A word from the wise… 'Always listen to yourself. It's better to be wrong than simply follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you will have learned something and you will grow stronger. If you are right, you will have taken another step toward a more fulfilling life. ' - Bryce Courtenay 1933 - 2012 You are treasure. I've told you before and sometimes you've soaked it up and said "Yes!" Other times, you've given me that look. The one that says "No way, I'm broken, I'm not that thing you think you see, I am believing that I am nothing much at all." But nothing could be further from the truth. Sure there are days when we are resistant, but we have to check ourselves sometimes, and remember that resistance blocks us. In all directions. Flow is really important and we can't flow that well if we have dammed up our stream with rocks. You're perfect as you are, it just takes a moment sometimes for us to realise this and embrace it, and when life feels tough - now and then, a little nudge is all we need to come back online. Bryce Courtenay is probably writing away somewhere in the stars. I like to think he is helping me. I've certainly learned from him and when I read this beautiful piece of writing (below), I think we share similarities of vision. He, more than any other writer, opened my eyes to african stars, to the power of one, to hopes, dreams and far away places. When I see his books, I scoop them up. At a school fair I discovered 'A Recipe for Dreaming' and it was a dollar. I felt blessed, inherited a bookmark and a little note that said 'whether you are near or far, I have roads inside me, that take me to where you are.' I wonder who left it there. It's a heartwarming extra gift.It's a curious thing, reading another persons secondhand book. I wonder where it's been, who has soaked it's wisdom up, who has been entertained. Did it mean to them, what it means to me? Bryce writes 'The combination of learning to dream and getting into the habit of asking yourself questions is, I believe, the beginning of a way to live a happy and original life.' This is accurate for me. I spent years running from myself and only recently realised how to stop and ask myself what was right for me, how I felt and what I was here for. Too often the treadmill captures us. I thought I would share this little passage from the book with you because it has inspired me so. EnJOY. 'You were not born empty. God formed you with perfect feet and hands and a heart that beats non-stop, sometimes for a hundred years. He made you complete. Why then, do you assume He made you empty? He didn't, of course. You inherited a thousand generations of wisdom, skill, poetry, song, all the sunrises and sunsets of knowledge past. You are the sum of all the people who went before you. You are a refinery of intellectual wealth. The full flood of antecedent wisdom is piped and stored within you - how to climb the highest mountain, slay the biggest monster, how to survive fear and how to summon your own courage and take pride in your wonderful intelligence. Inside you are more possibilities than you could possibly use up in one lifetime. If you can dream it - you can do it, because the instinctive knowledge of how to succeed is already programmed within you waiting to be turned on. Waiting to flow like a river as you come on stream.' I love it, don't you? Bryce has been a big part of my dreaming. Perhaps he can inspire you too.
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