Transformational Learning

"The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it" - Paolo Freire

As a teacher there was a paradigm that always piqued my interest and triggered my passions - it is transformative learning. For me this means that moment/class/activity when a learner has an 'aha moment' - where something has shifted inside and a new perspective is reached. This was what drove me as an educator and what drives me now as a coach and parent.

This is what we're all looking for...

Educational research around transformative learning has been building for some time, but I also see parallels with wellness and personal transformation which make it relevant to every one of us who is seeking to transform their lives into their ideal lives and in turn transform the world.

I'm calling it Transformational Learning...

And it goes hand in hand with transformational living and leadership.

To give you an idea of the relevant educational research, a transformative education including listening, dialogue, action and reflection (rather than a 'stand-and-deliver' style of education). Learners are fully engaged in what they're learning - they're turned on, fired up, in the moment and creatively involved.

"Transformative (learning) prepares people for change" (from here)

As a coach, parent and educator I find myself often thinking don't we all want this?

Don't we all want to be engaged in our lives?

To be transformed into our ideal selves?

To be creative, reflective and living in the moment?

Is there, perhaps, a new shift we can make to learn and live transformationally?

Why feeling heartbroken is so good

It's a paradox, this life.

It's a bundle of contradictions. It's ebb and flow. Give and take. It's cyclical. Not absolute. Subjective and changeable.

What feels good can actually be bad for us. And what feels bad can actually be amazingly good for us.

It's our perceptions, our attitudes, our thoughts, in which we must turn to look deeper.

This is how it was with me this week....

Sadly I had my final coaching session with dear Tara Bliss. This amazing woman has helped to crack me open with her wisdom and intuition. These days I'm living with more and more vulnerability, taking more risks, feeling a raw edginess that's refreshing. In short, I'm playing safe a lot less and living a lot more since working with Tara.

And in the process of this last session, perhaps the most amazing of all, I admitted to myself that my heart is broken. Not by a person or a relationship, but by my love of teaching itself.

Teaching and education call to me and tug at my heart daily, and yet I've trained myself to push it aside, to cover the pain, knowing that I've evolved beyond the teacher that I was - but not knowing what or where to go next. It's been 5 years since I've taught within an institution with any gusto and yet my passion for education is no less diminished.

It's bringing me to tears simply writing this. I MISS teaching in such a visceral, whole-bodied way - I miss the curriculum design, the big discussions, the 'aha' moments with students (so addictive!) and being part of an awesome group of people making a difference in the world.

Without this in my life I've been struggling to live with even a moderate amount of joy.

And the real paradox here?

It was me who ran away. I left the relationship. I could feel my heart starting to be torn as I was heading in one direction and my teaching job was going somewhere else. And so I left, hoping for something better to come up, unwilling to face the pain.

But nothing did come up - to be honest I didn't dream big enough - and now that tear has travelled right through. The break is completed and I'm cracked wide open.

But here's the tricky thing - the gem that Tara helped me uncover...

The pain is raw but being heartbroken is a good thing.

All that joy and motivation for teaching is released again, flooding back into my life. No longer trying to hold it together, I can let it go into new projects and new educationally-focussed dreams. By re-framing my heartbreak into an expanded, raw, open heart I get to live, ironically, with the whole of my heart. And from a wholehearted approach I can only be a better teacher and have more to give to education.

Are you a heartbroken Mama?
Are you carrying around the pain of a love lost?

Can you reframe it? Can you feel that being cracked open is good?

Please, leave a comment below and let us all feel that rawness, 'cause we all got it Mama.

Feel like a 5 step Passion Diagram?

I was reading a magazine a few months ago and read how a man had used a Venn diagram to help clarify his passions and to find new ways to combine and reconfigure them. 

Wow, I thought.

It was an inspiration to me, perhaps because I used to be a maths teacher and find mathematics beautiful and perhaps because it was so simple and clear and didn't involve pages of journalling.

Either way, when I committed myself to the process it was an inspiring hour that turned up in my life unexpectedly and led me to commit to some dreams (hiking in NZ with some like-minded Mamas, creative garden design).

Here's a photo of my original diagram from that day:

Essentially, this is a three-set Venn diagram that looks at the intersection of your skills, beliefs and interests. From these my passions naturally arose, particularly where the circles intersect with one another.

Id love to share this heart-expanding process with you Mama Mias, so....

Here are some loving little instructions so you can make your own passion diagram:

1. On a large, lovely piece of paper draw three intersecting circles (see my photo above if you're not sure how to lay them out). Be sure to overlap the circles well so there's room to write ideas in the intersections.

