Had a great trip through the Snowy Mountains. Kinda hairy driving at times but stunning. Can see lake Jindabyne out the front door as I sit here typing.

Went for a swim in a beautiful reservoir – FREEZING

Really looking fwd to interviewing some great people in Canberra and meeting the Laos community. Many of whom have incredible Life Change stories escaping from a communist country.

ARE YOU A REALISTS ?

Interestingly a few people here have been complaining about the ‘inspirational video’s’ we have posted on the site. They say we should be REALISTS and not get people’s hopes up.

Funnily enough my ‘Think Blog’ today explains that I used to think exactly the same thing (weird how the very day I write about it someone posts a complaint)

http://www.thelifechangeexperiment.com/featured/where-ever-you-are-youre-always-there/

Anyway it’s a REALLY valid point. One that took me years to get a perspective on.

It wasn’t until I realised 2 things, that I was able to let go of the illusion of being a realist. Quite funny actually when I think back to the ways my brain used to keep me from stepping outside my comfort zones.

1) Nothing GREAT was ever achieved by a REALIST!….. Thinking outside the box is the prerequisite to new inventions, new ideas, art, negotiations, politics, love and numerous other things that require we suspend ‘reality’ to succeed at them!

2) REALITY, as science will tell us, is a very flexible. Ask a physicist. There is nothing much real about reality!! If that’s the case for the nuts n bolts of matter how much more so for the ethereal world of our minds!

Since reality is in general a perception. The concept of being a ‘realist’ is an oxymoron.

You can’t be a REALIST about a REALITY that by nature is not fixedly REAL

At best we can be a ‘perceptionaly based generalist’ or a ‘materially based perceptional realist’  ha ha  -

Lets face it – When it comes to climbing everest this thinking will ensure your safety. That you have the right equipment and take the right route. But it WONT get you to the top.

So since it’s an illusion to say anything is possible. And it’s an illusion to say it’s not. I choose the one that is most likely to improve the quality of my life :- )

COOMA TODAY – CANBERRA TOMORROW

Let us know if you are in these areas . We would love to meet more of you and hopefully get to help a few people out as well.

Not a bad spot to wake up in – Albury – Mist on the water n everything

OFF TO KOSCIUSKO

Our homeward bound leg starts today. Bess is flying back from Sydney and we head off through the mountains to Canberra, Orange, Blue Mountains, Sydney (or something like that)

SINGLE DAD

Must admit I quite enjoyed my stint as a single Dad. Not sure how single parents with multiple kids do it though!

I found out that Harvey Norman and Bunnings are fantastic playgrounds. Much more interesting for all of us, indoors, out of the sun and FREE. We played house for hours.

WEARY TRAVELER

Met another weary traveler yesterday. An old bloke called Sid!. Lived in his car for 22 years.

He was saying how many of the government restrictions have made it harder than ever for him to survive. I think the roaming lifestyle should be a part of Australian heritage. Anyway it’s interesting that all these less happy tales are popping up towards the end of our trip.

GOTTA CLEAN THE WINNEBAGO and make everything ship shape and Bristol fashion for Mummy’s return so keeping the blog short today.

JAYCE – Finished your book – Thanks mate was great. Really insightful

KAY – Finished your book – Amazing. Can’t wait to go to Afghanistan

BEAUTIFUL BRIGHT & Bessie’s Back Soon

Had the most lovely day with BlueBelle in a little town called Bright. This is one of the nicest places I have seen. Idyllic with some of the quaintest knick knack, fairy shops I have seen and a raft of nice café’s.

The Wier and park are just beautiful with a huge kids playground in the middle. Daddy Daughter heaven.

Bess is coming back a day early, YAY. So we have decided to go through Kosciusko and Jindabyne together. It’s just too beautiful here for her to miss out. Let us know if u are in the area

SAD SIDE OF LIFE CHANGE

Living in a little car with her enormous German Sheppard was a lady who parked near us on the mountain overnight.

She had been traveling for some time and had visited a lot of the places we had. But rather than it being a freeing or fun experience, she had drama, disaster and complaint for every place she had gone.

She looked quite sad and I wondered how I could help. Coffee and food she declined coz she said she had, ‘no stomach,’ and money wise she probably had more than us since she received a disability pension for her back along with free morphine apparently! So I just chatted for a while which she seemed to enjoy.

