06/10/2026
🇦🇺📝 Travelling around Australia with the creator of (my) life.
“Noticing a lot of unawareness”.
An interaction with a lady in Shark Bay, really brief as it was. Absolutely broke me.
It was the simplest off handed comment, it cut me to my core, and it broke the Dam that I had been building up like a well engineering beaver.
The emotion flooded out of me, and I was an inconsolable shell for over 36 hours.
However, it was exactly what I needed.
The lady didn’t know my story and I didn’t know hers.
She didn’t know the challenges I had to overcome to take Khloe with me on the road or the immense anxiety I have every moment we leave the motorhome together.
I will never know if the reason she made comments about Khloe in a negative way was due to being attacked by a dog in the past and she was locked in a fear state based on an activated memory.
The lady came up off the rocks startling Khloe, which in return scared the lady with Khloe’s loud barking.
Her reaction was assuming the situation and to make comments.
Mine was to immediately take offence and cry.
Unawareness though, it works both ways.
If I had a look around and noticed my environment, I wouldn’t have stopped there to try and take a family selfie.
I would have relocated myself, knowing Khloe. Having the awareness of not putting either of us in that situation.
The lady could have used her awareness and seen that we were taking a brief photo and could have opted to come up after a brief pause or at the other side.
By not having the awareness of each other, we both reacted based on our perception of events … which could have been avoided altogether if we had just spent more time being more consciously aware?
In that moment we were both locked in a response. She chose words and I chose tears. She felt the need to address her feelings, and I obviously needed to have a big emotional release of mine.
Was it what I needed… I guess? Was It what either of us deserved. No.
The problem is, no one walks around with a whole heap of backstory around their head like a sims character.
🗣️“I never met my mother”,
🗣️“My father just died”
🗣️“I was attacked as a teenager”
🗣️ “I just lost my job”
Giving us the heads up, so that we know how to engage with that person and respond appropriately.
I’m sure at least once you’ve been there. In that situation where someone has said something and you respond stumping each other.
👱🏼♀️“Mums getting so old and losing her memory its driving me mad. I’m over it.”
👩🏼🦰“I would love to have another moment like that, my mums dead”
🙌🏻 Conscious Awareness 🙌🏻
Something I am noticing on the road is the lack of it.
The camping washing for example.
Washing is genuinely placed on the floor from the machines or the line for someone else to do their washing.
Someone’s washing that they have just paid $5 !!! for is now on the floor damp and wet or covered in sand from the wind at the bottom of the clothesline.
Awareness.
Did that person have a sick child and just couldn’t get to the machine in time to take it out.
Did that person accidently fall asleep because their body has just shut down from being relaxed for the first time in 10 years on a holiday.
Did the person hang their washing on the line in the morning, going out for the day not caring about anyone else being able to use the line.
Awareness.
In the world we are in currently, the world would be so different if people took the time to be a little bit more aware of themselves in situations and a little more aware of others.
Opening up for more understanding and compassion.
That lady in Shark Bay could have just been a miserable as***le and attacking a 28-year-old about her incredibly unfriendly aggressive dog felt like the right thing to do.
I, however, have the awareness to know I was in the wrong also. My dog did scare her, and I don’t know her story.
I also have the compassion and understanding to know that I actually have nothing to do or anywhere to be.
So, I sat with my air pods in, watching a movie in the laundry room with all of my dirty washing, waiting for a machine to free up eventually. A busy mum that was trying to get back to the washing when she could after being at the pool with her kids, apologised to me, thanked me for waiting for it and not putting it on the floor and I eventually got my washing done.
Have the awareness, not to ruin someone else’s day.
Bottom Line:
Try not to be an as***le. 🏆
As always,
Love Sharn x
(Please Enjoy; the way the Selfie turned out)