Be generous to yourself

  • Be generous to yourself

A journey that freed and opened the heart

I recently returned from a two-week Sacred Journey to Peru—an experience that opened my heart in ways I’m still integrating. One of the clearest invitations that stayed with me is this: to be generous.

Generous to myself. Generous with myself.

In the days since returning home, I’ve been sitting with this word—feeling into it, letting it reshape how I relate to myself.

Generous to Yourself: Allowing More

Being generous to myself feels like permission. Permission to want, to feel, to choose—without guilt or shame.

It showed up in simple ways this week: buying something that sparked joy, like red pants and lipstick. Taking rest in the middle of the day. Going on a spontaneous midweek hike instead of convincing myself it wasn’t practical.

It also meant not overextending myself for others. Letting go of expectations—like cooking when I didn’t have the energy—and choosing what felt truly nourishing.

To be generous to myself is to listen to what I need and trust that it’s enough.

Generous with Yourself: Being Honest and Open

Being generous with myself feels like allowing truth.

It means not pretending I’m okay when I’m not. Letting myself be seen. Expressing what’s real, even when it’s messy or unclear.

It’s softening the inner critic and choosing a kinder, more supportive voice. It’s being honest about what I feel, want, and need—without shrinking or second-guessing myself.

The Space to Not Know

This generosity also brings forgiveness.

I don’t need to have everything figured out right now. I can feel uncertain. I can be in transition. To be generous to myself is to allow this space—and trust the unfolding.

Growth isn’t always clear or graceful. Sometimes it’s messy. Being generous with myself means letting that be okay.

Holding Joy Without Guilt

One of the shifts I’ve noticed is allowing myself to feel joy—even when others around me may be struggling.

I can hold both: joy and compassion. One does not cancel the other.

Filling Your Own Cup

The more I practice this, the more I ask: What else can I allow, so I feel truly nourished?

Because when my cup is full, giving becomes effortless. It flows naturally, without depletion.

A Quiet Truth

During the retreat, a friend shared the French word mériter—to deserve, to be worthy, to honor.

It stayed with me.

True generosity toward oneself grows from a place where there is less self-doubt, less guilt, less shame. A place where honoring yourself feels natural—only to recognize and remember. 

To be generous to yourself…
is  to trust that you are already worthy.

This blog naturally links in to 9 steps to inner peace. 

with warmth, Be


Using the potential of number 3 for harmony and expression

  • Using the potential of number 3 for harmony and expression

Using the potential of number 3 for expression and harmony

Not only does March carry the number 3, but yesterday we also had a full moon on the 3rd of March. Writing about the number 3 arose from an earlier title: From inner conflict to greater harmony. I am choosing to write this after leading an online meditation yesterday evening titled: I Am My Radiant Essence.

In that meditation, we gently released protective layers that had once served us well. As we grow, certain forms of control or protection naturally soften and make space for fuller expression. When we allow this softening, our potential expands and our essence expresses itself more freely.

After building heart capacity and compassion over at least three previous sessions with some of the same people in our online sangha, I trust that fertile ground was prepared for new heart-seeds to flourish into joyful expression.

When we were in Australia, we encountered Aboriginal art, rich with dots. Later in my life, I noticed white dots painted on the faces of women here in South Africa on certain occasions. When the Heartcoach Heart symbol was designed, there was clear guidance to include three dots and seven dots.

For me, the number 3 represents harmony and expression.

When two forces meet, there is energy. With awareness, that energy becomes creative movement. Inner conflict, when listened to, invites transformation. Sound that once feels scratchy and contracted can open into resonance and flow, becoming pleasant to the ear and easeful in the body.

Active and passive find balance through the neutral presence that allows movement again. This creates harmony without anyone feeling diminished. Both forces attune to one another.

In Buddhist terms, a wheel that turns with ease reflects Sukkha — liberated joy. A wheel that struggles invites attention and care. Dukkha describes that experience of friction, while Sukkha reflects the ease that comes with freedom. The number 3 supports this shift in perspective. Open awareness creates space for creative solutions — for win-win outcomes rooted in flexibility rather than rigidity.

Years ago, I attended a workshop with Genpo Roshi titled Big Heart, Big Mind. In the preface of his book, he writes:

“We would like to be able to communicate and empathize more fully in our relationships. We want our children and family and ourselves to reach our fullest potential, to be happier and more joyful in this life.”

He offers triads such as:

  • small self – non-dual – Big Mind
  • fear – no-fear – true self (beyond both)

In Buddhism, three is foundational for practice and philosophy. It represents the stability that supports awakening. Buddhists take refuge in:

  • The Buddha (the awakened teacher)
  • The Dharma (the teachings)
  • The Sangha (the community)

The Three Marks of Existence describe the core realizations about reality:
Anicca (impermanence), Dukkha (the human experience of suffering), and Anatta (non-self).

