The Rabbit Hole: Adventures in Awareness Expansion: 2025

Episode 40: A Typically Atypical Christmas Gift

What are Our Ideal, Self-Bestowed, Christmas Gifts? 💝

My spectral forms of the Christmas essentials: Food, Family & Fun! 🍖🎄🎉
The ultimate gift for me: Understanding, Acceptance & a Celebration of My 'Tism... Finally Belonging! 🙏💖🐇
The difference between my INNATE 'Tism versus the other fear-based & situational labels I've been handed, but have also healed (WIP!... Always a WIP😅😇)

A typically atypical Christmas conversation with my Sister... with no mention or acknowledgement of the holiday (the proof is in the pudding) 💖😂🤔

Yup, this pretty much sums it up... Merry Christmas! 😂😇🙏🎁🐇

And this was after everything I'd already recorded! 😅
More objective evidence that puts the puzzle comfortably & credibly in place! 💡

Episode 39: Wellness Wealth

Part 1: Wise Energy Investment

How do we spend our most precious human resource, our energy? Focus on the quick wins versus making wise investments into our long-term wellness 🤔
Our different energies, spices, and how we might recognise them and also spend them differently 💸
Key Components 🔑

Impulse control, Pausing, and SLOWING DOWN are essentials 🚦
The ultimate Marshmallow Test! 🍭
Forgoing dopamine and/or endorphine hits takes patience and acceptance 🙏

Just a few of my own vulnerabilities and how I notice ways in which I utterly waste various energies 🐃💩😅

Part 2: God, Grant Me the Serenity to Cut the Shit

My own awareness adventure started many years ago with the Serenity Prayer, to this day it boils down to self-acceptance 😇💖
Nuances between leaning into things that will take effort because it will pay off in the long run, and saying F*&$!-it without wasting energy needlessly... Spoiler alert, there are no black & white rules! 💪🤷
The benefit of allowing my definitions of 'healthy discipline' to shift and suit my current wellness needs... as well as some more 'typical' examples that may resonate with the broader audience 😅😎

Part 3: Overcoming Default Settings

It's all about adding to our wellness wealth by making wise energy investments and becoming aware of areas we're prone to be a bit wasteful with our energies 🤑
Being a Human is hard and some of our thoughts & emotions are rubbish! 🦄
Regret (particularly upon reflection) as an apt wellness wealth energy investment check! ✅
If & when our default settings leave us broke, unwell in some way, or feeling the 'naughty stick's' epic sting, it's time to build some awareness, and practice making wiser investments 🧘

Summer's Summary: Healing for Humanity

Link to Original Article: Healing for Humanity

Part 1: Main Points

How and why healing shifts over time, but the take-home message remains the same... We all have a right to heal 💝
It ain't for the faint of heart! Nor can our brains' distinguish between real & perceived trauma 😲
Essential healing ingredients; becoming aware of blind spots, integrating our spices & listening to our narratives 🙈🙉🙊
Indulge in the IRONY and lean into the Shadows (link to historical meaning, new meaning in Part 3) 🤯

Part 2: Reflections

A Velvet Sledgehammer approach to healing, radical self responsibility & ownership as the purest forms of self esteem 😇

Brains suppress trauma & distressing emotions to protect itself, without working to uncover these... shit can go magnificently pear-shaped 💩😅

Understanding what healing IS NOT in these days of motivational, post-modern, flowery BULLSHIT! 🙏

An admitted bias against Therapists & tendency to prefer Mirrors 🫡

There's nothing more natural than getting Pissed! 😠😂

Part 3: What Healing is For Me Now

The pitiful history, for context, and finally confronting healing that's been 3 years in the making 🙏💖
An apt analogy for healing... Bringing that deep infection to the surface for some Sun! ⛅
My new definition of healing (below), and loving ourselves enough to put ourselves back together 💔🍳
My realisation about reving up to Mach-5, why I had to leave my slow paced home & creating a shadow that I then ran away from 🤔🤯

Episode 38: Transformative Taste Testing

Part 1: A Tasty Epiphany & Saccharine Serenity

A significant insight pulled together everything I've been working through lately, my 'Seasons', exploration of Acceptance & remembering that I'm American... a decidedly different taste from Kiwis 🥝💥
Appreciating a period of clarity, finally able to work with the tough Feedback I got & sort through the chaos in my brain 🙏
Ah Ha! Small wonder I'm not to everyone's 'taste' (even my own from time to time) 😅💩
The flavour of my Heart intensity, passion, it's quirky love languages... & it's formidable persistence 💝💔💞

