October 21, 2025 • 31 mins
What if fully living means embracing the pause that life hands you?
In this episode of This One Day, Nathalie Brewer gets real about the struggle of living in the present. Drawing from nearly ten years of living with cancer, she shares her own messy, human journey of trying to show up fully, even when it’s hard, even when she falls back into autopilot or overwhelm. Her latest scan revealed a pause in her disease, a rare breathing space that reminds her how potent the present moment can be. Nathalie doesn’t have it all figured out; she’s learning as she goes, inviting listeners to walk alongside her as she explores presence, life force, and conscious living.
This episode closes with a five-minute active meditation, a simple practice to help you feel your body, awaken your inner core, and move a little closer to the vibrant life that’s always waiting in the present moment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to the third episode of This One Day.
I am your host, Natalie Brewer, and I'm so delighted
to have you here in this day with me. I
imagine that anybody who's coming to this podcast is curious
and maybe even has a sense of necessity, that the
(00:28):
day that you're in the moment that you're in is
the most efficient, profound, and meaningful moment of your life.
I have dedicated myself to this podcast because after living
with cancer for almost ten years, I am no longer
interested in the future and quite disinterested also in the past.
(00:51):
I'm finding the more and more that the disease progresses
and then recedes and then progresses again and then recedes,
and hopefully one day completely recedes. I'm noticing that the
most potent way to live, and the most potent way
to heal, is through bringing myself into this moment that
(01:13):
I am in. And here we are together. So let's begin.
I want to start today's podcast with acknowledging that there
has been a quite a gap between podcast episode number
three and the previous one, number two. And the reason
for that is because since that time, I have had
(01:36):
to go to emergency at hospital because I had a virus.
And I guess somebody who has a cancer body has
to treat viruses quite serious because the symptoms are crazy.
You get quite sick and you get headaches and you get,
you know, what feels like death. Um, you can get
(01:57):
fevers and you're not quite sure. Hang on. Is this
something in the body caused by cancer, or is this
just a virus? So I had to present to emergency,
and when I did present to emergency, we did a scan,
a CT scan, and then they compared that CT scan
to my latest scan a couple of months ago, which
(02:18):
was an MRI scan. Now, comparing apples to oranges is
kind of what we tried to do. And they did
say that the CT scan, it appears as though the
tumor that is in my head had grown slightly. And, uh,
that was interesting because, um, I have been given so
(02:40):
many different prognoses over the years, so many different acknowledgments
of a slight growth or a slight reduction. And but
when it was found that the tumor which supposedly was dormant,
by the way, since the last scan because we did
a pet. Now what a Pet scan does is it
puts a contrast dye within your body and goes straight
towards those cancer cells, because cancer loves eating that contrast
(03:03):
glucose dye. And then they scan you and the cancerous
cells light up like a Christmas tree on those scans.
Cancer cells have their own metabolism, and so they tend
to get quite hungry for that type of contrast or dye.
So as they're eating it up, that's when they capture
the good photos. So on my last few months ago,
(03:26):
the Christmas lights, which I call them, didn't light up
at all, even though the tumour is still there in
my head in the derma matter. So they consider the disease,
the cancer to be under control. And of course, that
doesn't mean I'm in remission. It means that there is
(03:47):
an inactivity. It means that there is a pause button.
So as far as the cancer in the body that
I'm in is concerned. There is being a primordial pause
that's been hit and it's nice breathing space, you know, ten,
almost ten years now of having this disease. It's nice
to have a pause. And it's an extraordinary thing to
(04:09):
exist and live in the pause. To be honest, some
people would find that to be almost hellish. You know,
not knowing if you have a ticking time bomb in
your head or whether it is completely become nullified. And
perhaps you get to live a long life just like
everybody else, supposedly with a tumor in your body that
(04:34):
may never grow again, which would be ideal, but still.
It's like having a little tiny reminder. It's always like
a little knife to your side, you know, just sort
of saying, what are you doing today to keep you
cancer free? Are you eating the right foods? Are you exercising?
Are you stressing too much? What do you need to
(04:57):
do to be in the best body, in the best mind,
and the best spirit possible? And you might also think
that sounds like a lot of pressure. And some days
it is. And I notice that it only feels like
pressure when I am putting that pressure on myself, when
I'm giving myself lots of shoulds, woods and coulds. However,
(05:20):
when I think of it like a lifestyle of just
having to take deep care and bring myself to as
much presence as possible, then it becomes a daily practice. Yes,
that I am kind of forced into, but also one
that I'm thankful to have. And it's an interesting one
because it comes with the upside and the downside. And
(05:43):
also it comes with a little bit of gratitude as
well as disappointment. Gratitude that I have this little knife
to my side, forcing me to live an awake life
of vibrancy and good health and exercise and doing things
like this podcast and this one day, but disappointed as
(06:04):
well that I kind of know that if cancer wasn't
in my life, that I wouldn't be doing all of
these things to such dedication. So the disappointment is almost like, ah,
I'm doing all these great things, but I don't know
if it really comes from my, you know, the personality
that I am and the person I've grown into, or
(06:26):
more the disease that I'm carrying in my body that
is constantly got its finger on the red button. Either way,
I suppose my life is that, you know, my body
is that right now. So it's all me, isn't it?
