Just the other day I wrote about the loved and hated Selfie. All of a sudden it appeared to me that actually a few months had passed since I posted a selfie. Not that it was a regular habit. As I looked back on that time, I noticed the difficulties of those weeks and how they had weighted on me. I felt lost during that time of stress, enormous obligations and responsibilities, although I had it easy in many ways. But having to come to terms with so many challenges of my life all at once, was anything but simple. When I look at the few pictures from that time, I see it all over my face. It appeared bloated and swollen. The glow was the first thing to go and I looked dull, wrinkled, with the burden of the world on my shoulders. I didn’t like what I was seeing and the mirror was definitely not my friend. So what does that mean in terms of taking selfies? Is it indeed so that we only take them when we feel good about ourselves? When we feel sexy and our chances are higher that the world will love us back? Perhaps it plays a part in it and who wants to record a moment of misery and pain! It would probably take further analyzation and I didn’t care too much about anything at that time. All I wanted was to make it through and a selfie was the last thing on my mind. It became clear that I had lost much more than my desire for a selfie. I had become a serious person, functioning, performing, almost like on auto pilot. I forgot to have fun and without fun and enjoyment everything is nothing more that a task, something to get done. I was there to work, to get a job done. So yes, selfies can also be fun at times I suppose and some of the responses I have learned is that we take selfies to measure progress for ourselves. And with that and with whatever reason you have to take a selfie, don’t forget to have some fun with it. I am choosing to have some more fun after the first half of the year and beyond a surface level, perhaps a few selfies help restore and motivate.
It’s my birthday and the goal is to take the day off. Physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s hot in my neighborhood right now and some cool water will do the trick. So long friends…back tomorrow. 😉
Be gentle with that tender heart of yours. It may be holding a years worth of grief inside it. Be caring with all those parts of you that feel life’s tender moments, childhood pains and unmet emotions. Take yourself out into the gathering light and breathe a bright ember into the very centre of you, into your hearts red soft middle, holding yourself in love and warmth. Wake your heart slowly, allowing it all to be felt, allowing yourself to create space which to rest and to breathe. Let the coming light light up our bones and remind you of the gold that is held deep within you.
I have always been a person that required a certain amount of solitude. It took years before I recognized it and for a long time it remained as something I simply wasn’t aware of. Over the years I grew weary of the hectic and the noice to a point that I became sensitive to loud sounds. Over the years I have learned to be alone and become my own best company, which also makes me a bad friend at times, because time out with besties and soul sisters and brothers can’t always happen on any given day.
When life gets too busy or I don’t get enough time to myself, running too many errands and tasks, I crave this time out, this time alone. I need time to decompress, time away, time alone, in quiet. And yet I know that while I am here in Germany, and will have many opportunities to be alone, there will also be times I might feel lonely. I will miss loved ones and Cinnamon, and even that time, in my own pain, I will have to face alone. What a dilemma, a constant struggle for balance, for not too much but also not too little.
I know many struggle and are afraid of being alone. Learning to be your best company, to face yourself, and get along with yourself without judgement and ridicule is an art to be learned and not always easy. I see it with many complex layers that need to be peeled and addressed, and doing so takes courage and a strong heart. It’s often too painful to take an honest look and we might not be ready. Can we be objective, seeing the whole big picture, or are we blocking parts of us? Chances are that if you can’t be your own best company, if you have not made peace with yourself, you might not be good company for others, or them for you. You might carry too much baggage and weight. So what needs to give here…how will you overcome…
Sometimes we need a mantra, our own drumbeat, our own wisdom and knowledge to step forward. Sometime we need our own self-affirmations.
While I know that I still have some shadow work to do, that there are still a few inner children that need to be healed, I think it’s equally important to validate our process, to give ourselves a hand, to take a break and reassure ourselves with love. With unconditional love for ourselves. Listening to my heart, to hear it’s worries, to recognize it’s fears, I put my own affirmations together that are specific to me. You can do this for yourself as well. All you need to do is listen to your inner dialogue. What is on your mind. What worries you. Where do you see a lack. How can you combat those feelings with a mantra. Here is an example of what this might look like for you. Say it every day or whenever you feel you need to. Remind yourself of how special you are and watch the worries dissipate.
