allows you to get away from where you are so as to have gained perspective by the time you get back. It also allows you to go back to places and discover in yourself what has changed. Even if you don’t move countries every two seconds like I’ve been known to, you can go on vacation one year, only to return the next and see everything in a new light, or experience yourself differently.

Having just moved here it’s also an emotional journey to go back and see lots of close friends and family knowing that I will return to the very beginnings of establishing a life here. I love my life here though, it’s just not filled with close friends yet. It will be, but it takes time and as we all know: sometimes we want our friends around. I’m very happy here though. I feel like I finally wake up to my dreams in the mornings. That doesn’t mean things are perfect, or that I don’t face demons, or get stressed at times, but I love my life and I love myself a lot more. I keep asking myself what my dream life is and taking obvious steps to making it happen and I mean obvious steps that will transform my life now, as well as those that will lead to something in the future. It’s like you know how you think “once I have that fat pay check I will take the time and money to have lunch at a restaurant every day,” but that fat pay check may never come. So now if I have an idea like that I may decide to have lunch out once a week, or once a month. Not that, that happens to be my dream, but you know what I mean. By doing these small things, together with being happy with where I live, with the people I have met and the work I do, I  feel like I have a life. My life.

It feels almost sensual you know. Not hot and dirty, but that soft relaxation that allows you to taste the air and smell the ocean. The experience of life becomes sensual because all your senses are engaged in it. In the now. In the moment.

Pure life…magic…

Healing by making love…

You can have sex with almost anyone. You meet someone at a bar. There’s physical attraction. You end up in bed. You don’t have to love them. Live with them. Accept their flaws. Help them. Be there for them. Grow with them. Have them see your flaws. You don’t even have to tell them what you didn’t like about the sex and how you would love to improve it. Nor do you have to listen to the tell you what they didn’t like and how you can improve that. No one will infringe on your ego. You don’t have to face infringing on their’s. There’s no relationship. The thing is though, the whole world is one big relationship and if we want to make a change, we will have to learn to make love, both with those close to us and those far away.

In the wake of the Boston marathon disaster I feel compelled to say a few words. Like most people I feel it’s a terrible act. It leaves me completely puzzled to think that anyone would want to go and bomb civilians having a good time with friends and family. That’s what people do in war though – they feel someone has attacked them and their values and so they attack back. Someone killed their family and friends, maybe in a more obvious act of war like a bomb raid to overthrow the President, but they still did it. And then they feel they have the right to bomb back at any time. An eye for an eye.

Obviously I don’t know who committed the crime yesterday. I don’t know why. The only thing I believe I know is that to stop these crimes from happening we have to come together in love. We have to teach each other love and respect. Instead of spending hours talking about how horrid the world is, how horrid the person or people committing that act are, we should stand together and teach love and respect.

If it turns out that the bomber is part of a religion, or of a certain nationality I hope that what we do is not condemn the religion, or nationality and spend hours talking about how bad it all is, but rather go out there as agents of change and talk about love and respect. What it means to love and respect each other.

Similarly, there has been a lot of shootings in schools in America and sometimes I’m compelled to talk about how bad it is and part of me really wants to ban guns, because I don’t think everyone who has them are responsible individuals. However, in Switzerland everyone carries guns and you don’t hear about these problems. Why? Maybe because they were trained to be responsible individuals. Maybe they were taught love and respect? Also bear in mind Switzerland is always neutral in war. Their mentality towards shooting is completely different. They don’t have the eye for an eye thing going on. In the States it appears kids want to kill their bullies, thinking it’s justice. Wouldn’t it be better to teach their bullies respect? Love and respect? But how do you do that if you feel like the underdog? Apparently some people believe it’s through guns. Guns make them the upper dog. It’s a natural reaction, but it’s not a wise one. And it does not teach respect. Just like the kids on the streets screaming “respect me bitch” aren’t teaching anyone to respect them. They are teaching people to fear them. That’s very different.

Imagine this: there’s a convention going on. A convention where people of a certain faith about how life is supposed to be lived have come together. You don’t believe their way is the way to live life. You believe what they do infringe on people’s liberty and happiness, but they can’t see that as it’s the way they have been brought up to believe is the right way. That they are condemned by their society, or God if they live in another way. So you walk in there to try to convince them there is a better way. What do you think will bring you the best reception?

