I’m in love with your Ghost

God bless the Indigo Girls for the lyrics of their song ‘Ghost’ as it provides a doorway for me to feel the presence of my grief and love for my father.  The 25^th of June this year is a very special day, as it marks the 10 year anniversary of my father’s death.  He was taken from us by the mysterious dark cloud of Cancer. I watched it carry him away bit by painful bit. In the past ten years I have developed my own understanding of grief and how it evolves and have also grown to be in love with my father’s ghost!

He left me with the most powerful gift of love and faith…..

I was living in the States when I had to make the call to come home to be with him in his last moments.  Two days prior to my instant decision that it was time to go, I found out I was pregnant, it was the same day I purchased my ticket to fly to Sydney.  He was in hospital when I got to Newcastle, i hardly recognised this wilting man but my god, it was good to see him.  Two weeks later at his request he came home, hospital bed and all. Paliative care nurses visited him daily administering him pain medication, bathing him and offering support while he shrank and we waited. It was the longest 3 weeks of my life, waiting for him to die and sometimes even wishing he would hurry up and just let go.

I had my 2 year old daughter and my husband with me, caring for Madison, waiting, being extremely tired from my pregnancy, waiting, the constant discussions about how he as ‘going’ was taxing on this pregnant and emotional woman and one day I made the call to spend a night in Sydney to get some much needed respite. I left to spend the night with my best and most beloved friend, Louise, knowing that I may never again see him alive and somehow knowing that is what he was waiting for.  Even back then, I understood enough about my intuition to trust that leaving him was the right thing to do.  My husband asked me several times if I was sure I wanted to leave and I assured him it was what we both needed to do.

The last conversation I ever had with my father came from a place i didn’t know existed, the words I shared with him were as profound as I had ever spoken, he had slipped into a coma by this stage… It went something like this… “Dad if you can hear me squeeze your eyes”, he squeezed his eyes tight. “Dad I know it’s time for you to let go, I know you love me and you must always know, that I love you, it’s important for you to decide where you are going to go from here Dad, as it is your faith in life ever after that will determine where you end up. Go with faith and knowing that you did your best and be at peace with your life here. You have given me so many gifts in this lifetime, the gift of being my father,  I love you, do not be afraid, trust and be at peace….”  and so on…. I felt satisfied I had shared with  him my last thoughts and there was nothing more I could say to let him go peacefully…

That night about 11.30pm the phone rang, it was my step mother saying he had gone and could I please call me brothers to tell them.  I was not surprised but humbled and shared the news with my brothers and my mother and peacefully, relieved,  went back to sleep.  We drove back to his home the next day and found out he had taken his last breath and simply let go, he drifted off to his heaven…

Many confusing emotions consumed me but reading his eulogy in front of at least 200 people, I knew he was with me, hovering by my right shoulder, giving me strength to continue, loving me, I could feel his pride…  I will never deliver a message with such confidence and clarity again.

After many sleepless nights, uncontrollable sobbing calls to my mother in Australia in the middle of the night, consumed with grief, anti-depressants and the feeling of aloneness I have never since felt, I wondered if I will ever cope with him dying.  Now ten years on, i know this to be true: Grief never goes away but I get more used to the feeling of it living with me. Someone you love who dies, never really leaves because they live in your heart and whenever you think about them the feeling is remembered, relived.  If I sit and think of my love for him, it consumes me and I feel it’s enormous strength well up in me.  I can duplicate the intensity of such love whenever I need him around me and whenever I want to feel loved.  Today was one of those days and I feel blessed to still have him so close, ironically, closer than ever before.

My father left me with the most powerful gift, the gift of FAITH - Faith in myself, faith in life after death, faith in love and faith in my intuition.  I know there are times when I need guidance and all i have to do is close my eyes, ask the questions I want answered and the answers come. Sometimes I imagine it is dad answering me, it feels right to have him close again, whispering in my ear and other times it’s just me, in any case, it feels good and the answers are always right.

I share this with you because I wonder where in your life do you need to have a little more faith?  I share this because I wonder if you too are grieving, if you can allow yourself to get more ‘used to the feeling’ as opposed to wishing it away. I share this with you because I wonder how much you are relying on your intuition to give you the answers to life’s many questions. I share this with you because today I wish to honour my father for being perfect in his imperfections, he has given me the lesson of ‘allowing’ and that of unconditional love…..

Yours Real and Raw,

Janelle Manton

Daughter of Barry Michael Patrick Manton

21st May 1940 -25th June 1999

 

March Bliss Tip…

March ‘Bliss Tip’ is all about letting go of the old and making way for the new… In light of the new season, this month’s ‘Bliss Tip” is really about clearing, clearing, clearing.  When you clean the closet out, you make way for new clothes.  When you get rid of your male “friends”, you make way for a relationship that has real meaning.  When you get rid of your past baggage, you make way for gratitude to become you and new, beautiful experiences, blissful experiences…

What in your life do you need to clear out to make way for something new?

