Inspiration

Don’t You Dare Go Near That Broccoli!

By Leah Cox on May 22, 2024

Last year I tried growing lavender from seed. I had dreams of floating through the garden in a pretty summer dress, stopping to give the lavender leaves and flowers a little squeeze and inhaling its ludicrously ravishing scent.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the scent of fresh herbs makes me dizzy with delight.

So I sowed plenty of seeds in small pots and waited. And waited and waited. Not a single one of those seeds germinated. I was so disappointed. My lavender dreams were dashed.

This year I tried again. After a full month there was still nothing. Not even the tiniest green speck breaking the surface. I’d given up hope and planned on emptying the pots out onto the compost heap the following day.

Then the very next morning, as I scrutinised the various pots of earth on the windowsill, I noticed the first green leaves of a lavender plant. Tiny. Delicate. But there.

A few days later, a second seed germinated.

I felt like the queen of the whole wide world! If I were a queen, I’d definitely have a crown made of lavender.

Even though you know the seed has done exactly what it’s designed to do, somehow you’re still shocked when it happens.

What, you mean I can put this fleck of a black seed in this tiny pot of earth and it will become a lettuce I can eat?

You mean I can put this creamy white, silky smooth seed in another pot and it will become a plant that will climb and climb and produce green beans galore?

Gardening teaches you a lot about living. Sometimes, like with that first year trying to grow lavender, you do the work and sow the seeds and nothing happens. It’s disappointing and the disappointment can be hard to handle.

Other times, seeds germinate and grow into sturdy young plants, only to be decimated by those slimy slugs as soon as you plant them out in the garden. You wake up in the morning, skip outside to see how things have grown overnight, only to find that your entire crop of Romanesco broccoli has disappeared. (Successfully growing a Romanesco broccoli might be my number one gardening goal.)

But then there are the times when everything works. The seed germinates. The plant grows. The slugs keep their distance. The vegetables grow. You eat. Life is good.

All of this got me thinking about how ‘failures’ and disappointments, especially ones that are repeated over time, can erode our confidence, wear us down and lead to giving up on even trying.

You get your heart broken one too many times and give up on love.

You pour your heart and soul into a business idea that doesn’t work out and you decide you can’t do business.

You’ve been trying for months to master a new skill but can’t quite get it and you decide it’s just not meant for you.

When things don’t go as we hoped or planned, it’s natural to need a period of recalibration. We need time to heal, regroup, reflect and learn.

But wouldn’t it be oh so tragic if ‘failing’ stopped us from trying again? Stopped us from ever sowing another single glorious seed of possibility?

Imagine all the marvellous things we might miss out on if we stopped trying? If we thought it wasn’t worth sowing another seed?

Maybe there’s a point at which, in any story of failure, we need to shift our attention away from what went wrong last time and towards imagining how it might feel if we try again and succeed.

If we don’t allow ourselves the pleasure of envisioning a scenario where things go well, we’re unlikely to try again. And if we don’t try again, we condemn ourselves to living inside the story of our past failures.

So go ahead and imagine a beautiful relationship. Go ahead and imagine the business that works out. Go ahead and imagine the delight of mastering that new skill.

Oh, and imagine a garden brimming with lavender and you in your pretty dress and a crown upon your head.

Love and courage,

Leah

I Do Not Like Lined Notebooks

By Leah Cox on January 14, 2024

I do not like lined notebooks.

They make me feel restricted. So many lines. So many grey lines. Of course you can write neatly with lines, nice and straight, but I like it when my words and lines are a bit wonky. This is actually quite strange considering I crave neatness and order like my life depends on it. Sometimes I really think it does. Sometimes I think I will explode if I cannot harness the chaos and squish it into a nice neat box.

Sometimes notebooks without lines are called ‘unruled’. That’s how they were always labelled in WHSmith where we’d go to get our back to school supplies. Ruled or unruled, the label would say.

Maybe this is the problem. I am too UNRULY.

