Well, I bit the bullet and Ive been living in Spain now for one week, and its definely been eventful. I was reminded that when we step into our desires, it is probable that suppressed fears will surface to challange us, and I guess that is why so many of us do not follow our passions and desires, for we stay stuck in fear, or even fear the fear which may lie ahead. I have definitly been feeling the fear here, but Ive been 'trucking on' as my good friend Mike advised me.
I will be posting more blogs again now that I am settled. I'm also getting up to scratch with technology, so I can upload more pictures and videos so that you can get a better sense of what life is like here in Spain.
Since we are surrounded by fruits and vegetables, life as a raw foodist has been a dream, and its fairly cheap too. The trouble with Spain is that they are not so fussed yet about organic food, but I'm doing the best with whats available ... what else can one do ? We have the potential to grow our own food here, but as yet we have little man power, so this will take time to develop. On the 3 acres of land so far, we have orange trees, lemons and pomegranates. The next door fruit farm (2 minutes walk) has apricots, figs, almonds, bananas, peaches, nectarines, plums, olives (plus more than I can remember right now) ... and of course he grows all the usual suspects in the greens and vegetables department. Oh I forgot to mention, we drink the mountain water which is filtered into the taps and we have a river on the property too, lined with bamboo. We have a swimming pool and an outside yoga platform 60sq meters... sounds like heaven on Earth eh ? :)
OK, let me post my first ever personal video, and you can see for yourself. In the future I hope to develop my editing skills and play music etc, but for now, you will just have to see it live and Raw as I filmed it... ( ha ..I actually have 'Prince' playing in the back ground, I did not over lap the music onto this video, but it kinda fits )
Here's some pictures too
Bright fresh oranges grown on our land
Sun Rise Sun Rise
Seems Buddah by the pool had a bright idea
As you can see .... its a donkey under an orange tree .. dont know its name, but he posed well.
Ok ... thats all folks for today ... but stay tuned for more
Wow - well I have been away for sometime now and not written a post in months. Thats because I have been planning a move to Spain an run a holiday retreat centre. Well the time has come I will be moving there in 2 weeks. I have co created a detox retre at week with Birgit who has been running the rustic centre for 5 years. The retreats will be happening once a week EVERY month, so there are plenty of chances to come and join us. Visit my website for more details http://perryhaldenby.co.uk/retreats/ .
When I arrive there I hope to write more posts and I am really excited to start writting my novel, so I will keep you posted on how it all goes.
I feel I have to put a disclaimer on this post. For that matter, I should probably put I disclaimer on all my posts, for I do not 'know' for certain that the things I write are in total harmony with Gods Love and Truth. You see, My Truth, and Gods Truth can mean totally different things. I can only write about how I feel (in this moment ) about the subjects of God, Love and Truth. I can only write what inspires me, and then investigate upon my the hypothesis, just as a scientist would. At present, I do not have enough proof within my own Soul to 'Know' for certain the truth about the topics I write about. Therefore, I would always suggest that you investigate the subjects of God, Love and Truth for yourself ( and any subject for that matter), so that you may come to 'Know' the Truth for yourself within your own Soul.
Great, now that I have cleared that up, I want to write about a subject that a lot of people have been proposing to me this last week. I've have been engaging in discussions with a few people about Soul transformation, and a lot have said to me that they believe the Soul is already 'PERFECT' and we do not need to change anything. Perhaps we only need to change the way we 'Think' in order to change the Soul some friends have shared. Positive thinking sounds great and I'm sure that it is important, but I would have to disagree with the statement that positive thinking 'transforms the soul'. And, therefore, at this moment in time, I would have to disagree with the statement,... 'We Are Perfect'. For I propose, that Thinking is in the mind ... and Feeling is in the soul. By this I mean to say that it is actually our feelings which change our thoughts and not the other way around ... I know, this proclamation often makes a persons face look like they are chewing a wasp, for it's hard to get ones head around. And that's my point ... you have to feel about it ... and not think about it too much !
