72 days to go...

Today was rough. I received several negative messages from somebody in pain. It is difficult to avoid that energy entering my system. My vision is to respect it, and then let it wash off like from a tefal pan. Don’t let it stick. Move forward with positive energy.

I was inspired by a book called Anything I Can Do… You Can Do Better by Tessa Souter. Tessa is a jazz singer, international journalist, and writer and was a single mother in her teens. A remarkable story of turning dreams into reality, with many bumps on the way.

Another positive experience was to watch my daughter act as a Wannapeepee in the Christmas production The Peace Child tonight. The music, colors, singing, and performances were wonderful and inspiring.

Souter’s book showed me how brilliant life is, and that we all get bruises along the way, and that these are very much a part of the course. We need to be patient yet persistent. We face constant choices every day how to respond, and what decisions to take for our journey.

When I joined Jim Paredes’ workshop on Tapping the Creative Universe, now three years ago, one of our assignments was to write an essay about I Am Great.

I looked it up tonight, and one of the things I wrote was: Although I have a negative tendency to find fault and am good in imagining “everything that could go wrong”, I am great because I am at heart a positive-minded person who likes to create good and beautiful moments and make the people around me happy.

That still holds true. I learn from encountering negativity and difficulty in life, and I like to transform it into positive energy and move on. I have learned the secret of being happy without reason.

Photograph: Tessa Souter's book.