- ABOUT OWEN -
Who am I and why should you care about anything I say or write?
To tell you the truth – I don’t know.
But something brought you here. I don’t know whether you will find anything here that is new or of interest. But I hope you do.
My goal is to give you something to think about… and any wisdom and knowledge I may have gained.
A few millennia ago, supposedly the wisest man in the world had been quoted as say “there is nothing new under the sun”. So I guess you could probably get one of the many books I will recommend and find out the same things or even better than what I write or speak.
However, I have lived, and I have read a lot. I listen to a tremendous number of audio programs and have met some fascinating people. I know more now than when I first started.
However, sometimes when someone new writes about an old truth, it is written within the freshness of its time. Hopefully, that is your experience here.
Gabor Mate, in his seminal book “When the Body Say’s NO”, writes –
“… people do not become ill despite their lives but rather because of their lives. And life includes not only physical factors like diet, physical activity and the environment. But also the internal milieu of thoughts and unconscious emotions that govern so much of our physiology though the mechanisms of stress and the unity of the systems that modulate nerves, hormones, immunity, digestion and the cardiovascular function.”
Well, that was me.
I Became Ill Because of My Life.
By the time I was in my late 30’s I couldn’t work for nearly six years – at all. Some of it because of the choices I made knowingly and others because of events that caused me to make poor choices unknowingly. And other circumstances entirely outside my control.
All this is set against the background of my individual makeup, the world I was born into, my genetic code, and the interplay of the spiritual lives we live, regardless of whether we are aware of them or not.
I had spent the preceding years working in sales, both direct and business to business. Then, producing, show calling, and managing live events, which were some of the biggest in Australia’s Corporate History where 15,000 people were not uncommon at events. Sometimes as a team of producers, sometimes on my own.
I was asked to speak to 100’s and sometimes 1000’s of people about what I knew. And I also had the opportunity to create five successful music albums for an industry that was unique for its time.
I saw friendships made and lost, ego’s clashes, and power struggles, ideological, personal, and even theological destroy lives. And some lives improved so amazingly that the only way people could remember who they had been was through old photographs.
I went to film school, had fun shooting footage all over Australia and the South Pacific. I did all of the above, sometimes all at once…. I had almost no social life; you can see why.
I went broke a couple of times, sometimes because of my faults and others due to naivety and fate.
I even studied for the ministry of a church whose faith I no longer hold.
So when in the late 30’s I looked in the mirror, I was prepared to give it all away. Give it away if it took that for me to achieve health and a measure of happiness.
I was ill because of my life, so I took it apart bit by bit and rebuilt it, starting from my spirit up. A skilled Chinese Medicine Practitioner told me that my physical strength would be the last thing to return. I would have to go forward in life with hope, trusting that my physical health would return. I would have to spend time rebuilding every aspect of my life, brick by brick, following the constant whisperings of my heart’s calling.
It has taken many years…a journey that continues.
What I learnt from those years I share here. Hopefully, it supports and encourages you on whatever path you find yourself.
And remember… no one, and I do mean no one, has figured it all out!
"Why Not Check Some Out...?"
Forty-Eight Things I Learnt in 2021
December 31st is the usual time to write articles that look back at the recent year and reflect on any learnings, worthwhile adventures, or promises made or unmade. However, since I wrote the article Time for Action and Contemplation back in October, my mind has been focused on what the year has meant and what next year may bring.
As I have mentioned to many friends over this year, a week is a long time in CovidLand, and I feel this year, for the most part, has closed already. Yet, it still may have a few surprises left.
However, it is time to start the process of what it has meant to ourselves and how we may use its events and happenings to advance our lives into the next year and beyond.
Something’s to think about – Enjoy.
Quiet, Simple Acts of Courage
There are quite simple acts of courage occurring every day. In many ways, we are surrounded by them, often without our knowledge and often in ourselves. They are not the acts that receive the media attention or any attention at all in many cases. Yet they dip into the same human well all great hero’s bathe. What acts of courage have you missed, perhaps in your own life? What acts of courage are you called to perform today?
Forty-Eight Things I Learnt in 2020
2020 has been a very different year for all of us. Mostly unplanned. We adapted and here we are at the end of it. Did we learn anything of value? Here are forty-eight ideas that I gleaned from looking back over the last twelve months.