Is it if you walk in there proclaiming that their beliefs and how they live their lives is all wrong?

Is it by understanding their values and beliefs as best you can and explaining through examples from your own life how you have embraced some of their values and learned from them and also how some other values have enhanced your life? Values they might come to benefit from? And maybe how you had to throw out some of your old beliefs and values to be able to embrace the new ones that changed your life around?

If you’ve never faced what it feels like coming to terms with the idea that your way of life is wrong, how can you teach someone else that their way of life is wrong? How can you understand what it feels like to give up your world view? How can you understand what it is like to take on a new world view? How can you teach through the heart, rather than the ego? How can you lead with love, rather than blame?

I believe walking in someone else’ shoes is one of the most powerful things you can do to understand that person and by understanding them and respecting them as a human being, rather than seeing them as a problem, you may, you just may have a chance of introducing them to a new way of life. You can tell a gang leader that gang wars are all wrong, but unless you were brought up in the midst of a gang war, how will you ever understand how that person felt seeing their siblings killed by the opposing gang whilst growing up? You can tell them all you like that killing is wrong and probably they know that too, but they reacted to a situation probably not feeling they had any other way to act. That there was no way out. And by you condemning their reaction as if it was their heart, you won’t get anywhere. Start learning to see the heart beyond their acts and maybe they will start listening to you. Imagine being ten years old and seeing your sister die. What would you do? Say killing is wrong, or pick up a gun to protect yourself?

The reason the Capulets fought the Montagues is because they felt the injustice of previous years. Because they could still remember how someone they loved had taken a blow in a fight, they weren’t willing to instigate peace. They could have peace any moment as they weren’t fighting over land. They could leave each other alone to live their desired lives, but they didn’t want to, because they remembered blood and wanted to take revenge.

If you are to move into a peaceful future you have to forgive the past and leave it in the past. If you are in a relationship with someone and every time you argue the other person brings up an injustice you did in the first year of the relationship, how would you feel? Or if someone rushed into your life and without explanation told you that the way you live is wrong and the way all your ancestors lived is wrong and there is a better way, without paying any kind of respect to your way of life, how would you feel? If someone ran in and robbed your family of their belongings and shot a few and a year later you were told the war is over, the borders are established, let’s forget about the past, how would you feel? It would be hard to teach your sons and daughters to love and respect them, wouldn’t it? But to continue to build peace, that’s exactly what you would have to do. Not respect their bad ways, of course, but respect the new way of peace. Their new way of peace.

Most people feel anger when crime is involved. Anger. Disgust. Sadness. The power lies in moving beyond that and teaching as many people as you can love and respect, so as to prevent the crimes of tomorrow. If we get stuck in the punishment mentality we will forever be like the Capulets and Montagues. You have to get criminals off the streets. Then you have to focus, instead of hatred towards them, love towards the world. It’s like with anything: you have to face the problem, then you have to focus on the solution. If you get stuck on the problem, you will just create more of the problem.

So what is the solution folks? How are we going to come together to stand up for peace, love, understanding and through that understanding respect? How are we going to foster this? What will we talk about with our friends and lovers? What will we tell our children? What will we do to make this world a better place? What will we do to remember the Mandelas and the Gandhis out there? Last night I fell asleep praying for a new Mandela. A person who did not condemn the past but created a brighter tomorrow. A person who didn’t shoot their persecutors, but who taught them love. A person who created true change.

Let’s come together like lovers – let’s kiss each others’ wounds better and heal each other with love and care. Let’s foster trust through our kind actions and willingness to help, rather than condemn. Let’s stand up for love. Let’s stand up for the human in all of us.

Naked, or covered in lace…

Sometimes it’s nice to get dressed up in fancy lingerie, isn’t it? Adds a bit of an extra sparkle…

I believe my clothes (…including the lace…), my home, my work and the people I surround myself are important – I see them as a natural extension of myself, so I love to create things that resonate with who I am, under the clothes as otherwise I will feel out of balance. The thing is though, who I am is underneath the clothes. The rest is just decoration and if I am lucky and have managed to live in accordance with my heart, the decoration does indeed represent me and I feel at peace. Right now, even though I still miss L.A. I feel so lucky having found a home I love in a city that’s absolutely filled with natural beauty and where I work with charity and film. I feel at peace once again being surrounded by things that reflect who I am, rather than being stuck in London with a life that did not reflect who I was and was making me miserable. My life here could be taken away from me tomorrow though.