Do you know how hard it is to find a good, unruled notebook? One that is just the size you want, with lots of pages, made using recycled paper, that doesn’t have an awful cover and doesn’t require you to go into debt to buy it?

I can tell you something about this. It is hard.

Maybe this is the problem. I am just too FUSSY.

I recently needed a new notebook and was going through this whole dilemma, again, when I had an epiphany – I could make my own!

So I did. I made myself a notebook. And I love it. There is not a single line in sight.

And it got me thinking about all the things we might want or need but can’t find or afford and how empowering it is to take back the use of our own brains and hands and creativity and learn how to do it for ourselves.

Because we live in a world in which it’s now normal to buy everything, readymade. Everything is done for us. Not only that but it’s also driven into us that you need to be a trained professional to do things that once upon a time, regular people knew how to do themselves. Sometimes it feels like you need a four-year certification just to get out of bed in the morning.

Do you know how amazing it is that we exist? By some crazy, mysterious miracle, we exist! We have hearts and eyes and hands and feet and legs and brains and thoughts and feelings and intelligence. And yet every day we pretend like we’re capable of hardly anything at all.

Let’s not do that to ourselves. Let’s remind ourselves that we can do things. Let’s remind ourselves that it’s good to have a go, even if we don’t get it quite right. Even if it’s not perfect. I mean, probably don’t try to rewire your own house. And personally I wouldn’t go anywhere near a chainsaw. But otherwise, let’s be UNRULY. And thank our lucky stars that we’re not in France, where notebooks are filled with squares and dots.

Just kidding – I much prefer squares and dots to lines.

Here’s to you and everything you’re capable of.

Love and COURAGE,

Leah

Someday

By Leah Cox on August 10, 2023

I just finished this poem this morning. I hope it speaks to you!

The summer clouds were like
all the ‘Somedays’ I’d ever uttered –
so lovely and always drifting by.
Whole days passed easily
lying back in the grass
admiring their forms.
Tomorrow, I’d say.
Tomorrow will be the day
I pluck a Someday out of the sky
and really begin my life.
But when tomorrow came
it all began again
the way it had the day before.
Someday becomes a habit, you know?
Until one day, I don’t know why –
perhaps age, perhaps grace –
something changed
and I got up and began.
Uncertainly, awkwardly, imperfectly –
but I began.

A Thrilling, Dangerous Feeling

By Leah Cox on August 25, 2022

Every so often, a feeling bubbles unbidden and unexpected out of your depths. A thrilling feeling. A dangerous feeling. A feeling that says I could do that, I could create that, I could change that, I could say that, I could build that, I could live that, I could be that.

In the fleeting moments when this feeling rises through your gut, into your chest and heart, you know with all your being that what you’re doing isn’t stepping from reality into fantasy but rather stepping from unreality into truth. For a brief moment, the shadow world falls away and you reclaim your power as a shining creative force. Everything is possible.

For the most part, these feelings dissipate and disappear as quickly as they came and we return to what we call the real world, telling ourselves, as we’ve been told, that this is just the way life is. No point trying to do that, create that, change that, say that, build that, live that, be that. Better just get on with things. Oh well.

This is the way society would have it. All the people safe in their boxes doing as they’re told, too apathetic and despairing to try anything radical.

But every so often, when the time is just right, that thrilling, dangerous feeling catches fire. It burns and blazes, becoming a beacon leading you forward. The doubt comes. You embrace it and press on. The doubt comes again. You welcome it in and continue in your endeavour. Day after day you walk into the vision.

You are no longer a person safe in your box, doing as you’re told. You are no longer a safe person. That thrilling and dangerous feeling that’s taken root in your heart has turned you into a dangerous person. You’re realising your power and you’re using it.

You’re everything society doesn’t want you to be. A free-thinking, life-loving being who knows they have the power to make a difference.

How to Thrive in a Toxic World

By Leah Cox on November 10, 2021

The leaflet slipped innocently through my letter box late one morning. Inside was information about how the area in which I now lived was in discussions to house the UK’s first Geological Disposal Facility.

