The guide to be faithful to yourself

  • The guide to be faithful to yourself

The guide to be faithful to yourself

  • Call yourself back. All the parts that wondered off by curiosity, excitement, fear, obligation and judgements.
  • Open up the curtain that you have hidden yourself so long that you have forgotten that you have been hiding behind the curtain.
  • Have the patience to go slow on your evolution spiral, so you go consistently without needing to start again.
  • Don’t panic and just run somewhere. Calm down, come back, see where you want to go.
  • If the unpleasant is not too much, walk through it to discover more or compassionately move back and forth.
  • Strengthen your inner voice so it’s loud enough for you to find your way back to your Self.
  • Sing your name with gentleness of one note until you wake up back in sobriety of who you are.
  • Trust in your resources.
  • Ask for help and share your vulnerability to those you trust.
  • Trust you have enough energy to get home or clear up the mess you created in excitement of creation.

 

BC

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.

Realizations

  • Realizations

Realizations

As a gift to myself to my upcoming birthday I have asked my friend Claire who runs a writing temple,  a kahuna therapist and lover of poetry to guide me through some inspiration for new writing.

We went to a beautiful garden (the photo above Claire took) and this is the writing from this day:

 

 

REALIZATIONS…

 

The family came picking up chestnuts and the girl picked one up and said: look what I have found! The chestnut opened and there was both a spiky shell and the fruit inside.

 

One tree leaning towards other, the other ones branches reaching to the one next, yet it is very clear they are two of them, shaping the window of possibility and openness.

 

The bridge, soft and rounded fence,

Gently resting in front.

Thank you for the warning, it may come handy some day, but today is not the day.

 

That day came when she realized she was lit,

That with being lit, she is living her purpose.

Together with the flame, the candle gave light where they were placed.

The flame needed the candle to rest there burning, the candle needed the flame to give light.

 

(B.C. 04.09.2024)

 

Get familiar with your saboteurs – improve wellbeing and relationships

  • Get familiar with your saboteurs – improve wellbeing and relationships

Get familiar with your saboteurs -

improve wellbeing and relationships

In the program 9 steps for inner peace the second triad in the model is named Allowing your wants. 

In allowing your wants we are looking into liberating yourself, which literally means how to get out of the prison of “shoulds”, guilt and shame.

These ideas and emotional blocks often prevent the clarity around what are actually our true heart desires. They are the protectors of fears, that we have developed sometime along our path in the life.  They are the “I can’t”, “What will people think” sort of thoughts. They are the addictions, jealousy, bitterness, underlying issues of “ I don’t deserve to be happy”, “ not enough” syndrome kind of sources of behavior.

Part of this path of liberation is to get familiar with your saboteurs and develop more sage power. This concept of saboteur and sage was developed by Shirzad Chamine

Positive intelligence. He has identified one master saboteur and named it The judge.

When you work through The judge and various variations of it towards self, others and situations, it is helpful to identify the energy of this judge, the look and how it steals your perspective from your higher wisdom.

Besides Shirzad concept, there is also another aspect of saboteur, that holds a different energy that is also useful to get familiar with. The name of this one is The Brat. (Dora and Angelo Frasco, Healing course). You recognize the brat by quite immature, childish, sulking, walking away, avoiding, “not dealing with the issue in a mature way” kind of energy.

Both the judge and the brat would paint out an image of reality that seems so believable, but there is underlying fear and the choice you would be making for your behavior and decisions would be based on fear.

In a book Breaking free Overcoming Self sabotage (Linda Ellis Eastman and contributing authors) the following chapters give a great insight into what are we working through when we decide to develop more sage capacity in ourself and move more into our original essence. The chapters are:  How to built healthy self esteem&stand up to your internal saboteur; Negative self-talk; Stop with the cruel words; Sabotage: the consequence of fear;  De-clutter your mind; I am enough; learning to love yourself.

How do we work with these aspects of ourselves that are kind of protecting us, and yet it is not a protection that would serve our highest. Every time you manage to catch the saboteur, it is like overcoming a threshold  guardian in a video game, which if you do manage to catch it and act from your wisdom, it is your entrance to level 2, to celebration, to more alignment.

Here are 7 tips that support you  to break free from your self-sabotage :

  • Keeping yourself in contact with your body and presence in now with mindfulness breaks – setting a healthy clean body and clarity of mind
  • Getting familiar with your judge and brat – energy and appearance
  • Celebrating little steps of changing your course of thoughts
  • Practicing lovingkidness and self compassion and compassion for others
  • Intentionally reestablishing connection with your essence and self-worth
  • Allowing time to sit with yourself and inquiry without being scattered and restless
  • Having courage to articulate your decisions with kindness to others

Noticing your attitude when meditating: combining discipline and enjoyment

  • Noticing your attitude when meditating: combining discipline and enjoyment

Noticing your attitude when meditating: combining discipline and enjoyment

It has been a fun month. Some challenges in between and lots to be grateful for. Above all I was resting more, sleeping longer, allowing more space. Summer in Europe, winter in South Africa.

