Posted on by — Leave a comment

Where is peace?

peace

Across my life, there is something quite implausible that I have been searching for. I’m not motivated by money, I have always been content with much and also with little. Maybe it was the way my Mum raised us, whenever there was a need she went about and solved the answer? Maybe it has been my obsession with people more than things? Maybe it is a gift that has been graciously given but money doesn’t motivate me.

There is a question though that has plagued me. One that is more important than titles, success and accolades to me.

I have been searching my whole life to find peace.

The question I often ask myself is this…

“Where is peace?”

In this bizarre world, where people become influencers and have platforms to millions of people, without really earning their hero status. We have elevated people who live with chaos and consumerism rather than those who are ruled by wisdom and peace.

I believe that peace is the fruit of a life lived sown. I believe peace is a presence that cuts between the problem and the answer. I believe peace is so much more than a laying down of ammunition, it is an indescribable knowing that we are made from but dust.

I have heard many a guru say that peace is found in an empty place, an oasis created in our minds, drawing us towards ecstasy and fulfilment but I have found peace to be far from empty.

Peace for me is found in moments when it does not make sense but I know that tomorrow will be better.

Peace for me is trusting that although fear reigns in our world, that the old will pass away and the beauty of the transformed is awaiting release.

Peace is a presence that cannot be manufactured or contained.

Peace is a person who whispers love and light into my dark places.

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10

There are seasons of great shaking and for my community, the last few months has been harrowing. Peace leads however in the darkest places and I believe that a covenant of peace has been made with humanity. That peace awaits its fulfilment and is aching to come and reign in all our hearts.

A peace that surpasses understanding, one that guards both our hearts and minds is awaiting.

One step closer.

Lay down that which hinders you.

Lean into the presence of Peace.

This is not the end, you’re gonna be okay.

Seek out peace.

It is waiting.

Amanda

Posted on by — Leave a comment

When tenderness is required and all I want to do is scream

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Tuesday morning came quicker than I expected this week. As I got my little boy ready for school, I was delicately dancing around the subject of ballet with my two-year-old.

Shall we go to dancing today?

I already knew the answer, but I was opening up the conversation to give her the opportunity to talk. I had realised quickly that tenderness was required in this season with my little girl, rather than strict rule keeping.

As we dropped her brother at the school gate a burst of inspiration came dancing forward. The Library, let’s go on a date to the Library. So off we raced, finding a park and a swing on the way. I sat down watching my daughter explore her surrounds and my heart breathed a sigh of relief, from a moment to reflect and recover.

Motherhood is overwhelming, with all the opinions and opportunities. Living a life on purpose is exhausting, constantly feeling the wrestle of my “Yes and No”. Marriage is relentless, keeping my accounts short and my love long. Friendship is confounding, wondering what is helpful or not.

Have you ever sat quietly after a season of great output and breathed deeply wondering what am I doing with my life?

This, my friend, is a regular conversation with myself and lately, my response has been a little different than in the past. I am learning tenderness. I am learning patience with myself. I am unlearning negative patterns that bombard my soul with “Not-enoughness”.

How about you?

On that trip to the Library, in the midst of searching for books about pony’s and unicorns, this little book jumped off the shelf and landed in my overfull basket. “On Living; dancing more, working less and other last thoughts.” It is the stories of those dying by a hospice chaplain and the nuggets of wisdom that facing eternity makes stark.

I turned on my lamp that evening after my Tuesday musings and opened the pages of this little offering. The theme of tenderness, enoughness and self-talk came shining through once again as I turned page after page.

“Whatever bad things have happened to you in your life, whatever hard things you’ve gone through, you have to do three things: You have to accept it. You have to be kind to it and listen to me. You have to let it be kind to you.”

On Living Kerry Egan

This quote mirrored something I had read from one of my favourites this week, Dr Rebecca Ray found below.

Things I know about healing;

Speaking kindly to yourself helps a lot.