You know, just like everything is quite connected. So as
I kind of accept all parts of me, May. Um,
(06:50):
I guess I accept that everything is happening in a
way that maybe I can be proud of. You know,
not everybody, I suppose, has the same attitude towards a
ticking time bomb that may be in their body. But
this is my attitude, and it evolves every day, to
be honest. And it declines every day. And it's never
(07:13):
consistently easy. So looking back over the last eight weeks
when I haven't gotten around to posting the third episode
of this podcast. I am reminded about the times when
it's not easy, I'm reminded about the overwhelm, and I'm
reminded about what it feels like to be on autopilot.
(07:38):
And I'm also reminded what it feels like to be
waking up every day where the good habits that I've
tried to form aren't there one day, or for a
whole week, or even for a whole month, because my
whole being is focused on something else and I can't
quite bring it to the present day or the present moment.
(07:58):
You see this one day as a practice, as a
life affirming way of getting into our bodies or our life.
It's not something that I'm actually very good at, and
I want to be completely transparent with you. But I
do believe that as we try to live more presently,
(08:19):
that life does improve in its quality and its life
force and what's available to us in our consciousness and
our vibrancy and the flow of how we move in life.
But nothing like the Buddhists say is permanent. We are
always changing and what happens in our lives. For me,
(08:41):
for example, eight weeks ago when I had a virus
and I had to present to emergency See. And they
told me that it could be that the cancer is
now growing again. Well, that threw me into action mode.
So what I first did was I decided that whilst
I was eating well and taking the medications that I've
(09:03):
decided to take for the last year now from a
protocol called How to Starve Cancer by Jane McLellan. Whilst
I was doing those things, those those things for me
felt like baseline things. At the moment I went into
that emergency room and they told me it's possible that
it was growing again. I realized I have to do
(09:24):
more than the baseline. So I wondered and researched and
went right into my toolkit. Because there's always a toolkit.
There's always things that I've got waiting in the rafters,
things that I can pull down when I feel like
I need them. I mean, I call them big hits.
You've got your baseline hits, which is exercise, Meditation. Good
(09:45):
eating well, thinking low stress. These are your baselines. Yeah.
And for me, the protocol that I just mentioned. But
then you're gonna need your king hits. And this isn't
just for people in cancer bodies. I believe that all
of us need our king hits. You know, what are
your baselines? Do you have baselines that you know, when
(10:05):
you do those things, you feel happy and you feel well,
you know, that just might be going for a jog
in the morning or breathing deeply, or having a bath
once a week, or doing that yoga class or whatever
it is going to pickleball on a Thursday with your mates.
So we do those things and we can often fall
in and out of them, right? But we know that
when we do them, we feel good. But what are
(10:27):
the king hits? What are the things that when you
do them, you get a reset. You get an amp up,
an amplification of health or a big shot of wellbeing.
With a cancer body such as mine, I know those
big king hits have to be once every so often
doing a major detoxification. There's so many ways to detoxify
(10:48):
from heavy metals, from fungal in the body, from mold
in the body, from all the pathogens and all of
the chemicals that we're constantly bombarded with in our daily life,
from just living in the system that we live in.
But what is problematic in somebody who's living in a
body with cancer is that their pathways of these toxins
(11:08):
out of the body is sometimes blocked in some way
more than the average person. And we know that detoxifying
of the body happens all the time. And it usually
happens through one of three pathways, through the breath, through
sweat or through defecation, including urine. So anyway, I could
(11:30):
talk a lot about detoxing, but I think every so
often we need we all need a bit of a
king hit and we need to do some type of detoxing. Um,
so I know that that's what I needed to do.
And I also wanted to trial something that was also
in my toolkit, which was hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And I
(11:51):
also wanted to try high dose vitamin C injections or
intravenous vitamin C. So what I'm telling you is that
for the last eight weeks I have been doing these
things detoxing hyperbaric oxygen and vitamin C, and it really
has really put a dent in my usual typical movements
(12:13):
through the world, because I had to travel to certain
places to do the particular oxygen chamber that I selected,
and I have to travel outside of Melbourne to do that.
So I've been travelling a lot at the same time
as needing to ramp up my health journey and pull
down those big king hits. So I want you to
(12:36):
know that my practice of this one day. Whilst it's
being consistent in the Facebook page, you can go there
if you like. It's called this one day community and
you can become a part of the Facebook community where
we have a beautiful group of about 500 people now,
all posting in things that they do with their everyday
(12:56):
to light up their life, to bring them closer to
their life force. And thankfully that is a practice I
have not dropped. I check in on that group every day,
and I comment personally on people's posts, and I relish
and I'm delighted with reading about how other people are
dedicating themselves to the present moment and creating a life
(13:17):
worth dying for. You know, scoring that feeling of monotony
and putting those markers on the page of their life
long book of history, those little tiny efforts, tiny movements
that we make towards that every day and when they're
shared with others. And it's interesting because when I read
other people's little efforts towards amplifying their one day. I
(13:40):
too am amplified and so is everybody else in the group.
