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.