Dr Rebecca Ray

Together these two inspirations reminded me of something I have been working on this year: tenderness. I think being tender can be seen as a weakness but I am learning it takes the most amazing discipline.

Tenderness.

I think being tender can be seen as a weakness but I am learning it takes the most amazing discipline.

Patience is a companion of tender.

Wisdom dances close by the tender-hearted.

Friendship is grown through tenderness.

And life is slowed by a tender response.

To show tenderness is the combination of gentleness, kindness and affection. As a Mother, I pray that my children remember my tender moments. The times when I wanted to shout and scream but I chose a different way. I hope they remember, my late night kisses found in the dreary times of exhaustion. I pray my husband feels my heart move when he walks in the door and he knows his secrets are safe in my hands.

Tenderness.

It is not the opposite of strength, it is the companion of a life lived sowed.

The tender-hearted warrior.

The brilliance of silence and empathy.

These, my friends, are my current obsession, to turn away my wrath with a tender response.

What are you working on?

Amanda

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Rediscovering Your Vision and Voice

vision

It was a cold Autumn morning, much like the weather today here in Perth, WA. I had a little newborn baby and a story that made my throat tighten. I sat in our little apartment by the sea and my heart heaved with grief from letting go of the season that had just passed.

My husband walked in the door with a sneaky smile and glint in his eyes. With a Tiffany bag hidden behind his back, he presented me with the gift of necklace with a key on a long chain, that has become my constant companion ever since. As he gave me this gift he whispered: “Babe, the best is yet to come”.

I wasn’t ungrateful for the season of Motherhood that had been sprung surprisingly into my life, it was the letting go of the person “who I was in a previous season”. The girl with the career, the titles, expectations, responsibilities and the car parking space. When I worked full time, I understood what my role was. I thrived with my KPI’s, I strengthened under mentors and leaders, it was where I really found my voice.

What happens when the season shifts and we let go of everything that held us secure?

Your big shift could be chronic illness. Your season’s end could be redundancy. Your career change could have been burn out.

My question for today is this…

Have you ever felt the silence and grief of letting go of a season that was?

I have had and it nearly broke me.

Here are three ways that I have learnt to rediscover vision and voice in seasons of change.

Firstly,

We need to realign our reliance on others to give us our sense of security. It is so easy to base our perspective on what others think of us to get our confidence and voice. In this new season of rediscovering my vision and voice, I have had to readjust how much I rely on others to affirm my sense of purpose. I love it when Paul a writer from the New Testament says it this way.

Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Philippians 4: 11-12

Contentment with our little or a lot is an ever-shifting balance. We need to ask for feedback and we all need encouragement to step into our greater tomorrow. When we rely on these voices, however, to be our anchor, in times of storm and change, when those voices are no longer available, we are like a boat in rough seas, trying desperately to find the shore again.

Secondly,

We must be willing to constantly reinvent believing that the best is yet to come. I have seen many people become extremely stuck when a season ends. Unable to reinvent what the discovery of their purpose and voice looks like for tomorrow, because they are facing the past rather than the future. When we can only see the fulfilment of our dreams and promises by the way it was outworked in our past, we become very stagnant.

This quote challenges me deeply.

When we make a change, it’s so easy to interpret our unsettled ways as unhappiness, and our unhappiness as the result of having made the wrong decision. This is normal. This is natural. This is change.

Jeanette Winterson.

Any change is relentless in its overwhelming unsettledness. However, every time I have surrendered to the power of change in my life positively I have rediscovered my voice and vision in ways that I have never before. Are you willing to reinvent your life? I mean everything? Then maybe on the precipice of this awakening, your voice will be strengthened like never before.

Thirdly,

Who do you rely on to begin again? For me and my house, we seek a Greater voice. Every time I have stood at a door wondering whether it will open when I seek the perspective of a higher power, the peace that surpasses understanding is always overwhelming. That is the power of inspiration. A breath of wisdom coming from a greater knowing of the future and its power. I believe strongly that the best is yet to come because I believe that my life and its vision and voice was designed with purpose.