Insatiably Yours… x

Hi Gorgeous,

I have come to love the word insatiable.Recently, I was described as insatiable and i have to admit, it was by far one of the more beautiful compliments I have ever received. I have used the word many times in the past few years and love it’s movement and flow. By description in the English dictionary it means to be unfulfilled or to never be satisfied. The Thesaurus likens insatiable to words such as greedy, avid, ravenous, unquenchable, voracious and unappeasable. I am not sure i like the sound of some of those words as they have an under tone of wanting too much and not being satisfied. I beg to differ…

I was inspired to write about being insatiable… I had to ask myself the question, why do I simply love the word ‘insatiable’ so much? Careful contemplation brings me to this explanation…

We live in a world that is jaded by hurt and pain and the effects of the things that ‘happen’ to us. The other morning there was a competition on the radio that was a bid for $500.  The winner had to outbid the previous bidder based on the trauma and desperation of their pain and the horrible story they told as to why they needed $500. To give you an example, the person who currently had the $500 won it to pay for their fathers head stone after his recent death. The bidder who out bid him, had the same sad reason for needing the money but their circumstances were even more painful (according to the judges????).

This kind of ‘Dark side’ promotion is disgusting and only serves to increase the pain we all feel from time to time – call it collective consciousness. To me, breeding and encouraging the ‘pain body’ as Eckhart Tolle so eloquently described it, is a preposterous notion.It appears our community here on earth has become obsessed with living with negativity… We are all guilty of it from time to time, but why breed and encourage such darkness globally? The darkness of these emotions is so still and stagnant.

As guided human beings, we often set goals and are ‘satisfied’ and ‘comfortable’ with what we have achieved– some call it content. You get to a stage in your lives where you are fulfilled and content and there is certainly nothing wrong with being happy with that, we all deserve a piece of happiness pie. You may achieve your dream career, and enjoy a gorgeous and loving family, the ‘perfect’ relationship….I am be happy with whom I have become in my recent ‘journey to the centre of my being’ but I won’t settle for that because I know there is so much more for me to enjoy, explore and discover. My happiness is just a stepping stone to even greater happiness to come….This is where I start loving the word insatiable…I don’t want to settle for contentment, fulfilment and satisfaction because those descriptions all have an ending to them, they are final, finite. Insatiable has no ending, like an insatiable thirst for knowledge has no limitations. Imagine an insatiable desire to ‘own who you are’? You would stop at nothing to go down the rabbit hole to your centre of your being to realise your perfection and find such peace there, but it doesn’t ever stop now does it? Imagine your personal boundaries and how far your life could take you, if you had an insatiable craving for life’s experiences, what joy you could find there?

Go with me for a moment… What if your lover had an insatiable yearning to be with you and pleasure you and love you and devour you and you also had an insatiable longing for him (or her)? Insatiable could last forever as you discover your inhibitions together. Wow! The passion and intensity you can create is mind blowing and certainly has no restrictions… Imagine your physical success if you had an insatiable desire for a healthy fit body - can you imagine how much further you would push yourself, how much more motivated you would be? You could almost sink your teeth into your exercise routine.

So you want a life of success? Loving relationships? Loyal friendships? You want to learn more and grow more? You want more financial success? Then my immediate suggestion is to get seriously insatiable about what you want - become ravenous! Bring energy and passion into your dreams and see them explode with vibrant energy… A friend recently reminded me that we are all a ‘work in progress’ - thank you darling. I totally agree, and whilst we are busy realising we are perfectly perfect with our imperfections, we are indeed needing to get a little ‘wild and insatiable’ about our desires for our abundant future… Even when you succeed, your insatiable desire to dream even bigger will kick in and you will be off and running with the wolves once again…

How do you become ‘insatiable’ about your goals, dreams and aspirations, about who you are?

Firstly, know exactly what it is you want, if you are not sure, get a coach to guide you through the process of uncovering what it is you truly desire, have your vision clear.

Once you know what you want the second step is to get a full colour picture of what that looks like when you have it, live into the picture with detail. Imagine what you can hear, see, smell, even taste when you have it… feel the intensity rising and the passion increasing…

Then set about making it happen, plan, take action, ask for assistance where needed. Most importantly, use the word insatiable often and have faith… If you want to know more about how you can live a passionate and insatiable life, please call me for a chat…

My only question to you right now is this…

How would your life be different if you adopted an insatiable desire to live it as your imagination sees it?

Let’s talk.

Insatiably yours, Real and Raw,

Janelle Manton

1300 88 69 82

February Bliss Tip

Smile… simply smile, when you see someone without a smile - give them yours!!  Make a conscious effort to really connect and feel the person you are smiling at.  You never know, your smile could very well have made their day…. You will  reap the rewards of giving to others without expectation of receiving.

Bliss Tips

Our monthly “Bliss Tip” is just for you.  We want you to develop the kind of relationship with yourself that has you succeeding, smiling, feeling joyful and most of all - LOVING YOU!  So each month there will be a tip or strategy to assist you in your journey, it may dare you to get a little ‘wild’ and experience yourself ‘Real and Raw’

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