The Unhealthful Inflation Invasion

The Apple News app just announced its increasing its subscriber price by 34% 

from $14.99pm to $19.99pm AUD. 

Aaaand... "CANCEL" on that subscription. 

I could go into a rant about how the heck they justify such a mighty bump up on an established app but, hey, we have so much more to rant about these days. Just a click on "cancel" was all that was needed. 

Oh Inflation/Cost of Living, you're a testy beast right now. Forcing my hand in reassessing my spending priorities left, right and empty coin purse. 

You're pushing the priorities, that what it is!

but hang on ...maybe its good thing.

Times like these, as trying and scary as they are, can be wealthy in resetting us and helping us re-identify true priority. In what truly matters.

Walk with me into the QBIH Clinic space...

When a client comes into the clinic to see me for treatment, the first note I need is the body's priority. 

As we chat and they fill me in on their challenging health expeditions, and what they perceive as their first priority in healing,  I'll often be running vibrational communication over their body to "see" what the body's wisdom is telling me is priority. 

(a reminder:  QBI it's a "hands off process'. I said "run" not "rub". And usually a couple of feet away from the physical form :) Phew! Glad I pulled us out that gutter!) 

Consciously, and through social and psychological conditioning, we often believe the symptoms presenting are the priority. Whatever may be causing pain, or blockage, dysfunction or dismay. 

However,

The body, without fail, will show me the foundation of the disease: the cause. 

the Priority.

The priority needing facilitation to reclaim balance and health.

What's that old saying? Even the great Steve Jobs, with all his genius, insight and drive, delivered it in his powerful parting message,

" You have nothing if you don't have your health."

During Lockdowns (thank you viruses) I began a heavily discounted preventive medicine program, running regularly scheduled remote QBI healing sessions for people all over the planet, (which included, I may add, the QBIH Viral Protocol that we have such incredible success with against viruses. )

Recently, only months ago, I was finally bullied into shutting those down. 

Then today, Apple News showed me the money (that they were grabbing at, but I wanted to use that phrase) liberating me from their app and my wallet from that pointless expense.

In these tight times my priorities have to go to what matters most. For all of us. 

" You have nothing if you don't have your health."

Your health is not a "luxury item". 

So I've also liberated myself from the bullies ( I let them go nicely, I assure you) and am 

reigniting the

QBIH Preventative Healthcare sessions,

FOR YOU  to heal, to maintain and sustain your health.

http://tinyurl.com/GuardMyHealth12

Still heavily discounted  (only $57 per calendar month!). Still incredible effective. (a basic remote treatment usually starts $147!)

 *a small admin fee in the first instalment is added so it looks more expensive than it is. Just letting you know ;)

And I facilitate these sessions, once every lunar month (13 sessions per year) , MYSELF.

In a system where profit has overtaken care, QBI Healing is yours. 

You own this immense gift in healing. 

In which there are no failing healthcare systems, no ever-increasing additional gaps to pay, nor failing ambulance structures, nor lack of beds or thorough health care. :( 

As to Apple News: We thank you ;) You reminded us what truly is priority. 

( The artist formally known as Twitter ( X) is far more unrestricted and genuinely informative anyway.) 

The Inverted White Belt

“My mum is usually the biggest kid in any room…” 

This I recently overheard from my exasperated, eye-rolling, just pre-teen daughter. The biggest kid…

Recently I re-entered the world of martial arts but in doing so, I chose to enter a formal dojo. It took another big kid, a globally respected Shihan (a highly graded "teacher’s teacher") to patiently entice, subtly coerce and encourage me onto these dojo mats ( he’d could've just used some chocolate covered hazelnuts and I would have sauntered on far quicker. Know your treats, I say. ) 

After training in martial arts on and off for almost thirty five years for the first time in this lifetime I’m wearing an actual “gi” (that’s the pyjama-like outfit you often see in martial arts). At first it was about as comfortable as wearing a pair of tin-foil knickers, however now, well “conditioned” and worn in, my gis (yes, I have a few different ones now) really are like pjs! So comfy!

