Tag Archives: Haiti

Public Declaration of Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans

03 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Declaration of Future Life Plans

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Been meaning to write this one up for a while now.

Have you noticed how darn freakin’ hard it can be to keep your eyes on your goals when they’re not immediately in front of you? When there are no set dates or schedules? Even worse, when you’re working like a demon to get to even the first marker and more obstacles appear? Yeah, me too. That’s pretty much been 2011 for me.

It can be handy to write up your plans and have them all in one place. So this post is exactly that – a manifesto of my Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans.

All in public and centralised, and a touchstone for me to revisit whenever I forget what I’m working towards. Also, it’s a bit like putting an advance order in to the Universe.

So here it is…*

Short term

  • Get a well-paying permanent or longer-term contract job (6-12 months) to keep me financially afloat.
  • Be employed before, during and after the end of my current contract (end-November ’11).
  • Take my birthday holiday trip in December. Have a blast, meet new people and RELAX.
  • Work on reducing my physical possessions – sell stuff or give it away. Hold a garage sale?

Medium term

  • Successfully wean myself off thyroid medication, with the assistance of kinesiology, diet, de-stressing, yoga and other exercise.
  • Get a clean bill of health for my thyroid once I’m off medication.
  • Write a complete first draft of the children’s book that’s banging around my brain. (It currently sends me messages like: WRITE ME, BIATCH).
  • Find someone to illustrate my children’s book and collaborate on the work.
  • Reverse my thyroid-induced weight gain. – HAPPENING!
  • Pay off all of my debts completely.
  • Start saving a whole bunch of money for my Big Overseas Adventure!
  • Gain my English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching certificate.
  • Keep reducing amount of physical possessions to those things that are necessary for functional and/or emotional/spiritual/sanity purposes.
  • Get travel shots.

Longer term

  • Find a publisher who wants to publish my book and pay me money for it!
  • Once I’ve saved up a whole bunch of money for my Big Overseas Adventure, buy an around the world plane ticket. Get necessary visas and insurance. UPDATE 17/3/2013: For now, I’m not taking a ’round the world trip, just a two month sabbatical to India (currently in progress!)
  • Quit my job. WOOP! WOOP!
  • This one is sad. 😦 Find an excellent new home for Miss Cleo the cat. My beautiful girl. UPDATE 17/3/2013: Since I’m not going overseas indefinitely, I just have a house/cat sitter instead!
  • Sell all possessions I don’t want to keep. Box up what’s left to put in storage.
  • Make all necessary plans and farewells. Then GET ON PLANE!!
  • First stop: India, for panca karma, studying at KYM and Satyananda Ashram. Wander about. See things. Be in the world.
  • Second stop: find wherever my Guru is in the world and spend some time with him, still studying yoga (referring to the complete idea of yoga here – philosophy, meditation, asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha).
  • Third stop: spend some time in retreat.
  • Other stops: maybe visit friends in the UK and US. Do some volunteer work in Haiti. Wander about. See things. Be in the world.
  • Maintain and increase my good health, thyroid or otherwise.

Even longer term…

Now I’m getting into very speculative territory. But here’s a lifestyle that could make me happy:

  • Settle down somewhere in Asia. Maybe Thailand or somewhere nearby. Somewhere beautiful.
  • Get a job teaching yoga, perhaps at some swanky retreat centre.
  • Perhaps get another job teaching ESL.
  • Write more children’s books and/or other types of books.
  • Maybe also do some freelance writing for various websites.
  • Combine all of the above with doing service work of some kind, preferably working with children or women at risk. People who need love.
  • Maybe other things. Probably LOTS of other things. But the point is to be doing work that I love and that makes me happy.
  • Maintain and increase my good health, thyroid or otherwise.
  • Live a life I can’t even imagine right now. A really, really GREAT one.

Somewhere in this process…

I dare to dream that this future also includes personal, romantic love. As in a partner. It’s been a long time, but I think I’m finally ready to open my heart again. For someone who gets me, and vice versa. Someone who has a good heart and thrives on the kind of life I’ve described above, just as much as I do. Someone who isn’t afraid of change, growth and learning new things. Someone who knows who they are and isn’t afraid to challenge themselves or me. Who is passionate and knows how to make me laugh. Side note: someone who is preferably taller than my 5’10½” because I dig a tall guy.

So there we have it. My Public Declaration of Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans.

