i love this nation, and truly blessed to call australia home.

on a day like today, where the nation democratically elected the next prime minister… i don’t take this freedom for granted.

in my country of birth, despite appearances, it isn’t a democracy. less than half the seats are contested, so the prime minister is in a sense already decided before the nation goes to vote. and so when the people vote for the opposition, the government penalises them. public transport gets taken away from that suburb, government housing buildings don’t get upgraded… the list goes on. and that’s the public list. there’s a lot more things that happens in the dark.

i clearly remember the night when i decided i want to become a citizen. you might think it was because i love this beautiful nation full of awesome beaches and amazing sunshine :). but being a permanent resident, i could still enjoy all this and live here indefinitely without being a citizen.

no, the primary reason for wanting to be a citizen was so i could vote. you see, that night, i had been invited by my close aussie friend to an election party. i remember feeling so out of place that night as the concept of a democratic leader was so foreign to me. i couldn’t imagine that people would gather together to watch the polling results and celebrate the next leader of this country.

every voice matters. your voice matters. just as every single vote counts especially in a close election like we just had, make every second of your life count!

i quit something this week. and it created more space in my life. i felt lighter and freer and i didn’t realise how much emotional energy it was sucking from me until i finally made the decision to eliminate that thing out of my life. had i trusted my gut instinct, i would have done it a lot sooner and saved myself all that grief!

last year, the world was fixated by the konmari movement of decluttering our homes. no doubt, part of the success of marie kondo’s methods was that by decluttering our physical environment, it would also make us feel more at peace, in turn creating more space in our lives.

i’m all for adventure and experiencing new things to expand my thinking. however, if i keep adding new things to my life, then it only makes sense that i will need to eliminate some stuff in my life.

i first heard about this concept of quitting things regularly, through bob goff. every thursday, he deliberately quit something to eliminate noise in his life and “let the symphony have the stage again”.

maybe instead of focussing on setting goals every year to achieve something new, we might be better quitting 52 things in a year. who knows, it might bring greater clarity to what’s truly important in our lives.

“ouch.  oh wow.  that feels better.  no wait.. hmm, my head… oh boy, what’s happening?”   lucky i was sitting down, as it felt like the world was spinning.

that was my reaction when my chiropractor cracked my neck and spine.  i’d been in a lot of pain, and knew it was time for a slight adjustment, for realignment.  but this adjustment spun me out and i was feeling a bit dizzy.

“its your parasympathetic nervous system catching up with your sympathetic nervous system.  i’ll just give you a minute for your nervous system to settle”.    the chiropractor then proceeded to explain what was technically happening pointing to the skeleton in the room, at the same time giving me time to settle.

in plain language, my head needed some time to catchup with what had just happened.  to process what had happened.  to catch up with reality and for my head to match the realignment that had just happened in my body.  for my head to register and catch up to my new normal.

it took a mere five seconds for the adjustment, and about a minute or two for the nerves to settle.  and realign and adjust to my new normal.

i wonder – with the crazy fast paced lives that seems to be the acceptable norm in culture nowadays, how many opportunities for adjustment were simply missed because there was no space to breathe and realign?

sometimes, the realignment is so tiny.

you might have all 99% right, with only 1% needing realignment to be back on track again.

“i don’t know why she puts up with him.   i hope that after today’s incident,  she leaves him”

that was the conversation i had with a friend earlier today, as we discussed why some nice people end up being together with jerks.

it brought me back to a movie i had watched, and a line i’ve quoted numerous times –

“we accept the love we think we deserve”

when i first heard this, i pondered over that statement a lot… and it prompted me seeing things slightly differently.

do you agree with this statement?

in a way, a lot of how we live our lives is driven by what we think we deserve.

when’s the last time you took some time out to look at your life and review what has been going on?

for highly driven people, it’s sometimes easy to move from one thing to the next.  without much breathing space in between projects.  i feel like in today’s fast paced society, busyness is almost a holy grail, signifying importance.

this last month, i’ve been blessed with the luxury of slowing down.  i’ve rediscovered my love of reading, started writing again and journalling more, prioritised time to reflect, explored new places, surfed on my new board, prayed .. and gave myself time to just let the tears out and heal.

i created space to go back in my “time machine” and review 2019 so far.

i’ve realised the importance of acknowledging, accepting and embracing my strengths.  i got to know myself better and learnt ways of how i can enrich my soul daily.  i’m not sure how long this current season will last, but this space has given me a bit more clarity for the next season of my life.