Bridget McNulty

A sudden brainwave:

// December 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blogs, Inspiration, Life (and the living of it)

I’ve been worrying, the last couple of days, about our budget. I hate money worries, they make me feel all stressed and wound up inside. So I went looking for some stress relief – a little wisdom. And my favourite wisdom-giver of the moment (especially to do with money and energy) is Abraham-Hicks. Check out their website here, you can watch videos, read excerpts from their books, or get a breakdown of their philosophy.

I downloaded three short videos to watch, and one of them gave me what I like to call a ‘brain explosion’ – a sudden realisation of something that should be really obvious.

She’s talking about how we all know what it is we want, and often spend our days complaining about what we want and how we don’t have it. I think, in general, I’m pretty good at not complaining, but I caught myself last night saying to Mark how I don’t know how we got to this point – of needing to be careful of our budget – and I don’t think it’s fair because we’ve been giving it our 100%, and I don’t want to go back to having to consciously stop myself worrying about money, like we were doing in the month before our trip when we didn’t know if it would be possible. Sounds a tad like complaining, don’t you think?

You know what he said? ‘It doesn’t matter how we got here.’

At the time I didn’t really pay attention to what he was saying (I’m really good at continuing a one-way discussion when I’m on a roll), but essentially this is what Esther was saying this morning: You have to stop beating the drum of how you got here and how things used to be and how much you want them to be different, or you can’t receive what you’ve been asking for. By constantly looking over your shoulder and dwelling in the past, or worrying about the future, you never give the Universe (or God, or whatever you’d like to call it), a spare second to break through and give you what you’re asking for.

The solution? Instead of worrying about what it is you want, focus on the future in a hopeful, positive way. Look forward to the life you’ve asked for coming your way. In many ways, this is exactly what our Round the World trip is about – we looked forward to it for months and months. But it’s easy to slip back into old habits, and I think that’s what’s happened when it comes to money. I feel like if I don’t worry about it then the situation won’t right itself. But in truth, as long as we’re doing all we can to earn as we travel, worrying makes absolutely no sense. And it certainly doesn’t make a difference!

So from now on I’m focusing on the future that I want. Care to join me?

A code of conduct.

// August 24th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Life (and the living of it), Philosophy

I realised something interesting (and a little embarrassing) about myself this weekend… I have a code of conduct. A way that I think people should behave. A set of social rules that I believe people should live by. Do you?

It came up because of the behaviour of a certain friend (remember when I asked for your advice about friends here?)
It’s one of the friends I’ve been slowly growing apart from, and it’s pretty closely linked to the post I wrote before, about how I always expect friends to be as present for me as I am for them. Now that I got that great advice from all of you, I feel a lot more comfortable about not letting it get to me as much. Which is why I could look at the situation from a distance and see the stark truth: I have a code of conduct, and the reason I’m so disappointed in this friend is because she’s not behaving the way I think she should be.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

Even more surprising for me is the fact that, although I think of myself as a very honest person, my code of conduct includes quite a few ‘put a smile on and be gracious’ clauses (is this because of my Catholic School Upbringing?) I think if you’re exiting a friendship, you should exit with grace. That you should be as polite as possible. This has definitely got me into hot water before – I remember distinctly becoming friends with a vegan guy in college (who quickly proved to be a lot weirder than I could have anticipated!) and promising that I’d bake him a vegan cake for his birthday. By the time his birthday rolled around we weren’t really friends any more, but I still baked him the cake, because I’d promised to! He was rather confused.

Still, I think it’s possible to do things in the nicest possible way, don’t you? Although that does conflict with a phrase I love from my practical philosophy class: Tell the truth pleasantly, not pleasant untruths.

What do you think? Make it nice and gracious, or be totally honest and risk hurting someone’s feelings?

On the same page.

// August 19th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Blogs, Cape Town, Inspiration

What’s interesting about the Mystery Company that I’m so in love with is that I’ve actually been in love with them for quite some time…
Since about March this year, in fact.

The love affair started when I needed to buy a ticket to NYC for my US book release, and the best fare I could find anywhere was R10 000 return (ouch), until I logged onto Mystery Company’s website and found the same trip for R7000 return – including taxes! That’s one of the things I love about Mystery Company – they don’t pretend to be cheap and then whack on huge taxes at the end, they’re all inclusive.

Another thing I love is that their website is really, really easy to use, and easy to check different details on – want to fly another day? No problem. Want to try a different city? Sure thing.

But the thing I love most about Mystery Company is that they’re human. They have all the convenience of an online company, but you can dial a number and speak to a real live human being without any trouble. And I think that’s pretty special in these days of automated answers.

All in all, you can see why I fell in love with Mystery Company, can’t you?
And then we sent through a proposal to them, to see if they’d be interested in sponsoring our flights for our just-around-the-corner Travelling the World with Diabetes journey, and they were interested! And are sponsoring us! Because we’re on the same page. They understand that sponsoring a cause they believe in will help them out down the line.

