Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come. ~ Henri Nouwen

What a year it has been.  As the year draws to an end I like to reflect back and acknowledge the events that have occurred and I can seriously say that 2015 has been an amazing year for me in all aspects of life.

Those of you that follow my blog and Facebook may have noticed that I like to think about the meaning of life, I fancy myself as a bit of a philosopher.  I spend a lot of time trying to understand things to deepen my realizations of life and whilst this is done in the mind/head the results are truly felt in the heart.

Last night I came to the conclusion that when you open your heart there is no longer a need to analyis, just accept that all is as it should be and all is perfect.

When this is realized there is a wave of internal peace that washes over you and become unbreakable because nothing that is said or done has an effect on you.  You are constantly at peace with yourself and your environment, you are grounded and connected and see things differently.  I think what I am describing here is the death of the ego. I am going to write about the ego is past tense, this is not to say that I am devoid of ego – yet, but I am working on it!  Some would say that what I am doing is ego at play itself, I say we have to start somewhere!

My ego was a little voice inside my head that told me how I should think, feel, live and love.  It was the little voice in my head that thought it was protecting me, keeping me alive.  Instead what it was doing was causing me lots of pain because its idea of ‘protecting me’ was actually distorting my reality and it made me a victim in my own life.

My ego would come up with all sorts of wild stories about how people (including myself) were treating me and how they “should” really be treating me.  I started becoming more and more withdrawn and more and more in my head and my ego.  To the point where I was soooo far inside my head I almost turned myself inside out.  It was ego and me and don’t you dare come close because ego would start making up these stories about how I would get hurt. It was a very isolating living like this, it can almost become a form of paranoia, after all paranoia is totally awareness isn’t it??

At my lowest moment I heard another little voice coming from my heart.  This little voice was gentle and kind, it was soft, fully of hope and determined.  I started paying attention to this voice because the ego was just too much, pretending that everything was ok when clearly everything was falling apart and I was becoming suicidal.  It was exhausting, everyday was a fight, yet, this other nurturing voice kept on telling me that it’s normal to want to be accepted and loved, slowly it was becoming a scream and it drained out the ego.  The voice from my heart has become the voice with which I speak.

What relief to be at peace, what relief to know that it’s ok, what a relief to be real!

Whilst the ego was trying to be protect me it wasn’t protecting I needed, I needed love and acceptance, not only by others but by myself.

I needed to start loving and accepting myself as I was. I was wounded by the battles my ego had fought and it wasn’t until I fully accepted the hurt and pain that I was able to be at peace with myself and acknowledge that is was safe and always had been safe for me to love and be loved as I am, perfect with all my imperfections.

All of this came to me last night as I sat at my brother’s table. On the drive down I was feeling sick, ego had kicked in, I hadn’t even gotten there and already I was planning my exist strategy. I found myself thinking it would have been easier going to  Melbourne as planned to be away and alone, comfortable with the discomfort of being alone. Then I slipped back into that peaceful place and accepted that without all the pain and suffering that I had gone through in those years that I would not have really been able to appreciate that moment for what it was, not just Christmas with my brother and his family after 9 years, a moment of extreme healing for all involved.