Well, today I went for a walk.

I'm a sucker for a stylish suspension bridge

Many of the interesting walks around here start with this wonderful bridge. Apologies the sky isn't bluer, but on the upside, less sunburn risk. Good walking weather.

The shade of these gorgeous trees is visible from miles away

walking in the bush

waaaaalking

waaaaaaaaaaaalking

Lots of walking.. but then, that's the fun of it, right?

Part way along is this segmented swing bridge, which shakes like crazy — great for terrorising nephews. Uhh, not that I would. No. Of course not. Not shown: upset nephews.

There's a bubbling brook which runs alongside the path.. interspersed with the occasional waterfall

What is it about water? So incredibly soothing. The Japanese definitely know a thing or two, with their garden design.

and if you ever wondered what New Zealand hills look like, pretty much like this (foreground left is a shrubbery, not a hill)

There's a very particular shade to the greenery in New Zealand. The light is quite silvery. It's especially noticeable if you've travelled to Australia (where the light is more golden). So, many of the trees here have that rich, dark green shade. Once you know it, you can pick it anywhere (eg, a single frame from the middle of Lord of the Rings).

Many of the hills are also covered in gorse (an introduced pest), which are covered in SPIDERS! These are Nursery Web McMansions. When the spiders are ready, out pop thouuuuusands of baby spiders. Exciting!

Lunchtime we found a gorgeous stand of pines to lie under and eat

Peaceful. Gorgeous. No doubt pining for the fjords. Also surprisingly comfortable.

and look! Fud! (also, coffee. Extra yum!)

Even on an overcast day, the hills are pretty damn beautiful

The path back treks through a picturesque stand of macrocarpas

In case you're curious about macrocarpas (I know you secretly are). They're also really good for making fake swords and whacking your friends with. So I've been told.

Mum also weeded pretty much the whole hill on the way down, removing introduced pests (in this case ragwort. Not related to regular warts)

There are massive stands of ferns everywhere

When they're tiny, oh boy, they're like a flurry of grass

and when they grow up, they can take over entire hillsides

To see just how red those leaves are, check this contrast

back to civilization!

You may recognise this park.

The view south from that same initial bridge

Even on an overcast day the beauty around here takes my breath away.

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, since New Zealand only exists because two tectonic plates decided to get together and have a rub-yourself-up-against-each-other party. To the West we have the Indo-Australian plate, to the East the Pacific Plate. Which I guess actually made it something of a "bring your own plate" party. Ohhh, I'll be here all week, try the veal.

More specifically though, the actual faultline was about 50 metres (160ft) from my house.

What's it like growing up in this kind of environment? Well, let's just say, anything under a 5.0 on the Richter scale you might lift your coffee off the table while you assess it & check your nearest safe zone (table, doorway, etc), but other than that you more or less ignore it.

You become blasé surprisingly quickly.

A more interesting question is: what the hell does a faultline actually look like?

Well, my folks have moved since I was a kid, so I'm now living much farther away. About 50 metres farther.

To get there I have to cross this most excellent bridge:

Awesome bridge

I do like well considered architecture (and blues skies).

I also have to pass this rather interesting (non earthquake related) tree:

Because we're on the other side of the world, the sun goes in circles, confusing plant growth patterns

Definitely an odd tree — there's only one of them.. ahh!

Anyway, just past that, you get to this rather innocuous looking bank:

Innocuous Bank

Just like any old golf course really. Except for those weird blue poles. What's up with them?

Well, if you sight along them, they look like this:

Two poles. Perfectly aligned

Notice how they're perpendicular to the bank. That's not an accident.

These poles were put in by the government white coats to track plate movement.

That innocent looking bank above? It keeps going in both directions… and there's an identical looking bank on the other side of the river. That's the faultline. Twenty years ago that ground was bulldozed flat.

So why do the poles line up, if there's been all that movement?

Because we're standing too close. Here are three poles:

Uh oh, someone stuck one of those poles in the wrong place. Yeah, that's it.

