Creativity & Inspiration Archives

I Survived Two Days Without TV

Would you rather a robot cleaner or a trip to Mars? Two days into my TV detox these are the kind of thoughts I’m having. Because why are the billionaires trying to get to Mars (is it ego?) when they would do a bigger service to humanity by focusing on those robot house keepers?! Second question, is there such a thing as a single entendre?

It started like this, on Friday night I watched a whole lot of YouTube videos on someone living the simple life, all white and beige and minimalist in Maui, and also a lot on live-streamers in China, who are being trained to put out their shows like factory hens. Both were fascinating. Live streaming in China is huge and men donate to see women chat or eat or sing but it’s not a sexual thing. One manager said it’s closely linked to their cultural history because people used to perform in the streets for money, like busking I guess.

I also watched something on hostesses and hosts in Japan. The top of his game host made almost half a million a year, much more than the highest paid hostess. His job involved meeting a woman on the street and then going on a date, where he would tell her about his profession and invite her to come to the club where he worked. She would then, he said, get work on the side (like as a prostitute), in order to pay for his drinks at the club and earn him money. The point of which is to feel the ‘love feeling’.

Coming home on Saturday night, I watched some semi-boring things on TV and during the night a plan hatched that it might be good to give up TV (including YouTube) for a month and see what happens. The next day we went for a 23km bike ride along the coast and then came home to a no-TV world. I’d gotten quite hooked on that dopamine fix. It felt strange. I read a book for a few hours and then just sat there before bed.

By the second day, I was already loving it. It felt so peaceful. In the evening I lay in bed and looked at the sky out the window, noticing that my mind was still trying to do things. Practise being present. But you’re still doing something. Then at night my boyfriend and I sat and talked before dinner. And when we came to read our books, he asked if I wanted to read this short story he had told me about, finding it funny.

So I read it and then, looking at Jean Lynn, the writer, her website and the articles she’d written, I found pieces of myself and what I strove to be, the quirkiness, before I became a coach. It was how I started Wonderlust, the novel and the blog. It was the way I used to read Frankie magazine, ride my bike and make things for the house. It was the books I used to read and the Melbourne-style I craved. It was something I’ve been wondering about lately.

With so much love,

Mireille xx

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Love to feel peaceful and happy but too busy to do anything about it? Tired of the turmoil? Discover how to train your mind in 20 minutes a day to experience presence and flow, happiness and harmony, no matter what is happening around you with metastatic breast cancer warrior and author, Mireille Parker.

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Sarah can’t escape herself, even overseas. Will she call hot Oliver? Who doesn’t even know she’s there! But who is this beautiful artist Bonnie? Set in Lucerne, Switzerland, and starring a travel agent from Perth, Australia, Wonderlust is a unique modern philosophical romance about creative women.

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What if going slowly is the way?

Friend, the year is 2011 and I am working three days a week as an English as a second language teacher, teaching the Cambridge Advanced Exam course. On my four days off, including the weekends, I am getting up by 7am to write for 2-3 hours, working on Wonderlust. And apart from this I’m being a domestic goddess, taking care of the house, making some art to hang up, taking a class, learning German (or learning French when I’m supposed to be learning German), hanging out with my husband and riding my bike around town. I have read Slow and I am living it.

Life is good. Life is meant to be good. Last week I had a realisation that I had been filling my time too much and not allowing it to be easy again. I had been busy and keeping myself out of alignment with this. So I slowed down again, did the minimum, remembered what was absolutely essential and did only this. Other than that I didn’t schedule my time and I enjoyed it.

What if life is meant to be easy? What if going slowly is the way? What if we remember this? And allow Life to fill in the rest. What if that is the secret? I have been reading Amanda Frances’s Rich As Fuck and applying it, doing the inner work, being here now. Feeling good. Following intuition. Last week I didn’t know what to write about for you today but I followed an inkling, a hunch, to go look up a few people on Instagram and then the idea to write about going slowly came. Allowing the water to clear, moving with presence, having fun. What if that is the way?

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Thank you!

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

p.s. You can find me on Instagram here or for my art, Locomotive Creations, here.

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Love to feel peaceful and happy but too busy to do anything about it? Tired of your turmoil? Discover how to quickly train your mind to experience presence and flow, happiness and harmony, no matter what is happening around you with metastatic breast, cancer warrior and author, Mireille Parker.

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Get Wonderlust here!

What if going beyond the mind is the way?