A Geological Disposal Facility (GDF), I learned, is a series of underground vaults used to store higher activity radioactive waste. The UK needs a solution for its radioactive waste. I don’t know enough to say whether this is the best solution or whether the area in which I live is the right place for it.

But in the nights and weeks that followed, I often fell asleep in tears over the state of the precious planet. How had we got to a point where we had to dig deep down into the beautiful Earth to dump highly toxic waste?

One question repeated itself over and over again in my mind. How can I be here?

All my life I have felt both deeply connected to and deeply alien to this world. Connected to the moon and the stars and the sea and the birds and the flowers. Alien to our modern culture, with its endless pressure to work more, buy more, achieve more.

Being here was feeling increasingly difficult and I could feel myself falling deeper into despair. I needed to find a way of not just struggling through and surviving, but actually thriving and living in a meaningful way. Not despite the problems of the world, but as a response to them.

One evening, an answer bubbled into my heart: Create beauty or die.

That one question and that one answer lit a new spark within me. The options felt clear. Fall deeper into despair. Or reassess and reimagine my life.

It was a call to bring my life fully into alignment with my values. A call to break free from the apathy and despair I was feeling and to take a stand for the things I believed in and cared about. A call to fully commit myself to living the life that felt good and true in my heart.

I needed to pour love and beauty into myself, into my new home, into the Earth around me and into my work.

It meant being more deeply in touch with myself than ever before and more deeply in touch with the spiritual dimension of life. It meant taking the time, every day, to connect to what was important to me and what I wanted to live for.

I long to live in a world where we know how to love ourselves, one another, and the Earth. A world where simplicity, slow living and silence are valued. A world where we can each offer our unique gifts and talents in service of the whole. A world where we are once again deeply connected to our true selves and our true place in the web of life.

Many of us today are in a great deal of pain about the Earth and the myriad global problems we face. In desperation, we are asking ourselves, how can I actually be here?

It’s a question worth asking and sitting with. The answers that come to us through our hearts are what will help lift us out of our despair and take us through a new doorway of purpose and possibility.

They are what will help us not just struggle through and survive, but actually thrive.

Love and courage,

Leah

It’s Not Naughty To Do What You Love

By Leah Cox on July 19, 2021

It’s astonishing to me that nine years after leaving my office job in London to find out who I was and whether, as my intuition was strongly suggesting, there was more to life than working to survive, I still occasionally find myself feeling a little bit naughty for following the path of my heart and stepping ever more fully into doing what I love.

That just goes to show how deeply embedded the cultural conditioning and beliefs are that it’s unreasonable and unrealistic to expect that the work you do over the course of your life can be something that doesn’t feel like work at all but rather a path of joyful service.

It’s astonishing to me that nine years after starting my first blog, at a time when I was coming across lots of other blogs about finding and following your passion(s) and meeting all sorts of people who had either already exited the ‘reasonable and realistic’ world, or who were on the verge of doing so, that it is still very much not the norm for people to be encouraged to find the path in life that is true to their own hearts.

It’s astonishing to me that I should, and that anyone should, still feel like they’re doing something naughty, wrong, bad, rebellious, even lazy, by stepping out of work that completely drains them of energy and pursuing that which energises and uplifts their soul.

And you know what happens when you feel like you’re being a little bit naughty, like a five-year old sneaking an ice-cream from the freezer for breakfast whilst mum’s not looking? Well, you eat the ice-cream, but you eat it as quickly as possible, all the while nervously looking over your shoulder to see if mum’s coming to find you out!

So as far as work’s concerned, if you’re following the path of your heart, having stepped out of our society’s rather strange idea of what’s normal, but still feeling that you’re not really allowed to be doing what you’re doing, it’s hard to totally, fully, completely step into your true path because you’re always looking over you shoulder expecting someone to be coming to get you and give you a good spanking for daring to do that most terrible and evil of things…work you love!

Doing what you love is not naughty, selfish, wrong, bad, lazy or any other negative word you might come up with and I hope that one day this very idea will seem ludicrous to us all.