I am loved beyond measure.
I can’t do no wrong.
Everything is how it is meant to be.
Any unresolved matters are not due to my lack, my shortcomings, or because they are my fault.
I do not need to worry.
I have always done the best to my ability and I am letting go of the things that are beyond my control.
I am grateful for everything that is, for everything that was, and for everything that is yet to come.
Here we are and for the first this year we are cycling back to a topic that has become near and dear to me…shadow work. 2020 was filled with such work for me and engaging in it has taught me to not be afraid of it as there is really nothing to fear if our goal is to learn about ourselves and to be open and honest with ourself. An article @carolyngraceelliott.com claims that when we consciously integrate the darker side of our soul, we can also radically improve our manifestation result. Could this be a reason that motivates us to do the work?
I have spent quite some time last year focusing on my shadow self and if this article holds truth to it, I find myself even more excited about the possibility of shifting my circumstances to the way-better. I can recognize that they already have. And that all, without a single affirmation or a vision board, but because I have done the work. I’m intrigued to see how this might have influenced my “now”, let’s take a look closer.
1. Shadow work changes our fate. Until we make the unconscious, conscious, it will rule our life and we will call it fate said Carl Jung. In simple terms, your shadow is your unconscious. Your shadow is all the very taboo desires, emotions, and attitudes that you reject as being “so not you” and so you push them out of your normal awareness. Nothing ever changes and the same pattern repeat. So unless you want the same results over and over, you will have to do something different.
2. Shadow work leads you to see yourself as already fulfilled in a genuine, not fake way. There is no hiding and only a genuine picture can emerge. Not a wishful one or an incomplete one, perhaps not the one you would like to see, but it will be a genuine one. Let’s face it – if everything was perfect already, you wouldn’t be here, so expect to find something that might initially scares you.
3. Shadow work makes the nature of desire clear. It’s common in law of attraction circle for people to talk about the way that desires creates reality, but often it seems that we get the opposite of what we desire, doesn’t it? Desire does create reality, but your unconscious desires have much more creative power and electricity behind them than your often weak-sauce conscious desires.
4. Shadow work helps you to stop feeling “at the mercy of cruel fate.” Once you do this kind of shadow work for a long time and get very good at recognizing where your taboo unconscious desires are at work, you gradually start to see how just about every circumstance in your life that you “don’t like” is actually passionately loved by a previously unconscious part of you.
5. Shadow work perfects your bullshit detector. After you’ve spent a long time getting cozy with how much a shadowy part of you adores your own “negative” patterns and situations, it’s a lot harder for you to get pulled into the “poor me” stories that folks use to manipulate. That doesn’t mean you’ll stop being generous and helpful. It doesn’t mean that you will lose your compassion, it just means you’ll have a clearer insight into the shadow desire dynamics of everyone around you. You will be better able to help people to get in touch with their strength rather than enabling their weakness.
6. Shadow work gives you access to power you didn’t;t know you had. Think about all the energy you currently pour into resisting and feeling sorry for yourself about certain situations in your life. What if that energy was liberated and directed towards creating beauty?
7. Shadow work liberates your sexual energy. All magic is sex magic. Even if your act of manifestation doesn’t involve physical sex, it still involves the electric energy of life energy. When you get into shadow work, you start to realize that it’s possible not only to celebrate and approve of your previously unconscious, previously shamed taboo desires. And when you do this, your sexual energy, and therefore your energy for magical manifestation goes through the roof.
8. Shadow work alchemists fear. Everything you think you’re afraid of – the scariest things in life – including death – I promise you, some hidden part of yours being desires those scary things, just because those scary things are part of the range of experience and our human souls happen to be curious about all experiences, not just the safe and wholesome ones. When you realize this, gradually you’re no longer able to be as afraid as you used to be. You realize that even the worst things that could happen to you would actually be fulfilling to some part of your shadow.
9. Shadow work increases your ability to receive. Think about this: every “good” thing in life has a downside to it. A new career with lots of money, a wonderful new partner – can expose you to envy and additional responsibilities and commitments.