I’ve been doing an experiment since mid last year, maybe earlier, to go beyond the mind. I’ve written about it here. Jess Lively is a teacher of this from her podcast and courses and through her I heard about Michael Singer’s The Surrender Experiment. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And sometimes that way is to just let go.

Well, I went on a whole journey of surrender last year, too big to write about here. But if and when the book I wrote about it gets published, you can read about it there. The thing is that Life became so intense and uncontrollable that I had to just go with the flow.

Then I started meditating a whole lot more than usual, Now I’m going beyond the mind in writing this blog. Because it doesn’t make sense. But I want to do it. And learning languages doesn’t make sense. But I want to do it. Just gently. A calling. I don’t feel desperate about it.

What if that is the way?

If you’d like to follow this journey and see how it pans out, sign up to subscribe and remember to like and share this post.

Thank you!

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

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Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

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What if embarrassment is the way?

I don’t know about anyone else but maybe embarrassment is the way for me. On Friday I did something that I felt very embarrassed about. Oh it made my stomach clench. But I did it anyway. That’s right, I invited people to like my art page on facebook.

Oh it was so embarrassing as I went through the list of Facebook friends, some of them I particularly thought, This person is going to think I’m a dick.. This person is going to wonder wtf I’m doing.. and so on. But I did it anyway, because it’s only embarrassing for the moment. And maybe what I want is on the other side of this embarrassment.

I’ve been thinking about audacity lately. It’s probably what this year is about for me, I realised on Friday. I also felt embarrassed about announcing that I wanted to learn 7 languages. But you know there are some people out there who really aren’t that good, they’re not the best by far, but they have the AUDACITY to follow their dreams and put themselves out there, where they need to be. And maybe that’s me.

Someone said to me about my art that if I practise a lot, I’ll get better. But what if I don’t want to get better? What if being a bit shit is my thing? What if I’m a natural? I don’t want to make perfect art. I want to make what wants to come out. Including the mistakes. I want to make the imperfection part of the creation. And yes I have the audacity to call it art out loud even!

Maybe that’s it.

If you’d like to follow this journey and see how it pans out, sign up to subscribe and remember to like and share this post.

Thank you!

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

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Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

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What if I don’t become fluent in 7 languages?

What if I don’t become fluent in 7 languages?

On Friday I wrote about my sudden desire to become fluent in 7 languages. Actually, it’s not all that sudden. Five years ago, after the big brain surgery, after my life had crumbled and I was feeling so low, I had the idea to go study French and German at university as it was only this thought that made me feel any glimmer of joy.

Then I ended up working in a dental surgery (did you know?) and then I went back to teaching English. But even then, mid 2017, I woke up one night from a dream speaking French and continued with it the next few days. Not long after, in The Gilli Islands, I met a French guy and had a correspondence with him for the next few months. Maybe I just really wanted to study French again!

I am just a person figuring out life and how it works for me. I’m not there yet. So on Friday, the thought of studying languages again, propelled me to write that blog post, drive to the city with some books for a competition and stop at UWA to find out information on the way back. What I found out is that the semester starts today and so I will have to do more research and preparation before starting.

But that’s okay.

If you’d like to follow this journey and see how it pans out, sign up to subscribe and remember to like and share this post.

Thank you!

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

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Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

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What if I become fluent in 7 languages?

What if I become fluent in 7 languages and blog about it?

I know this a very crazy thought. It started yesterday when I woke up thinking about studying French at UWA this year. Then I thought, oh but I also want to keep up and improve my German. I looked both up and then decided to forget about it and see if the idea sticks.

This morning I woke up at 5am thinking about studying French at UWA. And German. And what about Indonesian? Oh and then I’d like to learn Hindhi. These are the countries I visit most and, you know, roots and all. But oh, I’ve always loved Italian so much, the country, the people, the culture and the language. Finally, maybe I’ll learn Mandarin because it’s important.

But I’ll start with French, Italian and German. Or just French, if I can.

I feel like Elizabeth Gilbert when she went to study Italian just because her heart was telling her to. Meanwhile, I’m waiting to hear whether my two unpublished books are publishable. Meanwhile, I started making art and wouldn’t mind selling them if that’s on the cards. Am I just avoiding this with the new dream?

I’m not one to think things through for too long, more of an intuitive decision-maker. And so far it hasn’t worked out too badly. Maybe I’ll just look like an idiot for sharing this already.

We will see. Won’t we?

If you’d like to follow this journey and see how it pans out, sign up to subscribe and remember to like and share this post.

Thank you!

