Part two: Learning.
If you think I've gone mad, which probably you do, then here's why I haven't.

I've just been going through my papers, notes, stuff because I'm having to reconcile myself with the fact that it might be time to move on. The retreat is closing down for ten days and while I can still stay here, Rachel and Jess will be away for some of that period so it won't be so fun. And while there are books for me to read and things to learn, I feel that if I don't go now (not now as in now this second but now this period) I never will. So I've looked into trains to Melbourne and think that in a week or so I will leave. Although I've said that before.

Today it's easier to think of leaving as it's a windy and rainy day and while I'm all snugly by the fire inside, the beach isn't luring me to stay like normal.

This is what I wrote a couple of weeks ago: "It's so exciting, I've finished painting and now am thinking what shall I do before dinner. I have nothing to do! Of course, there are lots of things I want to do but I don't have to tidy up before sitting down. I can just sit and listen to music. My room's pretty tidy, the kitchen's tidy and the sitting room and bathroom are tidy. Yay! What a feeling to not be surrounded by papers and rubbish and mess.

"I've had a lovely relaxing day and spent all afternoon painting and I was so relaxed and happy listening to music. My stomach (which had been bad in the morning) felt much better after I saw Rach and Jess and did some work. Later I ran down to the beach like an over-excited child and then went over to get some white paint so I could paint the crests of the waves and finish my picture.

"So what film tonight?"

As I said yesterday, I've never been so peaceful as an adult. I used to say, I'd give anything to be a child again. Which is obviously both a pretty stupid and negative thing to say. But it was how I felt. So what did I like about being a child? I liked playing or rather the thought of playing as a child; the happiness you experience when you play, the ability to escape into play and not into thoughts. I loved playing. Playing is the best. When I told my friends this, they said, you can play as an adult and that's what you should do. And while this is true, I didn't feel it was the answer I was looking for, it made some sense but not total sense.

So what is the answer? What's so great about being a child? Children live in the now as Eckhart Tolle says we all should. They might be aware of the past and have minimal thoughts about the future but essentially they live in the now. They live in the now because they are totally present, they are not thinking about other things, when they play they are totally playing. They experience the world with an awe and an enthusiasm because it's all new, which is what we should do. Or rather it's what we do as children but lose as we get older. Everything becomes so familiar that we no longer look, we no longer see. Do we ever not do this? When we travel we look at the world afresh, we are much more aware of our surroundings of what's happening, of new people and places. But you don't need to go travelling now, open your eyes and look around you at the things you take for granted everyday. Take a look at nature and marvel at the trees and plants and insects.

Experience now, this second, with every cell in your body and allow, just allow, this moment to be. Stop. Don't think, just feel the moment. Now. Don't think about what you're going to do or what you've done. Just enjoy the moment for what it is. All it is. Don't wish you were somewhere else or doing something else. Don't try and by happy, don't look for happiness, learn to appreciate the moment, learn to live in the moment and you will experience a calm and an inner stillness. Indeed a lightness I never thought I'd be able to experience and from this happiness came. It was just there. And that's all there is to it. Imagine that, a scwillion amazing moments just waiting for you to experience them. Try it.

You think I'm copping out of life? In fact, I'm saying yes to life. I'm not trying to avoid it, I'm not waiting for some better moment to come along, I'm experiencing it for all it is. Do you think children don't live because they don't think like adults? Of course not. And I'm getting my wish to be a child again.

Part one: Awakening. (You might have read some of this post before - it was the one I published before I meant to. Anyway here is the first part in its refined and updated form.)

I finished reading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth yesterday - it was perfect. For me, anyway. I don't expect everyone to find it perfect or even appreciate it because it might not be for you, not at this time in your life anyway but if anything I write here resonates with what you think or feel then I thoroughly recommend it. Others may think I've gone mad but I think, for the first time, that I'm not mad. In fact, I feel more sane than I've ever felt and I know that because I feel a stillness and a happiness that I've never known before.

I worry that my new found state won't last but I think that's just because, like anything, when you're so used to something, when a way of thinking's been with you for years and years, you can't imagine that there is another way. And taking on a whole new philosophy takes some adjusting but it's not like I've suddenly arrived at the this point, by any stretch of the imagination.