It's quite delightful to see other people's little movements towards
their this one day, and we are instantly kind of
almost through osmosis, where we're all kind of a little
bit more brought into the present moment. It's extraordinary. It's
kind of like the connection that I keep talking about.
(14:04):
How we're all connected really does play out in real
time in a group like that, and we're always talking
about how social media can be such a bane of
our existence, and it can be damaging in this way
and that way. But I love this group because it
feels like a hack. It feels like the one way
that I can use social media to have the opposite effect.
(14:25):
It draws me into the present moment just through this group. Yeah.
So in the last eight weeks, whilst I haven't been
recording podcasts, I have been checking in on that group
every day, and I, I want to say to everybody
in that group that's listening, thank you. Thank you so
much for posting, for commenting, but for Efforting efforting your life.
(14:50):
And I don't mean effort in the sense that it
takes energy or it's in any way laborious. It's the opposite.
People in in the group that you're efforting in a
way that's actually, I guess, liberating. And in that way
we all get to be brought into that liberation. So yeah. Thanks, family.
(15:13):
It's the family that I definitely want to be involved with.
So in the rest of today's podcast, I want to
talk a bit more about how so many of us,
in fact, all of us, no matter how well intentioned
we are to live a life of vibrancy, We can
(15:35):
fall into a rut, fall into the habit that we
have created over time where a large part of our
psyche banks time for later. We keep on imagining because
we think a future exists, that we can just keep
on playing it low because we'll get to something better
(15:57):
later that will get to something more vibrant when it happens,
or we'll notice something that lights us up when it happens.
And that's it's not intentional and we become numb to life.
And even someone like me, who's so dedicated to living
the rest of my days with as much life force
as I have, I can still take eight weeks into
(16:20):
a slight overwhelm, and distraction can cause me to fall
into monotony. So today, like every day, is a canvas
and we either stand there with a paintbrush, creating vibrant strokes,
or we barely touch the surface. We allow the colors
to fade to dull outlines. I know this because I
(16:43):
can do this too, for weeks, days, and months, and
even right at the beginning of 2017 before the first
cancer diagnosis. I believe that I, I was doing that
quite a lot. So during the ninth year of this treatment,
I made a vow to break up with time to
live in the timeless stroke of eternity by fully participating
(17:05):
in today. And like I've mentioned, I'm not perfect at
it and some days continue to feel lost to me.
But I can't think of any other project more worthwhile
than this one day. Not putting pressure on myself to
finish anything or have to start anything, but just moving
in one small way towards life. Yeah, the greatest project
(17:25):
of all. Hey. So what happens when we do fall
out of that project we just fall into. Numbness, I guess.
A lot of spiritual teachers around the world and lifestyle
therapists would call it a lack of consciousness, a lack
of conscious awareness or presence. Consciousness simply means to be
more ready. Consciousness is not some illusive other world that
(17:49):
we only have access to when we're deep in meditation,
or when we're dreaming, or when we've taken substances. Consciousness
happens when we are here in the present moment. Have
you ever asked yourself, like all the thinking that we're
doing inside our minds? Have you ever asked yourself, who's
doing the thinking right? Who's doing the thinking? Eckhart Tolle
(18:14):
describes when he was first awakened, that he went through
a period of dark depression to the point where one
day he said to himself, I'm so sick of myself.
I'm so tired of myself. I can't stand myself. In
that moment, he realized that he just used the words
I and myself. I can't stand myself. And he's like,
(18:37):
hang on, who's the I and who's the myself? And
if there's something called I that can't stand the self,
then can't I address the I, you know, can't I
come into some type of uniform consciousness when there is
no split and I'm just me and there's no me
not being able to stand myself? It's just me. The
primordial I. And. And when I do feel into that
(19:00):
primordial I. Doesn't that feel more peaceful? Doesn't that feel
more unified? Doesn't that feel more whole? Doesn't that feel
more connected? And he entered that awareness, and apparently he
walked around the streets of London in a daze for
months and was homeless. And he just had an absolute
need for nothing after that for quite a while. And
(19:21):
he became sort of awakened, I suppose. And he's been
talking about that awakened state ever since. So we considering
here the idea that your experience of conscious awareness is
one of your greatest life achievements, that it's possible that
all of the I think I'm going to be successful
(19:41):
in the future. Ideas are nothing compared to what's possible
in this moment that you're in right now. And that,
like I constantly say, a good life is only ever
an accumulation of good days, and the only way that
we truly access any goodness is through being present, through
(20:01):
being here. You know, you can try it right now.
Just cast your awareness into your heart. Feel for the
life force that's in your body, the life force that's
not taking any effort for you to maintain, the life
force that's ticking your heart, that's causing your diaphragm to
expand and contract. If you can move your fingers or
(20:25):
any part of your body right now. Isn't that extraordinary?
Isn't it extraordinary that there's this life force that's happening
within you all the time, that's connecting every cell and
nerve in your body? Similar to how every single star
in the cosmos and planet is also connected. As above,
(20:45):
so below. Our life is constantly being designed now. Our
cells are constantly being replaced now, and all of the
places where we place effort is usually not where life
force is. Esther Hicks talks about thinking in a downstream fashion.