Notice how the two on the other side of the fault are angled off to the right of the viewer (ie, the most distant pole is to the left of the central pole).

That is very, very much out of alignment.

When they were put in, they all lined up perfectly. It would have been done with one of these. Theodolites are great, love me a theodolite. If you've never used one, I highly recommend it.

So let's step even further back:

Oh dear.

Remember how the most distant one is slightly to the left?

So you can see that drawing a straight line between the two most distant poles goes off to our right. A straight line between the two poles on this side of the fault goes screaming off to the left of the furthest two.

Not only has there been significant vertical movement, but a ton of lateral motion too.

So here's the odd thing: There's been no major earthquakes here, certainly nothing like Christchurch.

What's happening is something that scientists have only really been able to track since about 2002 — slow earthquakes. These are tricky to spot, since they occur over hours or months, and don't typically register on seismographs (the scientists use GPS to track them instead).

Many of these slow earthquakes are huge though (R7-9) and they're radically altering New Zealand's shape. This isn't a terrible thing though, NZ's a weird shape to start with, a bit of a haircut might do us some good.

Why can't we be an elegant, tastefully shaped country, like Italy's boot?

Update

I found this brilliant overhead view which shows the faultline perfectly:

the overhead view

The middle arrow is about where I was standing when I took the last four pics above.

The view is stolen from this thoroughly informative page on the subbject. Kudos to them!

Generally for New Year's Eve I prefer to do something contemplative. Meditate on the past year (or years). Feel my way to a better direction for the coming year. Assess and makes choices that will guide me positively forward.

With that in mind, around 10pm I took off up a nearby hill (it's only 345m high at the peak). It was a 45 minute hike in the dark to the lookout point I was aiming for. I chose to use no lights, partly as a more interesting challenge and partly so I could see the glow-worms on the way up.

Oh boy, they didn't disappoint. Unfortunately, photos just don't do those bright little bundles any justice.

I was right about it being an interesting walk. For a start, it's been raining like crazy the last few days, so everything in the bush is soaking wet. Combine heavy cloud cover with only a quarter new moon, and it wasn't exactly clear where I was supposed to be walking either. The path was (theoretically) fairly light, except so were the ferns on either side, oh, and the rocks… and the puddles… and the grass. Also, that light coloured path? It was covered in various dark coloured flora, tree branches, grass, leaves, stiles, animals, dead bodies, burning cars, zombies*.

* some of these items may be a complete lie.

Mostly it wasn't too bad though. My eyes adjusted pretty quick and I only slipped over a couple of times.

I got to the top around 11, but had wildly underestimated how warm it would be trekking up the hill, so promptly stripped down to let my shirt dry out a little. If there were any ghosts up there, I'm sure I scared them off with my stunning whiteness (it's a sight to behold, I assure you).

I then spent the next hour meditating, absorbing the essence of the previous year and sipping the delicious coffee I'd taken up with me.

I also got treated to lightning on the far off ridges and fireworks up and down the valley. Theoretically fireworks are illegal in New Zealand outside of Guy Fawkes' week (the week before Nov 5) but people still store them up for New Year's. I'm happy they do, it makes New Year's a lot more festive than just a bunch of yahoos yahooing.

Surprisingly, the march back down the hill was significantly more dangerous than up. My eyes had adjusted so I could see better, but even with that I hit a lot of unexpected drops in terrain. I ended up walking most of the way down in a half crouch. Imagine you're sitting in an upright chair. Now take the chair away. Yeah, like that. An odd posture, but effective and a lot safer than walking normally (which had left me unharmed but on my arse a couple of times). When I got back closer to civilization, I also had to shield my eyes from the street lights just to see where I was going. It's hard to comprehend just how much light pollution there is until you're walking back into it from the pitch black.

I did end up soaked to the skin up to my knees — it's hard to see invisible wet grass — but it was totally worth it. Walking down in the dark, brooks burbling by the track, the glow of the worms, giant trees majestic against the skyline, it was an utterly beautiful experience.