2. Label each circle; 'Interests', 'Skills' and 'Beliefs'.

3. Brainstorm ideas for each category. Take some quiet time it do this, or even better, take several days and add to it over time. Just a hint here Mamas - I found the beliefs circle required the most thought, but was also the catalyst for some unusual and original ideas to arise.

4. Now take some time to look at the intersections of each two circles and then the central intersection. What do you get when you put these things together? What new combinations come up? How can you look differently at your life and think outside the circle?

5. And now, action-time! Take whatever actions you can, with whatever you have to start making the most exciting ideas come true.

Passionate and purposeful wishes to you,

Carolyn xx

The Magic of the Nullabor

I've been driving, with my little family, through the nether-regions of Australia over the past few days on our 100 day adventure around the country.
I've discovered, as we've travelled, that the Nullabor Plain is the world's largest limestone (Karst) slab, and that beneath the scrubby plain itself are hundreds of kilometres of cave systems and subterranean caverns. There are Wedge-tailed Eagles, road trains aplenty and small, friendly trees dotted here and there.

It's a delightfully interesting part of our country and I'm feeling grateful for the chance to traverse it one kilometre at a time.

As I've come further West the skies have widened and the land has flattened. It's like I'm a marble rolling through a giant dish - nothing to stop me, going with the flow, just showing up on the road, one day at a time (see Sarah Wilson's post for more on this idea).
Each morning I've woken early, sometimes with the girls hot on my heals, sometimes alone, and continued my yoga practice as the sun rises. Thanks to the Women's Wellness Weekend I attended recently my daily practise is much more consistent and my body is thanking me for this. And I'm finding that travel, and camping in particular, are good matches for a morning yoga routine - I don't need a room or a hall, I just roll out my mat on the sand or grass or soil, face it to the East and begin my work.

This has been the Nullabor for me.

Xx

Living outside the box

That's what I'm doing at the moment. As you know I've taken myself and my family out of our house, out of our town and out of our state to travel for 100 days around Australia. But this is more than just a holiday for me, more than lovely family time together - it's an opportunity to stretch myself beyond my comfort zones and really live outside of the box.

This Easter weekend we're driving 2700km across the vast Nullabor Plain from Adelaide to Perth. That thought alone and the unknowing of what awaits me on this trip is enough to bring out my vulnerability. However last night I then locked our keys in the car after a misunderstanding with my darling partner while we were on a short stop in a small town north of Adelaide. My vulnerability grew stronger.

We worked for two hours on the car, the keys in sight on the box of homeschooling books in the back seat, trying to press the button to open the doors with a piece of fencing wire inserted down into the window seal. The girls played in the dirt in front of a house as the afternoon turned into evening. Bethany soiled her nappy. The wipes and clean nappies were in the car. Then it was completely dark and I was feeling desperation start to rise.

So I turned it around...

I imagined everything working out. I imagined us getting into the car, relieved that it had worked out. I imagined us continuing our drive north and happily setting up camp in the dark. I imagined the girls going to sleep peacefully in the car as we drove. Still the car was locked, but the imagining helped. I embraced that old vulnerability of mine and transformed it using my imagination into a possible future - like consciously creating what I wanted at the time.

Not long afterwards a tow truck pulled up next to Ian, who was still trying to press the buttons with the wire, and after a quick conversation came back with his van full of tools. In 10 minutes our car was beautifully open and and that future I imagined started to manifest. It was a lovely moment as I realised this.

Then, after trying to pay the kind mechanic, I found out that he'd come as a favour to his friend - whose house we were outside and we'd spoken to briefly a couple of hours earlier. It was both of these kind strangers who helped turn our evening from disaster to a consciously created wonder and I left feeling that my vulnerability had transformed into awe.

But the greatest thing about it all?

Both vulnerability and awe felt the same - both raw, both big, both plundering the depths of my heart.

It was a day of whole-of-heart living - outside the box and outside of my comfort zone. And I'll be back for more of this out of the box living you know, 'cause it cleans me out, mucks out those smaller emotions and let's me feel perspective. And that's precious.

When did you last have a day of living outside the box Mamas?

MBM review: A Month of Thankyou's

Gratitude....

Ever wondered how gratitude works in your life? How it helps you to manifest those awesome dreams? How it fits in with your passions?

Well. Here's the deal.

Gratitude is the glue that holds all those affirmations, manifestations, dreams, desires, passions and purpose together. It's the part where you say thank-you for what you have and thank-you for what you don't yet have. It's the part where you assume that your going to get what you want, and more, and you give thanks for it.