(21:08):
She talks about everything that is difficult, that takes effort,
is an upstream movement. And so when we apply it
to the here and now, anything that feels easeful, anything
that feels peaceful or anywhere where we can feel presence.
Anything that feels whole is a downstream movement is a
(21:29):
downstream thought. Living in present awareness shouldn't be something that
is hard to do. If you find any frustration around
living in your present moment, just know that you're probably
headed upstream. So just turn that ship around. Feel into
your body. Feel for the presence that's here and now.
(21:50):
Try to contact a sense of calmness and allow yourself
to be in that downstream moment and be there for
as long as you can. And that could be five seconds.
It could be five minutes. But building this pattern, building
this habit of heading towards that downstream movement, that's also
(22:12):
like allowing consciousness to come through you. Consciousness is so beautiful.
The consciousness that's all around us in the universe that
we're in, is constantly trying to push through us. Just
like you see a flower being pushed into its greatest
(22:32):
expression at the beginning of spring. Imagine that that's always
happening within you as well, that your greatest expression, the
flowering of you, is what consciousness is, what life force
is constantly trying to do through you. Scientists can't explain
why or how a flower becomes its fullest expression. They
(22:54):
can explain, you know, the process of it, I'm sure,
and the photosynthesis and the way that the sun and
the Earth and the ecosystem that it grows in. But
they can't explain the life force, can they, that moves
through it, just like the scientists can't explain the life
force that keeps our heart beating. You know, that unseen aspect.
(23:15):
So the more time we spend with that unseen aspect
of ourselves, The more chance we're giving that collective life
force to push its way through us. And you know,
what's really beautiful is that as it moves through us,
it fulfills its destiny. Have you ever thought about that?
That life force all around us, if it's really constantly
(23:39):
pushing itself through every living thing in order to bring
it to its fullest expression, that if we allow ourselves
to be present in the moment similar to how we
think to ourselves, who's doing the thinking? Yeah, consciousness itself
gets to experience its own life force being expressed through
(23:59):
us as humans and over the thousands of years of
human history, when everybody and anybody has ever talked about
God and the mighty presence of God and how God
is always with us, and we can feel this other
force on the planet that we just bow down to
because we feel this reverence to this intelligence that seems
(24:21):
to be around us that nobody can truly understand or comprehend.
I feel it rejoicing whenever we become present, and you
will too, if you really pay attention. Whenever you become present,
I'm proposing that being present means that God gets to
rejoice through you. How beautiful is that? And if you
(24:43):
pay attention, you can feel that little blip, that little
jump for joy when presence becomes aware of itself, when
God force becomes created through you simply because you brought
yourself to the now. So now let's enter that space
(25:04):
a little bit more fully and use the remaining minutes
we have left to do an active meditation. This active
meditation is something you can do with your eyes open
or closed. But if you'd like to go deep, you
might like to find a quiet space and close down
your eyes. Always beginning a present day meditation through the
(25:28):
gateway of your heart. Taking your attention into your heart
center core. Breathing from your heart. Center core. Breathing deeply.
Opening your heart. Breathing in exhale. Breathing out from the
heart and continuing this heart. Breath. Breathing in. Opening the heart.
(25:51):
Opening like a flower. Exhale from the heart. And just
keep breathing. Getting a sense of what it means and
feels like. To open the doorway of the heart with
every inhalation. Also opening the doorway to this present moment.
(26:23):
And as we feel for this present moment, we're feeling
for the entire body, the entire sense of your body,
all the senses. Notice what it is that you can see.
Even if you have your eyes closed, what it is
that you're imagining. The taste within your mouth. The natural
(26:45):
taste of your tongue resting underneath your palate. The sounds
that are around you. The breath entering and exiting your body.
And just bringing your attention to your fingertips. Maybe just
(27:05):
caressing anything that's close and feeling the texture of it.
Casting your awareness to your visual sense, your touch sense,
your feel, your taste, and also your hearing sense. And
(27:33):
we bring this space a little bit of joy a
little bit of downstream non efforting. And to do that
we bring a little smile to the corners of our lips,
indicating to the body that this space is effortless. This
space is present. This space is open. And you are
(27:57):
rejoicing in all of the beautiful senses that you have
available to you. Allowing your breath to expand your rib
cage and your belly. Exhaling, softening all of your limbs
and muscles and skin. Inhale. Awakening your core. Exhale softening
(28:22):
your external parts of your body. Inhaling. Awakening the core. Exhale.
Softening the external parts of your body. Continuing with this
breath for the next 5 or 6 breaths. Inhaling. Switching
on your internal core. Brightening like the sun. Exhaling. Softening
(28:47):
all of your limbs and muscles and skin. Continuing with
this breath. Noticing the availability of flow. When you allow
(29:17):
your core to be awakened and your body to be softened,
noticing how effortless and easy and smooth things seem. And
(29:41):
if you have your eyes closed on your next inhalation,
you're going to open those eyes and bring that feeling
of an activated core body into the space that you're in.