Not surprisingly if you knew where I’d trained in the past, and the disciplines I’ve trained in, despite developing skills at high levels I’ve never been formally graded in martial arts before.

So in donning the gi, the question of what coloured belt to wrap around it came up. 

When one is highly trained, a black belt equivalent or above in another discipline, the grey belt is common. But, no...

I had clandestinely observed (bloody well minutely studied) the wisely and cleverly amalgamated technique this Shihan had brought to the mats in this dojo over several months. It was as unique as it is one of the most purposeful and intelligent martial arts I’ve seen. 

It’s new to me. 

And as such, so am I. I’m new again!

SO! Hand me that friggin crispy, blindingly WHITE belt! 

(And also, just quietly: how do you put it on?) 

OH what ridiculous fun it is to be a new student in an awesome learning environment! 

The freedom, the fun, the mischief (you can get away with a lot when they think you don’t know) and perhaps best of all 

the license to make mistakes as you learn too. 

Thank goodness for that last: the ability to make mistakes, 

The unlearning I faced once I’d bowed onto this dojo was profound. 

Those first 6 weeks challenged the mind even more than the body. Rest assured this body seemed critically uncoordinated, taking the hits and wearing the bruises as it  moved in ways I’d long ago learnt in survival situations, almost opposite to what was being instructed ( one sensei still has to occasionally whisper as she goes past  “Less “murdery”, Mel. Less murdery…” ) 

Within a few sessions upon those mats I knew ; I wasn’t even a White Belt.

I was an “inverted white belt”. 

I was unlearning in order to even become a White Belt and make way for the new. 

The reality often is that whenever you are learning something new, it often initially feels like you’re achieving the opposite of your goal.

When you’re learning something new you often feel dumb when in fact it is making you smarter.

 When you start working out you feel weak, but each time you do it you grow stronger. 

When you're digging through past trauma, you feel vulnerable and alone, but with it you are building a new strong and promising future. 

Knowing that you don’t know (yet!) is where you understand that

 humility has become your superpower.

From a place of humility you can create as never before. 

The importance of consciously choosing the starter line, being a brand new student is profound. It keeps you young. It keeps you healthful. It makes life fun. It makes you richer. 

If you choose it…

You can be as brand new, as open and full of wonder, as childlike and excited as you choose. 

It’s almost irrelevant how long you've trained or how much you already know. 

It comes back to that which nobody can take from you:

 choice. 

We are SO rich in that, aren’t we? In the power of that choice that we all have, no matter our circumstances. 

I’m reminded of Elie Weisle’s powerful and devastating book “Night”, in which he involuntarily became one the great “shihan” in Auschwitz. He came to know the immense power of choice we all have, no matter what the horror of our circumstances. 

Or what we think we know already.

An inverted White Belt 

If you know me, you know my life’s motto has always been “Ancora Imparo”. The motto of my first infantry unit. And Michel Angelo’s famous last words upon his death bed as he resisted:

Ancora Imparo -  “I am still learning”

Thrown upon the mats of a formal dojo, the beauty of this approach in life affirmed…what a gift :) 

Keep being the student.

Keep humility close.

Play and Laugh and Love  

despite the audacity Life throws at us. 

Because you choose to. 

I’m lucky enough over the years to have known several astounding shihan, even privileged to call some my friend. While they are skilled in varying disciplines, I can tell you one thing that is consistent in all of them: 

they are all mischievous, fabulously intelligent and adventurous big kids. 

They are, each of them, the very best of White Belts.

May you exasperate those close to you too. Choose to be "the biggest kid in any room" ;)

From my heart to yours

MHH

Melissa Hocking Hughes 

Sonder def.

Sonder 

~ from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. 

“Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.” 

All is Appropriate

@iammelissahocking on INstagram

• iammelissahocking#expecttheunexpected#raisevibrations #heartcoherence #heal#qbihealing #unexpectedgifts #wisdom#love #compassion

Travelling Roads

I find myself travelling unfamiliar roads these past days.
Without fear.
Without caution.