For a long time, I didn’t have any plans or dreams. I didn’t make any and couldn’t even imagine a time in my life where I’d be happy and doing what I wanted to be doing. Things are different now. I’m on my way, y’all!**

Of course, the Universe will have a say in how things pan out. But assuming the Universe agrees, this is what I’ll be doing.

~ Svasti

* This post will get updated as things change!

** Being on my way doesn’t mean I assume everything is gonna go off without a hitch or be problem-free. That’d be foolish-thinking. But I’m down with a somewhat bumpy journey, as long as I can still achieve my goals.

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Find the joy

13 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in Learnings

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From a bush outside my apartment...

Some yogis never practice asana, did you know that?

It’s not the usual path for sure, but there ARE people who were born with already wide-open hearts, those so selfless they wouldn’t think twice about giving the shirt off their back to someone who needed it more than they do.

Most of us however… we need all that asana and meditation  in order to see clearly and enable us to start acting from the heart as a default first course of action.

According to the Chinese New Year, we’re moving into the Year of the Rabbit and apparently 2011 is meant to be a little slower. More restorative. And who couldn’t do with twelve months of that? I know I sure can… time to recoup and rebuild, yeah?

Friends, one and all – I ask you to take the time to watch this half hour documentary about life in Haiti one year after the earthquake.

It’s a beautiful tale about the fostering of love and fun amongst the Haitian people, despite the wretchedness of their situation. This is also a story of compassion: people helping each other with the most unimaginable tasks regardless of their own circumstances;  and how to not be destroyed by complete and utter darkness when life as you know it is over and you’ve lost so very much.

Have your hankie ready, but also be prepared to feel jubilant and blissful no matter what. The website for the doco is here: Sun City Picture House

Share it around.

Also, take a look at Diane’s post over at The Everything Yoga blog about Big Yoga. She kindly referenced my Body Talk interview with The BlissChick in a discussion about how we’ve just GOT to get over this idea about “perfect yoga bodies”. And that’s another helping of compassion right there.

There are sharks swimming down the streets of Ipswich in Queensland, folks. And it’s still raining cats and donkeys here, all day and night. But we do find ways to go on, even as our hearts are breaking for the state of this planet and it’s people and animals.

Nothing is permanent, nothing is forever. Like the dude in the doco says, find the joy in order not to be completely crushed.

Having been completely crushed before, I highly recommend the alternative: find the joy, everybody!

~Svasti

P.S. More coming soon on my review of Carried by a Promise!

Healing and Dealing with Depression

15 Friday Jan 2010

Posted by in Depression

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Not quite sure how this happened, but a lady named Amy has put together her Top 30 Sites for People Dealing with Depression and included this blog on her list!

Which is cool… but like Trini Girl Blue (also on the list), I think there’s other blogs that could’ve been mentioned. Trini has made a good list, so I won’t mention those sites here again, although there’s many on her list that I’d also mention if she hadn’t.

Here’s a few more (some are specific posts, others are just the blog in general) in alphabetical order:

And to quote Trini coz she already said it so well…

…there are many people that were missed and for that I am sorry, if anyone wants to be added to this list please feel free to drop me a line. This is just a drop in the bucket, it is not exhaustive.

We all struggle with ourselves and while some don’t update as much as they have in the past there are good resources on each of these blogs…

From my perspective I like hearing about how others deal with depression, even if they are still in the woods (so to speak).

It’s a topic that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime and isn’t well understood. Consequently a lot of people with depression put up with it and end up loathing themselves when really what they need is a hug and appropriate mental health care.

Depression warps your view of yourself and also makes it very difficult to dig your way out. It can make you feel like you’ll never be happy ever again. And it’s hard to find a reason to get out of bed when you feel like that!

But it is possible. Like many of the blogs mentioned in the top 30 list and on Trini’s blog and those I’ve mentioned, many people have found healing and have managed to bring some happiness and sunshine back into their life.

And that’s part of why I write these days – to show that it is possible to recover.

As human beings, we have the capacity to destroy ourselves/other people or thrive and find incredible happiness. All people have that same capacity – all of us.

Speaking of depression, human beings and happiness…

Haiti Earthquake Donations

Have you donated to one of the Haiti appeals yet? Even if you can only afford $5, it’s still better than not giving at all.

I donated to Wyclef Jean’s foundation Yele Haiti – mostly because he is Haitian himself and I trust that my donation is going directly to the appeal as he says.

50,000-100,000 people are dead. Many more are injured and traumatised, and/or have lost people they love.

The photos of the aftermath are devastating. Please help any way you can.

~Svasti