Being in service breeds connection. It is as simple as that. And this week I had another great reminder how true this is.

Being of service is part of the discipline of happiness - of choosing to commit to a different narrative that connects rather than separates, that creates friendships instead of loneliness, that brings contentment in a world of confusion.

It was a remarkable discovery as a Therapist how attached to our identities other people are. To the story others have in their heads, the us-shaped hole in their cognitive landscape they’ve determined that we live. And if their minds aren’t malleable, they are unable to fit the new-shaped us into their old-shaped hole. So to speak…

This rings true if we change hobbies, let go of old actions, find new interests, get a new job - the extent of the tension point is determined by how tight they are in their own relationship with change.

It was a mind-blowing moment that made me think about where I've been and how extraordinary the twists of life. From touring Japan with Rancid and Pennywise, sitting in a studio and chatting with Tarantino, to comparing outfits with Debbie Harry to feeding my pigs Tina and Hazel, planting 10000 trees, having run a yoga studio for 11 years, to speaking on everything from music producers to mental health.

What a ride. And the best part? The people. The phenomenal folks who are trying to feel better, be better and do better a little each day, for themselves, for others and the world.

For me, the capacity to be in joy at the hardest times of my life began when I became a Yoga Teacher back in 2012. My reason for doing a Yoga Teacher Training was because I was tired of trying to squeeze my wellbeing in as an aside. I wanted my physical and mental health to be my number one priority. To saturate in it. To make it my living, breathing reality everyday. I needed to.

But what I got, what WE got, was much more than we bargained for.

Not really knowing what it means to be human.

Day after day of hearing people grieving, beating themselves up, giving themselves a hard time, believing they are failures for this reason or that and finding myself saying over and over again - this is what it is to be HUMAN.

Shane and I are looking down the barrel this year of the most serious role we’ve undertaken outside of parenting and grandparenting – teaching others to become teachers.

Holding true to what we’ve learned at the source, holding steadfast to not allowing our own interpretations to mutate the wisdom that changes lives as it is.

If you make your refinements relevant to where you’re going, then each day not only are you moving incrementally toward your goal, you are moving further away from your suffering! You are changing old patterns and creating new patterns, and what do you get when you dissolve an old pattern?

More room for positive patterns!

And that is how you create more time in your day and get yourself in a positive loop of change.

What can you refine today?

Start refining TODAY. Go to your yoga mat and move for 10 minutes, sit, breathe and improve the quality of your respiration for just 6 rounds, focus your mind to a quality you want to bring up to the surface of your personality and keep repeating those things over and over again until you arrive.

REPETITION CREATES REALITY

The point of this tale has got nothing to do with gluten and everything to do with the blindness that comes from our own stories, IN SPITE OF ALL EVIDENCE. And the incredulous shock of how obvious something is once we see it.

Stay open, stay malleable, do things differently, explore those old stories and challenge them with a smile on your face. You never know what you might see when your eyes are open.

We chose this life! Like it or not we’ve signed up for this course that is birth to death and in between is the learning, the letting go, falling over and getting up again, the growing, the maturing. These are all opportunities to be more present, intimately and intensely engaged with the this real life movie that’s ”happening” and the teachers that play their role dressed in character as partners, children, pelicans, a sea breeze or a desert sunset, young saplings rising up from seed through the dark soil moving up and out towards space and light.

THE BREAKDOWN.

Now I’m not talking about some superficial had enough of my job, location, relationship type relocation, I’m talking about the disintegration, the volcano, the collapse of everything to this point that defines me as ME.

I can feel it skirting around my edges.

Can you feel it too?

Right now, the women of Generation X - latch key kids raised by Mum’s who worked fulltime, women who embraced booze, drugs and sex as hard as their male counterparts, women now in their 40s and 50s who experienced sexual assault and trauma as the norm, and who’ve instigated a powerful social narrative around consent, better health, female physical strength and conditions in the workplace that support a female endocrine system - are going through perimenopause. And what I will say is:

LOOK OUT WORLD

The world can be scary but we are already capable - or not capable - of responding in whatever situation we find ourselves in. We are what we are in this present moment and we can make ourselves more capable, in different ways, each and every day. Learning to trust ourselves and our capabilities is a most important first step.

15 years ago, there was no way I could have run a program that started at 6.00am. Not even for one day, let alone 21.

When changing any old behaviour, there is effort in the beginning but all the effort is to make it effortless. And it will.

You try and force or hurry any of these things and frustrations are born and stress in the body begins it’s constrictive dance and we immediately separate from the person, the place, the moment and we miss out on a depth of connection that actually fuels us and restores vitality and passion in the ordinary day to day.

You see, we are so much about patterns, helpful, harmful and indifferent. They feel like EVERYTHING. Yet patterns, because they are of the mind, are only really, just 1% of you. The other 99% is the part of you that’s deeper than the body, breath and mind - it is bliss, it is source, it is all of the vitality and energy of the entire Universe. In. Side. You.

LAND in your body. As you move into each new gesture, take a moment to consciously land in your body.

LISTEN to your body. Am I comfortable? Am I steady? Is my body telling me to shift something? To give more, to give less?

No doubt you've a habit or two that bothers you. You want it to change but the groove you've worn to flow back into it time and time again, runs deep. And the more you focus on tearing yourself away from it, the more your mind digs in.

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If you’re ready for The Master Course on freeing yourself from things that make you suffer.

Maybe it's booze, food, poor relationships, negative thinking, self-doubt, scrolling, rushing, procrastinating, drugs or fear.

Things that may even once have served you but now make you suffer and you'd love to throw that monkey off your back.

Join me for 21 days, in this yoga therapy framework and learn how to rewire your own conditioning, gathering tools of change, for life. The 21-Day ON-DEMAND Dissolving Patterns Program is accessible to anyone in any timezone, on any work roster, within the framework of any other life commitments.

Start your journey of change here.

One of the most crucial parts of change is the simplest one of all - do something different. Whether that’s choosing a different cup for your tea, wearing a colour you normally wouldn’t, trying new foods, new words, new movements, sleeping on the other side of the bed, taking a different mode of transportation, sitting a different seat at the table or going somewhere you’ve never been before to do something you’ve never done before.

Today, I want to acknowledge the honour it is to grow older, and to grow older with others. Whether those others are our friends, family, colleagues or lovers. We can be surrounded by people, but our own obstacles can confine us in a sphere of loneliness.