The character audit

and tuning in to the thoughts in our head

The decent and the rising. A theme in all of our lives if we tune into it. Often this decent can be branded or marked as a mid-life crisis, a breakdown, the loss of someone we love, detachment to the job and roles we thought we wanted and/or the life we had been working towards.

^Days of hiking up and down paths in Peru. Realising that the most grueling decents were followed by the most glorious risings

A few big realisations have hit me recently. Both, when written down, seem so obvious but there’s a new felt sense of what they mean to me:

1. I am unique in how I view my capabilities and what is possible.

2. It is a privilege to have the time to spend contemplating these ideas and writing about them.

Now I have always known that I live a privileged life. It is what I believe has instilled the mindset that ‘I can be and do anything that I want’. Up until recently I had a slighty ignorant view that this was a mindset applicable to everyone. But as I look at the different people that surround me, I see that not everyone views things in the same way. People have different priorities and demands, and find happiness and contentment in their lives in different ways. There are some people who are here for the purpose of baking the best bread on an island, or catching the necessary amount of fish for him and his family. There are people who are happy to devote their life to looking after a home or teaching children. All are worthy pursuits.

I feel where the ‘issues’ arise is when we want more in our life, or get the ‘this can’t be it’ feeling. I realise now that with my writing those are the people I hope to reach, because those are the people who are like myself in some way. This desire in us to want more out of life, not materialistically but spiritually and physically.

Something that I recently learnt in my yoga training is this formula: S + V > R.

S = Sankalpa Shakti ~ which is sanskrit for our willpower, our desire to really fucking want something. The spark or impulse to better ourselves and fulfil a spiritual mission.

V = Vayu ~ which is sanskrit for our ability to shape our prana. The amount of capacity, strategy and time that we invest into our energy in order to overcome the challenges that will get in our way.

R = Resistance ~ everything inside and outside of us that gets in the way of us achieving our soul-aligned desires.

Resistance is a funny bugger. I can see how it holds so many forms. It could be a financial resistance, a comfort resistance or for me the loudest of all - the fear of what others say. “Look at Kiera now, she thinks she’s all spiritual and knows the secrets of the world” kind of resistance. The resistance that stops you starting, out of fear of what others may think or say.

And to that I say FUCK IT. Say what you wish. Think what you wish. Read my stuff, don’t read my stuff. And if you find yourself saying something about me, let that be an invitation to ask yourself why you are judging me.

I have recently been trying to breakdown what it is that makes me, me. So far I have landed on this:

I am brave

I am dedicated

I am filled to the brim with love

I believe and trust in the divine

As I begin a very new journey in my own life direction I have found it helpful to map out these qualities because they form the foundation of how I wish to show up. For a reference point, I would say Kiera of 4 years ago was all of the above but I was distracted by:

A desire for monetary success

A need to feel loved

A want for everyone to really like me

A focus on building and creating my path

The difference I am now seeing is that in the second list (the noisy list, let’s call it), everything was outside myself. External needs of validation and trying to force something. All of these things also have the ability to shapeshift and mould themselves into nice feelings or things that made me feel like the intention and desire for them in the first place was pure and that, in relation to the external views of success, were the right and ‘natural’ ways to view and live life. For example, I needed more money as I loved nice restaurants, great wine, organic produce and beautiful holidays. I stayed in relationships that were not filling my cup for the tiny moments of love that gave me a false sense of ‘this must be it’ and from the bullshit view that love is work.

Quick side note on this point (as I think its a big fucking point that I know I got very mixed up with). In my experience, to know if you love someone or not is not the work. You feel it in your bones. When you love someone the work is to strip away all that is not love within yourself. When you find the one that you want to commit your life to they will be your biggest mirror. They will show you all the ways that you hold yourself back, get triggered and project your own shit onto a situation. The work is then to go into yourself and see what no longer needs to be there, what reaction or opinion is not your own, but maybe a learnt behaviour from long ago. The work is not whether you love the person or not. It's working on yourself to make sure you show up in your best, more real light - that is “the work”.

Back to the noisy second list… The last point on the list (a focus on building and creating my path) speaks to the false view I had that I was calling all the shots. I used to believe that pure hustle built and created my dreams. This path of conquering the world and winning at life was very much imprinted by the lifestyle I grew up in. I thought it was what I wanted and what success meant to me. But it wasn’t me. It was tracing paper, blurring out the true path that was destined for me with a stenciled copy-and-paste capitalist version.

^trying to find pictures of me on paths-how symbolic of me. But this is more of the type of path i’m keen to follow and trust now 🌱

And so, that has been my work over the last 8 months. To remove the tracing paper, release my grip and strip away all that I am not.

I have had some amazing opportunities and experiences in life, but there has always been this slight empty feeling inside. There would usually be an initial dopamine hit when say I got the higher paid job, or secured the home in my ‘dream’ location, but within a matter of months this sense of boredom would appear. It would show itself as procrastination at work, slacking off my responsibilities, trying to find ways to do as little as possible and get the most in return. It saw me cheating my commission at a job once as I became attached to the pay and ignorantly didn’t think of the consequences. Of course this ended up biting me in the arse and it was the start of a whole bunch of fuck ups and let downs, like the pulling of a stray thread that ends up unravelling the whole cloth.

And to be honest - thank god. It was a real moment that mirrored back to me who I was blindly becoming. It made me reassess who I was and it lost me friends in the process. All of this to say and showcase that there always has to be a fall, a decent, a hitting rock bottom moment. For I think this represents a moment for us to take stock, allow ourselves to fall, and learn a fuck load on the way back up.

So often, when shit hits the fan we cling on to what we know. Soothing ourselves with the usual fluff and shiny objects in order to make things feel comfortable and safe again. But wherever you go, there you are. Eventually the same issues rear their ugly head.

The way I see it now, these moments offer a fork in the road. An opportunity to listen to that little gut niggle that says “this isn’t it”. And whilst we may not know what ‘it’ is yet, something wants us to start exploring another way. Whether that be going for a walk in the bush, trying out a 5Rhythms ecstatic dance (highly recommend finding one near you), buying a journal and a pen and jotting these niggles down, jumping in the ocean… whatever it is, it is usually something that gets us back into our bodies and in touch with nature.

And boom it’s exactly this which has been the biggest lesson and homecoming for me - get out of my head and into nature and my body.

Now as this substack will showcase, I love to talk, write and put words to the experience. The same way birds communicate through their song, or fresh baked bread communicates through its smell, we as humans (and me especially) communicate and understand ourselves through words. Writing and journalling has become the outlet that has served me the most through the last 5 years. So the moral of this story is try ways to tune back into your body and this beautiful Earth. The answers may magically appear through the most subtle of signals, but if we are too noisy in our heads to feel and see them, then we aren’t yet tuning in.

If you have read this article please click on the ❤️ so I can see who is joining me on this journey. Going to try something new to close off:

Journal Prompt: What are some of the ‘little voices’ that you’ve heard in your head recently in regards to your life, relationships and work?

All my love,

Kiera x