Introduction

Excerpt from the Book

I write this book to illustrate where I am coming from today. I am writing from “the trenches”, not from any mountain top of societal success or any giddy levels of euphoric happiness.

I am not standing up on stage in a flowing robe made of angel’s breath and a smile singing kumbay yah preaching “look at me, this is happiness, bitches”. Fuck. No.

How is that even remotely helpful to anyone?

That is not who I am. That is not where I am at, and certainly not what this book is about.

I can only hope that considering my words come from “the journey” rather than “the destination”, it might resonate with people that are looking for a little help, but really fucking hate the traditional ideas of “self-help”.

I may very well be writing this book to myself, because it might just be someone like me that could really benefit from the simplification of some of these wider ideas. 

Someone who feels that there is just something “off” but doesn’t particularly warm to self-help in its normalised format. 

Whilst the bones of it might all be there in the “mindfulness” zeitgeist (I hate that word, by the way…Mindfulness…. Urrrrghhh) and certainly many interesting ideas are readily available to be consumed and practiced, it’s all just a bit too pastel and prescribed for my sensibilities.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely get the irony of my writing a book in this very space - it’s not that I personally hate self-help, and conversely have had some transformative experiences with people that I’ll shamelessly reference in the following pages, but there is a certain cringe-worthiness that I find a little tough to chew through sometimes.

I admire people who get into it though – I revere people who can really commit and action what they learn to the betterment of themselves and the people around them.

And as fate would have it, I am deep in the fucking trenches right now.

These past couple of months, life’s swings and roundabouts are in full effect and force, with the endless tune of striving to strike balance between work, health, life and happiness playing particularly loudly in my mind.

My optimistic yet sometimes existential nature would grin at the irony – because “of course, it is always the darkest before the dawn! Naturally the universe is testing your resolve and providing these mental obstacles as some sort of maniacal gateway to whatever comes tomorrow”.

Questions like, “Do you have the drive to undertake such a bold endeavour?” and “For all your bluff and bluster, do you have the fortitude let alone the cajónes to tackle such big words like consciousness and happiness?”. These questions are a constant backing track to my hectic daily existence. It feels a little like tackling the “big boss” at the end of a level in an old 80’s computer game (Double Dragon coming to mind). 

But here we are, pushing past all the bullshit of my own creation. Like my good friend and mentor on this project Katrena Friel would say, self-doubt is a mother-fucker. Hmmm.. Perhaps I am paraphrasing you a bit here, Kat?  😊

I am on a continual quest to conquer my own consciousness and wanted to give a glimpse of the noise and distraction that exist incessantly in my complicated mind before even trying to decipher a discernible thought suitable for sharing.

However, I know when I start to delve into these concepts that I am exploring, it’s when I come alive and know that I am on the right path. I am where I am meant to be, and everything I have ever done has led me to this.

I write this book / manuscript/ functional door stop without too much of an overarching agenda, primarily to get some of these ideas and original thoughts (at least to me) out of the grey matter and into something that resembles a consumable guide.

A handful of simple ideas that have illuminated an increasingly important path to help conquer my own crisis of consciousness and search for internal happiness; the deliberate act of which might just be the point of it all in the end.

Continue reading......

Paperback: Conquer your Crisis of Consciousness

Buy Now