Life is who you are, the rest is decoration and decoration comes and goes.

Looking around me here in South Africa there are a lot of people who can’t afford lace. One of our clients at CARES is a woman who lost her children to social security years ago thanks to drug misuse. She joined CARES and became clean, now helping others to do the same, working for CARES. She got her children back and had two more – twins. I was playing with the twins the other day and asked if I could bring one with me home and keep it, as it was so cute, before realizing that wasn’t a good joke. She answered quite happily thankfully though that she was keeping them both. Now, over the holidays her home in the township burnt to the ground. She and her family – homeless. And that’s when I think everything else fades away. All the lace is gone and left is a human with a heart and you are looking at her, equally naked, through your heart.

I’m a fan of lace – I believe it…spices things up. I think I brought more lingerie than I did clothes to Cape Town, but if anyone decides to love me for the lingerie…well then they love a piece of fabric anyone could wear. And lingerie comes and goes. We are all hit in the face sometimes with losing everything around us. We can still remain beautiful though. We can face life with the attitude we choose. Mourning and longing after a loss is natural, but how we move forward is up to us. If in our hearts we are filled with love I believe we can create beauty around us once more. There are always people out there willing to love and care, if you are willing to share your heart with love. Personally I miss the LA I lost, but love the Cape Town I found and am at peace as life is, once more, a reflection of who I am. In the same way we lose people we love and although no one will replace them, others will bring as much love. Life is filled with beauty.

If you want to help our client rebuild her future, or want to get involved in our other projects surrounding helping prevent drug abuse and rehabilitate people from it, as well as creating a future by helping with education and life skills, please contact us on our Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/CaresSouthAfrica You can also watch videos of the client speaking about losing her home.

I challenge you to buy as raunchy lingerie as your imagination would love…but I also challenge you to view life through the heart and live as naked as you wish…

 

A beautiful life – loss, pain, guilt, hurt and…love…

I had this dream on the night of the 25th and I wrote it down as maybe it will touch your heart, as it touched mine.

I had a dream last night. I dreamt about mom. In the past twenty years that might have happened a total of five times that I can recollect.

When I came home last night and looked myself in the mirror I thought of how different me and my sister look. My sister is very pretty, but also a split mirror image of mom. The thought that crept into my mind is that my sister looks so much like mom, yet she’s more beautiful to my mind. She’s stunning, whereas in photos mom doesn’t look stunning. And this baffles me

After brushing my teeth and jumping in bed I fell asleep, but woke up this morning with a start. I dreamt I was at grandma’s (mom’s side), as I normally would on the 25th of December, my old relatives once again alive. My former step-mom was there and she fluctuated between nice and nasty, as was her habit. And in the middle of it all it was clear that mom was coming home. She had left, in my dream, fifteen years ago and was now coming back. I was angry with her. I was furious. I didn’t want her back. And in my dream I could see her face once more, see she was young and beautiful. Then I was taking care of gran who was becoming senile and then I woke up, startled, a wave of memories coming over me.

My first immediate source of pain was the thought of grandma turning senile – I already lost my other gran to senility and that was a painful journey, although it taught me a lot about love. About the love you feel for a person, which propels you to look after them even when they are not reachable, or you are taking them to the bathroom, because they no longer know how to go on their own. That’s how I want to be loved by my future husband. People are scared of getting old and ugly, but there is nothing ugly if there is love because love is in the heart. Not in wrinkles, or the ability to move with grace.

The second thought was that it was odd to dream about my old step-mom and at first I didn’t even want to think about that aspect of the dream. Both my gran and my mom might have stirred up heavy emotions, but I have a connection with them. With her…no. I don’t know how to describe her. She was the kind of person that would win people over when she first met them by being over the top friendly and ingratiating, but when the party was over she’d often be nasty. I hated her guts at the same time as I had some lingering hope that one day she would just love me and start being nice to me and my sister. Treat us like she did her own children, but this never happened – instead she continued to humiliate me in front of friends by treating me like garbage, yet at the same time trying to act as some kind of mother. This woman hugged me, drove me to school, arranged my birthday parties and ever so often even had a good chat with me and still no one I knew ever liked her. Underneath kind actions there was always the impression she was jealous of me and wanted to put me down.