And proof you can take the boy out of Scouts, but never take the Scout out of the boy; other than what I wore, I also took with me and used:

• hat
• gloves
• scarf
• camera
• blanket (my Grandma gave it to me over 20 years ago; it's the only thing I have left connected to her)
• thermos of coffee

but took and didn't use:

• three torches
• phone
• bottle of water
• fabric tape
• plastic bag
• leatherman

I figured if I accidentally walked off a bank & broke a leg (a reasonable risk) I might as well take enough to be comfortable & safe until morning.

Turns out I didn't need most of it, but it was worth it without the added excitement. Partly for the peace & calmness that comes from occasionally detaching completely from the world. Partly for this:

Here's to a gorgeous 2012.

Even though it's winter, around these parts there hasn't been snow since 1995.

So, what better way to spend a Monday morning than to go for a walk up a local hill? (rhetorical question)

Yes. A hill. With actual snow.

This hill, unsurprisingly.

Muppet gloves

Mum brought her gloves, made from 100% genuine Muppet, and we were away!

We passed a couple of ducks. One looked like this:

Duck. One. Not to scale.

The other looked different. Grumpier (I think).

There were also some wild quail. They hopped away in that bizarre quailly manner, which can't really be explained. They weren't particularly scared of us, so I'm guessing there aren't a whole lot of quail hunters in this suburb. As a side note, guns are rather damn difficult to get your hands on in New Zealand, so that probably helps. I'm not sure, exactly, how quail keep up with current gun legislation, but they did seem to have a   handle on it.

New Zealand is also very green (you may have heard).

Here's one of the green bits

There's plenty of green to go round. Lots of other bits look like this too.

Mum got very excited by the first bit of snow we found (I did mention it's rare here, right?)

There was (spoiler alert!) more snow to come, but compared to zero snow, this was LOTS

It was also crunchy under foot (always a nice sound).

The first of many snowball fights

I told Mum I was going to take a photo of myself throwing a snowball at her. Thus, this is blurry — as I'm frantically clicking with one hand & biffing with the other. However, note, just left of her left shoulder — voila! Snowball! In the air! I claim victory! (even if this one did miss her, dammit)

We also saw lots of crazy gorse. Flowering (in winter), in the snow:

Pesky Gorse

Gorse is something of a huge pest here in NZ. This is similar to many innovative & brilliant ideas we gained from the British, who brought gorse over to use as hedges. They didn't allow for the fact that NZ is on the other side of the planet (surprise!), thus has a completely different climate.. and voila! Gorse The (now) Noxious Pest took  over the country. See also: rabbits, and possums. Thanks England! (I'm signalling my disapproval with two thumbs up!)

Gorse is, however, rather pretty (aww).

We're also pretty good at growing ferns over here:

Mum loves ferns. Doubly so when covered in snow.

Mum insisted I get this pic. The framing is crazy coz the ferns were so giant, and the track so small, the only way I could get the pic was by holding my camera over my head (ie, I really had no idea where it was pointing).

When we got to the top, there were a ton of gums & pines (it's forestry area, sorta), all looking as pretty as a picture:

Ooh look, trees!

So, you know, here's a picture.

I also made a snow man (I said I would!). Well, a snow alien:

Snow Alien (I like his antenna the best)

He was tiny but cute (kinda like me — at least some of the time).

Mum reckoned he was starting to look like a rabbit, but No! He's An Alien!

Mum did her best to look like an alien too

Mum did try to twizzle her hair up into antenna, but since everything was pretty wet by now (snow! it's wet! who knew?) it didn't work so well. I reckon she's got the arms pretty much perfect though.

Which was good timing, coz about a minute later one of the arms fell off the alien (who obviously didn't have quite such a strong grasp on the whole arm/body concept).

The view from the top was pretty spectacular:

Look! Snow! Also, Wellington off in the distance

You can just (if you tilt your head and squint) see the blue of the sea, right off in the distance between those two hills. Trick is, the river runs down into it. They do that sometimes, I'm told.