If you've had your eyes open already opening now your
eyes wider than they were before, switching yourself on like
the sun and allowing this sun and this lit up
(30:04):
internal core of your body to walk with you through
the rest of this day. We don't often have to
give it more effort than we think. It can be
as easy as softening your external body and activating your
(30:24):
inner sun and allowing its intelligence, its own life force,
to do the work for you because it is so
much more wiser than you. Just trusting and resting in
life force, and the way that it seeks to become
conscious of itself through you. Every time you allow yourself
(30:45):
to be present in this one moment, in this one day.
See you next time.
Hello and welcome to the third episode of This One Day.
I am your host, Natalie Brewer, and I'm so delighted
to have you here in this day with me. I
imagine that anybody who's coming to this podcast is curious
and maybe even has a sense of necessity, that the
(00:28):
day that you're in the moment that you're in is
the most efficient, profound, and meaningful moment of your life.
I have dedicated myself to this podcast because after living
with cancer for almost ten years, I am no longer
interested in the future and quite disinterested also in the past.
(00:51):
I'm finding the more and more that the disease progresses
and then recedes and then progresses again and then recedes,
and hopefully one day completely recedes. I'm noticing that the
most potent way to live, and the most potent way
to heal, is through bringing myself into this moment that
(01:13):
I am in. And here we are together. So let's begin.
I want to start today's podcast with acknowledging that there
has been a quite a gap between podcast episode number
three and the previous one, number two. And the reason
for that is because since that time, I have had
(01:36):
to go to emergency at hospital because I had a virus.
And I guess somebody who has a cancer body has
to treat viruses quite serious because the symptoms are crazy.
You get quite sick and you get headaches and you get,
you know, what feels like death. Um, you can get
(01:57):
fevers and you're not quite sure. Hang on. Is this
something in the body caused by cancer, or is this
just a virus? So I had to present to emergency,
and when I did present to emergency, we did a scan,
a CT scan, and then they compared that CT scan
to my latest scan a couple of months ago, which
(02:18):
was an MRI scan. Now, comparing apples to oranges is
kind of what we tried to do. And they did
say that the CT scan, it appears as though the
tumor that is in my head had grown slightly. And, uh,
that was interesting because, um, I have been given so
(02:40):
many different prognoses over the years, so many different acknowledgments
of a slight growth or a slight reduction. And but
when it was found that the tumor which supposedly was dormant,
by the way, since the last scan because we did
a pet. Now what a Pet scan does is it
puts a contrast dye within your body and goes straight
towards those cancer cells, because cancer loves eating that contrast
(03:03):
glucose dye. And then they scan you and the cancerous
cells light up like a Christmas tree on those scans.
Cancer cells have their own metabolism, and so they tend
to get quite hungry for that type of contrast or dye.
So as they're eating it up, that's when they capture
the good photos. So on my last few months ago,
(03:26):
the Christmas lights, which I call them, didn't light up
at all, even though the tumour is still there in
my head in the derma matter. So they consider the disease,
the cancer to be under control. And of course, that
doesn't mean I'm in remission. It means that there is
(03:47):
an inactivity. It means that there is a pause button.
So as far as the cancer in the body that
I'm in is concerned. There is being a primordial pause
that's been hit and it's nice breathing space, you know, ten,
almost ten years now of having this disease. It's nice
to have a pause. And it's an extraordinary thing to
(04:09):
exist and live in the pause. To be honest, some
people would find that to be almost hellish. You know,
not knowing if you have a ticking time bomb in
your head or whether it is completely become nullified. And
perhaps you get to live a long life just like
everybody else, supposedly with a tumor in your body that
(04:34):
may never grow again, which would be ideal, but still.
It's like having a little tiny reminder. It's always like
a little knife to your side, you know, just sort
of saying, what are you doing today to keep you
cancer free? Are you eating the right foods? Are you exercising?
Are you stressing too much? What do you need to
(04:57):
do to be in the best body, in the best mind,
and the best spirit possible? And you might also think
that sounds like a lot of pressure. And some days
it is. And I notice that it only feels like
pressure when I am putting that pressure on myself, when
I'm giving myself lots of shoulds, woods and coulds. However,
(05:20):
when I think of it like a lifestyle of just
having to take deep care and bring myself to as
much presence as possible, then it becomes a daily practice. Yes,
that I am kind of forced into, but also one
that I'm thankful to have. And it's an interesting one
because it comes with the upside and the downside. And
(05:43):
also it comes with a little bit of gratitude as
well as disappointment. Gratitude that I have this little knife
to my side, forcing me to live an awake life
of vibrancy and good health and exercise and doing things
like this podcast and this one day, but disappointed as
(06:04):
well that I kind of know that if cancer wasn't
in my life, that I wouldn't be doing all of
these things to such dedication. So the disappointment is almost like, ah,
I'm doing all these great things, but I don't know
if it really comes from my, you know, the personality
that I am and the person I've grown into, or
(06:26):
more the disease that I'm carrying in my body that
is constantly got its finger on the red button. Either way,
I suppose my life is that, you know, my body
is that right now. So it's all me, isn't it?