When dad broke it off with her I was still in touch with her for a very short while, after all she had been my so-called family for about ten years, and I gave her a book about love for Christmas, as I hoped it would give her some hints. This misfired as she was overjoyed thinking I knew her so well and she was all about love. During that conversation with her I also learnt that she thought dad never cared about her, she was the loving one who was mistreated. And that’s when I realized just how lost she was and the kind of things she created in order to fulfill her own ideas about life. I had felt sorry for her for a long time, but then I truly got the extent of her inner pain – she had no sense of self-love, self-worth. And all her drama was simply a way of putting others down to make them feel like her, or provoke them to treat her badly.

Thinking about my step-mom has always come with guilt, because as much as I knew I should forgive her and use love to heal, I don’t like her. She ruined ten years of my family’s life. Having this dream I realized it’s OK – I don’t have to like her. All I have to do is love the little girl inside her heart, who somehow became heartbroken and created a life of misery for herself. When I’m detached from her, looking at her life from the outside I feel a lot of sympathy for her. She’s lived through hell and all thanks to her own creation.

Then there was mom. Mom was the big thing for me in that dream.

I was angry with mom when she died, because she never told me she loved me beforehand. She also refused hugging me the last time I saw her, as she was in pain, but she hugged my sister. I grew up looking for notes from mom saying she loved, some sort of proof…but I never found one.

After mom died I felt there was a gaping hole of pain inside of me from the loss, an emptiness that couldn’t be filled. At the same time I couldn’t remember mom being playful. She taught me everything and looked after me, but dad was the person I played with. I couldn’t remember her smiling. So I felt guilty for not feeling I had a true bond with her.

Out of principle I refused having anyone take mom’s place, but I desperately longed for a mother. I wanted mom back but at some point I realized I wanted a mother, more than I wanted my own mother, because I couldn’t remember her anymore. Yet, I felt that if someone ever tried being my mother it wouldn’t work, because I became too independent.

There was so much guilt and fear about not loving my mother, coupled with anger at her never having told me she loved me. At the same time there was the pain of loss and a strong fear of losing someone else I loved. I was longing to be more loved whilst simultaneously shutting out anyone who tried, whether from fear of them taking mom’s place, losing them, or thinking they were faking it as no one surely truly loved me. The emotions were all mixed up and I could never understand them.

The thing with the dream is it showed one side of those emotions – the anger of feeling abandoned, which then leads to feelings of guilt as surely mom couldn’t help going dying, nor being high on morphine and dazed by pain the last time she saw me. In the past I would have tried to sort it all out. What all those emotions meant, so that I could get rid of the guilt and the pain of loss. The truth is all my emotions came from different events and what I made up about them, so they were all real to me at the same time as none of them were ever real because had I known the absolute truth I would probably have felt a lot different. But it’s OK – I will always have the memory of the emotions I had and I don’t have to sort them out. Just like I don’t have to love my step-mom for how she treated me. There’s those emotions, but above and beyond them there’s love. 

We all have instant reactions to events, to people and we probably all have some emotional garbage from the past. It’s OK. You don’t have to sort it all out and solve it like a murder mystery. You can accept it and then just simply choose to live in love in the moment.

I can’t really explain it but that dream just made me come to terms with things. I can see I have had many emotions, thoughts and feelings around the different women in my life and the love I have wanted, lacked, received and feared to lose. I can see all that and acknowledge it, but I’m a woman now. My childhood is a memory. I can look upon it with love for what it taught me. It used to make me cringe badly, because there were messy events I was ashamed of and my own interpretation of reality that I was ashamed of. I was psychologically damaged for years. My self-worth was about as high as your average ant hill as opposed to Mount Everest. Or in other words: I didn’t feel good inside and I was ashamed of my own depression. I’ve let myself and others walk all over me in more ways than one. But it’s gone. Over. I feel love inside of myself now. I feel like in the last few weeks I’ve risen above whom I used to be. I feel like I’ve grown up. But the memory of childhood and what I went through as a consequence of it makes me feel a lot of sympathy towards others. I can understand where the mind can take you. I work with rehabilitating people because I believe it’s possible. I don’t think the shame, or pain of your past should have to dictate your future. 