And that’s really why I love Mystery Company. Because it’s not too often you find people who are on the same page as you, people who speak your language. I am so excited to be working with them for the next 9 months!

PS: Want to know who Mystery Company is? Check out their fascinating, travel-and-life-related blog at  http://blog.travelstart.co.za/ and their website at  http://www.travelstart.co.za/
Next month they’re celebrating their 10th birthday with some crazy competitions – I’ll keep you in the loop!

Ask and it is given.

// August 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Cape Town, Decisions, Life (and the living of it), travelling

At least, that’s what they say.

But I must admit, the last couple of weeks (possibly months) have been a difficult test of that… My man and I have been working full-time on getting this Round-the-World trip off the ground. We’ve written, designed and sent out hundreds of proposals (well, maybe not hundreds, but at least 30 or 40 which in real life is a lot of work). We’ve knocked on door after door after door, waiting for the magical one to open. We’ve thought as much out of the box as our brains would allow us, to come up with fresh solutions. It’s been hard work! Wonderful hard work, because we knew it was taking us to our dream of travelling around the world together, but on a day-to-day level it’s been pretty exhausting.

All this exhaustion reached a peak two weeks ago (today). It was the day before we were set to leave on our Joburg-Durban-Blue Train trip, and we had just found out that yet another company couldn’t help us out with sponsoring our flights. Up till then, each time someone had said no I hadn’t let it bother me – I just forged ahead and sent out the next proposal. But this time, it hit me. Hard. Because I had pretty much reached the end of my tether. I couldn’t think of anyone else who could help us out, and I couldn’t understand why people weren’t forthcoming when what we want to do – spread positive awareness about diabetes around the world – is such a great cause. I felt like we were offering delicious cupcakes to passers-by, and none of them wanted any.

I was feeling really awful about it, I must admit, but I remembered that whole thing about needing to let go and choose the downstream thought (remember I wrote about going downstream here?)

Now, those of you who have been reading for a while will know that letting go is not exactly my forte. In fact, I’m something of a control freak, so letting go is pretty painful for me to do. Still, I’d tried absolutely everything, and now it was time to hand it over to the Universe and say: Please help. I couldn’t have made it more clear what we needed to make the trip happen, so I had to let go and trust that it would come.

Did I mention that I find letting go of control extremely painful??

Anyhoo, a few hours after I made this decision, an email popped up in my inbox from a company I’d approached two weeks before and hadn’t heard back from, who now wanted to chat about our project. So exciting! Except we were leaving first thing the next morning and couldn’t meet with them till we returned… Nearly two weeks later.

The last two weeks have been full of uncertainty. While telling everyone that we were leaving on the 1st of September, we didn’t actually have any tickets (troublesome, that) and didn’t know if we’d be able to afford the whole trip unless the company in question (I’ll be writing about them later in the week, they deserve their own post!) sponsored at least a portion of our travels.

Back to real life yesterday, and within the first few hours of the day we heard that this magical company is happy to sponsor half our tickets, slicing our air ticket prices not only in half, but in a third. I cannot tell you how relieved I am! I actually felt shivery yesterday I was so relieved and happy!!

And, of course, it proves what all these books on Law of Attraction and the Art of Letting Go have been saying all along – there’s only so far you can go with action, then you have to let go and trust that what you have asked for will come to you. It might only come at the last minute (2 weeks before you leave, when you’ve already sold up and have nowhere to live after that date!) but it will come.

Phew.

Have you ever had an experience like this?

How are you feeling today?

// August 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Cape Town, Life (and the living of it), Time, travelling

Me, I’m feeling as if I’m standing in the middle of a tennis court, with Life Lessons being thrown at me from every direction. I’m catching most of them, but some are either hitting me or dropping, and I’m not quite sure what that means!

It just seems as if I’m on learning fast-forward at the moment, you know? And I know it’s because I’ve asked for a lot from life-right-now… Doing a 9 month Round-the-World journey isn’t your usual run-of-the-mill life choice. But I feel like I need to wise up really quickly to grow up to the challenge.

Is any of this making any sense? Basically, I’m having to learn a lot while being really busy and dealing with challenging situations. And it’s not exhausting, or overwhelming, but it is big. Life feels big at the moment.

How are you feeling today?

Beautifully said…

// July 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Inspiration, Life (and the living of it)

… And more than a little applicable to what we’ve been talking about this week!

“It is very difficult to understand what anybody else’s experience is. There aren’t enough words to really understand what anybody else is living. Physical beings want things to be the same. They want people to think the same. You work rather hard at sameness, but you will never win that battle, because from Nonphysical, diversity is known to be the most beneficial part of the game.”

Find more inspiration here.

Creative One’s

// July 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blogs, Inspiration, Life (and the living of it)

Today I’m feeling much better… calmer and happier and altogether less troubled. Thanks for all the good advice!

