It's a Carnival TING..

Read on for fuller understanding of this photo...

I will, however, warn you now. This blog is ANOTHER anecdote related to positive thinking. It is another god damn piece of writing by someone who now believes they can change their life through mindset. It IS another fucking blog on the power of your mind. 

But through the recreational, and in this case, somewhat accidental use of MDMA. At Carnival in Notting Hill London. 

And I do now genuinely believe I can change the course of my life through mindset. 

By nature, I have a somewhat fiery temper, am overly dramatic, and have a tendency to react to situations before thinking rationally, if at all. Absolute headcase at the best of times. 
So considering this, a little mindset shift need not be a terrible thing...and I endeavour it to be the way I shall live going forward. Especially as move #7 is on the horizon.

To set the scene; Carnival is a celebration of London's Caribbean culture. The entirety of Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove boroughs shut down, and an epic street party appears filling the area with glitter, feathers, banging tunes, red stripe, plantain, and a whole lot of ass! A massive parade snakes throughout with groups in traditional carnival dress, all twerking as one to all sorts of basey, grimey, flithy music, while wannabe onlookers like myself do our best to immerse into the madness of it all. With so much stimulation, it's an ADHD kid's dream (that's me...)

MUSIC. DANCING (mainly twerking). DRINKING. DRUGS
....and plantains.

A place where there are no fucks given what so ever.
Anything goes. Everything is accepted.
A place that embodies London, and everything it means to me. 

Back to the MDMA. One of my mates had oh so kindly made a few of us a small amount to take. You know, in a controlled, and accepted manner. Adult like behaviour. 

As mentioned, I have a one track kind of mind. All or nothing, zero to one hundred, and a habit of going gun ho without a second to think. An idiots guide to life. When handed what I assumed my small amount, I had it down my throat in approximately 0.1 of a second only to realise with much 'OH FUUUCCKKK' that I had actually swallowed the larger amount that could have been anywhere from 1/2-2/3 of a gram. 

Stage 1)
- OH FUUUCCKKK
Stage 2)
- My good friend repeatedly shoving his fingers down my throat (on my instruction!) to induce me vomiting the gold. 
Stage 3
- Realisation that I may become a liability, and shit may well hit the fan.
Stage 4
-A significant change in mindset. 'I am a dreamboat, and will navigate my way through this experience like an absolute champ. It will be the greatest day of my life.' 
Stage 5
-"Guys it is coming. Like fire. Please brace yourselves for the show of your lives"

The first time it came up, I CHOSE to do so as well. I CHOSE not to be overwhelmed. I chose to ride the SHIT out of it. An on the hour, like clockwork, it just kept going! Another hour, another choice to feel everything 100%. An incredibly conscious and empowering situation. The day could have gone tits up, and rightly so, but I was more than okay having chosen to take the control, and see it unfold into something incredibly special. Not to mention FUN as hell. 

Each time that I have dabbled in enough of an amount of MDMA to allow my mind to come to a conscious point where it is able to let go of something, I've always had a sort of epiphany as to why I need to let this thing go, and from then on this little change does in fact help to shape the way I live. 
This time though, I have come out of it feeling a whole lot more empowered. The last blog I wrote dealt with living life a little less planned, with a little more spontaneous passion, comfortable in the uncomforts of life. 
What so very clearly came from this banger of a day, was to ride what seemed like imperfection and chaos, and to create something both beautiful and batshit crazy from it. It was this conscious choice to live it so passionately in each moment. It was a conscious choice to find a sort of inner peace in amongst the chaos that is Carnival on a little too much white powder.

I am currently sitting in the middle of the long ass haul back to Australia, ready to embark on move #7 to Sydney. Another chance to start a seemingly fresh life. A 7th chance to find happiness, whatever that may be. But as I still stand by, I am not leaving things behind anymore, finally I am not letting the past go. I am not starting fresh. I am not running from my last situation that did not light my fire enough. I am making a conscious decision to move forward into a whole lot more passion. A decision that I will ride each high, low, and everything in between with a choice to create something beautiful. 

I've always said Carnival/London is life. This year it saw one of my closest mates repeatedly shove his fingers down my bruising throat as the bathroom que heard every sound. It saw crowds of people pushing, shoving, anxiety levels high, whilst very happy Dani merely floated through without an ounce of stress. My power was the absolute CHILL and control I was able to find throughout the day. And that is what I have taken away from it. That is the power that I will endeavour to harness in this next move. The conscious choice to be not just okay, but on FIRE. 

Its a Carnival ting. Innit.