If you'd told me a few years ago that I'd be writing this, I wouldn't have believed you, even a few months ago I would have struggled with the concept. A few months ago I was struggling with the concept of living in the present, never mind the now. (I see the present as being the day or week, now is now, this second.)

Two years ago, a guy on the cf message boards was trying to help someone who was really struggling to cope with cf and explained how he'd turned his life around by reading. I can't remember what books he recommended but I know they were about changing your philosophy on life and am pretty sure they were similar to the ones I'm reading now.

At the time, I laughed. Not a happy laugh, an angry how dare you laugh. I was so mad. Livid. How dare he say that I could change my life by reading. Didn't he realise how much crap I'd been through? Didn't he realise how hard my life was? Maybe some people could do that, maybe some people could read a book and feel better but not me, my problems were way too big for that. And, of course, if my problems could be solved by reading a book then that diminished them. I replied saying how dare he say you could just do away with depression. Did he not realise the pain and suffering and anguish I was going through? I couldn't see that he was trying to help. And there was no way I was ready for how he was trying to help me.

So how did I get here? I learnt from Richard (my therapist) that you can't trust your mind; that your mind creates fiction so while you may think something's a fact, the fact is actually your mind's interpretation of a situation; it is subjective. It took me quite a long time to appreciate this.

I lived through my mind. My mind was me. My thoughts defined me and if I didn't think then I wouldn't be me. Surely? Now I was being told that my mind wasn't telling me the truth and if I couldn't trust my mind then what did that mean? All I did was think and think. I couldn't concentrate I thought so much, I couldn't read or sometimes even watch TV. My mind was buzzing - it was alive, I thought it was good but I now realise it was bad. I thought about past things all the time, over and over again I played out situations and conversations and experiences in my head. And they weren't happy thoughts - they were negative thoughts, bad thoughts, depressing thoughts, victim thoughts. This happened to me, he said this, she did this, it's unfair. Over and over, different people, different situations, same result.

Richard taught me about common thinking errors (here's a cool Aussie website which explains them nicely) of which I had many. So I learnt, slowly, not to trust what my mind was telling me.

Then I came here to the retreat and in the first few days, I was sitting on the beach looking at the sea, enjoying watching the waves break on the shore, being happy to be on the sand and being happy to be in a beautiful location. But I thought something was wrong with me, I couldn't write. I thought, why can't I write? That's what I do, that's what I always do. Why have I got no thoughts going through my head?

The next day was the same but instead of worrying that I couldn't write, I experienced a stillness and a peace that I'd never felt before (or never as an adult anyway).

I know it's much easier to be content on an empty beautiful beach and I was scared that if I left, the peace would evaporate but then I listened to Eckhart Tolle's CD and read his book and it answered so many of my questions and made so much sense to me. I will explain more in my next blog but his core teachings, thanks to Wikipedia are below:

You are not your thoughts. You are the awareness behind the thoughts. Thoughts are often negative and painful, yearning for or fearing something in the future, complaining about something in the present or fearing a matter from the past. However, the thoughts are not you; they are a construct of the ego. Awareness of your thoughts without being caught up in them is the first step to freedom.

Only the present moment exists. That is where life is (indeed it is the only place life can truly be found). Becoming aware of the 'now' has the added benefit that it will draw your attention away from your (negative) thoughts. Use mindfulness techniques to fully appreciate your surroundings and everything you are experiencing. Look and listen intently. Give full attention to the smallest details.

Accept the present moment. It is resistance to the present moment that creates most of the difficulties in your life. However, acceptance does not mean that you cannot take action to rectify the situation you are in. What is important is to drop resistance so that you let the moment be, and that any action arises from deeper awareness rather than from resistance. The vast majority of pain in a person's life comes from resistance to what is.

Eckhart Tolle talks about the need to relinquish thoughts which is the first step to awareness and while this might seem alien to you, he says how some people find it easy to relinquish thoughts because their thoughts have caused them so much pain. That's how I feel; my thoughts betrayed me, well they didn't betray me, they thought and that's what thoughts do. But they did cause me lots of pain and I don't want to experience the pain anymore. I hated being me, I wanted to get away from me, and from my thoughts. I thought it was impossible but now I don't. Now I know it's not.

