There is an art to being a bit weird and I’m getting better at it. Your ears maybe pricked at this point, you want to know whether you also qualify for the Club of Weird or whether you sit firmly in (and prefer) the safe, comfort blanket aisle of ‘normal’. My preference has forever been to zig when everyone else is going zag; to question, challenge, go my own way, to imagine and bring to life ideas and visions that invariably might incur an eye roll or a raised eyebrow – not because they’re rubbish but because they don’t fit into the deep grooves of what mainstream normal has become.
The navigation of current global complexities is our greatest trial. As human beings, business front runners, country and global leaders, the route is a slippery and contradictory slope of convenience over effort and fast return over sustainable (slower return) choices. The layers of conditioning are deep. This piece of writing is an invitation to pause and have an honest conversation with yourself.
The first half of last year was overwhelm central. Later, a few things took shape that I hadn’t specifically planned for but knew without hesitation, they were gifted opportunities. I embarked on an eleven week psychedelic programme with Beckley Retreats followed immediately by a 42 day Mandala (a space for transformation) in India. As a result of the latter I connected with a like-minded tribe of rockstars in the shape of an executive leadership coaching company –Evolution- who harness shadow work, (the process of exploring and integrating unconscious triggers, fears and traumas) spiritual connection and contemplative practice as core to their client endorsed brilliance.
The experiences I’m describing are all systems or pathways that steward you and I to the same outcome – namely, connection with your whole self that deepens into a universal union – where an invisible bond with the entirety of mother nature’s creation is felt; humanity, animals, nature, all of it.
That the consciousness of you and I is a reflection of the world is a deep-rooted proposition to process. You can hear or read those words and move on without their meaning even brushing up against you. But when you take time, with awareness and intention, to sit with and understand that truth, it is a stark and distinct revelation. In short, when we change ourselves, we change the world .
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The internal excavation I describe is a lifetime practice. It began a couple of decades ago for me and has reached a ‘marker in time’ pinnacle. The last six months have been the most revealing of my life so far. There is still so much to absorb and discover but the biggest, most profound insight has been in the mastery of self-awareness. I thought I was aware, until I became aware – it is something akin to having blurred vision that you think is normal before you see through a lens that gives you 20:20 vision.
It’s true that not everyone is able to remove oneself from everyday life for such large chunks of time. I consider it a professional responsibility as well as a personal one to explore and embody what it means and what it takes to peel back the layers of subconscious conditioning that stand in the way of full human potential. In hindsight the simplicity of it all is breath-taking, it is you and I and our unawareness and monkey minds that hide the treasure within.