I also took enough shots to get a panorama of sorts, but I need to figure out how to do that (without wasting hours of my life painstakingly aligning everything & adjusting brightnesses etc).

Aww, pretty!

Everything in general was pretty damn pretty.

Also, we had coffee from a thermos, which made everything more awesome.

This gum was quite beautiful too:

Don't leave it stuck to your bedstead overnight

I've always had a soft spot for gum trees, but I think five years in Australia has made me love them more than ever.

Oh, and proof that the five or six snowball fights weren't all one sided?

Covered in snow. Thanks Mum!

All that snow on me? That was after I'd brushed myself off. I was covered in it! All thanks to my Mum. Sheesh! I used to think she loved me! What a meanie.

One reason I'm laughing so much was that she'd never used my camera before, so picked it up the wrong way. She was about to take a giant photo of her face — which of course I could see perfectly, since the screen was facing me. Oh Mum!

On the way back down, we found a giant branch that had fallen onto the road, so we dragged it off to the side so no-one would come round the corner & drive their truck into it.

We also found the perfect picnic spot:

The perfect picnic spot!

And that was in the middle of a snow storm! Now imagine how beautiful that'll be in the summer!

Wow.

But first let me wind back a bit.

A few days ago I hung out with a friend of mine. This is someone I've known for a decade or longer, so there's a lot of history there. Mostly pretty good, but some very dark times too. This guy has very strong energy. Historically, he's affected me enormously.

Now, he's going through some shit at the moment (aren't we all?) The catch is, within about 15 minutes of hanging out with him, I could feel his energy making me feel, quite literally, physically ill.

Ok, so that's not good. What to do, what to do?

I tried putting up separation roses, to energetically divide us. They didn't stick. Maybe we just have too much history, we're too strongly connected. Maybe he's just too energetically grasping. I don't know.

I could feel giant clumps of dark energy coming off him and coming towards me, as he was describing the various troubles in his life. Nothing I tried was helping, and things were quickly spiralling downwards.

Interesting situation.

Then I settled on the simplest possible solution.

I focused on the clump of darkness, and simply said "I love you."

Yep, just that.

The super cool thing was, the darkness immediately dissipated. My feeling of sickness left, and (very interesting) he perked up and started talking about something else altogether.

For the rest of our time together, everytime I felt negatively affected, or could sense dark globs of whatever appearing, I'd just address them, say "I love you" and watch them disappear again.

Very. Interesting.

Now, in Ho'oponopono (A Hawaiian healing technique), you cycle through four phrases:

1. I love you
2. I'm sorry
3. Please forgive me
4. Thank you

But I'm starting to suspect, if there was one single prayer to say for the rest of your life, it should be "I love you." The single most powerful thing you can say in any situation.

Since then I have (of course, you know me!) been doing the exact same thing to anything that's appeared — in myself, or those around me. Said "I love you" to it (in my mind) and let it go.

So, to last night.

pic by Cesar T Sanchez

Ever since I started tapping out nightmares, the frequency with which I've experienced bad dreams has dropped precipitously. They've just stopped happening.

So last night was pretty interesting. I had 10, maybe 15 distinct bad dreams in a row.

Why? Who knows (and really, who cares?) Maybe I just unblocked something big enough that it was time to wash a bunch of related remnants out of me. It really doesn't matter too much.

Anyway, in each of these dreams, I settled back, said "I love you" to whatever was happening, and the dream disappeared. Sometimes I needed to repeat it a few times, but every single time the dream would dissolve, along with whatever it was that had been bothering me.

Best of all? I woke up feeling like a million bucks. Now that is a first after a night of bad dreams.

"I love you" — said calmly and with intention — it's continuing to amaze me just how powerful that phrase really is.

"I'm coming to pick you up. I'll be there at 9:50pm. Pack a toothbrush"

Well, okay then.

(Secretly? I adore these kind of spontaneous adventures.)