The more we have helped people around the country, the more I’m starting to see its limitations. You can never really do enough, and the problems we help often occur from sources we can do little about.

So I’m beginning to think now that helping someone’s state of mind is probably the greatest gift you can give.

You can give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day – You can teach him to fish and he’ll want  workers comp  or you can free his mind and he’ll open a starbucks!

STUFF WE SHOULD NOT FORGET

Statistics courtesy of Kay Danes up coming new book www.Kaydanes.com

• There are 158 million children under the age of 15 trapped in child labour worldwide,
• 640 million people throughout the world are without shelter,
• 400 million are without safe water,
• 270 million are without any form of health care.
• Three billion people live on less than two dollars a day.
• One billion people live on less than one dollar a day.

NOT A BAD WAY TO START THE DAY

Waking up on top of Mt Beauty watching the sun coming up over the Snowy Mountains is not a bad way to start the day. This really is amazingly beautiful around here and to think I nearly missed it as I rushed up the motorway!

RUSHING & THE WISDOM OF STUFF!

Talking of rushing. It’s really is easy to get stuck on the freeway. It’s comfortable, easy, fast. But its also absolutely no reflection of the beauty that’s often lying just off the main road and over the hill. As I found out again yesterday.

It seems all it takes to discover this unknown beauty is to SLOW DOWN and have the courage to try an unfamiliar route.

Call me crazy but I thought this was an awesome analogy for Life Change :- )

Our lives may seem dull and repetitive like a motorway, but if we are brave enough to take the occasional turn off….. well you get the idea !

When an old dusty dumb road can give you an important life lesson you have to wonder what else we have been missing!

Maybe an Onion with a profound message of layers or a Stink Beetle on rejection haha

A LITTLE HELP FOR A FRIEND

Michelle emailed us from Albury and told us she was struggling to get her brand new small business moving . She was especially worried because it was her only income source and causing a lot of stress to her relationship and family.  So we have booked her in for a free PR & Branding session to help put into place a professional plan.

Don’t forget that YOU have skills. You don’t have to help in soup Kitchens or find and old person or other traditional methods of helping. Just do what you do for someone who needs it :- )

Woke up in one of the most serene spots yet. Just outside Wodonga

BlueBelle and I stopped off at the little township of Glenrowan where Ned Kelly made his last stand. There were about 10 places to eat and 5 souvenir shops and not much else. Still we had fun playing with the Ned Kelly Teddy Bears.

BLUEBELLE KELLY

GURU BLUEBELLE’S Profound Pointing Observation

Since Bess is not in the Winnebago andIi have been 1 on 1 with BlueBelle its amazing what babies can teach you about yourself if you watch.

Have you ever tried pointing out something interesting to a baby? I’ts REALLY frustrating because they watch your finger rather than what you are pointing to.

Yesterday BlueBelle did her best to stare at my finger as I waved it about trying to point out a kangaroo I saw.

I suddenly had a realisation that this is exactly what most of us do in life. Looking to the people with a message or the words in a book, rather than to what these message are actually pointing to in YOUR own life.

Anyway I thought that was kinda cool! And it made me realise that its quite probably the reason so many of us get frustrated with lack of results when we try and improve our lives. We are focusing on the wrong end of the stick.

]]> http://www.thelifechangeexperiment.com/our-trip/melbourne/19-03/feed/ 2 http://www.thelifechangeexperiment.com/our-trip/melbourne/18-03-illogical-fear-our-trip-to-canberra/ http://www.thelifechangeexperiment.com/our-trip/melbourne/18-03-illogical-fear-our-trip-to-canberra/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:06:15 +0000 Geoff Barker http://www.thelifechangeexperiment.com/?p=1229

BEAUTIFUL Morning – Woke up next to a dog racing track – Yes since Bess left things have gone to the dogs hehe – Also next to a lovely pond in a little town (see pic) called Mooroopna

BUSTED BY THE FEDS – Had 3 very angry federal police bang on our door the other night – Seem’s you’re not allowed to park within 7 meters of an airport fence. Signs might be nice chaps. Anyway by the end of it we were talking babies and the best of mates haha

KIDS STUFF

Thanks to  Rita I took a little detour to Shepperton and Kids World. BlueBelle loved it – Actually Shepperton is a really nice place. Painted cows all over the place! Strange but nice.

I’ll start heading up to Albury – I heard there are some nice spots around there – Any tips PLEASE!