I connect with the number 3 in simple, living ways.

At night, my attention often rests on three stars above our house. For me, they represent a family that supports one another — three sisters.

In the morning, during my movement practice, I connect with sky, earth, and my own heart. In some cultures this triad is expressed as father, mother, and child.

I connect with the number 3 in the octave of consciousness — SA RE GA (my will), GA MA PA (thy will), PA DHA NI (that will).

I also see the pattern of three within the Enneagram. The triads 1-4-7, 3-6-9, and 2-5-8 move within a circle that represents wholeness. Harmonizing and attuning allows us to access our full potential with flexibility and fluidity.

For me, this movement toward harmony is what “growing up” means.

As Pema Chodron writes so beautifully:

“There’s a life-affirming teaching in Buddhism, which is that Buddha, which means ‘awake’, is not someone you worship. Buddha is not someone you aspire to. Buddha is not somebody that was born more than two thousand years ago and was smarter than you’ll ever be.
Buddha is our inherent nature — our buddha nature — and what that means is that if you’re going to grow up fully, the way that it happens is that you begin to connect with the intelligence that you already have.
It’s not like there’s some intelligence that’s going to be transplanted into you. If you’re going to be fully mature, you will no longer be imprisoned in the childhood feeling that you always need to protect yourself because things are too harsh.
If you’re going to be a grown up — which I would define as being completely at home in your world no matter how difficult the situation — it’s because you allow something that’s already in you to be nurtured. You allow it to grow, you call it forward, instead of keeping it buried.”

In alignment with these words:

May old protections gently fall away.
May the body soften and the mind quieten so that your essence shines more fully.
May order and harmony restore themselves — within and around.
May you feel composed in this new harmonic way, allowing your true radiant essence and potential to express themselves freely.

with warmth, Be

My Music choice that was part of this: All I am…If you look in my heart you will find that I am someone who loves you that’s all I am.  

Creative collage on pinterest: 

Companionship

  • Companionship

Companionship

Couple of years a local artist Katherine Bull guided me as my mentor to explore collage as a form of expression.

I return to it regularly as a wonderful medium that gives space for subconscious to express,  to process… 

This one has a word Companionship written under the pieces of images and cut out words. It shows a companionship with your own self in the mirror (good, bad, right wrong, loving or judgemental), the companionship with Earth and Sun, balance of left and right hemisphere, the acceptance that leads to Joy.

As a whole it is reminding us how our full presence is our gift. 

with warmth, Be

Riding the dragon in a wavy dress and power

  • Riding the dragon in a wavy dress and power

Riding the dragon in a wavy dress and power

Give her permission,

Have the power

In her wavy dress,

to hold the reins

Of a mighty dragon

Defying the wind

With a sword

Commanding with the heart made from fire.

 

Only when the dragon would lay down

On soft and nurturing soil

Under tree fern leaves reflecting little waterdrops,

She would lay down with him, calm,

Earth wind metal and fire

Finally at rest.

 

B.C.

Relaxing into wonder

  • Relaxing into wonder

Relaxing into wonder

The flickering sounds of the fire in stillness

burning away the willfulness

floating On the holy river  

like drop of water in the ocean

 

One falling into the One,

echoing the encounter,

Spreading stillness in the circles.

One falling into One.

 

The silence of potential,

What I feel

 is unclear,

can my experience turn into exponential?

feeling  Unity within

the connection becomes real.

 

I know I am here,

My body can dance out

This  mess

Unknown to my words to express.

 

The dissonance between things

sways with the lightness of being

what more am I seeing

further from limitation blinded before by believing.

 

On the bar codes of consciousness

Falling like drops from the sky

I surrender my resistance, my control, my illusions

 

Less judgement – more trust

With open arms embracing a stranger

To feel welcomed

Body reassured

Relaxing into wonder.

 

Loving with opened eyes

Laughing with opened chest

Embracing with joyful heart.

People

  • People

People who need people

This is an amazing performance of Barbra Streisand classic People. I have been doing a lot of observing and learning on the topic of Belonging and connection. One Wednesday as we were doing our usual group meditation and the feeling was connection and belonging was present, this  song “People” and the feeling of the community and being part of the greater whole came to awareness.

When i was looking through the lyrics of this song, I found these lines meaningful:

:We’re children, needing other childrenAnd yet letting a grown-up prideHide all the need insideActing more like children than children”

“No more hunger and thirstBut first be a person who needs people”

I guide in the 9 steps to inner peace my clients to first come in touch with their needs, stay in touch with their bodies, without separating their mind, body and soul and prioritize their needs. Yes, there is a mindfulness involved to discern between indulgence and taking proper care of your needs. Often I work with this topic with the Ennea1 and 2 energy. Both energies are inclined to have their own right way of idea of helping others and using mainly their energy to fix, help on the outside, to the other and have difficulty to connect with their own emotions, feelings and needs. Through re-establishing connection with the body, we are putting a new foundation to relationship with self and others.