I suppose it proves that emotions really are energy in motion, and that if you allow yourself to feel them, they’ll simply pass through you…

Today, though, I have a treat for you! Sofia Barao’s wonderful blog (check it out here) is doing a series of interviews with creative people, called Creative One’s, where she asks the same questions about special ‘ones’. Today she interviewed me… go and check it out (if you’re interested)! And then spend some time browsing through her beautiful website… I’m going to.

Until tomorrow!

Advice, please…

// July 28th, 2009 // 12 Comments » // Cape Town, Life (and the living of it)

I need your advice.

I’m having trouble with a little something at the moment, and it’s something that I’ve often struggled with, and have not yet found a solution for… Maybe you’ve gone through something similar and can help?

I find myself over-extending with friends, making sure I’m always there when they need me, being reassuring and kind and a good friend. And then when I need it back, there’s a vacuum… Nothing. And now, when we’re about to leave for a really long time, I thought certain friends would kick in and be present, but they’re not.

So what do I do? Learn not to extend? Get a thicker skin? Not be hurt by other people not making an effort?

I don’t know. Advice, please!

What can you live without?

// July 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Decisions, Inspiration, Life (and the living of it)

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately: What can I live without?

Last night I finished clearing and sorting through all my ’stuff’, and I have to say it’s an incredible feeling. I went through my clothes / shoes / jewellery / books / papers / kitchen things and put aside everything I don’t love. I kept asking myself, ‘Can you live without this?’ and most of the time the answer was a resounding yes! I haven’t been foolish, I’m not tossing away things that we’ll need when we get back, but I have done a thorough pruning of the items I own, and I’m left with far less than when I began.

I was saying to my man that I find it such an exhilarating feeling – that I love being less tied down to the world – and he asked me why. The answer I came up with was simple, but it rings so true for me: I want to know that there is less I can’t live without. If for some reason I lost everything, I want to know that I would be more okay (than a few weeks ago, when I had a whole heap more ’stuff’).

I remember when I was a little girl I used to have this fear that an earthquake would split our house in two. Don’t ask me why – Durban has never had an earthquake (ever!) and there was pretty much 100% certainty that our house would never split in two. But I was a worrier as a child, and this was one of my chief worries. It would always reassure me to know that even if our house split in two and my parents, younger brother and older brother were on the other side (because of where their bedrooms were), my middle brother and I would be together. And that meant I’d be okay.

Now I live in a much smaller apartment, and if it split in two odds are my man and I would both be on the same side! But it still reassures me to know that no matter what else I don’t have (as we travel around the world with only one suitcase each), I’ll always have him. He’s the one thing I would like very much not to have to live without.

What about you?

The gentle art of acceptance.

// July 23rd, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Decisions, Life (and the living of it), Time, travelling

I’ve been waiting a lot, lately. Waiting to hear back from sponsors about our journey, waiting to hear about a trip to Durban and Joburg for publicity stuff before we leave, waiting to plan the last six weeks of normal life.

I’m not very good at waiting.

In fact, I’m pretty terrible at it. My impatient nature combined with my control-freak tendencies means I’m always wanting to sink my teeth into things, without waiting for other people to do their part. This is not a very good part of my character, I can accept that. And I’m working on it.

But I am also learning to accept other things. In fact, I’m working on the gentle art of acceptance.

We found out this morning that one of the major sponsors we were hoping would come on board doesn’t have the necessary budget to help us out. A lot of this journey towards the journey has been knocking on doors and understanding that some open and some remain stubbornly shut… But I must admit I was really disappointed when this one didn’t fly open. There’s still a chance that they’ll be able to help us out on a smaller level (sponsoring our air tickets and an iPhone so we can record our daily video snippets), but it looks like we’ll now be choosing Plan B.

Plan B is still extremely exciting, just in a different way. Instead of 16 countries for 2 to 3 weeks each, we’ll do 9 countries for a month each – and stick to South-East Asia and South America (the countries where our savings will last us longer!) We’ll be roughing it more, but more open to adventure and new experiences (as there won’t be any time constraints). We’ll get to fully experience two beautiful parts of the world. And if a major sponsor decides to climb on board while we’re away, we can always add in some of the other countries we’re going to be missing. Or that can be Journey 2. Or Journey 3. The plan is to keep doing this as long as we can!

The overriding feeling I have from this, though, is that it’s time for me to walk the talk. I keep saying that life always gives you exactly what you need, and that in retrospect everything always turns out for the best, and sometimes we just can’t see what is best for us from our limited present outlook. Now it’s time to trust in that, to trust in the flow of life. I need to learn to stop micro-managing everything, to trust that if you have the best intentions (and I really do, this cause is something I deeply believe in) that life will give you just what you need.
Only sometimes what that is will look a little different to what you expected it to be.

I’m excited about this journey! Literally and figuratively. I’m excited to challenge myself, to discover new things about life, and love, to explore this crazy world of ours. I’m excited for whatever lies ahead, down the river, around the bend, whatever it is I can’t quite see from here…

PS – Should anyone have any contacts with airlines or big companies who like diabetics or iPhone people, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!