On the agenda? Sitting in an outdoor jacuzzi half the night; a glass or two of red wine; catching up on old times; watching the lights from the ships coasting in and out of the harbour:

This was the jacuzzi view.. except, you know, black. Night time, see.

We eventually crashed about 4ish. Then up at 8 for breakfast in bed (bacon & mushroom omelette, toast, camomile tea) and a quick drive into town.

I suspect the breakfast was to buy me off so I could drive my mate to an appointment. He went to that, and since it was a super gorgeous day I grabbed a coffee and walked along the beach.

Beach! (well, obviously) Also: City.

As isolated as New Zealand is from the rest of the world, it really is one incredibly picturesque place. As the song goes, you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

the local marina (was looking for a friend's exquisitely restored 1800s boat, but couldn't find it)

As I was wandering around, i got to thinking about mistakes. Now, I have (historically) been something of a type-A personality. Hard charging, ambitious, etc. The upside is, you get a lot done. The downside is you tend to be a pain in the ass to be around, but that's a whole other conversation. Oh, also, there's the ever-so-slight issue of perfectionism and the attendant self-criticism.

Now, as an example: I know I look good when I have about two days of beard growth. Now, I don't think of this as attractive. No, I think of it as "optimally hairy."

In other words, except for about 6 hours two days in, my facial hair is permanently sub-optimal. Wow, self-criticism much? *laugh*

Walking in the sun, I suddenly realised that I haven't been making mistakes my whole life (or having sub-optimal facial hair, now we're on the subject). What I'm really doing is experiencing previous karma. In other words, there's no way, at any given time and place with the knowledge and experience I had then, that I could have chosen otherwise. This is stuff I have had to get wrong, so I could learn from it.

Of course, we do dumb shit, suffer the consequences & thus (hopefully) grow, heal, unwind that karma. That is how we progress through life.

The key point is this: We may have to experience the same "mistakes" over and over and over. This isn't because we keep making them. It's because we have to keep growing, until such time as everything is in place, and we're finally ready to learn the whole lesson, not just the obvious, surface stuff.

The mistake is in looking too closely at any given action. "Oh, I went out with the same kind of shitbag again." What we're missing is that we're learning a ton of other things, and we're just working our way down through the layers, little by little, at a pace which is right for us.

Things are always perfect, even when they suck. All we've gotta do is just keep paying attention. Keep learning when we can, and keep loving ourselves.

Why? Because giving ourselves a hard time just adds to our misery. It doesn't help us learn, or grow, or heal. As much as our ego might like to convince us otherwise, it also doesn't prevent us making the same mistake in the future. Healing, learning and growing does that, not self-flagellation.

When we've truly grown past it, the opportunities for that mistake generally won't even appear. The shitbags disappear (of their own volition) out of our lives. And trust me, I've seen this, ohhh, many times.

So, you know, mini-satoris like this are always nice, but I still had more heavy duty walking around to get done!

Also, mental note: Buy a beard trimmer.

Because I'm such a raging narcissist, I simply had to take a self pic.

Self portrait, with boatsheds (note the Very Important Peace Sign)

I learned everything I need to know about posing for photographs from the Japanese tourists who used to endlessly harass us when I was training Aikido in Melbourne. (You have never seen such polite & deferential harassment in your life.)

For reference, these are the best swings (that I know of) in central Wellington. Look at the view from the top — wow!

I spent a LOT of time on these swings when I was last in town

I didn't get a chance to have a play — but that's ok, cute blondes take precedence, and anyway, I had to hurry along.

I also saw a perfect family outing:

Mum with the baby, daughter, dad

How cool is that? Dad's on a long board (kinda like a skateboard, but super long and very flexible). Note also his beanie: Official Hat of Wellington.

Oh, and if you were curious just how far my home is from here? (ie, looking in the other direction for once):

land of the long white cloud…

See those clouds, right off in the distance there? I'm staying juuuuust to the right of centre, right back there. Wouldn't want to swim there — for a start, the last 25kms is over solid ground. Luckily there's a motorway.