I've noticed that the word 'Perfect' can often be used to relieve people of taking 'personal responsibilty' in matters of Truth and Love. For example, some of my 'spiritual' friends will often say 'We are already perfect in Gods eyes, so nothing we do is wrong'. Whilst I feel this is true to an extent, I also feel it gets them off the hook in the view of taking personal responsibility for their ways of being. On the other hand, when my 'non spiritual friends' are being un loving, they may wittily confess 'Hey, come on, nobodies perfect' and thus again, they avoid taking personal responsibility for their thoughts, feelings and actions. Unfortunatly, the lazy part of me which resists personal responsibility is consistently being confronted with the feeling of 'IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS'... and for this reason, if the ship is sinking ... I had better grab my bucket.
In the world today unloving behaviour is extremely prevalent, although it's not so common that 'we', 'ourselves' stop and think 'hmm, I had a part to play in that interaction'. If we continually refrain from taking personal responsibility we are then liable to believe that 'the world is not perfect, and there is nothing we can do about it' ... and yes, ignorance will be bliss ... until the unloving ramifications in the world start to take dramatic effects in your personal life. Only at this point may it alert you to think 'oh gee, I am a part of the cause', but by then of course ... it could be to late.
So are we not perfect then ?
My feelings on this subject are ... I believe our Souls were created by God in total perfection, including perfect Love. Although, when we were conceived, upon immediate impact, the Soul started to 'degrade' in its perfection, through the unloving emotions of our parents and environment. Our parents themselves are often the first to admit that they were not perfect, and lets face it ... how could they have been, when their very own parents were also not perfected in Love. I must clearly stress, the key here is not too blame and judge our parents. Apart from releasing the the unloving emotions from within the parents Soul before conception, there is not much the parents can do to prevent the un loving emotions from entering the Soul of a new born, because it happens automatically. Of course, all the Loving emotions enter the Soul too. This is not about bashing parents, its just understanding from 'where' and 'why' we hold certain emotions.
With this in mind I say ' It is not necessarily our fault that we have unloving emotions within us (which sometimes we act out) but it is our responsibility to change them. If not, we will pass on these emotions to our children, making life possibly harder for them, because of yet another generations worth of unloving emotions. Understanding 'what love is from Gods view point' is another blog post all together. For the time being, I'd can share is this 'What ever unloving event enters your Law of attraction (simply put, anything which you become aware of or anything which happens to you), you were a part of its cause'. So, if you were apart of the cause, then its your responsibility to Change the cause. If not, its highly likely the same kind of events will repeat themselves. Hence, if we do not take personal responsibility, the world indeed will seemingly be getting worse, for we will always be waiting for somebody else to fix it. Before you get too depressed with me banging on about how unloving and inadequate we are, please remember I also feel there are many parts of us which are also extremely loving.
So on that note, I leave you with saying, ' Without judgement, I believe that, where we are right now in our souls progression is perfect ... although, we are not perfected in Love, the way God intended'. I'm posting a clip here from the movie 'friday night lights'. The coach gives his team a talk about being perfect. Im not sure if its totally in harmony with Gods love but I thought it fitting. Enjoy
Wow ... well yes, 27th April, its my Birthday. 34 years ago I was born into this world. It got me thinking about the whole process of birth. And the more I thought about it the more I was in awe. When I really stop to think about what is happening at birth, it can bring a tear to my eye. The whole thing is outstanding. There are so many things to factor. Once upon a time I did not exist on Earth. First of all, my parents had to meet, and for that in itself to happen would have had its own story, twists and turns... and then I guess before that, my Grand parents would have had to experience their own fairy tale too. And of course my Great Grand parents would have had their 'coincidental' encounters to enable them to come together. These family meetings would have had to travel back to when time began ... Adam and Eve ? another discussion in its self. Somehow, all those 'chance meetings' from my ancestors did occur, and they lead to the point of my conception, which I guess would have been around August 1977 ( hmmm I wonder if that's why I LOVE the hot weather ) and then I was born April 1978.
Not going to write much more than that now really. I just felt compelled to write a little today, and thought my birth was a good enough subject to write about briefly before I go off to work.
So I leave you with the thought of Creation. Imagine, we have the power to create what ever want with our desire (my mum and dad must have had desire to create me). Because of free will, we can create in a loving way or un loving ways. Wouldn't life be amazing if we only ever created from a place of pure love ? unfortunately we do not always do that, and thus we feel the resulting pain of creating from fear.