You might read this and think how can I go from thinking so much to not thinking, from being so ridiculously unhappy to being so content? And you might think that I'm never going to keep this happiness up. But here's something I thought I'd never say, never in a million years. Everything I've been through, everything, I no longer resent because if I hadn't been through them then I wouldn't be here now. And not only am I relinquishing thought but I relinquishing the bitterness that was eating me up inside.

Cool things that have happened since my last blog (in no particular order):

I went to yoga again and it rocked, again. And did a bit more here as well.

I drove the Jackaroo (jeep-type thing) back from Kingscote (which is about an hour's drive away) and then to and from Kingscote which is pretty scary as the roads are mainly unsealed so all the grit piles up like sand making them rigidity and rough and slippy. The high prevalence of kangaroos, wallabies and possums who jump full-speed out of the bush and onto the roads also adds to the stress of the journey. So while I've spent most of my time in Oz desperate to see native wildlife now I'm desperate not to see them.

I took part in the community penguin census and using my newly-found penguin-honing skills found a penguin nest with two chicks in it and them saw lots more very cute chicks (or baby penguins as I like to call them).

I read Illusions by Richard Bach (of Jonathan Livingston Seagull-fame) and really, really liked it.

I went to the other side of the island with George, Rachel's cousin and her two little kids, who are adorable, and did lots of touristy things (sorry no pics as while I remembered my camera, I forgot to charge it) including: walking to Remarkable Rocks; seeing lots of New Zealand fur seals sleeping, playing and fighting at Admirals Arch; spotting 30 koalas at Hanson Bay; walking along Vivonne Bay which was voted one of the top beaches in Australia; rolling down the massive sand dune at Little Sahara until I felt like I was going to be sick; sandboarding (once) and taking a guided tour of some cool caves, with lots of stalactites and stalagmites, which are unusual because they were created in a sand dune.

I also learnt how the local park rangers messed up a burn-off and instead of burning 100 hectares burnt 1000. The fire was pretty intense and in some parts just a few blackened twigs remain giving the impression that the area has suffered from some kind of nuclear fallout.

I fed some horses including a week-old foal.

I looked after an eight-week old puppy for the afternoon and took him to the beach where he feel asleep in my lap.

I saw lots of pelicans (and took pictures of them).

I played Scrabble three times.

I cleaned lots of windows (am getting better at it but don't think I'm going to make window cleaner of the year).

I watched some films, of which, Tuesdays with Morrie was the best.

I watered the garden some more and the cucumbers and tomatoes are growing lots.

I went to meet the school bus which had a box of food for us from the local shop. How cool is that?

I feel asleep on the beach (I think only once).

We had another party at the Stone House and partook in crazy dancing until the early hours,

And today I finally moved out of the Stone House, luckily of me, the guests were upgraded to the Cliff House, so I got to stay on but now I've moved to the flat which is still pretty cool although I am tempted by the Teepee in the garden...

Why do I write things like "The Alchemist which, incidentally, Rob was reading"? (Where should that question mark go, it looks weird outside the quotes but it's not part of the original quote.) Anyway before I get further distracted and go off on another tangent, which is actually quite apt, the point is, why did I write that? Because there was no incidentally about it, if Rob hadn't been reading The Alchemist, I would never have picked it up from Rachel's shelves.

This is what I love about travelling or more specifically about my life at the moment. Sometimes I think about what I'd be doing if I was still in Leeds and all I can think about is being stuck and trapped and unhappy. And I'm so glad I didn't get that job in Birmingham because while it might've made me a bit happier, all my underlying issues would've still been there but now I feel that I'm addressing the fundamental core beliefs that I have about myself and drastically changing not only who I am but how I fit into the world.

Anyway my life has moved on so much that there's no point in thinking about what would be happening because everything would have been different; if I hadn't booked my tickets to come away, the summer would have been unrecognisable as I'm not sure I would've gone to my friends' weddings but I did and I had a great time and they set me up well for Oz.

So here I am and what I'm trying to say is that it's amazing how things happen and link together and lead you from one thing to the next. Maybe this happened before or maybe I didn't do enough things for it to happen or meet enough people. But it if did, one thing's for certain I didn't have enough confidence to carry them through.

When Rob told me after I'd only been in Oz for a couple of days that he was going to leave me earlier than planned, my little face fell and I thought, How am I going to survive? What's going to happen to me? I can't go travelling on my own, can I?