After that, I picked my mate up, and we went for a picnic in the gardens of Isengard (you remember them, right?)

Picnic. Not shown: food.

Those are my boots. I'm being utterly shameless today, I know.

Oh, and how could I possibly go past this?

Flying fox! FLYING FOX!!!!

This scared the living crap out of me when I first went on it (age: maybe 8 or 9).

It's quite vigorous when it hits the end.  Ok, ok, so these days I take a running jump off the platform to get maximum speed up, but still! It's definitely an activity that stands the test of time. I.e., still awesome. I love it!

I also saw a bunch of fantails, skipping around and being all fantaily (as is their wont)

Three guesses why it has the name it does…

They're an Australasian peculiarity, although this type is only found here in NZ. They're super cute, very flighty, and about the size of a sparrow. One came up to within a foot of us eating. Pretty amazing.

Bet you never thought you'd learn about birds coming here, now did you? Do I make you 'orni, baby?

And on that note, something utterly ridiculous. This is a local stationery company:

Seriously guys, buy a dictionary. Please.

It's like the company was named by someone who'd never used a writing implement before (*cough*illiterate*cough*). The. Mind. Boggles.

All in all, quite a delightful Thursday night/Friday morning adventure. A+++ would run delightedly out of the house clutching my toothbrush again.

You what?

The Gardens of Isengard (See? Hair! Staffs! All magic like!)

Yes, these gardens.

Well, ok ok, I actually live in a cottage. The gardens are (quite literally) across the road.

This is where my parents live. Rivendell is just up the road, and yep, in general the area is every bit as picturesque as in the movies (Lord of the Rings, in case you're not a complete nerd).

It's also kinda neat to be able to spend serious time with my family. This hasn't happened since I left home, twenty something years ago. It's super educational, and a great growth opportunity (which, of course, I simply love).

It is, however, quite a way from the nearest decent sized town (they call it a city, but I'm not 100% sold. Maybe city-lite?)

So how far away is it?

Well, the other day, I went to catch a bus.

Catching a bus is something I haven't done in… Well, I think the last time I caught a bus was in Seattle, in 2006.

That was the time some crack head woman started screaming at the top of her lungs then climbed out the window into traffic… and people wonder why public transport is so unpopular?

Anyway. I'm sitting on this bus. It's not particularly exciting as buses go. It looked like this:

This is a bus (note: no crack heads)

Right, now stare at that for (spoiler!) an hour.

The bus is ricketing around so much I can barely send a text message. I definitely can't read. Well, I could if I didn't mind losing my eyeballs, but I prefer them inside my head. I'm a bit of a fusspot like that.

Why was I even on the bus in the first place? The short version: my local drivers license got eaten by the gaping maw of Australian bureaucracy. I just need to order a new one; I simply haven't got around to it yet.

So, no driving = public transport time for moi. Thus, the bus.

If I was driving, it would take about 20 minutes to get into town. By bus? An hour.

The bus does not take the direct route. Colloquially this is known as "a tiki tour" — ie, a trip that appears to go everywhere & nowhere (much like life, I suppose).

Town's to the right, behind the tree..further..a little further..40km further..

After about twenty minutes, we were driving past horses. Seriously, horses live closer to the city than I do. Horses!!

So there I am, being jiggled around like popcorn in a pan, getting increasingly frustrated as the driver leads us deeper and deeper into suburbs unknown.

Then I suddenly had what my Sensei likes to call a mini–satori.

Why was I so annoyed by all this?

It was the thought of having to catch this bus on a regular basis. Wasting all that time, being unable to do anything about it. The thought of all the choices I've made that lead me to this situation.

But wait, this was the first time in my life I'd ever caught this bus. For all I know (who can predict the future?) it might well be the last time too.

I was getting all wound up about something that may or may not even happen, in the future.

I was being upset by stuff I couldn't change anyway, in the past.

The actual situation itself was, well, fine.

How often do we get our knickers all twisted over something that isn't even happening?

Often. VERY often.