You know, just like everything is quite connected. So as
I kind of accept all parts of me, May. Um,
(06:50):
I guess I accept that everything is happening in a
way that maybe I can be proud of. You know,
not everybody, I suppose, has the same attitude towards a
ticking time bomb that may be in their body. But
this is my attitude, and it evolves every day, to
be honest. And it declines every day. And it's never
(07:13):
consistently easy. So looking back over the last eight weeks
when I haven't gotten around to posting the third episode
of this podcast. I am reminded about the times when
it's not easy, I'm reminded about the overwhelm, and I'm
reminded about what it feels like to be on autopilot.
(07:38):
And I'm also reminded what it feels like to be
waking up every day where the good habits that I've
tried to form aren't there one day, or for a
whole week, or even for a whole month, because my
whole being is focused on something else and I can't
quite bring it to the present day or the present moment.
(07:58):
You see this one day as a practice, as a
life affirming way of getting into our bodies or our life.
It's not something that I'm actually very good at, and
I want to be completely transparent with you. But I
do believe that as we try to live more presently,
(08:19):
that life does improve in its quality and its life
force and what's available to us in our consciousness and
our vibrancy and the flow of how we move in life.
But nothing like the Buddhists say is permanent. We are
always changing and what happens in our lives. For me,
(08:41):
for example, eight weeks ago when I had a virus
and I had to present to emergency See. And they
told me that it could be that the cancer is
now growing again. Well, that threw me into action mode.
So what I first did was I decided that whilst
I was eating well and taking the medications that I've
(09:03):
decided to take for the last year now from a
protocol called How to Starve Cancer by Jane McLellan. Whilst
I was doing those things, those those things for me
felt like baseline things. At the moment I went into
that emergency room and they told me it's possible that
it was growing again. I realized I have to do
(09:24):
more than the baseline. So I wondered and researched and
went right into my toolkit. Because there's always a toolkit.
There's always things that I've got waiting in the rafters,
things that I can pull down when I feel like
I need them. I mean, I call them big hits.
You've got your baseline hits, which is exercise, Meditation. Good
(09:45):
eating well, thinking low stress. These are your baselines. Yeah.
And for me, the protocol that I just mentioned. But
then you're gonna need your king hits. And this isn't
just for people in cancer bodies. I believe that all
of us need our king hits. You know, what are
your baselines? Do you have baselines that you know, when
(10:05):
you do those things, you feel happy and you feel well,
you know, that just might be going for a jog
in the morning or breathing deeply, or having a bath
once a week, or doing that yoga class or whatever
it is going to pickleball on a Thursday with your mates.
So we do those things and we can often fall
in and out of them, right? But we know that
when we do them, we feel good. But what are
(10:27):
the king hits? What are the things that when you
do them, you get a reset. You get an amp up,
an amplification of health or a big shot of wellbeing.
With a cancer body such as mine, I know those
big king hits have to be once every so often
doing a major detoxification. There's so many ways to detoxify
(10:48):
from heavy metals, from fungal in the body, from mold
in the body, from all the pathogens and all of
the chemicals that we're constantly bombarded with in our daily life,
from just living in the system that we live in.
But what is problematic in somebody who's living in a
body with cancer is that their pathways of these toxins
(11:08):
out of the body is sometimes blocked in some way
more than the average person. And we know that detoxifying
of the body happens all the time. And it usually
happens through one of three pathways, through the breath, through
sweat or through defecation, including urine. So anyway, I could
(11:30):
talk a lot about detoxing, but I think every so
often we need we all need a bit of a
king hit and we need to do some type of detoxing. Um,
so I know that that's what I needed to do.
And I also wanted to trial something that was also
in my toolkit, which was hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And I
(11:51):
also wanted to try high dose vitamin C injections or
intravenous vitamin C. So what I'm telling you is that
for the last eight weeks I have been doing these
things detoxing hyperbaric oxygen and vitamin C, and it really
has really put a dent in my usual typical movements
(12:13):
through the world, because I had to travel to certain
places to do the particular oxygen chamber that I selected,
and I have to travel outside of Melbourne to do that.
So I've been travelling a lot at the same time
as needing to ramp up my health journey and pull
down those big king hits. So I want you to
(12:36):
know that my practice of this one day. Whilst it's
being consistent in the Facebook page, you can go there
if you like. It's called this one day community and
you can become a part of the Facebook community where
we have a beautiful group of about 500 people now,
all posting in things that they do with their everyday
(12:56):
to light up their life, to bring them closer to
their life force. And thankfully that is a practice I
have not dropped. I check in on that group every day,
and I comment personally on people's posts, and I relish
and I'm delighted with reading about how other people are
dedicating themselves to the present moment and creating a life
(13:17):
worth dying for. You know, scoring that feeling of monotony
and putting those markers on the page of their life
long book of history, those little tiny efforts, tiny movements
that we make towards that every day and when they're
shared with others. And it's interesting because when I read
other people's little efforts towards amplifying their one day. I
(13:40):
too am amplified and so is everybody else in the group.
It's quite delightful to see other people's little movements towards
their this one day, and we are instantly kind of
almost through osmosis, where we're all kind of a little
bit more brought into the present moment. It's extraordinary. It's
kind of like the connection that I keep talking about.
(14:04):
How we're all connected really does play out in real
time in a group like that, and we're always talking
about how social media can be such a bane of
our existence, and it can be damaging in this way
and that way. But I love this group because it
feels like a hack. It feels like the one way
that I can use social media to have the opposite effect.