SAD STORY – BIG LESSON

A little girl so traumatised by her experience at the dentist to remove her milk teeth that she refused to open her mouth again, starved to death yesterday http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1028696/communication-failure-blamed-for-girls-starvation

The crazy thing is the fear response is supposed to PROTECT us from death, but we see here, and in other cases like suicide, that the mind perceives the threat as GREATER THAN DEATH!

Imagine the willpower you would need to do this! Well this is the DARK side of the power you posses. You have MORE than enough power to do anything you want. You just have to learn to control it.

It may seem crazy that she could go this far. But is it any less crazy when we allow our ancient survival mechanism to run our life, when they were much better equipped to keep us out of the way of saber tooth tigers !

I am going to use this girl’s sad story as a reminder of the power we posses to control if we choose and the irrational nature of my own fear response when it kicks in.

NEW FRIENDS & the power of nothing

Imagine escaping in the middle of the night from a war zone with your family on a boat smaller than our Winnebago. Through storms and near death to end up in a Malaysian refugee ‘prison’.

To Yung, a Life Changer we met last night, having just the clothes on his back when he eventually arrived in Australia was the best thing that could have happened. He said it was this experience and the appreciation for life and luxury it gave him that made him a success and now able to give so much to so many charities.

I actually had a flash of realisation. It was THAT APPRECIATION that I wanted to feel again. And one of the driving forces for me to give everything away.
After Yung told us his story I suddenly had a bit of an epiphany. Its this appreciation that modern living suck out of us.

Let’s face it most of our stresses are SELF INFLICTED… revolving around the pursuit of more of something or other. More love, more money, more recognition, more security. Reality is if you have more than a bowl of rice and a blanket your LUCKY, and anything above this IS A BLESSING!

Well I WANT TO FEEL THAT REAL APPRECIATION again when I look at what I have! Rather than only noticing what I have not!

Yung also told us that he recently has gone from Atheist to devout Buddhist after a profound occurrence in his life so thanks Yung for such a great evening. You certainly were an inspiration.

NOTE FROM  BESS – Hello all my lovely Life Changers. My two babies are going to be without their mum for a week so could you all please make sure they are ok from time to time haha.

I have written to do lists all over the Winnebago so BlueBelle won’t end up with the Nappy on the wrong end and wrapped in newspaper. If you see them on their travels to Canberra do say hi. If you find them rocking in the corner of some diner then call Docs haha

HELP!  WHATS NEXT

Ok so I’m traveling up through Albury, Gundigai to Canberra. If you think there is anything I should stop at, especially if BlueBelle will like it, then PLEASE let me know. I have NO IDEA whats out there. I don’t mind going off this track if you have a good suggestion. ….THANKS

FATHER PETE’S LESSON IN TIME

Stopped off to see Father Peter Murray, the Paraplegic reverand we gave one of our laptops to. It was so good seeing how much a small act of giving has brightened up someone else’s life and expanded their access to the world.

Father Murray used to run little ministries in the most remote places in Australia. A comment he made about the Aborigines he encountered stuck with me.

“ All their troubles started when the people of the dream time met the people of the clock.”

I thought WOW am I a person of the clock? It’s so true.

I have recently taken to forcing myself to remain present until the sensation of ‘time bound’ stress or worry has gone. Literally stopping in the middle of the street when I feel that kind of panic and not moving until I get that my presence and patience is vastly more important than my punctuality :- ) Thanks for that Father P

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

I hate gambling – I would rather give my money away. But for a laugh we split the $15 I earnt begging/busking into 3.

We decided to pray on one note , bet the second intuitively and leave the third to chance.

Silly idea I know, but it was fun and we doubled our money. Seems chance was as profitable as prayer and my intuition sucked haha. Quality science prevails

Anyway we later gave it to a scruffy looking old lady who looked like she was straight out of a movie. Shopping trolley full of rubbish n all. I think she was a little suspicious why someone would give her $40

SINGLE FATHER HELP

Bessie is going away tomorrow for a WEEK!!!! I am going to have my work cut out for me getting up to Canberra with BlueBelle in tow. Anyway I thought it was a good experiment to see how it felt to be a single Dad.

However my blogs might get a little scruffier depending on how much sleep I’m getting haha

RED TAPE & Charity Snobbery

Although most of the time we have met with ‘Can do’ people on this trip we have still run across quite a few that make helping impossible.