As soon as I realised that, I was back in control.

I'm the boss of my brain.

I let go of my past decisions. For better or worse they've been made. For all my self-analysis, I know I made the best decisions I could with the information I had at that time.

It's always easy to look backwards (or stand outside) & judge. Any fool with a newspaper can do that. So, there's no value in criticising ourselves for the past (Learn from? Sure. Criticise? No)

And the future hasn't even happened yet.

I was feeling crappy for something that might never even occur.

Wow. We sure give ourselves a hard time. Well, I do, you're welcome to speak for yourself, of course.

The great news is — just realising it set it all free. I immediately relaxed. Prepped some peppy music. Laughed as the bus driver waved hello to all the families in their driveways (I swear, he knew the entire suburb). Sat back and enjoyed the gorgeous views rolling past.

Simple as that I was filled with an overwhelming love for the entire situation.

Maybe there really is something to this whole "present moment" mumbo jumbo. All those hairy old dudes, they can't have been right all this time, surely?

Nah… That'd be too easy.

How bad? Really bad. The worst I've felt in… months?

Kinda like this:

(Years back I used to sing this to myself every day at work… but that's a whole other story)

In fact, I distinctly remember thinking "God, I feel so crap even a blowjob wouldn't cheer me up today."

Which is pretty damn bad.

I have no idea why I felt so bad. I hadn't had a bad dream. Best guess was that I'd eaten too much licorice the night before and was suffering an extreme sugar crash. But, you know, if you don't know immediately, trying to figure out never helps (your brain just gets all tied up in knots).

I noticed my brain was just circling. Thoughts like "Holy fuckballs I'm in a shitastic mood" kept echoing in my head.

So, what to do?

1. First, I made a choice to think about something else, other than how bad I was feeling (repeating the same negative thought only makes you feel shitty. Changing that thought also reiterated that I'm the boss of my thoughts, not the other way around)
2. I consciously decided to be ok with the crappy mood (not beat myself up about it).
3. I asked myself "Could I choose to be 100% happy, even if was feeling crappy?" (pro tip, the answer is always "Yes". This didn't shift things completely, but it sure as hell helped. More on this later)
4. I ate, took multivitams and omega 3's (to stabilise my blood sugar)
5. I hid the licorice in the cupboard (take immediate, concrete action to remove negative influences from your environment)
6. I noticed & relaxed tension in my face (simple, but definitely helped me relax)
7. I emailed a friend for encouragement (Create an emotional support network. Help them. Let them help you)
8. I did a mindmap on whatever came to mind (nothing like a sugar crash to get you questioning the core of your existence). A little tapping, a little releasing.
9. I did some tapping on one of my CAP lists (always ensures I have a better day. More on those here)
10. I went to aikido (exercise, socialising with people I love, doing something I enjoy)
11. I rolled around on the grass with those beautiful trees (connection to nature)
12. I listened to loud, upbeat music (music has a strong effect on mood)
13. I basked in the sunshine, feeling warm concrete through my socks & the sun on my face (vitamin d elevates mood)

What helped? Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it. Maybe it's all bullshit. It doesn't really matter. I'm a huge fan of — if you have a problem, throw every possible solution at it. There's a million things you can try. Just do what feels right at the time. Trust your intuition.

After that, I listened to this:

And you know what? It felt pretty true.

I'm slowly learning, this journey isn't about being perfect. It's just about the highs slowly getting higher and more common. It's about when the lows do hit, how quickly you pull out of them. Over time, it gets faster & faster.

Not perfect; just more perfect, more often.

In case you haven't heard of reframing (or can't be bothered reading the wiki page), I'll quickly explain it.

Reframing is the act of taking something shitty, and spinning it to emphasise the (to you) positive aspects.

Here's a classic example:

Why yes, I have seen someone wearing this. Oh boy.

So really, it's just choosing to look at things from a better angle.

Here's another great example:

saying "Oh captain my captain" is optional

Often something as simple as standing on your desks can be enough to shift your entire viewpoint.