Life happens and we respond to it before we learn to raise above it and pave out our own chosen path. It’s taken me 30 years to be anywhere close to that and on a bad day I will still feel ashamed of myself, depressed and lonely, but I can accept myself and love myself for that today. I never have before – I would just pretend to be cool about it all and feel terribly ashamed if anyone sense I was feeling down, or insecure (as feeling down, or being insecure was a proof of failure – I hadn’t made myself confident and happy yet). And I’m proud of myself. I’ve come a long, long way. I want to share that in metaphors and stories, to show that even if you were born in a cold, dark place and learnt to see life as grim and harsh, there’s a different reality. You can’t avoid pain in life. It will happen. But it’s not the only thing that will happen. And there are choices you can make that will make your life brighter and more beautiful. 

It’s like this: in London I lived a miserable reality as I was in a place I disliked, doing something I disliked. Now I live in a place I love, doing a lot more of what I love. I will still suffer loss and pain, but there will always be more love to come. You will heal and move on towards more love. That’s what I call a beautiful life.  

Every day is a chance to start all over and with a little love it’s possible…

 

Would you like to get naked my dear???

Would you like to get naked? You see, I have developed this new concept of nakedness. All you have to do is strip your clothes off and your life is transformed. Forever. Just ask that guy who saw that girl naked and life was never the same again…suddenly he was having SEX all the time…

I don’t know how many times I’ve read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Many times. There is this idea put forward if you so like, saying that we are scared of going after our dreams because we do not know if they will be all we’ve imagined. So sometimes our dream is right in front of us and we do not touch it. Because we want to keep the dream.

Other times I find the dream is all around us, but we still somehow manage to avoid it, because we do not give of ourselves to it. We don’t pour all our love and hard work into something, because we are scared we will fail. We leave a little bit of room for failure, a little room to say we didn’t do our best anyway, so if it fails, well it wasn’t because we were incapable it was because of time, or money, or whatever else.

There are yet other times when we are living the dream without really living it at all – we really fucking go for it, but our heart is closed, because we are afraid if we open it and we do not get the end result we dream of, then we will break our own heart. We don’t trust. It’s kind of like living in a glass cube where you do everything, but don’t truly feel it. It’s like banging someone without stopping to feel…it’s being aloof to our own senses, scared that if we invest them we may feel pain.

Another version of not trusting is “keeping our options open” – we invest some time and energy, we think we are truly exploring something, but we don’t surrender to the moment, we always keep a little bit of focus somewhere else. And when things don’t work out we think we were really clever for not surrendering… It’s like putting your toes in the water, thinking you swam and then wondering why you didn’t get anywhere, or felt the beauty of the ocean all around you. Yeah, I wonder why?

The ego is a tricky bitch. It will lure us away from what we love in so many different ways and we won’t even notice it unless we open our heart so that we can truly feel what resonates with us. I always compare it to having sex versus making love. How often do we slow down and feel, totally feel another person’s energy and truly explore their taste, smell and touch? I mean there are a great deal of sensations going on during sex, totally overwhelming, just like life unless you slow down and allow yourself to open your heart to it. Feel it. Explore it. Taste it. Lovingly play with it.

To fully explore you have to be fully open and surrender. To do so you have to fully trust. Trust yourself. Trust your own heart.

I find it a challenge to live my heart fully every day without hold backs. To give without analyzing. To surrender to every moment. To be fully present with those I love. To be fully present with strangers, whether I like them, or not. I have chased my dreams all over the world without ever surrendering and actually living the dream. I still have nightmares about trying to find my home in the Hollywood Hills. It’s the only place I have felt at home you see, but as I started having those dreams and wondering whether it is right to be here and blah, blah…I stopped living. Instead of focusing on my life I started thinking about what everyone else is doing and what the right choice is…my heart chose Cape Town. I want to surrender to the city to truly explore it. My heart sings for this place and my work here, yet it’s so easy to get sidetracked by obstacles…as soon as you have a fight with your boyfriend there’s an obstacle. Potential pain. And if you always run to a new guy…when will you ever discover love?