If I was to blow out my candles out on my birthday cake and make a wish ... My wish would be that every single Soul would be able to create their life born from True Love...wooooosh
When I was growing up in the North of England, I would hear people talk about Soul mates all the time. Although, they didn't use the term Soul mate, they used the phrase 'My other half '. And looking back, I really don't think for one minute that they actually believed that their partner was literally 'Their Other Half'.
Can it be true that we do indeed have a 'Soul mate' or an 'Other half ' ? I do not know with certainty that this is True, but my feelings these days is that, YES ... there is another half of me ! When I look at relationships in general, and hear of peoples feelings about being with a partner... nine times out of ten, everybody wants to be with 'The One'. There are so many books, poems, plays, films and songs all dedicated to the idea of the romantic love story, where boy meets girl and girl meets boy, (including same sex of course) and they live happily ever after. I would guess that even the hardest and coldest of hearts, secretly way down deep, have a yearning and longing, to meet their 'perfect' partner, who is out there ... somewhere ?
Although there are many books, poems, plays, films and songs dedicated to the Love of binding souls, the reality in the world demonstrates that the Soul mate relationship, definitely does not exist. I mean... How many times have hearts pounded, and stomachs churned when their eyes have met the eyes of 'the Other'. And it felt like the relationship would last forever. All hope and faith of ever lasting Love floods in with a promise of 'Yes, this is the ONE' ... And then, how many hearts are torn apart and thrown out to sink at the bottom of the deep dark sea, because after a while, somehow, they start to feel that 'THE ONE' has yet again turned out to be just... 'ANOTHER ONE'. The relationship stops being full of passion and desire, and its likely the belief of a Soul mate fades away like the mist. And so, we then settle for what we've got, or... the relationship ends, and with little hope, the search for 'Mr and Mrs Right' begins again.
There are many ideas of what a Soul mate relationship is, too many for me to write about in this post. So I will deliver the theory (slash/ Truth) that I have been feeling about. As always with the topics that I write about, the subjects are huge... and so, I have to scale them down, giving you just enough of the idea, and then, in your own time, you can further investigate it for yourself !!!
Lets start with the normal short story everyone is familiar with...
... You are born. You grow up into an Adult. You get married, sometimes happy, sometimes not. Maybe children arrive. You live to around 70 or 80 if your are lucky, and then you die. The End.
The other story I propose is this ...
You are a Soul ... a 'Whole' Soul, created by God. This 'whole Soul' is somewhere out there, floating in existence, long before you are born into 'this world'. Then... one day, your parents meet, 'fall in Love' and 'desire' to have a child. Through the Law of attraction, their desire is so strong, that it pulls 'half 'of the 'whole' soul down into Earth, and into the womb of your Mother. The other half is left behind so to speak. BUT, it's not long, (some years maybe) before another set of parents also desire a child. And then, once again, through the Law of attraction, the 'other half ' of the 'whole' soul is incarnated and pulled into the womb of another Mother. And this is how the 'Whole Soul' is 'split' into 'two halves' and the two physical bodies are born into two sets of parents.
... Lets say one half of the soul is in a mans body, and the other half is in a women's body. Soon enough, as life goes on ... both halves of soul will start to get the feeling that they desire to be, once again, joined as a whole. And thus... like in the romantic love stories, the search begins to spend the rest of your life with 'the One'.
... it would make logical sense, that the strongest attraction you would have to anybody in the world, would in fact be with ... the 'other half ' of 'you', right ?
... If the story goes to plan, you will indeed attract the other half of you into your life, and live happily ever after as the saying goes. And not only will you attract them into your life here on Earth, but the attraction will last even when you both die and become 'spirits' in the 'spirit world '. So yes, the important, unique and amazing thing about the Soul mate relationship is that it does indeed continue 'forever'... forever deepening, forever growing in Love, until the day that the two halves become re-united as One Soul... the original ' Whole Soul '. The soul cannot re-unite with any other soul apart from the other half of YOU.
That was a very gross way of explaining the Soul mate relationship/attraction. It is far more intricate than that of course, but it gives you an idea at least. And of course, the love story I just proposed, very rarely pans out that simply, and that's because at present, I believe the condition of our human souls are not in their purest potential form of Love, because of 'emotional wounds'. And so... we have to heal, and learn how to love in a way that was intended by God. It's a big ask... but it gives you something to think about and investigate ?
