ReMindEd   •   August 12, 2017

Ihave been acutely aware this week of the sense of urgency within society. Themes around the idea of freedom, equality, choice, consent and love. People wanting to make their urgent plea from their social media soap box to update details in the electoral role in Australia, to have your voice heard in regards to same sex marriage legality. (As a side note, when I wrote ‘same sex marriage’ my iPhone autocorrected it to ‘sane’. I wonder if there’s a message in my iPhone’s autocorrect that may sum up this debate)…

I’m not interested in making comments on the issue from my own perspective. I’m big on people having the right to their own truth in this moment, and speaking to people on either side of this debate, convincing arguments can be made by both. It’s not about which side yells louder. In fact, it’s the yelling that’s the issue. We can’t really hear anything when everyone is yelling. I can’t help but thinking this particular issue is just making noise so something more important goes unnoticed.

What I will say, is one of my best friends through all of High School got engaged yesterday. I was part of pretty much every relationship journey she has walked through over the years since she was eleven years old. A bridesmaid at her wedding some 12 years ago, a shoulder through her divorce, a congratulation from across the other side of Australia on a new relationship, a condolence on that ending some years later. I’ve not seen her now for some years, just watched from Facebook as she moved states, found and chased her new dreams, holidayed across the world, and found the love of her life. And yesterday, she became engaged. I haven’t met her soon-to-be wife. But I have watched my friend find herself again, find her smile, find her peace. She is happy for the first time in maybe forever. Really happy. As am I for her. To me, her happiness is enough. She has found peace here and I will celebrate with her, because not everyone does. But they can.

Rest in peace can be found here. It’s not a destination on the other side of death. You can find peace here, now.

If only you knew how much damage the holding on is doing, you would have let it go a long time ago!

Let go of the struggling, the pain, the past. If it were going to be resolved by you carrying it around, it would have been done by now. Try something different. Let it go.

Let go of fear and fighting and frustration. Pick up peace, and rest and acceptance instead.

Not accepting that it having happened was ok- it wasn’t. But accepting that it did happen. And it was hard, and hurtful and painful and unfair. But it did happen. Accept that you are here now in this moment. On this day. Accept that you can’t change what happened. Accept that what you can change is what you do from here. You have a choice to respond. To pick your battles.

If only more of us stopped yelling and started listening; I’d guess peace would be easier to find here.

We are often preoccupied in our minds with bullying voices, with opposition yelling more loudly to be heard. We can learn to still our mind, to silence the questions, to find peace in the midst of the noise.

Perhaps we need to stop for a moment and ask ourselves the real questions which are mostly going unheard due to the noise. So much of the content of the noise is just noise. It’s actually not the real issue. There are bigger things underneath that are getting away with being there because they are not playing the yelling game so they largely go unnoticed. They’re the ones that surface when all else is quiet. Usually at 2am. The ones we block out and distract ourselves from. The ones we avoid all day by focusing on little things that don’t matter as much.

We fear the depths of our fear.

We need not fear the depths. It’s just water.

You can swim. Your tears needn’t drown you. You can calm yourself.

The storm will pass.

You can find peace within the storm simply because you know it will pass.

This will not take you out. You will be okay. And okay is good enough.

Please stay to see it change. Rest in peace can be found here. Peace is a state of mind not a set of circumstances. It’s also not about a law being passed or not. It’s about you knowing who you are. It’s about celebrating people’s happiness. It’s about seeking freedom and knowing your truth. It’s accepting things that you can’t change and changing things you can. Things that matter. Like the storm in your mind being stilled.

It’s about what happens #fromhere. From here. Not what happened before now. It’s not about the before. It’s about our response to it. It’s about the state of our heart and mind and soul.

So, how are you really? Like really, how are you?! 

If we each understood our own power to change our own mind and choose our response, we would change our whole world! Because, your whole world is determined by your own mind.

From here, towards freedom.

Sal xx