Doing what we love is natural. But like so many elements of our lives in this modern time, we have strayed a long way indeed from all that is natural. We can’t expect to create a more peaceful, just, loving, harmonious, beautiful world by continuing to forcibly and unhappily squeeze ourselves into the systems that have created the issues we have today.

As we remember and return to the natural ways of life, including shining our light through doing what is joyous to us, we revive our own souls and in so doing, play our part in reviving our suffering world.

Now, did someone say something about ice-cream?!

Love and courage,

Leah

Reasons to Rejoice (Singing Meditation)

By Leah Cox on January 5, 2021

Here we are at the start of another new year and I wonder how you’re feeling about that? Hopeful? At ease with the uncertainty of it all? Feeling gratitude for all that is good? Or perhaps fearful, a little hopeless and angry about all that seems wrong?

However you feel going into the new year, it’s all ok. We can only ever begin from where we are and if we aren’t honest about where we are in any given moment, it’s hard to begin.

I’ve been meeting God (presence, love, oneness) through singing lately. Where other activities are failing, singing has allowed me to fall into the still space of peace. A few little lines come to me sometimes and I make a little tune and then repeat it over and over again.

Though much does not seem uplifting in the world right now, these last few days I have found myself singing an uplifting song. Perhaps something in me knew I needed an antidote, something to balance the darkness and reconnect me to source.

If you too need a little something uplifting, an antidote, a way to bring a feeling of gratitude to your day, please join me here for this little song. And please, if the feeling takes you, I encourage you to sing along with me. I hope it will bring you the same joy and peace it has brought me.

Besides, it will sound so much better with your voice added too!

Here are the words to join in:

Lift your heart to the sun
Fold your hands pray to the holy one
Raise your voice make it clear
Sing your song of love my dear
Oh-oh, raise your voice
There are many reasons to rejoice
Oh-oh, raise your voice
There are many reasons to rejoice

[Repeat as many times as you like!]

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Love and courage,

Leah

The Unstoppable Life Force Within You

By Leah Cox on August 11, 2020

The weeds are hacked at, pulled up and doused in chemical killers in an attempt to stop them from poking through the pristine gravel driveway, ruining the aesthetic of the lawn, or overtaking the vegetable patch.

But no matter how much we hack, pull and douse, the weeds return and return! They, like all things present on this miraculous spinning planet we call Earth, are imbued with an unstoppable life force that wants only one thing – to live!

Like the weeds, we are also hacked at, pulled up and doused in an attempt to keep us down and controlled. The difference is only in the tools used. Instead of garden implements and chemicals, we are pushed down by the systems and stories we live inside. Stories often created and fed by power greedy authorities and money greedy corporations. In the end, we’re also kept down by the fear of what might happen if we dare to push back.

But also like the weeds, we are imbued with an unstoppable life force that wants only one thing – to live! No matter how much or for how long the soul is squashed, trampled on and pushed down, its life force can never be stamped out.

It can go underground, yes. It can grow weary, yes. But it cannot be stamped out.

So like the weeds, as soon as there is a sliver of an opportunity, the soul will push through again to the light, renewing itself and shining its gifts across the land.

We can help create the conditions for our souls to thrive and shine by taking time, regularly, alone or with others, to sit quietly and listen to what they have to say. Time to listen to the soul and let it remind us of what is real and true in our lives. And then, knowing the course our souls wish to travel, we muster a little courage to move in whatever direction they’ve called us to go.

Through this process of listening and acting, a weary soul, pushed down by an untrue life, regains its full vitality. As vitality is restored it is not only this individual soul who benefits, but the souls of all those it encounters as it continues its journey through this mystery of life on Earth.

Love and courage,

Leah

Made to Shine: A Note on Being Loud and Humble

By Leah Cox on April 2, 2019

The crocuses came and they came fully. Brave and vulnerable they opened their hearts right up to the sky and let the whole world see. In an endless pouring out of beauty, they gave and gave and gave of themselves, risking everything and asking nothing in return. And when they had given themselves completely, they gracefully withdrew back into the waiting earth.