(14:25):
It draws me into the present moment just through this group. Yeah.
So in the last eight weeks, whilst I haven't been
recording podcasts, I have been checking in on that group
every day, and I, I want to say to everybody
in that group that's listening, thank you. Thank you so
much for posting, for commenting, but for Efforting efforting your life.
(14:50):
And I don't mean effort in the sense that it
takes energy or it's in any way laborious. It's the opposite.
People in in the group that you're efforting in a
way that's actually, I guess, liberating. And in that way
we all get to be brought into that liberation. So yeah. Thanks, family.
(15:13):
It's the family that I definitely want to be involved with.
So in the rest of today's podcast, I want to
talk a bit more about how so many of us,
in fact, all of us, no matter how well intentioned
we are to live a life of vibrancy, We can
(15:35):
fall into a rut, fall into the habit that we
have created over time where a large part of our
psyche banks time for later. We keep on imagining because
we think a future exists, that we can just keep
on playing it low because we'll get to something better
(15:57):
later that will get to something more vibrant when it happens,
or we'll notice something that lights us up when it happens.
And that's it's not intentional and we become numb to life.
And even someone like me, who's so dedicated to living
the rest of my days with as much life force
as I have, I can still take eight weeks into
(16:20):
a slight overwhelm, and distraction can cause me to fall
into monotony. So today, like every day, is a canvas
and we either stand there with a paintbrush, creating vibrant strokes,
or we barely touch the surface. We allow the colors
to fade to dull outlines. I know this because I
(16:43):
can do this too, for weeks, days, and months, and
even right at the beginning of 2017 before the first
cancer diagnosis. I believe that I, I was doing that
quite a lot. So during the ninth year of this treatment,
I made a vow to break up with time to
live in the timeless stroke of eternity by fully participating
(17:05):
in today. And like I've mentioned, I'm not perfect at
it and some days continue to feel lost to me.
But I can't think of any other project more worthwhile
than this one day. Not putting pressure on myself to
finish anything or have to start anything, but just moving
in one small way towards life. Yeah, the greatest project
(17:25):
of all. Hey. So what happens when we do fall
out of that project we just fall into. Numbness, I guess.
A lot of spiritual teachers around the world and lifestyle
therapists would call it a lack of consciousness, a lack
of conscious awareness or presence. Consciousness simply means to be
more ready. Consciousness is not some illusive other world that
(17:49):
we only have access to when we're deep in meditation,
or when we're dreaming, or when we've taken substances. Consciousness
happens when we are here in the present moment. Have
you ever asked yourself, like all the thinking that we're
doing inside our minds? Have you ever asked yourself, who's
doing the thinking right? Who's doing the thinking? Eckhart Tolle
(18:14):
describes when he was first awakened, that he went through
a period of dark depression to the point where one
day he said to himself, I'm so sick of myself.
I'm so tired of myself. I can't stand myself. In
that moment, he realized that he just used the words
I and myself. I can't stand myself. And he's like,
(18:37):
hang on, who's the I and who's the myself? And
if there's something called I that can't stand the self,
then can't I address the I, you know, can't I
come into some type of uniform consciousness when there is
no split and I'm just me and there's no me
not being able to stand myself? It's just me. The
primordial I. And. And when I do feel into that
(19:00):
primordial I. Doesn't that feel more peaceful? Doesn't that feel
more unified? Doesn't that feel more whole? Doesn't that feel
more connected? And he entered that awareness, and apparently he
walked around the streets of London in a daze for
months and was homeless. And he just had an absolute
need for nothing after that for quite a while. And
(19:21):
he became sort of awakened, I suppose. And he's been
talking about that awakened state ever since. So we considering
here the idea that your experience of conscious awareness is
one of your greatest life achievements, that it's possible that
all of the I think I'm going to be successful
(19:41):
in the future. Ideas are nothing compared to what's possible
in this moment that you're in right now. And that,
like I constantly say, a good life is only ever
an accumulation of good days, and the only way that
we truly access any goodness is through being present, through
(20:01):
being here. You know, you can try it right now.
Just cast your awareness into your heart. Feel for the
life force that's in your body, the life force that's
not taking any effort for you to maintain, the life
force that's ticking your heart, that's causing your diaphragm to
expand and contract. If you can move your fingers or
(20:25):
any part of your body right now. Isn't that extraordinary?
Isn't it extraordinary that there's this life force that's happening
within you all the time, that's connecting every cell and
nerve in your body? Similar to how every single star
in the cosmos and planet is also connected. As above,
(20:45):
so below. Our life is constantly being designed now. Our
cells are constantly being replaced now, and all of the
places where we place effort is usually not where life
force is. Esther Hicks talks about thinking in a downstream fashion.
(21:08):
She talks about everything that is difficult, that takes effort,
is an upstream movement. And so when we apply it
to the here and now, anything that feels easeful, anything
that feels peaceful or anywhere where we can feel presence.
Anything that feels whole is a downstream movement is a
(21:29):
downstream thought. Living in present awareness shouldn't be something that
is hard to do. If you find any frustration around
living in your present moment, just know that you're probably
headed upstream. So just turn that ship around. Feel into
your body. Feel for the presence that's here and now.