Rely on God to begin all over again, every day as if nothing had ever been done.

CS Lewis

The key that my husband gave me reminds me daily that there is never a dead end in the Kingdom of God. It is an unfolding, miraculous journey of hope and discovery. Every time that we think something has ended, it is the seed that brings the beauty of tomorrow.

Are you in a place where you can see no beauty in this season?

Firstly, realign your reliance on what others say about you. Take the time to strengthen and remind yourself of your strengths.

Secondly, reinvent your perspective of the power of change in your today.

Thirdly, have the courage to believe and trust in a greater perspective, one that designed and perfected you, before you were even conceived in your mother’s womb.

These three simple truths will profoundly shift the way you enter into seasons of change.

What if this season could be the greatest shift and adventure of your life?

With love

Amanda

Ps- If you are in Perth and have a couple of hours free on a Saturday afternoon, come and join me with this small, personal workshop. The whole idea is to spend a couple of hours, working on our vision and ideas for the future in a super creative and fun way. Come and have coffee and cake with me, I’d love to meet you.

SMALL (2)

Posted on by — 7 Comments

People Pleasers Anon

coffee

Grab a cup of coffee, sit in a circle with me and together let’s repeat…

Hi, my name is Amanda (insert your fabulous name here) and I am a people pleaser.

One of my greatest weaknesses in life is that I care. I care so much, that my brain fogs over with the constant weight of responsibility to make everything in my world okay.

I often text people just to check in on them and when they don’t reply, I think that maybe I’m the one who has done something wrong. People around me behave badly, storm off from conversations and yet I find myself reeling wondering how I could have changed their response. People pleasing is my kryptonite and I am actively seeking change and freedom in this part of my life.

Just this morning, I made our bed and looked underneath my bedside table and realised that a plastic toy gun, that probably landed there mid-flight between my two children wrestling on our bed, has been there for a good two weeks. I can see the dust settling and the eyes rolling, yet for once in my life, I just don’t care anymore.

The non-violence crew, whose opinions are so very valid about our children not having toy guns.

The Marie Kondo fan girls, who think that the gun, because it hasn’t been touched lovingly in over two weeks, then it should be thrown away to the massive plastic rubbish pile.

The non- plastic groupies, who think that the gun should have been made with wood to draw my children away from their evil screens into the forest.

The tribe lists go on and on, then some more.

Tales of A Tuesday Morning

On Tuesday this week,  I sat with my daughter on the floor of her dance class. To tell you the honest, raw truth, even though I have been hashtagging #tuesdaysarefordancing , they have been far from jovial. This last Tuesday was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I sat trying to convince my two-year-old to listen to her teacher and she slapped me across my face.

I did what any self- respecting parent would do is sat her in the corner, in front of the whole class full of Mummy and Me experts and I wanted to crawl into a glass of wine for the rest of my life. I quietly asked my beautiful rule breaker to say sorry “For slapping Mummy’s face” and she refused.

So ever so embarrassingly I dragged her out of the class screaming and we drove the whole way home both crying. This is the second time this year that we have done this very thing.

Do you know what hurt me the most about this terrible part of my parenting week?

Was that I was more concerned about what the other Mums thought about me and the embarrassment that chilled right down to my toes. I was so embarrassed that all I wanted to do was pull out of that class and never, ever return.

Often my husband and I have to say to ourselves, she is only two. Two.

Not five, not three yet, two. And two-year-olds break the rules. It is like they are hardwired to piss you off!

I shared this last week on my social media pages and it went a little crazy.