So I did the only thing I could do and contacted people in Adelaide who I knew, or rather vaguely knew.

Fiona had met a lady from SERVAS who wanted someone to speak at their annual conference which was being held during my last week at Oxfam. Fiona and Kim were busy so it was down to me to me. I didn't know what SERVAS was but when I looked it up, I was pleasantly surprised. It was set up as a peace organisation and to promote peace, it fosters understanding of cultures which it does by setting up a network whereby travellers can go and stay with hosts...for free. I joined SERVAS at the conference (you normally have to be interviewed but they figured my talk was sufficient to allow me in... (the talk I wrote on the train, when will I ever learn?)) and met a lovely girl called Hannah as well as lots of other really friendly people from across the globe.

Anyway I told Hannah that I was going to Oz and she said if I was going to Adelaide, I should go and stay with her parents who were SERVAS hosts. So I did just that. I emailed Maureen and Andrew and went to stay with them and their daughter Lucy for a weekend and had the best time. For those of you who don't know, my middle name is Hannah so they decided that my parents had good taste and it caused us all lots of amusement although I don't think Lucy was amused by having another Lucy in her house which caused a bit of confusion. Maureen and Andrew told me that the last SERVAS traveller they had went to KI to do Wwoofing which gave me the idea that I should come here and do it too.

The whole point in the story is that I'm surrendering to life and am enjoying going down this new path and wondering where it will take me. I would definitely recommend The Alchemist to anyone who hasn't read it but with Eckhart Tolle as my new guru, I was like, yeah, yeah I know all that; I'm spiritually-awakened now me.

If you looked at my blog yesterday you would've seen the start of my latest philosophical essay. The computer (always blame the computer, it's never my fault) was playing up so I published my masterpiece before it was ready. Oh I've just realised that proclaiming your own piece of work a masterpiece isn't what's normally done and now I've raised any expectations you might have to ridiculously high levels. Anyway, it's not finished yet.

Practical things are that I've booked my tickets from Melbourne to Christchurch on 3 December. YAY! I have to be out of Oz by 6 December because I only have a three month visa and picked Christchurch because it was the cheapest place in NZ to fly to and seemed as good a place as any. And anyway I'll get to the other cities and sites along the way. I will, honestly. I won't spend all my time in one place like I have done here.

Here's still good but the atmosphere and tempo have changed because all the other staff came back on Monday. It's still good but not as good. Before I had the run of the lovely big kitchen and got to use the juice machine and make yummy juices all day long. Now I've been kicked out because the chefs are back - well, I guess you can't have everything. I've still been enjoying the work and the tomato plants have grown loads as have the strawberries and fennel and some other plants I'm not sure what they are.

I've also been sorting out a shed and have found lots of treasures including a 1975 map of Kangaroo Island as well as some moisturiser and other toiletries which are on my shopping list. That and a very dead mouse. It's easy sorting out junk when it's not your own and there's plenty of junk here. It's been quite cathartic and I keep thinking, why have they kept this stuff? It doesn't work. My now thinking is definitely helping me with getting rid of stuff, so I should be up for a big purge when I get back.

Today I had to do some office work which hasn't been so fun although I did still get a gorgeous afternoon on a secret mini-beach at the other end of the Snelling's Beach which I only found the other day. I sat there with the sun beaming down on me and read The Alchemist which, incidentally, Rob was reading while we were camping. I'm really liking it and it is totally in tune with my 'now' philosophy. And now I'm getting yummy food cooked for me-we either get the leftovers from the guests or the chefs cook us (staff) scrumptious meals so I can't complain too much.

But I'm thinking that it's time to move on. I'm moving out of my lovely Stone House on Friday where I've been thoroughly spoilt with a sea view and wallabies to welcome me home most evenings. I think sometime next week I should leave but not KI as I still haven't seen most of its highlights. Is The December Boys with Daniel Radcliffe out in the UK? That's set here on KI and the peninsula between here and Adelaide. So check it out if you want to see where I (sort of) am.

I've also changed my ticket home to sometime far in the future...

Yesterday was amazing.

