This week I met one of my teachers in person for the first time, Dr Gabor Mate.  I confess I was rather giddy with excitement and thrilled to be so close to the real person. Living in Canada, Gabor was on a book tour and yes, I got my book signed and we had a short exchange. I enjoyed the feeling of excitement and connection when we met.

I have been studying his Compassionate Inquiry approach through a series of videos for the last 12 months and recently graduated. The programme was a deep dive into self awareness and techniques for supporting others through trauma and addiction and his work is really transformational.

It was wonderful to receive my certificate and to meet Gabor within a few days of each other and really closed the year off beautifully. 

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn this approach and to now be able support my clients in new, deeper ways. I am grateful for all my teachers including @George Kao for sharing their wisdom with us and supporting us on our journeys. May we always pass it forward so others may benefit 🙏 

This week I was inspired by a quote from Kurt Vonnegut:

“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow…”

I explored how I was practicing art and what was holding me back from using it as a practice to become and make my soul grow.

Here is my post on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/po...

The same post on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cisuhq_PCtp

My practice this week is inspired by Kurt Vonnegut: 

“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow…”

So I will be dancing and drawing by myself to simply explore, rather than striving for any results. It feels like this would bring me closer to  my essential nature. I will make this my spiritual practice for the next week and see where it takes me.

I wrote this poem in 2007 while on a writing and hiking retreat in the central desert of Australia.  I found it recently and it spoke to my soul - about being a sacred space for others and for celebrating our connection to life itself.  Poetry is a medium I truly love and it is calling me to begin writing again!  A 'gum' is a eucalyptus tree.

A Red River Gum

I want to live and die as gracefully as this noble red river gum

leaning gently over, offering myself as a resting place for the weary.

My white-washed trunk is sleek, unadorned,

with limbs reaching into the emptiness of the sapphire sky.

I trace my life back through these hollowed limbs,

to spaces offered, spaces shared with others.

One day, everything I remember will simply fall away, 

as my flesh sinks back into my mother’s arms again.

No memory of my life will remain, 

except as a pause between the falling rain

and the gentle lifting of a seed from its earthly bed.