10. Shadow work removes your denial. You will have to face up to the reality of it. It’s a common human game. This means: you can face and handle the reality of life. And ultimately, thats what all magic and manifestation is: intimacy with reality.
From time to time I share not only my own musings but also things I come across that speak to my heart and touch my soul. These things are often connected to timing and to a passage of my journey. This is one such thing and I think it is beautiful.
When a woman has her self you can enter or leave her life, you can flatter or judge her and she, she will receive or say goodbye to you kindly, and she will thank you and understand your shadows because she already knows hers.
You probably won’t tolerate it and at the same time you want to own it and you will end up walking away from her if you don’t have the courage to respect her.
When a woman has herself the universe dances at her feet, and SHE rises.
She becomes compassionate.
She chooses.
She is aware.
She gives and receives love.
It is easy to recognize it. The woman who has herself she smiles in the sun as in the storm. She celebrates life and understands death. She lives and dances the processes. She doesn’t have a hue, she’s a rainbow.
“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.” ~Anne Frank
September is always a tough month for me. It never used to be this way but it has been for the past two years. While it marks a time for Indian Summer, the last warm days of the year, it also marks a time of the darkness increasing over the light, the days becoming short, and life giving way to dormancy and a colder way of being. It marks a time of death, of falling leaves, leaving behind skeletons wrapped in bark. It’s a time of going inward, a time for regeneration, a time for rest, of gathering strengths for all the new that lies ahead.
For me it is also a time of remembering you, remembering just a little more than usual. Fact is that I remember you all the time and there is not a single day when you are not with me. You know my heart and how I feel and I think you came to comfort me the other night. The electronic typewriter kept flashing and blinking it’s lights while being stored away in it’s cubby and without anyone visible to touch it. Where you typing me a note Mom, was this your way of telling me that you’re here with me, that you are ok? It doesn’t take your death anniversary to celebrate your life and it’s hard to believe that it’s been two years that you have left this world. It’s been nearly the time I last stood at your grave before returning back to America. Despite the physical distance, my heart couldn’t have been any closer during the last two years. Today on the anniversary of your death I could write about all things that I miss about you, how much my life has changed since you’ve been gone, and how difficult the grieving process has been. I could write another tribute to you as I search my mind for words and things that haven’t been said yet. But it feels like a broken record, something I have said many times before and today I remember you a little different.
“We talk about them because we’re proud. We talk about them, because they deserve to be remembered. We talk about them, because even though they are not physically with us, they are never far from our mind. We talk about them, because they are part of us, a part that we could never ignore or disown. We talk about them because we love them still and always will. Forever. Nothing will ever change that. ~Scribbles & Crumbs
If you still have your Mom and parents around, consider yourself lucky. If you have a great relationship with your Mom, consider yourself even luckier. Chances are we all remember a thing or two our mother’s did that made us feel cared for in a way only a mother can make you feel. They say that the love of a Mother is unmatched, a one of a kind that goes to the end of this world and can’t be found anywhere else. Here are 10 ways and things you can do to gift yourself the care and comfort you might have known from your Mother, meeting yourself with the highest understanding, love and compassion.
1. Validate your feelings and emotions.
2. Pay attention to your needs and honor them.
3. Give yourself permission to be imperfect.
4. Offer yourself support and care during pain.
5. Notice all you’re already doing so, so well.
6. Delight in small moments of joy with yourself.
7. Be tender with your own heart.
8. Allow yourself to set and maintain Boundaries .
9. Affirm your own existence as a human being.
10. Remind yourself of your worth, over and over.
And in the end nothing can match YOU or replace any moment spent together. I love you and miss you. Still, always and until we meet again.
Today we are talking about a powerful mantra as we shift our focus to positivity, the light and to self love. Today we take a moment to pause and give ourselves credit. Today we are divine love and are consciously reminding ourselves. Today we remember all the hard work.
Aham prema is a mantra that is typically translated as “I am divine love.” It comes from the Sanskrit “aham” meaning “I” and prema, meaning “love” or “affection.” Mantras are repeated silently or aloud for their powerful sound vibrations, which are thought to affect prana (life force energy) in the body.
Rhapsody Bohème 