The daffodils came and they came fully. They shone and smiled and offered their full-hearted ‘Yes!’ to the world. And when they had given all of their light, they withered and returned from whence they came.

Now, it’s the time of the primroses. In clusters or alone, they offer themselves and they offer themselves fully. The wild garlic is already growing in lush circles around the trunks of trees, cherry blossom is cascading out in pink clouds and the very first bluebells are here.

As I walk through the cemetery I feel as though every single plant calls out to me in joyful glee, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

What they’re not saying is, ‘Look at me and don’t look at him’ or ‘Look at me because I’m better than that one’. They just say, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ because they’re filled with the joy of life and what it is to be here and to be alive.

They are loud and they are humble.

And never – not once – do I think, as I walk around the cemetery admiring all these gifts of nature, that they ought to hide themselves a little more and be less bright and bold and brilliant.

The thought that they might ever do that makes me intensely sad. Can you imagine a springtime in which the crocuses and daffodils and primroses and bluebells only half came to life? Half opened? Half gave of themselves? Worried that in coming fully they would seem arrogant or egotistical?

We would never ask this of the wild world. We would never ask any of it to be less than what it is because we already know that to do so would be to deprive ourselves of so much goodness.

There was a time when we were each like the crocuses and daffodils, the blossom and the bluebells. A time when we were young and unconditioned and happily shouted, ‘Look at me!’ We shouted those words not because we wanted more attention than somebody else or because we thought we were better than the rest, but simply because we were overflowing with the ecstasy of life. We were in celebration.

With time, with the pressure to conform, or lacking role models who lived fully themselves, our sense of what it is to be humble grew twisted. Humble became hiding. Humble became not speaking up. Humble became putting everyone else first. Humble became people-pleasing. Humble became agreement. Humble became making sure that you never shouted, ‘Look at me!’

Like many of us, I’ve spent a great deal of time with a twisted sense of what it is to be humble. If that’s true for you too, I’m here to say:

Bloody hell, we’re made to shine. We are the wild world, too.

Love and courage,

Leah

This Is What You’re Here For

By Leah Cox on March 19, 2019

The daffodils are in full bloom. Everywhere you look there’s yellow. It’s like the sun’s shining up from the ground as well as down from the sky.

But just a few short weeks ago there were only a handful of solitary daffodils who’d opened their eyes to the world, the rest still closed up tight. I imagined those daffodils as the first brave and curious explorers, eager to see the world and somehow sensing something good was waiting. I imagined the way they’d wake up, see the wonder and turn to their sleeping brothers and sisters and whisper, ‘Come on, you have no idea how beautiful it is out here!’.

And with the encouragement of those who’d gone before to test the ground, the next cohort of daffodils would wake. In turn, they’d whisper to their neighbours, ‘It’s safe and extraordinary and you really have to see!’. In this way, slowly at first and then with greater and greater momentum, every daffodil would open to the world and see for themselves how glorious it really is.

This is how the world looks to me. We’re each both the brave and curious explorer and the one who’s encouraged and guided by those who’ve gone before.

First we are sleeping, closed tight. Then by grace we hear a whisper to wake from our fearful dream. Here, even though those who’ve gone before tell us it’s safe to arouse from our slumber, we must still muster a great deal of courage to fully open our eyes. For to open our eyes means to let go of the familiar and to step daringly into the unknown.

Finally, eyes wide open, we see the world as it really is for the very first time. Filled with such love and joy and wonder now, we want nothing more than for our brothers and sisters to experience this too. And so, in our own wildly unique ways, we begin to whisper of what we’ve seen. By grace our whispers arrive to the ear of the one who’s ready to become a brave explorer of a whole new world.

By and by, the world wakes up.

This is what we’re here for. First, to be brave. Then, to whisper. Discovering our unique way of whispering is one of the greatest joys of life.

Love and courage,

Leah