I’m scared. I’m scared of not meeting enough people and making enough friends. I’m scared of spending Christmas and New Year’s by myself. I’m scared of my economical situation, although that’s looking up. I’m scared of running into danger. I’m scared of failing with what I love most – the projects in Cape Town working in the townships and with film. I’m scared of never finding/recognizing/finding but not being loved by my soulmate (due to ego blockages). I’m fucking petrified already. But I like this town. I have a funny feeling I will come to love it.

I don’t have a return ticket. I think somewhere, that’s where my mind needs to be also. To relax into the city. To feel it. To explore it. To make love to it. To surrender and open my heart to it. That’s my dream. To live life like that. Naked. To live that presently with an open heart, receiving and giving love freely. And it would be nice to be with a man who did the same.

That’s my proposal for a naked lifestyle. I think I will need to sell the concept: better results in life than with Tony Robbins…quick, only $0.99 for one blog that will change your life! The bottom line? Get undressed!!!

Definitively time to get naked…whoop, whoop!

Fifty shades of a dizzy blonde…

I just had the most peculiar thought. I thought that I will miss myself the day I die. When I think about death I normally think about a plunge into the unknown, with the irrational fear that I might actually die. That the soul is not immortal. This thought is irrational, not because it may not be true, but because if it was I would not know. I would as a matter of fact, be dead.

This thought was peculiar because I have never before thought it. I was looking at my Facebook profile and my name looked back at me as well as a pair of big, blue eyes and I thought to myself that I will rather miss Maria Montgomery. If it is so that my soul travels on, which I tend to believe it does in one way or another, I will, presumably, lose my identity. I have never heard of anyone speak of being themselves in past lives. In fact many appeared rather different from their current identity.

The thought was also peculiar because I have spent so many years doing my utmost to get rid of the demons my early childhood created and my goal has sort of been to rid myself of identity and step as closely as possible into my heart and live from that space. Be a living expression of my heart. And I kind of believe that it is this heart we carry forth to the next lifetime, however different our circumstance may be as we are learning new lessons, facing our own karma and what have you…but I presume, that in my next incarnation, if such will occur, that I will not be a sex joke cracking maniac with a blog, who travels the world like a mad hatter. And I quite enjoy that sex joke cracking maniac and her gypsy/travelling entertainer lifestyle.

There are many things in life I don’t understand. I myself am a contradiction in many ways…I can see the “mitote” they speak of in native Indian practices (the thoughts you have, that are really reflections of what everyone else have told you and hence a reflection of their opinions rather than reality and often contradictory in nature…it is what they call “the dream”). And yet, I have a feeling that there is something underneath all that which is crystal clear and whenever I get closer to it, it feels real. Like a revelation.

It makes sense that one should die to lose one’s identity, as otherwise one would be too prejudice to move closer to that realness. There are far too many people stagnated in their beliefs when you look around. Just look at the US election – are they really serving the country, or their own beliefs? And by making out with Barack Obama in my dreams the other night, I was clearly serving mine…

I guess I realised how little time I have, in this incarnation, not just with everyone else, but also with myself. So even though as late as this morning I discovered a part of my identity I didn’t  agree with in the least I can just acknowledge that and act in spite of it whilst I keep enjoying the rather curious parts of my identity that continue to please me. I’m thankful. I’m thankful to be me.

My gran always told me to be proud of my legs and why not indulge in your own body whilst you can? And chocolate…definitively chocolate!

Mistakes and miracles…

I had a dream tonight. A really naughty dream. You know those dreams that are so vivid that even when you wake up you are insanely happy? Well, I dreamt I was making out with Jared Leto…I never dream of making out with celebrities, but let me tell you – this dude is hot. And he was amazing.

Sometimes dreams foretell things right? Not least because it shows our state of mind. So I’m thinking this means I will get to make out with gorgeous man, who is super cuddly, open, intimate and has a voice like an angel. preferably he also play the acoustic guitar, but that would just be a plus.