Part 2: Saliferous Spirit

I'm a whimsical salty spirit! And this taste is bourn of embracing my intuition, Knowing, core Values & Spirituality 🤤
Aligned to my WHOLE Self, who I want & aspire to be... the 'Higher Self'... who feels connected to my purpose & sees beyond current struggles 🥳
Forever treading the fine line between packing a tasty punch, being too salty & accepting that I will be both at once depending on the people/situation 🪽🧂
A 20th century watch-out regarding the next topic, our Tiny Human Egos, as well as a total diversion into particle physics & my interpretation of the Energy that connects everyone and everything in the Universe🤓🤯

Part 3: Spicy Superiority

Strap in for the Spice of Survival Mode! My Status-, Fairness-, Certainty-driven Ego forgets about the aforementioned connectedness to the Universe 😅😎
Spicy Ego, Spicy Life! Few people find this appetising or easy to stomach, and it inevitably inspires shame... I turn into a complete Asshole 💣💩
Yikes, conceding my ego doesn't give a shit about my values or higher purpose, and this is how I lose my way... why I spiral; but knowing this enables me to turn it around! 🙏

NOTE: I wrote about this in a poem years ago to help me distinguish between my 'i' / small self and 'I' / Higher Self

A TASTY MEAL NEEDS ALL FLAVOURS IN THE RIGHT BALANCE... I need to consciously Slow Down, ask for feedback and do frequent taste tests to get the seasoning right for any given situation 💖

Switch from ghost pepper hot Limbic Brain (see SCARF Model below) to Prefrontal Cortex deliciousness (i.e. bring in all the spices!)
NOTE: I didn't record a 4th part 😂👍

Episode 37: I'm Afraid of American(s)

Let's have a light & fun one! And no, this is not about Spiteful America-bagging 🥳🤦
Passionate, intense, neuro-diverse... Or simply American?! 🤔😅
Understanding my home-coming struggles in a new light 😇🙏
The part the 'Ego' has to play, cultural nuances of Ego-development, and some foreshadowing of next week's exploration! 🔗
Remembering why I left & the person I was, and knowing the pain that caused was worth it... New Zealand healed me, bringing me closer to who I want to be 💖

Epidsode 36: Seasons of Summer

Part 1: The Feedback

Strap in folks, this one is one hell of a rollercoaster as I navigate a 'case in point' of aforementioned 'objective & subjective evidence of my lack of Normalcy, and the most fatefully timed Feedback I've received to date ⏰🤯
Shame? Acceptance? Anger?! It's all there ... Whee!! 😃💩

Part 2: Discerning My Tastes

Perhaps my first sense of authentic Self Compassion 💖
What's well-seasoned for me versus what's well-seasoned for others 😋🤮
Uncovering the insecurity of being 'Too Much' via tapping it out of me on a random beach in Hawaii, and coming to grips with the shame-sabotage-spiral it led to in my present... BLEAK!✊😅

Part 3: Re-aligning to Gratitude & Self Belief

An unexpected upside of Resentment 🤔
My realisation that entering deliberate mindsets, like while Coaching, allows me to naturally adjust my energy by getting out of my head & away from my own BULLSHIT 🤠🐮
SLOW DOWN... PAUSE... That's my only hope to consciously Choose how I can think, feel and act in more healthy and balanced ways; to stop the shame-sabotage-spiral 🤔💭

Episode 35: Bolstering Blind Spots

Part 1: From Organic Chemistry to Enlightenment

How the consistent insistence that we use observation & deduction as budding scientists foreshadowed my future existential fervor 🤓
My first blog, Analytical Ramblings of Scientific Mind, as an unintentional means of providing myself feedback through this observation-deduction process! ✍
Feedback is FUNDAMENTAL, for ourselves & others 😉
Ahhhh, the nuance of judgments and our brain's vulnerability to common decision-making biases
Building self-awareness by exploring blind spots through deliberate reflection, tools, requesting feedback and/or receiving feedback (whether we wanted it or not) 😅
'Knowing' feedback is a gift 💩🎁

Part 2: Spiritual Will & Neurological Niggles

Reminiscing on Summer 1.0 & how horrific heartbreak instigated the adventure of self-discovery 💔💣
Being The Watcher & how to the process started 👀🔍
Course correction by consistently asking myself the questions: 🤔

"Is this how a mentally and emotionally healthy human behaves?"
"Will I be proud of myself tomorrow?"

The neuroscience of changing habitual behaviours, why it's so difficult and how to overcome the challenge 💪

Part 3: The Fine Art of Offering Feedback Sans Unfair Judgment

The gift of feedback & how it facilitates course-correcting blinds spots for ameliorating awareness, healthy discipline and freedom from self-limiting patterns 🙏
Exploring the nuance between Deduction ☝& Judgment 👎
The neuroscience behind being a judgy prick & the ability to prevent it from becoming a harmful and/or unjust emotion(s) or behaviour(s) 🎉

Part 4: Providing Feedback With More Velvet Than Sledgehammer

Learning to give the gift of feedback with more Compassion 💞
Blind spots don't deserve to be demonised, they deserve to be developed 🌱
Giving and/or receiving feedback will never be comfortable, but it can always be worth it 💯
Effectively using diabolical feedback & resisting the urge to perceive providers as absolute assholes 😘