Rachel and Jess who run the retreat came back from Adelaide on Wednesday and cooked dinner for Kate (who runs the cafe), her boyfriend and me. They bought the food up to The Stone House and we had dinner there. The food was yummy, (Rachel is a top chef which is why people pay so much to come here), the drink great (lots of red sparkling wine) and dance moves, funky. Well I have been practising quite a lot.

So surprise, surprise, I woke up not feeling so great the next day, especially as Kate left at 2.45am! (Rachel and Jess weren't drinking as they are on a forty-day cleansing diet. More of that in my next blog.) Luckily my task in the morning wasn't too taxing as I just had to unpack loads of wine and in my not-quite-so-with-it-state I spent ages doing it and got quite obsessed about all the bottles lining up and looking pretty.

In the afternoon we went to Kingscote where Rachel runs a yoga class and I was getting ridiculously excited about going to town - as I hadn't been to any shops for over a week. It takes about 45 minutes to drive to Kingscote, most of which is on unsealed roads and I wasn't feeling so great but Rachel said that yoga was the best thing for a hangover and then we started listening to Eckhart Tolle- 'The Power of Now' guy which made me feel lots better.

He is so cool as he talks about being in the now and just 'being' which is all that matters and really links into how I've been feeling recently especially when I've been on my own here - I've just been enjoying the moment for what it was, and, after all, that's all it is. That's all anything is. I didn't catch it all because the road was pretty bumpy but I'm definitely going to borrow the CD.

After the excitement of not only the chemist, but the butcher's, health food shop and organic market we went to yoga. I know everyone's been telling me that I should go to yoga and how great it will be for me but I guess I wasn't ready before. Yesterday going to yoga seemed the most easy and natural thing for me to do but I would never have done it at home. I would have thought that I didn't have the time or energy...

Rachel told us to relax at the start of the class but I was thinking that I was more stressed than I'd been for days as I was apprehensive about whether I'd be able to do it or not. I was pretty happy with the warm up but then it got a bit more hardcore although I found the standing and floor positions easier and some of them I was quite good at. (I know that's not the point to be good at them straight away but it still made me feel pretty happy.) It helped that Rachel's a really good teacher and not only did I survive the two-hour class (it ran over a bit) but felt really great afterwards.

We then went to the fish and chip shop and had oysters and locally-caught whiting and then the video shop. I don't think I've ever enjoyed the experience of going to a video shop so much before but I really felt like was the most fun thing ever. On the way back we listened to more Eckhart Tolle, had a really interesting chat about it, unpacked all the shopping and then I went to my house and watched a film.

It's great to have energy.

Now I'm going to go to the beach before it gets dark as I didn't go yesterday and am suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Well here's something I thought I'd never say; life is sweet.

Obviously I'm a bit worried about everything going wrong but then I haven't transformed into a new person, I've just travelled to the other side of the world which happens to be something I always wanted to do.

So I arrived in Kangaroo Island the Saturday before last and I had in my mind that I wanted to stay on the island for a while. I found out there was Wwoofing here (Willing workers on organic farms), a scheme whereby you do half a days work in return for board and keep. Although I was a bit nervous about joining as I wasn't sure if I'd be able to be a wwoofer because I wasn't sure how physical the work would be.

I joined in Adelaide and received a book with all the addresses of farms and farm-like places who want wwoofers. As I was a bit ill, I put off phoning for a few days but when I felt better, I phoned people with cafes on their farms as I thought the work would be less physical and I'd be more able to cope with it. However when I got round to phoning, they either didn't need anyone or already had help and (as you might've picked up by now) I'm not very good at planning, I started to worry a little bit (actually I didn't really worry because I'm in this new happy-go-lucky frame of mind and I thought, well I haven't even called all the people on KI and I can always hang out at the youth hostel a bit longer until something comes up. Especially as the hostel guy was letting me stay for free in return for doing a bit of weeding.)

Anyway I wasn't having much luck but I saw an ad on the jobs noticeboard in the hostel. I didn't know what it was but I phoned up and the person I spoke to was really friendly and said the lady who looks after the garden was on holiday so it was really good timing (and lucky for me especially as she'd put the notice up months maybe years ago)... She said she just needed to sort a few things out and so I called her the next day (after being wowed by the website) and we arranged I'd go on Wednesday (last week). I love the freedom of going to a hostel and just phoning up about work and going off and doing it. I thought I'd never be able to do something like that but now I can and I love it. It's so cool because if it works out you can stay and if it doesn't then you can leave. No pressure, just freedom.