Trust

  • Trust

Trustfall

by Pink

Last week we dedicated to explore the topic of emotions, feelings, interpretations and integrity with the AEIOU Breakhtrough women group.

Beyond all specific names a lot of our live is driven by fear and protection, some from love.

Fear and protection are emotions: doubt, anger, control, pride, envy.

Love is joy, peace, content, happy, wonder, bliss.

In this life it is part of us to feel fear. Sometimes it is there with a good reason and really save’s our life, sometimes it keeps us in the cage of familiar and away from freedom.

My aspiration would be to recognize the fear, so that I can make a conscious choice to live a soul aligned life. To recognize the saboteur that shows up in the name of fear and protection. So eloquent, so wise, so persuasive. In Buddhist term my aspiration would be to say “I see you Mara” and have the patience and self compassion to sit down with it with the intention of making a choice. And sometimes when we recognize that we have been holding on to something old because of a feeling of security,  the choice might be to let go of that, recognize the fear behind holding on, and taking a Trustfall.

From Pink’s Lyrics:

“Go where love is on our sideIt’s a trust fall, babyIt’s a trust fall, baby”

Self-compassion

  • Self-compassion

Self-compassion

gateway to authentic self

Last Friday, 17.2.2023, I had an opportunity to talk about Self compassion, emotional resilience and decision making in collaborations as part of the AEIOU breakthrough female leaders.

I have described self – compassion as a gateway to more authentic me. It is linked to our ability to hold ourselves when the feelings of pain, shame, guilt, self-judgement come up. It enables us to see more of who we are with self honesty.

 

According to the research that dr. Kirstin Neff did there are three components of self compassion:

–       Self kindness – connected to the deep feeling of Care, so we are able to hold ourselves in whatever feeling is coming up, recognizing harsh words and judgements toward self and asking ourselves Is this kind? Is this loving to myself? Would I actually say this to someone I love and care for?

–       Common humanity – realizing it’s not just you feeling i.e. envy and judging it. Being able to take an emotion that we label with judgement and take It

–       Opening up to broader perspective: What else could be the reason?, What else could this mean?

 

Tending from this energy to our own feelings, naming them, is process of holding ourselves with gentleness. This energy is gentle, tender.

However, as the title of a book Fierce self compassion indicates, there is another facet of self compassion. Fierce self compassion. This is linked to action and assertiveness. To step from the victim to taking charge. This energy is very close to anger. Kirstin Neff mentions constructive anger. To be able to handle that facet of compassion appropriately is still a process of learning and exploring for me. I have witnessed destructive anger inside and outside of myself and now learning more and more to use this energy from the place of a firm “no”, from the center of knowing myself and honoring what my emotions are saying and what my feelings are, what my values are and what is important for me.

 

In Radical acceptance book Tara Brach connects self-compassion and mindfulness that brings in clarity, both together she writes results into self-healing.

I find clarity a tricky one as we can get lost in our own stories, that are still trying to protect the wound in the best possible way. Sometimes talking with trained practitioner about the experience after we held ourselves and recognized the feelings, can bring us closer to the truth and clarity. So with applied self compassion and dialogue with other, the healing can take place. Healing, that brings us a bit closer to Freedom.

Here is my favorite part from Fierce self-compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive, by Kirstin Neff, PhD:

“When we embrace our pain with kindness, we feel loving,

when we remember our common humanity, we feel connected,

when we’re mindful of our pain, we are present. “

If our intention is to live this life with an open heart,  present with what is, then self compassion is an integral part of our journey.

 

Star – We are who we are

  • Star – We are who we are

Star

by Joss Stone

I am sharing this song on topic of non judgement and authenticity because of these lines in the lyrics:

“I wanna hear yaAnd keep my mind freeI’m not gonna judge yaI hope you don’t judge me”

 

***
“”It don’t matter what car yo driveOr whatever sound you likeIt don’t matter if you’re praying to GodOr trusting mother nature’s strifeWhat’s true to you and I maybeWon’t be right for another kind of lifeCan’t we agree to disagree and we can be happy”
 
and on topic of Courage to be yourself….
“Whoever you may beWhatever walk of lifeIt’s you who hold your lightIt’s up to you whether to hide itOr let it shine”

 

Base for collaboration

The poem is a combination of tapping into spirit of Ubuntu, the 9 perspectives of Enneagram and the Love for self. It is an invitation to inquiry of the expression of the Heart in a unique way of every being.

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