To say that it's an important part of a healthy, happy, purposeful Mama's life is really an understatement.

Having said all that I'm sometimes not that good at being grateful, especially in the heat of things with my girls. And so I have a few little rituals that help my family and I to focus on what's good.

My favourite little gratitude treat at the moment is a pack of 30 of Lori Portka's beautiful 'A month of thankyous' gratitude cards. I've given most of these away now with little love notes on the back - to friends, family and others I'm grateful for and they have been a great little pick-me-up when I've been feeling out of sorts and struggling to feel like my life if a blessing. As a mama you would know that this can strike quite suddenly or take up an entire day when things don't go to plan....and a little pocket of gratitude in there can go a long way.

Other family rituals for gratitude include a silent minute together with my girls in the mornings when we first get up, a 'blessing' of our food at dinner time and our 'favourite thing of the day' that we all say during dinner each night. These don't always happen - sometimes we forget and sometimes we're distracted, but my intention is to be grateful as a family and as a mama, and it's with this persistence and intention that my grateful life takes form.

In the spirit of gratitude today I'd like to offer you some special post-Easter Passion Test coaching.

Check out my coaching page for more information about the Passion Test and my longer-term Mama on Purpose coaching programs, however for next week I'm offering

Passion Test coaching sessions for 5 Mamas via phone from Margaret River, WA. - one each afternoon/evening AEST - for $99 for a one hour session and follow up email support in the coming weeks. 

Those dates, just to be clear, are Monday 21/4 through until Friday 25/4 2014.

As you know we're slow travelling around Australia at the moment so coaching opportunities are limited, but I want to help you discover your passions mamas, to help you be clear on what they really are, and to guide you to your purpose, so I'm making time happen while we're travelling.

Contact me at mountbeautymama@gmail.com to secure your place,

Carolyn xx

Miss Bethany turns two

Our baby Bethany turned two today, celebrated by a full moon and a full lunar eclipse. Two years ago we welcomed Bethany - four and a half years after Rosie joined our family. Doctor Angela ensured a safe delivery in Mount Beauty and we were, as we are today, very happy and satisfied parents.

We celebrated Bethany's second birthday today by packing up in the west end of Kangaroo Island and moving our camp to Antechamber Bay, in the far east of the Island. Along the way we visited Raptor Domain and watched a bird of prey show where Rosie held an Australian Kestrel. 

Now we sit near the beach in the full moonlight, birthday cake gone and presents for a two year old opened. We hear the waves crashing on the shore and wonder what the next twelve months will hold for our little girl....

MBM review: Seven Principles to Living a Passionate Life

For the next few weeks, as our family journeys around Australia, we'll be reviewing some inspiration for following your passions and finding your purpose here at Mount Beauty Mama. First up are these 7 principles by Chris and Janet Attwood, authors of The Passion Test book and programs.

Honest disclaimer: This isn't a random list that I've pulled off the internet. I've trained with Chris and Janet as a Passion Test facilitator in London. Interest in this list, and in following your passions and finding your purpose directly benefits when when you sign up for my coaching. I've shared these principles from the resources I have access to as a facilitator.
Just wanted to be fully transparent with you Mama. Oh, and I recommend these because Chris and Janet are authentic people - I trust their wisdom.

Here are the 7 principles (words in italics are my own - to get ya thinkin'):

1. Commitment - choose in favour of your passions every day, and soon you'll discover you are living a passionate life.

Choose passionate thoughts, passionate actions, a passionate reality.

2. Clarity - when you are clear what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent the that you are clear.

Be crystal clear. Look within. Dream big.

3. Attention - what you put your attention on grows stronger in your life.

What are you focussing on? Look to the positive. Be grateful.

4. Stay open - stay open to your dreams showing up differently than you plan, there is nothing that can stop you.

Embrace vulnerability. Shift your perspective. Release old identities.

5. Integrity - be as true to yourself as you are to others, and as true to others as you are to yourself.

Kind thoughts. Kind words. Kind actions.

6. Persistence - Fulfillment belongs to those who stay the course.

Stick with it. Lean in. Act like you got it Mama.

7. Follow Your Heart - when in doubt, follow your heart. Passion arises from the heart. The mind will only complicate matters.

Pour your heart out. Listen to your soul. Follow your calling.

Important ideas these. I mean, if we're not here to follow our passions, to find and live out our purpose in life then what are we here for? I say, Mama, that a life without passion and purpose is not a life - it's survival.