I was exploring how can I be devoted to the journey of chosen self-development with finding my own way of keeping the promises to myself and not being rigid about it, or forceful.

I know that daily meditation practice is part of my daily hygiene to collect myself, ground, center in my heart, remind myself on the intention. And that knowing has just naturally became part of me. However,  at one point though I observed that it has moved from the energy of Love to energy of Duty, which brought in somewhat mechanic feeling.

With that I gave myself permission to let go a bit, what happens if I allow myself to sleep a little longer, when would I actually feel from inside to sit down for my practice?

I think I just really needed the rest and some relaxation. In this month I posed a question what is a way that there is some discipline and also enjoyment?

The result was a feeling of deeper settling in my heart, a certain relaxed open spaciousness in my heart space and breath. It felt good and nourishing.

I am curious now to explore further with autumn routines and kids starting school again, where is this practice going to find its place again somewhat organically, aligned with my overall intention of gentle, appropriate, to my Highest. With sobriety, openness and curiosity I will explore the unknown, follow the true heart feeling and observe.

Coming home

  • Coming home

Practicing coming home to myself

Last month I was listening to Lama Rod online as part of the mindfulness meditation teacher training.  Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist, and authorized Lama (Buddhist teacher) in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.  I recommend his book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger and a coauthor of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation.

Since listening that online presentation and reading his book I am consciously including the 5/7 homecomings he writes about in my practice.

  • silence
  • community i am part of
  • sacred earth
  • ourselves (all our energetic bodies, gratitude)
  • ancestry

    The journey of the soul

    • The journey of the soul

    When the calling comes

    This month I got inspired to return back to my art creations under mentorship  of Katherine Bull. (http://www.katherinebull.co.za/about/).

    It took me couple of months to follow through my intention. I gathered some of collage material in July. This collage  on right was on the art session also supported with connecting to a specific energy of a crystal and my initial material was complemented by blind choosing from Katherine’s materials and I have added in some color with ink.

    Now I am so happy I created space and time to do it.  This is one way of cultivating happiness. Listening to your soul calling you to create something, move, listen…

    What is your soul’s calling?

    green amethyst connection collage

    I am connected

    • I am connected

    "My roots reach deeply, I am connected to the core of me"

    On the morning of my morning walk in the forest today

    My mantra today was

    “My roots reach deeply

    I am connected to the core of me”

    This is part of the lyrics of the “I am connected” by Beautiful Chorus

    For me in singing those lines

    feeling the connection between the nature and myself

    I enter the feeling that enables all other feelings to be

    And still be still like a mountain a tree with all that.

    Feeling of Belonging

    • Feeling of Belonging

    Feeling of belonging and connection

    Feeling of longing familiar to many people. I am no exception. Often this longing also includes a further illusion, fantasy that is a coping strategy to escape even more out of the present and body to the mind. Instead of getting more in touch with the uncomfortable, you go away in something that creates a further longing, desire. Have you ever thought how close are words Longing and Be(longing)? The journey to add Be to Longing is what Michael Singer in his podcast from Fighting to Harmony describes when we stop fighting with “No, I don’t want this, I want that. “ In Enneagram1 word and embodiment practices this means learning more about Willfulness, Will and Willingness. How do we do that? By practicing mindfulness, sitting, establishing true intimacy with self.

     

    A true feeling of Belonging is possible only when we are connected with our bodies. That is the core message of Sebene Selassie in her book You Belong (2020)  Chapter 3 is a great read on how to Ground yourself in your body.

    In the 9 steps to inner peace coaching program we usually start with establish ing a good connection with body. We use the body guidebook that I have gathered from my studies with Hippocrates institute, Mindfulness meditation teacher course, Breath coaching course. The guidebook includes essential topics for  a solid, grounded body. Session 1 of the guidebook is all about body connection.

    I want to share here couple of lines that Sebene writes on belonging (Selassie, 2020, p. 74)

    1. Belonging is: we belong simply because we are alive
    2. Belonging is in the present moment- if you choose to open to it. *My comment: this is such an important point. It reminds us that the feeling can dissipate if we don’t cultivate presence and high frequency in our body. It explains to be why sometimes I totally feel connected to people I meet and some other time I feel like looking for reasons for separation from other people. At the end this is an outer representation of my own quality of being. And as life goes, it is inevitable that we go through challenges and if in those times we do not know how to respond in a skillful way, with compassion we can notice that we are closing off, we don’t want some feelings to be part of us and it’s even hard to recognize them, let alone welcome them and say You belong. You too, are my beloved.
    3. Belonging is revealed through awareness: when we cultivate the capacity to know what is happening in any moment, the we can connect to belonging
    4. Belonging is embodied: We can only experience belonging in these bodies.