A week ago, I had a very vivid dream about being in Sydney on holiday. On my way back ‘home’, I jumped off a bus without my handbag. My immediate response, realising that I was now without proof of my identity and money, was to panic. However surprisingly quickly, the panic was replaced by a sense of knowing that I would just have to get home using my own inner resources.

Which begs the questions, what are my inner resources? When am I resource-full?

In the wake of Amy Winehouse’s tragic demise, one of the most insightful pieces I read was the blog post by Russell Brand. He knew Amy. He also suffers from addiction. And these words in particular, have  continued to resonate long after I read them:

“All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are.”

That ‘un-ignorable veil’, the alienation from self, the lack of connection to others, are qualities any of us who know someone with addiction issues recognize. And yet, how often are are we all, to a certain extent, veiled?

Recently a friend and I discovered that we go to the same osteopath. After hooting with laughter at our shared experiences of fantastic conversations with this osteopath, we began to talk about what makes him such a great practitioner. And we came to the conclusion (at least, our conclusion) that it’s not just the osteopathy, but his ability to be – without exception – completely present. Present and connected. Not just with his patients but the world around him.

In a world of overwhelm and overconsumption of increasingly scare resources, I can’t help but sense that it’s becoming increasingly important to know and understand yourself. To know what your inner resources are, so that when the external ones fall away – for whatever reason – you can rely on them. To cultivate and nurture the ability to be present and connected to yourself and the world around you.

In your daily life, how often are you truly  present and connected?

If you found yourself in a foreign country, without a piece of paper proving your identity and a wallet full of cards and money, what would you rely on? What are your inner resources?