Rachel (cool lovely lady who runs the retreat and teaches yoga) met me in Kingscote (the main town on KI). There's no public transport on the island except a shuttle bus which runs once a day and links in with the ferry, so I had to get that. It was pretty cool because we had to make a detour to pick up and drop off post! I love things like that.

Rachel and I stocked up in Kingscote as the retreat is 45 minutes away from the town. Or pretty much anywhere for that matter... It did stress me out a little bit but that's only when I think about its remoteness. When I'm doing my jobs and sitting on the beach, I don't think about it. Rachel said there wasn't any food at the retreat but to me there were more vegetables and cheeses and meats and general food than I'd ever seen anywhere in my whole life except in a supermarket. They'd had a cancellation after they'd bought all the food so my first job was to start munching my way through it. :)

I then watered the garden (I've never done so much gardening in my whole life, oh yes, I've never actually done any gardening in my life) and settled into my new house - The Stone House. I'm really lucky because all the backpacker accommodation is being used for storage so I get to hang out in a cool house, where I can breakfast looking over the beach and wallabies are waiting for me when I get home (although I think I'm getting kicked out this week). Sometimes I take my dinner up there and then I watch a dvd and dance around the house to eighties music, of which, to my excitement there is an extensive collection. I never realised before how much difference a good stereo makes, thinking gold wires and such like were just for geeks but having a great stereo is awesome - although I hope I haven't deafened any wallabies.

So here I am. I can't believe I've been here nearly a week and I'm loving it. The retreat has been closed and pretty much everyone has been away except me so I've had chilled out days doing work such as cleaning snorkels, weeding, watering, washing and then hanging out on the beach in the afternoon.

Over the weekend I helped out at a gallery/cafe up the hill which was really cool especially as Kate, who runs the cafe, takes in injured animals. She has a baby wallaby who lives in a beanie in her bedroom and baby kangaroo who I bottle-fed and who comes into the gallery at night because she gets scared.

People are back tomorrow so I think it will be a bit more hectic but I'm liking the lifestyle. It's so exciting that I can actually do some work AND do other things in the afternoon/evening without being too tired (although having said that I did fall asleep on the beach this afternoon but I've been sleeping pretty-much like a normal person (almost)). I'm also learning new skills and liking the way that the work I do actually makes a difference (in a practical sense) -watering the garden or making the guy who's mowing the lawn lunch. These things are important, I'm helping to keep the retreat running and that makes me feel good (that and all the great music).

Well tomorrow I go to the retreat. I spoke to the lady today and it's all fine. Hurrah! I'm not sure if there's email there so you might not hear from me for a while. I've realised that I've missed out a big chunk of my trip but because I don't feel like I'm travelling any more (travelling seems to have just morphed into a big holiday) I can't quite get the momentum up to write it.

(By the way Cheezels (corn and rice cheese snack) are really yummy, I don't think they're very good for you or the keyboard for that matter as my fingers are all greasy).

Animal/reptile update - a black tiger snake (sleeping luckily as apparently it's the third most dangerous snake in the whole world), a goanna (should have put that on the other day plus lizards and black skinks), a dolphin, more penguins, some black cat-like thing (not sure what that was but it ran away from me pretty quickly), a legless lizard (which does actually have legs), an evil-looking centipede and another possum.

Fi - the boys, the boys. Rob (in most of the pics) and his brother Jono (only in one*). Don't think there are any pics of David* which is a bit sad. But yep, me and loads of males giving me lots of attention. No wonder I'm so happy ;)

*Postscript I mean close-up pics. David is the one in the red jacket.

I've sorted out the link now, turned some pics around so you don't have to stand on your head to look at them and added more.

But here's the coolest thing ever. I'm a bit worried to write about it because it all seems too good to be true. But this is where I'm staying next http://www.life-time.com.au.

Woohoo! I haven't won the lottery and am not going to be paying the $850 a night fee but I will be staying there for free in return for doing three hours work a day. It's probably a good job that I'll have to go to the mainland in the next month of so to restock my meds otherwise I might just stay here forever and ever.