In all seriousness to me Jared Leto represents LA, a place I love, and doing what I love, because he’s in the movies/entertainment industry. And I am so much looking forward to going to Cape Town and work with C.A.R.E.S. and my venture  The Wandering Tales on movie and theatre projects that incorporate community work and drug rehabilitation.  It rings so true to me I start crying every time I speak about it (that is I feel I could cry…I rarely ever proceed to crying…apart from when I first got the job – I cried for an hour). You see, my whole life I wanted to work with people and I was set to become a doctor (and go on adventures, working with kids in places like…Africa) before I decided to go with the arts and become a director, but I never felt entirely fulfilled. When I mix the working with people aspect with the film and theatre aspect…I just…even writing this, I got moist eyes. I love it so, so much.

At the same time going to Cape Town scares the shit out of me (Swedish expression…don’t know if it translates), because let’s face it: I don’t know. I don’t know how anything out there will go. I don’t even have an online job yet so as to be able to support myself, but I will make it. I may go there and hate it though. I doubt it, but there is a chance. Or maybe I will love it for a while and then head home to LA, or France. Who knows? My intuition tells me to go and that I will live there, but who knows? Who knows anything?

We just have to follow our hearts and do what we would love and I would love to go to Cape Town. The adventure is this: what you think one day is a miracle, looking back may be seen as a mistake and what you think to be a mistake may one day be seen as a miracle.

Life is a lot about following your heart and enjoying the journey. About exploring and learning. Where it takes us…who knows? But I want to enjoy the ride as much as I can. I am quite a determined soul once I get my heart, or mistakenly: head, into something, but I don’t want to live my life getting stuck on things and getting angry with obstacles. If I in the end couldn’t go to Cape Town, then I would have to find another way of doing what I love. I doubt very much that I won’t go, because I am putting all my creative juices into going (I have worked so much on it this week I’ve hardly slept). What I am trying to say is just: life is a combo of mistakes and miracles, one leading to the other. The more we learn, the more we know what we love and the more grounded and in tune we are with mother nature, the easier it gets…but relax and enjoy the ride, because it will be a ride. You can get yourself worked up about all the problems along the way, or you can just deal with them with love in your heart. For example it’s taken me a lot longer to get everything ready for Cape Town than I thought and I can either get really worked up about it, or use my time wisely, relaxing and enjoying what I’m doing. I’ve made mistakes that I can turn into miracles.

Life is the adventure when you go for what you love. Life is the miracle. But that miracle is filled with mistakes, that will then turn into miracles…

Laters. I need a miraculous breakfast now. Oh and Jared Leto. Naked…

Some men are such a delicious mistake…some chocolate cakes too…

Red for passion, pain and priumph…

Very first time sex, first time biking, first time skating…they pretty much all end up with…blood. First time swimming…you sank like a stone, didn’t you? I don’t know about you but I have found with the years that many first time things, such as first time dates, first days at work and first time sex don’t always give the right impression. First impressions last…well, I’m not so sure.

Do you think you have good judgement? I think I have excellent judgement. In my 30 years I have, maybe once, liked someone from day one that I then ended up falling for. Once. Oftentimes I’ve wanted to punch them in the face for no reason. Then again, maybe I was right, because nothing lasted…but then the one I fell for immediately didn’t either. What I am trying to say is that first impressions are often like an apple: it can look shiny on the outside, but be rotten on the inside. Your intuition may be able to tell you so, or some small, small sign of warning, but it’s unlikely you pick up on it if you are excited, hungry, busy, stressed, tired, over joyed, or any other anything that disrupts an empty mind. Similarly, an apple with bit of a brown patch on the skin, can be utterly scrumptiously delicious.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: slow down. Empty your mind before you make decisions. And once you’ve made them, give it time. How long does it take to become an athlete? How long does it take to compose music like Mozart? How long did it take before you could bike, or swim? I remember learning to bike – I was black, blue and my knees were in a state of red mess, but it took me an evening and I was biking. In blissful joy. My bruises made me proud. Keeping it up, when I had fallen over so many times, made me proud. I took pride in putting in the effort to reach my desired result. Be smart – learn how to do things the easiest way (intuition and knowledge), but realize that to get up a hill…you gonna have to climb it…like you climb any good man, or woman.