... like I said ... I do not know if it is True ... and Who knows, maybe the Truth is that we do not have such a thing as a soul... and there for no such thing as a 'soul mate'. Maybe we were never actually born from 'some place out of existence'... and maybe its true, that when we die, our life is officially over... nothing more than a few short years. Maybe Love, and the soul mate relationship does not exist ... and maybe life after death is wishful thinking, a story made up to comfort the hearts of people in grief... Or Maybe ... just maybe... the casual term 'my other half ' used loosely by the common person is actually true ... It must of come from somewhere right ? otherwise why does that phrase exist ? And who are all these 'mediums' who claim that they can connect with people from the 'spirit world', translating messages with astonishing accuracy from people who have passed away and so called 'died' ... Is it all chance and guess work ? Are they making it up ? ... I know for myself, it begs me to wonder ... is Love True ? and is Life eternal ? Is my other half out there ? ... Now that you have read this blog ... what do you feel ?
As always, Ive posted here a clip to emotionally engage my writing ;) enjoy
'Humility' ... for years I would hear this word, and for years, I didn't really know what it meant, and I probably still don't know the full extent of it's power and importance. I would often hear the expression "now you're eating humble pie" and so I hazarded a guess that it meant that ' I was doing something that I thought to be right, and then I was proven wrong'. In a way, maybe that could be an indication of the meaning. The English dictionary says ... ... 'hu·mil·i·ty ... noun the quality or condition of being 'humble'; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc. ' ... I'm better/worse than nobody ... and nobody is better/worse than me.
Another way of looking at Humility is to say "We look at ourselves Truthfully, warts and all ". Humility is feeling and taking responsibility for ALL your emotions. You see, when we talk about 'looking' at ourselves, we tend to only want to see the 'good' bits right ? ...IT IS actually loving to acknowledge the good bits of our selves, HOWEVER... if we desire to 'continually grow' and become a better person, or become even more loving then we currently are, THEN ....we must also be humble enough to look at the 'Bad' bits about ourselves too.
When I say the 'Bad' bits, I mean the parts of us that are not 'Loving'. There are many examples of this, and the degree of being unloving vary greatly from person to person. For one person, being unloving may mean that they murder an other person, definitely not a loving act. To another person, being unloving may mean that they 'beat themselves up' and tell themselves that they are 'no good'. Both examples are unloving ... but in Who's eyes ??? May I suggest ...In the eyes of God, the Creator !
In the eyes of God we were ALL created in a 'pristine' condition of Love. And when God created us, all she desired was that we would Love ourselves as much as our creator herself Loves us, which is unconditional. This is when I think, 'If God created the the moon and the stars that are so awe-inspiring ... is it possible ... just possible, that I cannot at this stage of my life comprehend how much Love God has for me. If this is true, and... at this moment in time, I do not 'Love myself' with the exact same intensity as how God Loves me, then it is logically safe to say, that I am falling way short of the life that I was DESIGNED TO LIVE. And what happens when we start to live a life that we were not designed to live ?... Well, sometimes I may feel like I just want to go out and kill someone ... or, at other times, I may feel like beating myself up so badly that I become depressed, and worse, maybe I desire to kill myself... Would a Creator of something, create it in order for it to be destroyed ??? Would You create something with love, care and patience, and then want it to be destroyed ??? I don't think so ... but we do it others and ourselves all of the time !
So how do we stop these destructive cycles ? By being Truthful and Humble, looking at ourselves, warts and all. We can only heal the bad (damaged) parts of ourselves when we Truthfully look at what it is that is damaged. If not, It would be like trying to fix a punctured inner tube on a bicycle without taking off the tyre to see where it has been punctured. When the hole has been found in the inner tube, then we can fix it. When we are humble enough to see where we are being unloving in our lives, then ...we can fix it !
The trouble is, like the wheel, we go about our lives wearing a 'tyre' to protect our 'inner tube'. Scared to death that we will get punctured ! Sometimes we are so scared about being punctured, that we wear and build extra tyres around us to ensure that nothing gets through to damage our precious inner tube. Some tyres are now actually manufactured to be a puncture proof, and that's what we do. We let nothing in.
