Dash.

Last night I heard of the passing of an old colleague - merely 48 years of age - the same age in fact as my Mum when she passed away.

So young and so much life left unlived.

It reminded me of a poem by Linda Ellis (no relation) about life ultimately being presented as a dash:

Born <year> - Died <year>

But this isn’t a sad newsletter - the intention here is to make you pause today - right now, in this very moment as you read this, and think about how you are spending your ‘dash’.? You are here, alive and kicking with the power to create whatever you want, the gift of the rest of you life as yet unlived still lying ahead of you.

Are you grasping that gift, that opportunity and really living?

I have found that when we’re young we act as if life is infinite - ‘One day…’.

But as we live through the years we start to realise that our life is happening right now, today, this evening, this weekend.

Yes, yes you’ve heard it all before - be present, be mindful, live in the moment, the power of now blah blah blah…. “Now where’s that ‘To do’ list of 5,678 things I have to do today…”

Stop.

Don’t just brush past this.

Today I would love to urge you to really pause and consider - are you living ‘on purpose’ right now, without putting the things you really want off until ‘one day’??

This isn’t some ‘what is the meaning of life’ type-question? - what I mean is - are you living intentionally, consciously, aware of where you’re going, focused on an extraordinary life, acting like the Director, Leading Lady/Gent of your own life, aware that you get to choose what you do, who you do it with, what you use your talents for and so on; are you happy, fulfilled, content, doing work you love, spending your life with like-minded individuals and squeezing every moment out of the every day?

“Well no, but you don’t understand my circumstances….”

STOP.??

Are you letting fear and an old story keep you down?

I suspect that as you read this you thought something along the lines of… ‘Well I’m happy with this specific <insert whatever> aspect of my life…. but maybe that other aspect <insert another> could be a lot more fulfilling… but it’s not that easy….’.

Please. Stop.? Creating the life you really want isn’t anywhere near as hard as you think it is.? It just takes awareness, understanding of how you’re making decisions, why you take certain action and don’t take alternative action, why you feel the way you do about certain things, people, circumstance - why and what you fear.? These things are unconscious - so you won’t even know the answer to 95% of these questions, even though you think you do. Creating a life by pure design just takes a system.

As I always say - success is not about an insatiable quest for more money and fame, although they are very possible if that’s what your heart desires; success is personal - it’s about living YOUR best life as the best, most fulfilled and fully-expressed version of yourself.

For years I lived a life that society led me to believe was the ‘right’ way to live - do this kind of work, do things this way etc.

Oh my! When I look back I can’t believe I lacked awareness and thought that this was ‘just the way it is’. So many of my gifts and talents were not being utilised at all.

So what are your unique talents? What do you do so naturally that you don’t even have to think about it?? What do you do in such a way that nobody else does it quite the way you do it?? How are you serving your fellow humans with those gifts? What are you doing to personally grow, evolve, develop as a person?

My personal belief is that we all have an obligation to grow personally, to develop our own level of awareness, to unearth our own genius, to understand and move past fear, and to serve our fellow humans in the best possible way. We can only do that however, when we are also serving ourselves in the best possible way.

When you learn who you really are and what you really want, you’re not only rewarded abundantly by life, but you also squeeze every bit of joy, happiness and freedom from your own personal dash.

This newsletter is dedicated to my dear friend BF, a beautiful dash cut far too short.

But yours is still stretched ahead of you, so please - for your sake, move past that fear, find someone to help you do it if you need to - just live the life you really want.

Guinevere.