So, other than the myriad of cheap laughs, why bother reframing?

Because oftentimes dissolving a problem, or seeing your way past a situation can be as simple as changing how you look at it.

Audiences know what they expect and that is all they are prepared to believe in.

Unsurprisingly, it's like Shakespeare said "There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet to Rosencrantz, how awesome is that?).

In other words, no situation makes things as difficult for us as how we think about that situation.

So, to reframing.

Until now, I've never really been convinced about reframing. What am I going to do? Just say something differently (lie to myself?) & hope it sticks?

Yeah, that never gelled.

Until I stumbled across this particular phrase:

"This is the fun bit"

I've got some pretty hairy stuff going down in my life right now (long, boring story — but also why I haven't posted much). And yep, it's been crazy stressful at times. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of confusion, a lot of what-the-eff?!?!

And yet every time I say that phrase to myself, everything instantly shifts.

"This is the fun bit"

• Things stop being crazy and out of control; they start being crazy and fun (like being attacked by 4 ukes at once in Aikido).

"This is the fun bit"

• Things stop being scary; they start being exhilarating (like a rollercoaster).

"This is the fun bit"

• Things stop being unpredictable; they start being thrilling (like an exciting movie).

"This is the fun bit"

• I stop freezing up because things are overwhelming; I start rolling with it all instead (like flowing effortlessly through a bustling crowd)

.. and as an added bonus, I've found that quite as a side effect, I instinctively & effortlessly dump a huge amount of negative energy around whatever-it-was that was bothering me in the first place.

It's the single most powerful thing I've found to say to myself in times of strife & difficulty.. and so, I pass it to you.

So, what to do about it?

Remember that saying "Trust in God, but paddle your own canoe" or my personal favourite "Trust in Allah, but tie up your camels"?

TIEING UP YOUR CAMELS

I noticed when I was much younger I would get stressed (feel overwhelmed) any time I had too much in my head.

Sitting down & writing out every thought that was buzzing around would help enormously. It would also show me that 90% of them were variants on the same issue (eg "Where am I going to find money to eat?")

Getting things out of your head & into some kind of system — whether that's an app, a piece of paper or a personal assistant — is the core of the Getting Things Done approach. There's a reason GTD is so popular. It works.

There's been a million books & blogs written about it, so I don't need to go into more detail here. The key aspect is this: Get every thought that's burbling inside OUT of you.

Us humans really aren't very good at holding too many thoughts in our heads at one time (the apocryphal number is 7 +/- 2). Thus, getting them out helps enormously. Then, any time a thought recurs, you can immediately dismiss it with "Yep, it's on the list."

Clear head = no overwhelm = no stress.

Once you have your list(s), group, sort & order them in whatever ways feels best for you, then take action. For me, "things to do today" and "some time", then ordering by "most important" with a smattering of "quick, easy" in there so I can get my coding momentum up seems to work best.

The TRUSTING ALLAH part

Ok, it's not a perfect analogy, but hey, roll with me here. Also, if you do have a camel, please let me know, I'd love a ride — crazy awesome!

Aside from getting everything out of my head, hands down the single best thing I've found is to use EFT (& ooh, I refound the video I had up there. You should check it out, it's really quite snazzy).

You don't even have to say anything while you tap. Usually, after I've done a single round (tapped from my head down to under my arms) I've already calmed down enormously. Two or three rounds — just while my thoughts are burbling around will clear a ton of energy off, and get me back into a super calm space.

Once you've calmed down a bit, feel free to rant (out loud is best, but not critical) to your heart's content. It really doesn't matter what you say. Just yabber about all the junk that's been flying around in your head. Tapping your meridian points will help take the energetic sting out of it super quickly.

In fact, I'm just amazed I haven't mentioned this earlier. I've used this on myself, and watched friends use it, literally hundreds of times over the last few years — always to great success.

There's no need for overwhelm to take over your life, your day, or even more than 5 or 10 minutes. Dump it and get the hell back into awesome-space.