After a delay of 24 hours in Beijing we were woken at 1.45am to be told to get down to the foyer as the bus to the airport was leaving at 2am…

After not knowing when we would be leaving, why we were delayed and not being able to communicate our concerns, (a true test of compassion).  It was definitely a relief to actually be able to get to Mongolia where some exciting things were planned.

Arriving at Terminal 3 in Beijing with the bright lights, architecturally a masterpiece and knowing that we were really leaving Beijing this time…excitement started to increase. 

We are finally on the plane and flying to Mongolia, we fly over the Gobi Desert and about to land in Ulaan Bataar…the scenery as we were about to come in for landing was incredible, the beautiful green rolling hills and mountains around us.

We land and walk out of the plane to beautiful crisp Mongolian air…there was something magical to this place.

Tired, excited and full of anticipation we commence our Mongolian Journey.  A country that had been so powerful, then it was brought to its knees by the Russians, and over the past 19 years it has been re-establishing itself as a country.

 

A country that prides in its culture, history and reveres their leader who ruled more of the world than any man in the history of mankind, way back in the 13th Century…Genghis Khan.

When you stand at the commemorative statue of Genghis Ghan and you look out at the scenery you feel the power, and stand in awe of what this man achieved and why the Mongolians are the way they are. 

Your heart fills with compassion when you hear that their lives that they knew was taken away from them by the Russians; and now they are fighting to get back the pride, their country, the music, the horsemanship, the wrestling and the archery that was so apart of their lives… you can now see them celebrating this during the Naadam Festival.

We have had a wonderful time in Beijing, spent our time, with some shopping, going to the Forbidden City, visiting the Great Wall of China and having dinner in the hutong district, with a local family.  What a wonderful experience and to think that in a months time the 2008 Beijing Olympics will be held here.

So we fall into our beds exhausted after a long and exhilarating day, and prepare ourselves for a 4am wakeup call…

We are picked up from the hotel and taken to the airport, here we check in go to the gate, and wait and wait for our flight to Ulaan Bataar.  Finally they notify us of the fact that the flight had been delayed due to bad weather in Ulaan Bataar, not knowing when the flight would leave, we waited.  A great deal of understanding and compassion to the situation was shown by my group.

Not one of the group of 20 became agitated or upset by the situation, the end result was that we were taken to a hotel as they had no idea of when the flight was going to be allowed to depart.  Well the phone rang at 2am the following day and we make our way to the airport, and we eventually departed at 4am for our destination of Ulaan Bataar.

We had to have compassion for the people that were put in a difficult position, the airline staff, the hotel staff and more importantly for the people that were waiting for us in Mongolia.  They had so many amazing things arranged for us…

With understanding, everyone co-operating and having compassion for each other a incredible journey was going to unfold.

What a wonderful way to start a Journey of Compassion…with just returning from Beijing, and having the incredible opportunity to step foot on part of the Great Wall of China, to see one of the great Wonders of the World, the feeling can only be described as unbelievable.

Standing there I realized what an incredible feat it was to construct such a wall around about 3,000 years ago! there are also differing sources of information with some saying that The Wall is approximately 6,400 kilometers in length…can you imagine that!!!!!

I wonder whether when they began building this wall they had the end result in mind, I’m sure they would have as they knew that eventually this wall would keep them safe as it was built mainly to protect the Chinese Empire from the Mongolians and other invaders.

Our entry point to commence this incredible journey will be Beijing, the capital of China, one of the fastest growing countries in the world. The city covers an area of more than 16,410 square kilometers (6336 square miles) and has a population of 14.93 million people.

How can one city boast so many phenomenal places? Beijing's long and illustrious history started some 500,000 years ago. Records show that Beijing has been an inhabited city for more than three thousand years and has endured invasions by warlords and foreign powers, devastating fires, the rise and fall of powerful imperial dynasties and has emerged each time as a strong and vibrant city.

This is the perfect place to witness changes; this country went from ruler to ruler over many centuries, from Communism to Capitalism, to now being on the world’s stage with being the host for the 2008 Olympic Games.