It's good to be protected right ? Well yes ... and no. The trouble in this scenario, is that God designed us to be able to show and express to the world our unique 'inner tube', because we all have different one. And now, because of the fear of being hurt, we have enclosed ourselves with many layers of black, hard, rubber tyres, and nobody can see who we Truly are ... and that's a shame, because underneath all those layers is a ... 'Pristine' inner tube.
So ... if there is a God ... and, if God did create us ... and, if God does indeed Love us more than we can ever imagine ... and, if God does indeed desire us to realize that we can Love ourselves to same intensity as she does ... Then we must be humble to feel all of our emotions ... We must be humble enough to hear the critic that talks to us and says 'we are not good enough' ... We must be humble enough to feel all the bad bits about ourself ... and we must be humble and brave enough to remove all of the hard tyres, and then expose ourselves with transparency. Show to the world our precious, thin, soft, flexible and expandable inner tube ... called Your Soul.
But how do I know when I am not being humble ? Well, do you ever get angry ? even a smidgen ? slight frustration ? grumpy ? judgemental ? Well, these are the signs that we are not being humble. In times like this, we must STOP what we are doing, then feel how we feel, (which could be anger or self judgement) ... and then ask ourselves "What is it inside of ME that is feeling angry about this situation" ... We have a tendency to straight away BLAME the other for making us angry, and this mi amigo is not being humble. If we carry on blaming others for how WE feel, then we will never grow and heal. Being humble always asks the question, " what is it inside of me, that created this ..." When we are truly humble, and have processed all of our unloving emotions within us, there will come a point in our life, when we will never ever become angry about anything ever again. At this point, we will love ourselves with the same intensity as God loves us. And at this point, we will Love everybody, and everything in the universe, with the same intensity as we love ourselves. Now wouldn't that be a great place to live.
When we can be Truly Humble ... then we can Truly Heal ... How Humble and True are you ? How willing are you to bare your strong side along with all of your warts to the world ? ( I will write in the future how we can process unloving emotions)
I love this clip from the film 'Phone booth'. It shows exactly what I mean about being humble. Enjoy. Remember, you can run ... but you can't hide ...for ever at least.
When I first switched my diet to the 80/10/10 I found this website extremely helpful, it is called www.cronometer.comThe 80/10/10 diet focuses on 80% carbohydrates 10% Fat 10% protein. The cronomter works by you entering all your daily food intake. When all the info has been inputted, it automatically calculates all of the percentages that have been eaten.
It is really beautifully done with graphs,pie charts and goal settings. On the 80.10.10 diet, the aim is normally to eat at least 3000 calories a day.
I know some people who eat around 6000 calories a day, based on a raw vegan plant based diet. Often people associate calories with weight gain, but in my experience on the 80.10.10 diet, this is not true. It seems the calories derived from plant based foods are used for pure energy and nutrition, and no excess weight is gained. my weight is 75kg at present, and it very rarely fluctuates. I am 5'11" in height. I exercise regular in the woods, to keep toned.
It is important on a raw vegan diet to keep the calories high or you may start to feel tired. This is were a lot people go wrong when switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet. They simply don't eat enough.
A typical day for me is to eat 3 meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Breakfast= 10 bananas and 10 dates smoothie = around 1200 calories Lunch = 4 Mangoes, 6 oranges, glass of fresh orange juice = around 800 calories Evening = Huge green salad, bunch of grapes,10 kiwis = around 1000
I also try to drink at least 3 litres of water a day. 1 litre gets washed down as soon as I wake up.
I always try be in bed by 10pm at the latest. When I go to bed at 9pm I wake up the next day feeling so rested. I normally wake up around 6am or 7am. I like to get at least 8 hours sleep. Since I worked in the Bar industry for all those years, I never got the benefits of an early night. I totally feel the difference when I get my early nights in now, I become much more productive the next day. Never underestimate the power of sleep.
Now that I have got my routine down, and I roughly know how many calories are in which foods, I do tend not to use the cronometer as much. I found it so vital in the beginning, because I could really keep track of my intake, and make sure I was eating enough food to sustain my body and mind for each day. I dip into the cronometer now and again just to see how my stats are doing. Check it out http://www.cronometer.com/ ... If you need any help, then just e -mail me. and remember ... Fruits your friend, eat as much as you like.
