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This week I have been all over the place. I’ve been to the big city of Sydney, I have been exploring art and my art workshop that I get to attend on the monthly because I’m learning art and creativity in the background. And I’m coming to you today from the shores of Lake Macquarie. It’s a beautiful morning. There’s boats on the water, there is the angle of the sun hitting the water is just beautiful.

On reflection, over the past weekend I got to spend some time in the presence of Eckhart Tolle. He’s the author of A New Earth and The Power of Now and he reminded me of a few things…

Have you ever had those people in your life that you know there’s that wisdom inside you already, or you might have heard it before or read it in a book, but they’re the ones to bring forth from the inside of you? A remembering of the wisdom that you already know and the awesomeness that you already are. So he did a bit of that for me on the weekend.

He also inspired me by being a 75 year old man sitting on a stage in front of 6,000 well lit people.

I’m always in inspiration and absolute awe of those people that can hold space and can create an event where that type of interaction can occur. I love creating events, but I do like to see the opposite side of it and be present as a guest, too.

I’ve had the blessing of being at many events this year. Post-pandemic, there’s been quite a few bands and even a musical that I’ve gone and seen live, especially in Sydney. But this was a newer experience, a spiritual lecture for two and a half hours up on stage. So, it was quite profound. I love going to any teachings lessons, even if they’re free. And I highly suggest it for you too.

If you notice any of the free things on my website or the opportunity to go to free events, irrelevant of whether or not people are trying to get you into something else, I want you to consider where is the golden nugget for you? What is the aha moment or the takeaway? Because it’s really easy for our minds to kind of ‘poo hoo’ and think we’ve heard all this before.

It’s very easy for our beautiful minds to try and keep us in our comfy comfort zone. But if you start searching with a curious mind about where your next gold nugget is, you might be able to find one. Maybe you’ll even find one here today, reading this?

So, my gold nugget, my takeaway from Eckhart Tolle is…

What you think you need, is it? Until it’s not.

I have found this to be true all over the place. The thing that you think you need to do to get to your next level.

Now, I have thought about this when it comes to money, I thought I need money. I was starting out as a naturopath, where I was coming out of the hospital system and into small business. I thought it’s money. I need money coming through the door. Need money. I need to pay that next bill.

I need to get the next client so that I can pay for whatever my next thing is to do with my business. I need money. And so all of my effort and energy was focused on getting money. Then, I started to notice that I actually need clients. I need clients to talk about people.

So then it was people. I need people. So once you’ve got the money flowing in, there isn’t such a pressure to actually make more money, but there is to get the word out. And so it was people. I need people.

And then I was seeing 45 clients a week on a three day week and I was way booked four and six weeks in advance and burnt out. I was so burnt out. So I don’t need people because but I thought I needed people until I did it and then I needed time.

So first it was money, then it was people, then it was time.

I just need time. So then I automated things. I was able to get money through seemingly passive income courses and things like that. I was able to create networks so that I could create referral networks to send clients to or to get people on programs rather than having to see me all the time.

And so I created time. I even created so much time that I had a radical sabbatical two years ago that changed my world. I was able to experience what it was like to have all the time that I needed. And you know what happened? That was exactly what I wanted and needed until I didn’t, until there was so much time I didn’t know what to do with it.

  • There was so much automation on the money side of things that that was fine.
  • There was so much automation on the people side of things that that was fine.

And then I had all the time in the world. So then I was filling that time with experiences because I thought I needed experiences until I didn’t.

Through the lockdown and the pandemic and all that kind of stuff, I started to notice what in actual fact I did need. And I was reminded by Eckhart that what is truly needed below, underneath, on a deeper level to all of that is the presence to stop and discover or see what emerges on the transcendent level of you.

It’s that moment of in between two thoughts.

Instead of thinking I need money, thinking I need people, thinking I need time, thinking I need to fill the time, instead of all the thoughts and bless them, they’re not us. We have them like a heartbeat, but they’re not us.

They keep going and going and going. And I, as a human, attached to them as well as any other human. But presence, the moment as one thought ends and before another thought begins, has a depth to it, and something comes out of that depth.

  • Sometimes it is creativity.
  • Sometimes it is opportunity.
  • Sometimes it is an idea or a solution to a problem.

But when it happens, it’s in those moments of presence.

Serendipity, nature, stillness. Some people call it mindfulness, and lots of ancient traditions and ancient wisdoms have other words for it. But in that moment, I was reminded of presence. And I was reminded yet again, the day after, when I was practicing the same presence. We don’t need presence on a mountaintop in between the thoughts.

We have thoughts all the time, just the same as we have a heartbeat all the time. But we don’t necessarily stop and listen to the heartbeat and ignore everything else. And the same thing happens with life. We live in this wonderful reality.

I was at my art workshop and I was there practicing presence, getting very frustrated with all my thoughts. Yet, I still noticed what my art mentor said to me.

He said, “You have thought that you needed spiritual awareness up until now. You thought that you needed all of these things, but you don’t. You really needed that up until now, though you did need it because you’ve got this depth that’s going to come out in your painting. But what you need now, the thing that got you to this point, is awesome, but it’s not going to get you further. What you need now is to practice the basics and the foundational stuff of painting and drawing. You need to practice it and you need to sit with it, you need to finish it off so that those that’s what you need now until you don’t.”

And I was like, oh my gosh, there it is again. There’s no great glass elevator for any of it. Whether it’s building a website, learning to paint, writing your next book, taking people away on a retreat, or anything else that you have as a goal; there are steps, and you have to take the first step before you can take the next five.

What you need now and what you think you need now is awesome, but you need to know that there is a whole staircase, but you have to master the step you’re about to take and know that the step after it. Don’t get too complacent, because the step after it is going to take a whole different set of skills. So you may as well be present to each step along the way and become masterful at those things whilst being present so that you can actually enjoy the journey.

This is my reminder for me and for you this week: what you need now is exactly what you need until you don’t. So be present to it.

Do as much, be as much as you can to be present to it, so that when there comes a moment when that thing isn’t working anymore, you have enough presence to find the next thing that you think you need until you don’t. Welcome to the crazy, wonderful, quirky interaction of being human and I cannot wait to hear your insights to this and I really would love to learn how this applies to you.

So if you’re not on my newsletter list, if you haven’t joined in any of my resources on my website, please go and join me on there. And just like anything, if you take action on it, something will change. If you don’t take action on it, you just think the thoughts. Not a lot gets to get changed and shifted in your life, but I hope this has sparked something in you, and if it has, please share it with someone you know.