If we let our hearts free to feel the compassion for these people and what they have been through, we can truly appreciate and understand them as a people, a culture, be intrigued by their incredible history, and wonder at their achievements, we don’t have to look any further than the Great Wall of China as a symbol of this country and it’s people.

When we have love, compassion and understanding for our fellow man the end result will be that our experiences will be incredibly gratifying and enriching.

The most incredible thing happens when you really open up and tell the truth…and most importantly telling the truth about the significant losses in your life not only to yourself but to others with whom you trust.

The process with the Grief Recovery allows you to be totally truthful about events of your life surrounding losses, without judgement, critizism or analyzis. As Russell Friedman beautifully said, we all "become a Heart with Ears"!!! It is an empowering process where you know that you can tell your story and no-one judges you, critizises what you have done, or analyses your life for you.

As the person listening you really hear the pain of the person, you may not agree with what they have done, however you are the Heart with Ears, and all you need to be is someone who cares enough to listen.

For me this was powerful not only in the environment of Grief Recovery, and also in our everyday lives.  How many times do we get caught up with what is important for us and not really "LISTEN" to the person that is communicating with us, we judge what they are saying, we analyize what we hear, and we can be critically of their position.  As soon as we do that the person we are supposedly listening to clams up and we do not really hear or understand the underlying pain that they may be suffering.

For me when I wrote my graph of the losses that I have endured in my life, then proceeded to explain them to my team members,  I went through it very quickly with not much depth in my explanations as I was waiting for someone to stop me and say  "get over it", "that happened so long ago, why is that still a problem for you" etc etc etc,  however no one did, no one judged me, no one critized me, this was a very moving experience for me as I finally felt like I was being understood, why…because they really listened!!!!

I came away from the four day Grief Recovery Certification with a sense of relief, the baggage that I had been carrying for many many years had gone, I felt lighter, free to conquer the world, more confident, and learnt the art of listening and understanding others.

I also realised that generally people who are angry, fearful, agressive or who hold many negative emotions, are drug dependant, alcoholics, and the list goes on,  are in a lot of emotional pain.

Until we acknowledge that our negative behaviour is pain from varying losses in our lives,  we will carry this hurt, this frustration until one day our bodies manifest a disease, this is what happened to me, breast cancer invaded my body.

When I acknowledged where the pain came from and sought help from the right people, my outlook and outcomes of my life have completely changed; now I live the life of my dreams, and  am attracting the right people to help me fulfil my purpose, which is to lead, inspire and make a difference in others.

Because of the benefits that the Grief Recovery Certification have given me I am going to run a workshop if you are at all interested just let me know by emailing nilla@yourspiritualjourneys.com and release the emotional pain that you have been carrying…this is definitely a Journey of Transformation!

Well it has been a couple of weeks since I wrote to you, however I have just returned from an incredible trip to China & Mongolia which  will be telling you all about soon.

Now I need to tell you about my time in London with Russell and undergoing the Grief Recovery process.  What was very interesting about the process was that we had to list down our losses that we had in our lives, going back to the first event in our lives that we remembered, the official term was the Dawn of Conscious Memory, I went back to being 4 or 5 years of age, sitting in the kitchen at the hospital where my Mother was working helping to pod peas!!!  It was fascinating to see how things that I had forgotten about came to mind.  It was a time of true reflection.

What we tend to do is to suppress our emotions and memories and not deal with the impact that the losses has on us.  The analogy that is used is that we are a kettle on a hot flame and in the spout we have a stopper, so all this pain that we hold on to over the years has not where to go, and it just keeps swirling around in the same place, bubbling away and having no escape, so we hold on to our pain and in the end the pain can and often does become physical pain.  For me my emotional pain became breast cancer, others have strokes, back pain or any other illnesses.

So think about carrying all this "baggage" throughout your life, and what this has done to hold us back from living the life  of our dreams…I just didn't realise how the losses that I had in my life had affected the results that I was and have been experiencing.

Did not realise that losses created so much pain that resulted in deep rooted emotions that dictated the results we have in our current lives.