Winding roads,
Darkened by the forest grappling at the very edges of that which is paved.
Closed by light denied,
Canopy shrouding,
Mists sculpting the beams, piercing swords that triumph through the tangled web.
Without fear.
Without caution.

Lonely roads,
Bereft of consoling markers,
of tell-tale sights.
Vaccuous,
Drawn by the beam before the engine.
Magnetic,
Intoxicatingly it draws, inviting the soul into its light.
Anchoring source from within.
Without fear.
Without caution.

I find myself travelling unfamiliar roads these past days.
With love.

MHH 2017

It wasn't a "scream" as such...

"Four times! What a dud cat..." 
"You screamed, Mum." The smirk in my daughters voice.
"I did not. I don't do "scream", Teags..."
Snickering, "You screamed."
"It moved! Who wouldn't be distressed?!"
'It was just a rat.."
"Just? Just a rat?!"
Teagan, laughing "Whats wrong with rats?"
It came out in a hasty, malformed but meaningful, single word, collaborative of: "Bites, rabies, foaming-at-mouth, disease-ridden, bites, filth, wealth-of-bacteria," and a few more blurry additions.
Earlier I had hammered through the house at top speed, yelling for the cat, "Mooch! Mooches Mooch! Kids, where's the Mooch?!!"
Then I sprinted back through the house with cat in arms, collecting the kids in my wake like a high speed pied piper...

There it was.
I stood in the doorway pointing out the rat to Mooch, who, not at all interested, was instead using all cat devices to draw blood from my forearms for disturbing his sleep.

Failing his interest or even acknowledgement I then threw him, like dropping a feline bomb, from the doorway into the room near the rat.
Landing in a four-footed soft thud he turned, not even seeing it, Mooch cast a filthy look of disdain at me then tried to sashay out. So I picked him up again...
And tossed.

Four times! Four times I threw the bomb/cat at the rat, Mooch failing to deploy each time.

Finally I threw a sock at the rat, which moved, (hence my "small cry" (not scream) of distress, a little running on the spot holding the babies as high up in the air as possible (think of a Riverdance technique here with arms overhead). 
(Lets face it, they are the rodent version of huntsman spider, aren't they?) 
and Mooch, finally seeing the rat, pounced like the legend hunter he usually is.

There was growling. There was blood. Then there was crunching...
and to the tune of all of our "Ewww! Mooch!" we left him to his well deployed, no-longer-failing, feline devices.

"Screamed"? Pffft

Mooch - Cat Grenade 

i am

i am the incomprehensible silence

and the memory that will not be forgotten

i am the voice whose sound is everywhere

and the speech that appears in many forms.

i am the utterance of my own name.

i am the hearing in everyone's ears

i am the speech that cannot be heard

i am the mute who is speechless

great are the multitudes of my words.

hear me in softness

and learn me in roughness.

i am she who cries out

and i am cast forth upon the face of the earth

i prepare the breath and my mind within.

i am known Truth.

i am the one whom you have reflected upon

and the one you have scorned

i am unlearned but from me all people learn

i am the one from whom you have hidden

and the one to whom you reveal yourself

yet wherever you hide i appear

and wherever you wish to reveal yourself

there i will vanish.

for i am the first and the last

i am the honored one and the scorned

i am the whore and the holy one

i am the bride and the bridegroom

and my husband is my father

i am the mother of my father

the sister of my husband

my husband is my child

my offspring are my own birth

the source of my power

what happens is set sacred

give heed give heed give heed

then you, hearers

and you also, angels

and those who have been sent as new spirits

risen now from the dead.

i am the one who alone exists.

there is no one to judge me

for though there is much sweetness in passionate life,

in transient pleasure,

finally, finally sanity comes

and people flee to their place of rest

there they will find me

to live and never to die again

Words from The Thunder.

Perfect Mind, Nag Hammadi