The final part that I wanted to share with you was the enneagram passions. (http://enneagramdiscovery.com/passions/)

To be honest I am not too sure how to explain the passions as I have not studied the Enneagram that closely. But I think the just, of it, is that each number essentially has their own passion that they seem to struggle with the most in life. What I do distinctly remember from the course, that I did with Liz, was her explaining how simply being informed, aware and accepting your numbers passion could ultimately lead you to your truest, happiest self. Your passion can be your porthole to contentment.  Well to be honest, at the time I didn’t really have a freaking clue what she was talking about…I mean the type fours passion is ‘envy’? My random thoughts were: “How in hell is that ever going to make me happy?” I could definitely appreciate that, yes, it was my negative point….as I had spent 3 decades comparing myself to others, and I didn’t derive any joy from that fact. 🤔Infact it was the opposite…it was emotionally draining to always feel like I was somehow behind in this game called ‘life’.

Last year after my mother’s death, grief😭, envy😧 and anger😤 churned in this emotional hotpot inside my head and genuinely felt like it wanted to explode. My conversations with God pretty much went like this every single day.

“So I’m 42, still single, I have no kids, (and I am drastically running out of time here you know!!) you took my dad, you took Anna ( Anna was my second mother who died about 6 months before mum died in 2016) and then if that wasn’t enough you took my mother. WTF??? Do you realise God I have friends who are married, have a house full of kids, both their parents are alive and they have a granny!! You couldn’t have just left me something? Why can’t this parent losing shit be a little more evenly distributed?? ” 
My sense of entitlement was rife as was my shame at feeling all these negative emotions. I am ashamed to admit last year I unfollowed a whole host of friends who had babies and small children, um….. mothers, fathers or grannies. (I do apologise sincerely😟) but it seriously hurt that much.

Random story 1: About ten years ago when I was training to be a life coach I used to practice all my new coaching skills on one of my best friends Bronwyn. Imagine my absolute horror to discover that she now also wants to be a life coach. What?? That was my dream! How could she?…..and wait….not only has she already completed her studies, she has 8 paying clients, is designing and teaching courses to kids in schools and she is being asked to speak at events, and being paid for it!!! Why was she able to do what I couldn’t? (FYI: I love Bronwyn to death, she was born on Valentine’s Day and has always been, for me, love❤💘💕💖 personified. She is an amazing, supportive person who would make an exceptional coach…. but fuck I was so envious I was almost green.)  👹It wasn’t easy congratulating her….but I continually made sure I did. As hard as it was I was still so immensely proud of her. My head knew that there is enough space in this world for everyone to succeed even if my heart wasn’t fully there yet. Funny how not long after that I suddenly decided that I had to start toastmasters….😜🤓

Random Story 2: For the last three years I have been so grateful to have two very special friends, Rachel and Ntombi. About two years ago we started a meditation group together. When we first started the group we all shared our intentions, our dreams of where we wanted to be in 5 years times. On the first of April I said goodbye to Rachel as she began the first part of realising her dream. On the 31’s of April I said goodbye to Ntombi as she left to begin her dream job in JHB. I can’t really explain it but it literally felt like this cosmic boot just came and kicked me off this ‘fear-ledge’ I have been hovering on for the last ten years, while at the same time this load booming voice in my head was shouting: “Enough already just do something! Do anything! ” So I quit smoking and set myself this challenge. I have been writing for 17 whole days….and honestly, although I have never been so petrified as I do when I click “post”, it genuinely feels amazing. 😍

So I think I have come to develop a deep respect for my past much dreaded ‘envy’….I realise now what a powerful force it can be to motivate me. I accept that it’s ok to envy other people as long as I use that envy to make myself better rather than to tear other people down. I now see my envy as a reminder that someone is doing something I would love to do…and a nudge towards actually doing something about it. I am happy to say I have followed all my friends on facebook again. When envy hits these days I do my best to congratulate or tell a friend how happy I am for them….it’s not always easy but sharing in a friends joy is enough to defuse the envy just a little bit at a time.

So I think I’m done with the Enneagram for now. Obviously, I love this tool and am so grateful to have found Liz Dugmore. While reading online can be fun If you can find a good, reputable Enneagram teacher then I would highly recommend it….it does often happen the online tests miss-type you! 

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Ok, one last thing before I go..I just want to say how absolutely stoked I was this evening at pole. After 2 months of not being able to actually use the pole because of my one granny knee, I was finally able to start again. Seriously this is huge…🤗😀I genuinely thought that this was it….my pole days were over! 😨😭😱😰
My pole teacher, Tharine, always videos the girls and takes photo’s to put on the pole watsap group and on her Artemis Pole Academy page. I made it very clear, on day one, that absolutely no such thing was ever to be happening with my photos. One day one poor, sweet girl made the momentous mistake of uploading two of my videos onto the group and she experienced the wrath of Gayle. 😳😵😈👿 (Ok I wasn’t really mean to her….but she knew I was pissed) My point is, I was that paranoid about how I would look. I wanted to do the pole show so that I could learn to do it perfectly first. Do it perfect and then you can take part. Sadly, I missed out on sharing the joy of the , pole milestones that I achieved in the last two years. Today in my lesson I was like: “Film it baby!! It’s going on Facebook.” 😂 It’s slightly liberating not to care as much about what other people think anymore. It feels ok to say look how many times I had to do this to get it right. I think I get now that life is about enjoying the process and not just the end product. So I hope you don’t mind but I have attached my video plus one of my pole guru Tharine ….(so you can see who I aspire to be like before I am 80.)

Have a fantastic weekend 
💖😘🤗💪💪💪😎🐝🌷💐