(21:50):
Try to contact a sense of calmness and allow yourself
to be in that downstream moment and be there for
as long as you can. And that could be five seconds.
It could be five minutes. But building this pattern, building
this habit of heading towards that downstream movement, that's also
(22:12):
like allowing consciousness to come through you. Consciousness is so beautiful.
The consciousness that's all around us in the universe that
we're in, is constantly trying to push through us. Just
like you see a flower being pushed into its greatest
(22:32):
expression at the beginning of spring. Imagine that that's always
happening within you as well, that your greatest expression, the
flowering of you, is what consciousness is, what life force
is constantly trying to do through you. Scientists can't explain
why or how a flower becomes its fullest expression. They
(22:54):
can explain, you know, the process of it, I'm sure,
and the photosynthesis and the way that the sun and
the Earth and the ecosystem that it grows in. But
they can't explain the life force, can they, that moves
through it, just like the scientists can't explain the life
force that keeps our heart beating. You know, that unseen aspect.
(23:15):
So the more time we spend with that unseen aspect
of ourselves, The more chance we're giving that collective life
force to push its way through us. And you know,
what's really beautiful is that as it moves through us,
it fulfills its destiny. Have you ever thought about that?
That life force all around us, if it's really constantly
(23:39):
pushing itself through every living thing in order to bring
it to its fullest expression, that if we allow ourselves
to be present in the moment similar to how we
think to ourselves, who's doing the thinking? Yeah, consciousness itself
gets to experience its own life force being expressed through
(23:59):
us as humans and over the thousands of years of
human history, when everybody and anybody has ever talked about
God and the mighty presence of God and how God
is always with us, and we can feel this other
force on the planet that we just bow down to
because we feel this reverence to this intelligence that seems
(24:21):
to be around us that nobody can truly understand or comprehend.
I feel it rejoicing whenever we become present, and you
will too, if you really pay attention. Whenever you become present,
I'm proposing that being present means that God gets to
rejoice through you. How beautiful is that? And if you
(24:43):
pay attention, you can feel that little blip, that little
jump for joy when presence becomes aware of itself, when
God force becomes created through you simply because you brought
yourself to the now. So now let's enter that space
(25:04):
a little bit more fully and use the remaining minutes
we have left to do an active meditation. This active
meditation is something you can do with your eyes open
or closed. But if you'd like to go deep, you
might like to find a quiet space and close down
your eyes. Always beginning a present day meditation through the
(25:28):
gateway of your heart. Taking your attention into your heart
center core. Breathing from your heart. Center core. Breathing deeply.
Opening your heart. Breathing in exhale. Breathing out from the
heart and continuing this heart. Breath. Breathing in. Opening the heart.
(25:51):
Opening like a flower. Exhale from the heart. And just
keep breathing. Getting a sense of what it means and
feels like. To open the doorway of the heart with
every inhalation. Also opening the doorway to this present moment.
(26:23):
And as we feel for this present moment, we're feeling
for the entire body, the entire sense of your body,
all the senses. Notice what it is that you can see.
Even if you have your eyes closed, what it is
that you're imagining. The taste within your mouth. The natural
(26:45):
taste of your tongue resting underneath your palate. The sounds
that are around you. The breath entering and exiting your body.
And just bringing your attention to your fingertips. Maybe just
(27:05):
caressing anything that's close and feeling the texture of it.
Casting your awareness to your visual sense, your touch sense,
your feel, your taste, and also your hearing sense. And
(27:33):
we bring this space a little bit of joy a
little bit of downstream non efforting. And to do that
we bring a little smile to the corners of our lips,
indicating to the body that this space is effortless. This
space is present. This space is open. And you are
(27:57):
rejoicing in all of the beautiful senses that you have
available to you. Allowing your breath to expand your rib
cage and your belly. Exhaling, softening all of your limbs
and muscles and skin. Inhale. Awakening your core. Exhale softening
(28:22):
your external parts of your body. Inhaling. Awakening the core. Exhale.
Softening the external parts of your body. Continuing with this
breath for the next 5 or 6 breaths. Inhaling. Switching
on your internal core. Brightening like the sun. Exhaling. Softening
(28:47):
all of your limbs and muscles and skin. Continuing with
this breath. Noticing the availability of flow. When you allow
(29:17):
your core to be awakened and your body to be softened,
noticing how effortless and easy and smooth things seem. And
(29:41):
if you have your eyes closed on your next inhalation,
you're going to open those eyes and bring that feeling
of an activated core body into the space that you're in.
If you've had your eyes open already opening now your
eyes wider than they were before, switching yourself on like
the sun and allowing this sun and this lit up
(30:04):
internal core of your body to walk with you through
the rest of this day. We don't often have to
give it more effort than we think. It can be
as easy as softening your external body and activating your
(30:24):
inner sun and allowing its intelligence, its own life force,
to do the work for you because it is so
much more wiser than you. Just trusting and resting in
life force, and the way that it seeks to become
conscious of itself through you. Every time you allow yourself
(30:45):
to be present in this one moment, in this one day.
See you next time.
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