We had hoped to help out at some homeless shelters and even arrange for a few thousand dollars to make a difference in the life of a homeless family in Melbourne. However we have met with a frustrating amount of red tape from the homeless charities involved and even some of the people on the ground preventing this from happening.

Charity Snobbery is something I have come across before. Some charities won’t accept donations less than $10,000 if you put on a function to raise money for them…… This is why i think its so important to get out and meet the real people who need the help. We will still be helping. Just NOT through those official channels

TODAY

Been invited to dinner at a refugee’s house. They came over under horrendous conditions with nothing and now spend all their time working for charities.

SPARE A DOLLAR MATE

Haven’t you ever wondered what it would feel like to be one of those beggars at the side of the street?

What if we end up having to live in a cardboard box and beg/busk for money. I thought I should get a taste for things to come so yesterday I donned my ugliest most crumpled clothing. Dug out an old Mouth Organ (I can’t play), and hit the streets outside the Casino to beg/busk until I had enough to get some food.

Well it was a lovely day so that made it more fun and people were in good spirits because within an hour I had raised over $15. So looks like if all else fails I’ll have an income stream. Although I admit it was a little humiliating at times when people looked down their noses at you my theatrical side took over and I quite enjoyed putting smiles on a few passing faces with my chimney sweep accent….’Gday guv, spare sum change for an old digger’

DAWKINS – ‘God’s not dead’ !!

Well well!! Seems even Dawkins denies being an ‘Atheist’ and is adamant there is an unarguable .1% chance GOD EXISTS!!

What a revelation! – Actually credit to him for this admission. Science reason prevails over dogma again.

I’m REALLY glad I went to this. I now think his ‘mission’ is very misunderstood.

Dawkins has no real interest in disproving GOD per se. His research is simply to expose, pseudo science, religious misinformation and unnecessary paranormal explanations, most of which were created in days gone by to describe things we didn’t understand.

If Gods DIRECT hand is removed from certain areas or functions of life, as it was when we realised he wasn’t moving the sun around the earth, your next door neighbour wasn’t flying around on a broomstick at night and epilepsy wasn’t a demon, then AMEN to the prevailing of TRUTH I say.

Provable Fact should not have to suffer at the hands of the ‘faithful’.

I believe science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. This debate between the two is a joke. Like the mind and the body they are inseparable , one is an expression of the other, and the more we learn about our world the closer to the true, dogma free ‘god’ we get.

TODAY

DYING WISH

Today Bessie and I get to grant a wish for a young guy who’s dying wish is to release a single with his band. Thanks to Make a Wish this is going to happen and we have arranged for that song to get aired on radio

The Sunset as I walked out of the Atheist Conf – Hard to not have spiritual feelings when you see beauty like this i think.

LITTLE THINGS

We decided we hadn’t done anything to help anyone for awhile so just for fun we held the door open at the busy Melbourne convention centre for a couple of hours. Actually got talking to several interesting people and made some Japanese tourists very happy J

MAKING A DIFFERENCE, NEW FRIENDS & and an Argentinian Barbie

When people tell you that being a part of this Life Change Experiment has really helped them through hard times in their life its very humbling.

Perhaps you reading this don’t realize that your participation, comments and interaction on this site actually makes a difference in peoples lives you may never know about. Over the past 2 weeks we have had quite a number of people stop us in the street and tell us just that. So thank you for helping us make a difference. (Now that wasn’t hard was it  hehe )

One young couple who told us how much their participation on the site had helped them through a tough patch was geologists and phd students Leonor & Augustin.

This cple epitomise the spirit of The Life Change Experiment having come over to Oz knowing no English and nobody yet determined to follow their passion.  They welcomed us into their house, cooking an incredible Argentinean Barbeque and making us feel so welcome….

Thanks so much guys it meant a great deal xxxx

KATIE UNDERWOOD

Bess and I were both really touched at pop princess Katie Underwood willingness to share the real heartfelt aspects of her story. Katie sure went through a drug hell and has come out the other side with a whole new purpose for her life.
Her tips

1 Don’t believe Marijuana is harmless especially if you are using it for depression

2 Want to change? Get fed up with yourself and change your friends if they make it hard

3 Learn to listen to your ‘guides’ – Katie had some amazing experiences in this area but she pointed out that they all came from practice – Like anything else worth having you have to make the effort.

4 Finally remember there is so much more to you than the body you inhabit – Live KNOWING that!