Also, do let me know.. what crazy inkling is calling you

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

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Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

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My Three-Book Process

I felt to write more about what’s going on in the world at the moment, especially about Aboriginal history, art and culture that I learnt teaching Australian Culture and Critical Thinking to Chinese students on the study tours I took for CELT UWA last year.

But instead I’ll write to you about what’s flowing.

When I was away in January, I started watching the news, which I normally only do once a week at my parents’ house. Though I do like to look at the newspaper on my morning break at the cafe. Anyway, because I started watching the news to help me go to sleep at night, I felt too many awful things were going on in the world and I felt bad to post my trip on Instagram. So I stopped posting.

The other reason was because my mind was having a field day creating those posts and I didn’t want to be thinking about it as I was walking around Bangkok or Chiang Mai and so I stopped. What happened then is that other memories came up from my body for recognition and releasing.

When I actually took the time to write this out in my journal and what I was truly feeling. The anger. The disgust. Then I cleared it.

So anyway, all this to say that since a month or more ago I’ve been working on four books, all creative non-fiction, and today I have been working on three of them so I thought I’d share this interesting process that just appeared today, adapted from what I wrote there in one of the books.

On the one hand, I love to incubate with one book, fully focused. But in that state it can also be quite hard for me to not express myself more. That was when Miranda said there’s so much creativity wanting to burst out of me. Now I’m just going with what’s flowing. When it gets to the end, I might feel that it’s time to focus on one fully. But it feels also like these three books, Wizard, Conqueror and The One should be read in tandem too to get the full picture.

Well you gotta read the 8 books to grasp the story. Hopefully someone will want to. In any case, I have to write them to get it out. Then I can walk free. But now, when I get up, to go to the bathroom, or even just pause for a moment, receive a text, a new thought rises. Or two. This was one of them. The other, which came simultaneously, was that I want to write in The One next about my feelings of wanting to shut X out and how I enjoy this not knowing, this tension.

Then thirdly I’m writing about Lessons in Conqueror and about the hotel management school for the last hour, interrupted by new thoughts coming in. An Indian masseuse in Lucerne said I had many layers of thought. My mind is working on one thing consciously and behind another and another. But yes, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe this is just who I am and how I function. The multitasking.

It’s not like I’m distracted. I’m focused. But focused on three things at once. Or not even. I’m focused on one and then another layer is dislodged from deep in my body. Rising from the deep. That’s what it feels like to me.

I enjoy this process of recording how life facilitates such excavations. I’m enjoying this process too of working on three books at once. In the past hour, this is what I’ve been doing. A paragraph here, a paragraph there. Whatever rises from the formless into form. It comes from my chest and then manifests through my hands to the word document, bypassing my brain.

It’s a physical experience. Like a painter with three canvases or a musician working on three songs at once. And then a fourth going (maybe that’s the mind), oh we’d like to put this last part on Instagram. That’s it.

Wishing you a magical week! Hope you are well. Till next Tuesday..

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

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Love to feel peaceful and happy during a crisis but too busy to do anything about it? Tired of your turmoil? Discover how to quickly train your mind to experience presence and flow, happiness and harmony, no matter what is happening around you with metastatic breast, cancer conqueror and author, Mireille Parker.

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Get Wonderlust here!

The Topless Barman Bandaid Story!

The most action I’ve had in 20 months was with a topless barman at my cousin’s tropical themed hen’s party. Oh sure there were plenty of offers in Bali. All the fuckboys. All the come back to the villa guys. Till I got smarter. And knew.

Amanda & I went early to the hen’s party, ten years older than the rest, we thought we’d skip the entertainment and just be there for the send-off. But no, there were games. This one we had to stick a band aid on this muscular man, the newby, embarrassed. I thought to stick mine on the hair of his upper thigh but instead chose just above his hip bone.

Phase two, we had to take it off with our teeth. One had stuck it on his penis. She didn’t use her teeth. I did. Slowly. The second last. No laughing. Lips to hip. Later when I asked him in the kitchen, he said he’d recently joined up after farming for years. Showed me his Instagram and said he was working at the Voodoo Lounge, later. Stripping. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now I do.

The Places Ego And I Have Been!

‘You are always on your path.’

~ Abraham Hicks

Oh I now have clarity! So awesome.

Well so I’ve still been pondering the questions posed in Tuesday’s post. But, as you know, it’s the moments when we let go that we receive our answers. Anyway, I’m a person with a lot of thoughts in my head (it’s even in my human design chart. Have you checked yours yet?) and that’s fine.