Episode 34: Shame-Based Spice Assessment

Part 1: Shame Versus Guilt

Tripped over a rabbit hole listening to a recent episode of the Ologies Podcast 🐇🕳
Driving reflections on my grapples with & pursuit towards Self-Acceptance 💩
I love a hot-f*ing-mess!... but apparently don't accept it quite as easily 😇
The subtle nuance between guilt & shame 🤔

Part 2: Nature Versus Nurture

Why I don't experience guilt... 1) Make a decision, 2) Detach from the outcome... 👍
Why self exploration is fun! 😅
The 'nature' of my shame (DNA-level)... I'm neuro-spicy! 💥

The 'nurture' of my shame (Experiential Self Blame)... Good ol' fashioned trauma response! 💣

Part 3: Adjusting the Spice Levels

The subjective and objective indications that I'm decidedly 'not normal' 😎
What I'm learning to appreciate is my ability to adjust my spice levels and hone my powers for good, which helps me accept myself and shift away from the shame 💖

My Spice Levels : How I feel & How I Act 😅🧨

Episode 33: The Mirror Test

Part 1: An Interesting Observation

The 'Oh Shit' moment of observing old dysfunctional behaviours in someone else, and discerning the best course of action 😯
Being the 'bigger person' but also being honest & showing compassion for both of us, past and present 🙏
Acknowledgement of the WORK I've done, and which I rarely give myself credit for... but not expecting that from others 👏

Part 2: Disappointing Diagnosis

"You're perfectly healthy, just anxious"... i.e. The only thing wrong with me, is that I think there's something wrong with me, a fun throwback to the Episode that landed me the last allocated label 😅🤔
This Doc unknowingly validated my recent Experimental results as well as the aforementioned Mirror Test observations; another opportunity to celebrate my self discovery adventure, recognising that my routines, while highly disciplined, are my expression of authentic self-care 🥳💪🐇

Episode 32: Compassionate Experimentation

Part 1: Experimental Kindness & Criticism

As foreshadowed in Part 3 of Self-Love Vs. Self-Acceptance Summer's Summary, I leant into my natural inclinations as a scientist to play with emotional concepts 😅😶
Probing positive beliefs about self criticism and negatives beliefs about self compassion with sharp pointy sticks 👈

[And I'll be damned if I didn't forget about analysing these beliefs before, after avowing my Greatest Accomplishment, and committing to Mindful Anarchy against them! 🤦]

Authentic confusion about what's 'most kind' and getting primal to gain some clarity; bringing it back to the SCARF Model & comparing myself to my pet goat 🧣🐐
The truly subtle difference is self-kindness versus self-care... versus self-indulgence & self-sabotage; What the hell is actual Self Care?! 💖💩

Part 2: The More You Know

Justice; when life gives you lemons... be a dick to yourself and others? 🍋🖕
Spite-ful or Grate-ful, a reminder of resentment's poisonous nature 🧪😡
A disciplined epiphany, the mind-numbing impacts of confirmation bias & the power of INTENTION💡💥
Being hard on myself about not being able to be hard on myself... the sign of a true existentialist 😅

Part 3: In Conclusion

The dark side of acceptance? 🤔
It's all about BALANCE and respecting each other's differences and unique pivot points
To live my authentic Values, in a truly compassionate way, requires self-responsibility & accountability, but it's not a license for punishment...
My two critical check points, implemented courtesy of this compassionate experimentation 💖

What is my Intention? [Am I expecting too much? Am I aligned to my preferred definition of Compassion?]
Am I accepting my true & genuine Self? [Sans 'shoulds'/'coulds'/shame/judgments]

Summer's Summary: Self-Love Vs. Self-Acceptance

Link to Original: Self-Love Vs. Self-Acceptance (Published 26 November 2020)

Part 1: Main Points & Reflections

I seem to easily forget shit I once learned. 😅
Self acceptance as a choice?🤷‍♀️
Supposed subconscious rejection of kindness & finding gratitude in life's rough waters. 🌊.

Part 2: Mindful Anarchy, Take Two

I deserve kindness, not hot-mess-ness. Respectful & mindful disagreement with old, habitual and unhelpful beliefs, & a budding resistance to 'shoulding' myself. 🖕🙏
Opting for a more WHOLE-istic approach & ditching the Blame Game. 👈💖

Part 3: What Does This Look Like Now?

Timely article to revisit current struggles and the concept of self-love, aka compassion. Leaning into self-help resources, and here's a great one! 🥳
A compassion definition that resonates, very understandable compassion barriers, and a fun & compassionate experimentation! 🤓
Ironically, I discovered one way to appreciate and accept my brain on a deeper level was to break it and make it bleed. 💥🧠