And we're way more important and special than that.

Xx

The isle of kangaroos

Our first view of Remarkable Rocks

Our journey around the Great Southern Land has brought us to Kangaroo Island, off the South Australian coast, this week. 

We are camped in Flinders Chase National Park, at the Western, more rugged end of the Island. 

First explored by Frenchman Nicolas Baudin, who at once introduced pigs (now feral) and chickens, Kangaroo Island was the site of the first 'free settlement' in Southern Australia. Today there are many old stone houses dating back to that era.

This is an island of extremes in some ways - an expanding tourism effort has the main attractions set up for international visitors in tour buses while the wild, relatively untouched coastal cliffs are not far away. I'm struck, as I always am, by the irony of this necessity.

As campers we are relatively free to do as we please, go where we like an enjoy the 'free' parts of this island. And we're having a good time.

Today we visited Remarkable Rocks - granite boulders atop a lower granite outcrop jutting in the southern ocean. Rosie played hide-and-seek with her grandparents among these metamorphosed beauties. 

We've spent several hours in the national park visitors centre looking at local animal skins, learning about Australian megafauna and discovering the genetic differences of the animal species on Kangaroo Island when compared to the mainland (generally species here are smaller, if you're interested).

And oh, the discussions Rosie and I have had - about paleontology, animal extinctions, introduced species, aboriginal culture, geology and ecology. It's a veritable gold mine of educational opportunities.

More of this to come to be sure. Xx

Ian trying his luck at Remarkable Rocks

At Admiration Arch - cold and windy.

Lunch at Cape de Couedic lighthouse

One cool Mama

One cool Rosie xx

Birds of a feather

At the time of writing this post we are camped in the Grampians in Western Victoria. It's been a wet camp, with ongoing drizzle marked by patches of fog. It's the first rain here in five months we've been told.

We are at the beginning of our 100 day journey around much of Australia (#100daysaroundaustralia - is the hashtag I've made if you want to follow my photos on Instagram). It's been our dream, as a couple, to slow travel, to journey for an extended time, to find ourselves on the road with our family. And it feels lovely, just lovely, to be here now. Just us. A long road stretching ahead.

Our activities over our few days here in the Grampians have involved lots of bird watching, and a few outings in the rain to short walking tracks and waterfalls. And, if I'm honest, to fuel my caffeine addiction in Halls Gap when I could fit it in.

Rosie has been enamoured with our binoculars on and off for a number of years now, occasionally looking for birds from our home in Mount Beauty, and sometimes carrying them around 'like a real explorer'. And so they were one of the first things I packed, hoping they will form a cornerstone of our homeschooling while we travel.

With delight, this Mama has been rewarded very quickly with glimpses of the Rosie who loves to observe nature, who loves living things and who wants to involve others in her discoveries.

It's a particularly sweet reward for me because much of my childhood, as I remember it, involved watching birds, studying bird books and filling in self-created 'Bird Observation Record Sheets'.

I LOVE that Rosie shares this passion and am gently, gently encouraging this love of her's and mine.

Xx

A Re-Treat

Six months ago I silently accepted the news that my friends had attended a beautiful yoga retreat in the nearby Ovens Valley. I was silent because a retreat was something I'd been wanting to do for a while, and yet I didn't even know that this particular one was happening. It was a moment that lead me to re-evaluate my priorities (I wrote about it here) - a direction-changer that gave me the push to allow it to happen next time the opportunity arose.

Fast forward to today. After attending many of my friend Amber's classes at The beauty of Yoga, I'm now at the end of Amber and Erin's second Women's Wellness Weekend, a.k.a. the Yoga Retreat, in Freeburgh near Bright. And it's been a lovely, inspiring weekend.

Riverbed Homestead, the site of our retreat, is an older farmhouse that's been restored. With polished wooden boards, handmade wooden furniture and lots of light coming through large windows, it's the perfect location for a journey of inner discovery.

We are surrounded by sloping farmland and bushland on close-by hills, which add to both the spaciousness and intimacy of this place. It also a great place to witness the cycles of nature. On our second day here we watched showers, brought by dark clouds, make their way across the valley towards us on the verandah of the homestead. In these ways this weekend has been dramatic and sacred at the same time.

But, being me, I've also been called to analyse this phenomenon called a retreat because I like to look at things from a different perspective, but also because people from all walks of life, and many nations, take a retreat from time to time. Sometimes it's planned like our weekend here, and sometimes we are forced into retreat by illness, depression, pain.