I’m sure that you check your mobile apps, eat a sandwich and walk to work at the same time, whilst avoiding any traffic hazard you encounter…let’s face it: you are used to multi-tasking and living in what can only be called an ADD culture, but some things take time. And they deserve time. People set up companies, fall in love and enrol in difficult courses at uni thinking it will be a breeze. They hit one obstacle, or get one bad feeling and they are gone. It’s uncomfortable, so they leave. They don’t slow down, check what’s truly going on inside (i.e. what unconscious thoughts and feelings have gotten triggered – if you fail one thing and feel worthless, you may decide to stop at whatever you are doing to stop feeling worthless…but in reality you just failed a test, you aren’t worthless, that’s something you made up), empty their mind and let their intuition guide them. Nor do they realize that it may take a few attempts before the discomfort disappears and they are sailing full speed ahead.

Have you ever heard any of your friends (well, maybe men don’t talk like this, no clue, but women talk sex) say: “OMG I have been dating this guy for about three weeks now, I really like him, he totally turns me on in every way and then we had sex for the first time yesterday and it was appalling, so I can’t wait to do it again and again, until we become orgasmic sexperts!!! I’m so excited!” Or “We’ve been in a four year relationship, things are starting to slow down a bit, you know. Get a bit routine, boring. I’m soooo excited because this is just the wake up call I needed to add some spice both into my life AND the relationship.” Didn’t hear that? Me neither. Nor have I heard of many people going on a bad first date and being excited about giving it a second go. Especially not myself. I’m the one date queen. What’s more, I haven’t really heard of many people having first time sex, or going on a first date thinking they weren’t excited, anxious, or wanting to impress, but rather totally grounded and intuitive, living their greatness. In other words: they weren’t really in the best state of mind for making decisions…but they probably made one, or two (I’ll see you again/I’ll have sex with you again OR I won’t see you again/I won’t have sex with you again).

I’m sure we have all encountered situations where it’s pretty damn obvious that we will, under no circumstance date, or have sex with someone again, or whatever it is we did (some mistakes you truly only wanna make once and sometimes you do truly know with your heart you don’t want it again), all I’m saying is: slow down, take your time, explore and use your intuition to make your decisions. And remember that learning to swim takes time and learning to bike even gives you bruises. Just like that great sex you had the other day…  (Have you ever had that awkward moment when someone asked you what a very awkward positioned bruise was all about? Mmmm, awkwardly great, aren’t they?)

Red hot…

A naked dance, somewhere around midnight…

 

I think dancing is probably the sexiest way there is to use your body. Sure sex is sexy, but sensual dancing has more sex appeal. Someone who can move their body, really move their body…

I don’t know about you, but I love to dance. I’ve taken dance classes on and off since I was fourteen and almost ended up becoming a professional dancer. I’ve done a fair amount of dancing, not enough if you ask me, but a fair amount. I’ve also had a lot of compliments for my dancing…from performances to clubbing. In other words: I love to dance and I’m not half bad at it. Yet, I made a discovery and that is that I’m not sure I’ve ever danced entirely freely and still dancing is where I usually feel the most free and alive.

There are times when I’m aware I’m self-conscious not to drag too much attention to myself, or want to impress, or want to get the moves right, or want to come up with new moves, or feel out of sync with the people around and can’t dance to save myself, etc., but that is something I’m aware of and sometimes one strategy or another does feel appropriate. There’s a reason you don’t do pirouettes down Oxford Street (you are likely to kill yourself or someone else by mistake), but when you are alone in the garden and actually try to dance freely and realize you can’t, that’s when things get awkward.

We talk a lot about what we want to do…like if I only had a week, or a month to live, I’d do x, y, z…but it’s not just about what you do. It’s how you do it. You can become a professional dancer and spend your entire career never once dancing, never once giving yourself entirely to the dance. You can marry someone without ever once giving yourself to them during sex. Never once surrendering.

Have you ever danced where you gave yourself entirely to the dance and the music? Where every other thought was completely erased? Where there was no thought, no need to think, but you just simply gave yourself to the moment, to the experience, allowing your heart to lead and explore whatever it came across? Where your body simply became a tool to express your heart and your love. Have you ever done that during sex? During a dinner? At any given time in life? I’m not sure I have. I’m not sure I’ve ever surrendered without thought, without strategy, without analysing, but I believe that’s where life would be the greatest. Love and exploration. Absolute intimacy, both with yourself, others and what you are experiencing. Magic…I think that’s what they call magic – when borders get erased and all becomes one.

On that note – let’s dance.