Can you believe that I never read a single book of my own accord until I was 21 years old. Sure, I read text books at school and stuff, but I mean, that until I was 21, I had never ever dreamed of thinking 'hmm, I think today I will choose a book to read'. I didn't even read news papers. And then one day, my flat mate said "Perry, I think you might like this book". She was right, I did like it, and I couldn't put it down. The book was that classic title 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Cohelo. It totally reflected my own situation back then, and it felt like the author had writing this book especially for me. Such a capturing story, from such a creative, poetic author. I remember thinking when thrashing through pages 'I can't believe books can be so engaging'. I had only been used to study books at school, and so I assumed that all books were 'boring', which to no surprise was the same feeling I had about school and learning.
So now, I zip forward 12 years, and I can't even estimate how many books I have read. I remember at one point I was reading 2 books a week, which by my standards was very impressive.
I now love books, and feel they all offer a gift and reveal insights to myself. Often, It happens that I need to make a decision about a certain something, and then, as if by magic, an answer which inspires me will seemingly pop out of the pages from the book that I am 'randomly' reading. This for me shows how our souls are constantly sending out 'messages' or 'prayers' to God and the Universe. The answers then come to us in 'mysterious' ways. Although, when we understand the power of prayer and intention, its then not so mysterious, but in fact magnificent and awe striking. The snag is, we are not always open to receive Gods gifts. We are actually receiving gifts constantly and we are normally throwing away Gods gifts constantly.
The reason for this is that we generally do not recognise what a gift from God is. I used to think of gifts as 'things' I wanted to have. So, I would pray 'Please God, send me some money' 'Please God, send me my perfect partner' 'please God, send me a Bentley sports car' 'Please God, send me a beach house' 'Please God, take this illness away' 'Please God, send me, send me, send me ...' I often felt like my prayers were not answered ... I would be sad, my bottom lip would turn, and It would confirm to me that there is no God.BUT ... What I failed to miss were the constant gifts that were being sent and giving to me. If God could speak he/she would of have been replying something like this 'Here you go Perry, that feeling you have about your passion to write, DO IT. 'Hey Perry, that feeling you have to exercise everyday, DO IT' 'Hey perry, that feeling you had to help that person 'DO IT' 'Hi Perry, that feeling you have to 'forgive' yourself 'DO IT' 'Perry, its me again, that feeling you have to talk to that guy over there 'DO IT' (he owns a Bentley and is giving it away because he has got so many) ' Hello Perry, are you giving thanks for that fresh organic fruit you are eating. if not 'DO IT' ' Perry,That man who just pushed in front of you, how did it make you FEEL ?,' Perry,that women who just got angry with you, how did it make you FEEL ?' OK, so I hope you are catching me drift here... Firstly, 'God speaks to us about our gifts by OUR FEELINGS', and Secondly 'We must ACT ON THOSE FEELINGS appropriately to fully receive the gift being sent.
You see, I feel the greatest gift from God is the GIFT OF FREE WILL ... we get the choice to CHOOSE ! I believe when you act on your feelings, that's when you can fully engage in the gift of life, and receive all its glory. How many times have you gone against your feelings to act
and then afterwards felt the pain of not acting ? you just threw away a gift. By not acting on your feelings, you throw away the chance to make YOUR contribution to the world, which could make a huge difference for the better (or worse, depending how you choose to use your free will )
So, my message today is clearly ... ACT on your loving feelings. If you are too scared to act for any reason, then ACT and face that fear, for it will forever hold you back.
OK, back to books, I'm reading this book now called ' DO IT or DITCH IT ' by Bev James. I'm finding it really useful in helping me with my powers to ACT, turning my passions into my reality. So I just wanted to share it with you all.
Wow .. I've just signed up for this 5.5 mile assault course on April the 1st, I'm not fooling around here !
Just learnt a new a catch phrase today, thanks to the coaching academy, which I'm loving ... it goes like this ' I'm being stretched '. I will be saying it now every time that I find myself out of my 'comfort zone'. When I jump into my stretch zone, then for me that means I'm growing on all levels of my being, which is how I always want to be. Who wants to stagnate and rot ? not me! I think I will definitely be getting stretched after this ... Can't Wait !