The trick is to remember that my intuition comes from my spleen and heart, not my head. According to human design, 70% of people’s intuition comes from their sacral chakra (gut area) btw.

So I was making a list of the places that my ego has taken me, that we’ve run in the direction of.

1. Joining the coaching academy when I was supposed to be recovering from breast cancer.
2. Setting up the Zen French Woman site.
3. Starting the Powerfully You Show.
4. Signing up for the course on running courses last year.
5. Setting up Wonderlust on Amazon.
6. Starting these 4 IG accounts.
7. Committing to doing a month of Master Your Mind videos.

Actually I resisted at first and thought a lot about some but they seemed like a good idea. Then turned out to not be my path. Except for 3 of the IG accounts, I’m still happy with that and just doing it because I enjoy it and not because it makes “sense”.

Though all of them I’ve gotten clarity on what I truly want to do through, experienced a huge amount of growth because of and enjoyed them immensely for a time. But see we often see the success stories and the finished products and think it’s easy and perhaps if that’s your path it will be worth it.

But all this has shown me that we are always on our paths anyway. Even the detours! It’s all taking us right here to this moment, which is perfect.

Hope you are having a wonderful week and enjoying the full moon!

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

P.S. Join the community here to stay tuned till Tuesday.

Struggling to feel peaceful and happy during a crisis but too busy to do anything about it? Tired of your turmoil? Discover how to quickly train your mind to experience presence and flow, happiness and harmony, no matter what is happening around you with metastatic breast, cancer conqueror and author, Mireille Parker.

Get Master Your Mind : Create Peace Within here!

Sarah can’t escape herself, even overseas. Will she call hot Oliver? Who doesn’t even know she’s there! But who is this beautiful artist Bonnie? Set in Lucerne, Switzerland, and starring a travel agent from Perth, Australia, Wonderlust is a unique modern philosophical romance about creative women.

Get Wonderlust here!

Is It An Ego Or Soul Desire?

‘The ego pushes, the soul calls.’

~ Jess Lively

Oh I’m a bit confused. I’ll let you know what I’m wondering about.

Ok so last night I heard from Aubrey Marcus that part of the hero’s journey (a la Joseph Campbell) is “the call” and the soul will often resist the call, whereas the ego runs straight towards its desires.

Hmm. I have many thoughts on this.

I definitely feel and experience that the ego pushes while the soul calls.

The ego says, you have to do it now! While the should knows, all in good time.

Aubrey says though that often we resist the thing we actually should do.

I’ve tried to think about this in terms of my own life.

What have I resisted?

* Quitting my coaching business after the first brain surgery. Yes, it was the thing I needed to do.

* Being single here in Perth. It was the thing I needed to do.

* Learning Amazon ads and how to write copy. Certainly I hope this was the thing I needed to do because I’m doing it now.

* Starting my @mireilleparkerauthor instagram page so I can specialise. Just started that.

* Quitting my part-time teaching job. I feel it was what my soul was guiding me to do with all this metastasis, giving me a reason to truly allow myself.

These are just some of the things I can think of right now.

Then I also do believe that we need to be discerning (or I do), especially in this age when so much is on offer. That suits the ego desire theory; the shiny objects on our path.

But then again, those detours have often provided so much learning, so much experience and wisdom. And fun.

Not everything is manifestation, as Lacy Phillips teaches, the universe also sends us tests to see if we are ready, if we really have the self-esteem to say no to what we don’t want. So true I find!!

Today I had this experience as I was walking before work and came across a local newspaper with the word ‘novel’ on the front page. The story was about how local bookshops are really thriving during this time of Corona.

I kept on walking but could feel a pit of fear in my stomach. What if I fail? That’s what it was saying. Do I have to go and contact this place now?

I just breathed through it.

Later I remembered how just yesterday I was telling a friend how there’s so many ways I could be getting my books out there but networking is really not my jam.

I’m an introvert!

I’d rather just write a post. Create a YouTube video even.

I think this was a test. I’d just said what I wasn’t available for and so was tested.

But should I do the thing I’m resisting?

You see the dilemma?

I’m just going to wait and see and keep on setting up my ads.

Already that’s a stretch. I’m itching to be working on my next books.

I’d love to know what you think about this. REPLY and let me know. Is there something you’ve resisted that turned out to be exactly what you needed to do?

Something to ponder at least.

Hope you are having a wonderful week my dear!

Till Thursday.. Join here to receive my release your feelings guide & next post.

Lots of love,

Mireille xx

P.S. Behold my new copy writing skills below.

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