Personally, after experiencing the kind of retreat that comes with depression, I prefer the wellness kind!

So I started thinking more about that word RE - TREAT:

- RE - to do something again

- TREAT - to give something to yourself or others.

This weekend then d about returning to a state of giving to ourselves - giving compassion, care, respect, connection, community, clarity, love. A state of turning within, back to that home that exists inside at all times. We just need to treat ourselves and listen in again.

And if I take this further, as I am wont to do, I now return to the outside world filled up with these treats, and can give them freely to others. For my family, a retreat for me is a retreat for everyone when I come back a more relaxed and clear Mama.

It's funny, isn't it? How, by being selfish, we can then give more to others. Like the yin and yang of yoga, when we look within everyone benefits.

Xx

Ideas to live by

Hi there again happy readers,

Its been a while since I've been really present here at Mount Beauty Mama and it feels good to be back baby!

Our Mountain Mamas trip to New Zealand, which I wrote briefly about in my last post, has changed form in my soul over the last 10 days or so since we've returned. Much like a new baby, the experience has grown, changed and is being integrated into 'everyday life' with each day that passes. What was upon our return a wealth of inspiration, is now so much more - a signpost for greater adventures to come, a beacon of hope when life feels low and a much needed opportunity taken with both hands. In short, its something to be proud of.

While we were away on that fantastic adventure we had the chance to go night caving with some friends we made, and it was a special time that I wrote a lot about while we were there. I've included it below so you can get another sense of the amazing journey we had:

Night Caving

Yes, you heard right. In the spirit of being comfortable on the edge, and of stretching my comfort zone beyond its previous area of stress and overwhelm, I gratefully accepted the offer of a late-night exploration of Luxmore Cave up here in the mountains of southern fiordland, NZ.
And so, with a waning moon rising above the far horizon, six trampers from very different parts of the world set off across the tussock grass fields to the entrance and down, down into blacker depths.
I have caved in the past. At first with great pride and a sense of fun, but more recently - post children and with a more 'reserved life' - with fear and trepidation (well, with stress and overwhelm to be honest). And so, immediate acceptance of this offer is a good sign that this adventure away is working its magic on me too. A sign that I'm giving more to myself each day.

Back to the adventure....

I was the first the enter the upper reaches of the cave, having visited already the day before, and descended down to a point where we needed to crawl on  all fours for a few metres. At this point Jacob (from Sweden) took the lead, which I was honestly grateful for as my imagination was taking over from my rationalism.
Slowly, slowly the six of us descended through squeezes and caverns, sometimes on our knees, sometimes able to stand up, beneath stalagtites and around flowstones. It was a magical experience to be exploring the unknown with likeminded strangers and it buoyed my faith in humanity and its inherent goodness.
At the farthest, deepest part Jacob suggested we turn off our headtorches and spend a minute in silent blackness. It felt sacred and special and we all readily agreed. However, in the black I felt uncomfortable suddenly - it was beyond my comfort zone - and asked if we could all hold hands, if only so I would feel better,
And so there we were, perhaps 100 metres below the tussock grass above, at the end of our journey down in a ring holding hands - me, Jacob, Megan, Meni from Israel, Ruth and Pascale from Germany - all from different parts of the world, in the black inkiness.
And then, with a special bond between us, we returned to the world to continue our journeys.

You can see that this was a special time for us, and one that I've certainly carried home with me to refer to when times get tough - to remind me that we're all connected, we all belong and that peace does exist in the world.

And that brings me to my latest book-love.

I've been avoiding it for a while - too clichéd, too popular - I thought. But then I was ordering from Amazon anyway and thought I'd add to my order - Danielle La Porte's The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul.

And, oh my, its so lovely, so refreshing. so cut-straight-to-the-bullsh*t. And I'm loving it. So far, with lots of the theory of desire behind, and a few exercises and a walk in the bush to really feel it under my belt, I've identified what I'm really craving at the moment - and what it was that I found in that cave in New Zealand:

Connection (with the world, with others, to the earth)
Belonging (to my family, myself, the world, this moment)
Peace (within myself, in the world)
Worship (of my abilities, my experiences, my life, this moment)

These are my ideas to live by right now. This is what is driving me.

What's driving you?

xx

Some more pretty NZ pictures below - though none in the cave I'm afraid...

Mirror lake

Seals in Milford Sound

Gazing up at a large native NZ pine - a huge, ancient tree.

One of the many spectacular NZ streams

On the Kepler Track en route to Brod Bay.