How To Be A Mum in 2017:
Make sure your children’s academic, emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual, physical, nutritional, and social needs are met while being careful not to overstimulate, understimulate, improperly medicate, helicopter, or neglect them in a screen-free, processed foods-free, GMO-free, negative energy-free, plastic-free, body positive, socially conscious, egalitarian but also authoritative, nurturing but fostering of independence, gentle but not overly permissive, pesticide-free two-story, multilingual home preferably in a cul-de-sac with a backyard and 1.5 siblings spaced at least two years apart for proper development also don’t forget the coconut oil. (This is why we’re crazy.)
Bunmi Laditan

I am realising that one of the greatest difficulties of our social media age, is that we are overwhelmed by all the information that is bombarding us. We are overwhelmed trying too hard to do it all, be it all and keep everyone’s opinions at bay.

Then you add in people pleasing. The peace keepers. The empaths. Those who just want to keep everything okay and that is an important part of their emotional wellbeing and health.

We need wisdom and strength to be able to decipher what is information, what is people pleasing and what opinions we just need to let roll off our hearts and lives.

We need the wisdom to be able to say no when the people pleaser in us just wants to say yes to stop the awkward conversation.

We need the wisdom to stop ourselves from running after someone when they choose to remove themselves from your life.

We need wisdom and strength to reform our self-worth from what others say and do, to be able to sit comfortably in the discomfort of it all.

Wisdom,

Strength,

Peace,

and most of all self-discovery.

This is my prayer for us sitting in this circle today. That we continue to find strength in those broken parts of ourselves and that most of all, that we are kind to ourselves in the midst of the wrestle.

Big Love

Amanda

Posted on by — 3 Comments

How to stop fighting with yourself.

IMG_6231

We are our greatest critics. Our voice, our unique is often squashed under the unmet expectations of should.

How often do you roll your eyes internally about yourself?

I have been on a healing journey over the last few years and I am far from finished, but one of the greatest places of healing has been the way I speak to myself. We are often our greatest critics and our hearts grieve for kindness.

My body has held onto expectations that have been hidden my whole life. My heart has had scars reverberating through my years from words spoken that have been etched inside my today. My mind worries often about what has gone and gives constant suggestions of what could have been.

Do you fight with yourself?

Is the greatest conflict you encounter an internal one?

I have been on a journey of discovery my friend and it is a never ending story of hope and broken bridges. Life is art not science and I am seeking the beauty of simplicity in the folds of its palette.

Relying on God has to begin all over again everyday as if nothing yet had been done.

C.S Lewis

Grace

I am learning to pause and find grace with myself. Being kinder in the words I speak internally and the expectations I yearn for perfection. I am learning to say “It’s okay, you are doing you’re best.” Where in the past I would of ached with shame and the weight of responsibility.

Quiet

I am learning the deep satisfaction of living a quiet life. One that doesn’t need affirmation or acknowledgement of others to find my sense of success and contribution. Slowing down to appreciate the simplicity of moments and smiling as a friend with low expectations rings to say hello.

Okay

I am smiling often when I just let something go and allow a thought of drivenness to arrive, then wave it goodbye as it walks away. I am remembering it is okay to sleep in and also go to bed early and that when I turn off my phone and I miss a call, that it is not the end of the world. It is okay to not be okay, it is also okay to be not enough. Sitting in the space of growth and discovery, finding life awakening in the very broken parts of our humanity.

Difference

I am swelling with thankfulness in realising that if someone disagree’s with me, it is not my place to try and convince them of my side of the story. The great satisfaction in removing myself from conversations and spaces that are not helpful, healthy or whole. I want to celebrate different and live in the deep place of wanting to learn more every single day.

How do we stop fighting with ourselves?

We do this by slowing.

Slowing.

Slowing.

Slowing.

Listening.

Listening.

Listening.

Saying sorry, sorry, sorry.

and allowing ourselves to grow in those places that we just want to hide from the world.

Be a poem my friend,

and its structure is the way that we speak to ourselves.

Amanda

Processed with VSCO with a4 preset

I’ve just release a small batch of my letter press prints for Mothers day.

Click here to get yours today.  $20 includes postage within Australia.