Friday, July 29, 2011

Where Is My Mind

Where is my mind? It’s not here at work where it’s supposed to be. It’s off chasing rainbows, dreams of a life that, to me, seems a million miles away.

I have been fortunate enough to have participated in two fantastically amazing online soul-restoration workshops, thanks to the wonderful Brave Girls Club. For me it was all about reconnecting with me, the ‘me’ that I lost many, many, years ago. What I discovered was how much I love taking care of my family, my wonderful husband and my beautiful and talented daughter. It’s funny you know, for years I had fought against exactly that, but now I realize how much I miss it

So what am I dreaming about, I dream of one day giving up working in an office, staying home taking care of my family and my home, creating and selling art and helping to bring joy to others. But here in New Zealand, unless you’re one of the fortunate ones, that isn’t a possibility. The question that rises in my mind now is “should we be looking at moving to another country?”

Another dream I have is about food – I love food, I love to eat, I love to taste the flavors and feel the textures on my tongue. There is only one problem; I hate what it has done to my body, the end result of my love affair with food. If only I had more time to be able to work out how I can have the best of both worlds – the food I love and a body to be proud of. Don’t get me wrong, don’t judge what I am saying, I am not interested in having an Elle McPherson body, I just want one that is healthy, fit, strong and supple. Skinny is for all those poor models who, in my eyes, need to have a really good feed.

Two great friends have both said the following to me; “if you were in tune with the costs, you would change in a heart beat”. Why am I not in tune! Why do I continue to come up with excuse after excuse as to why I don’t change what is not good for me, I have the power to do that, and only I can do that for myself – why am I fighting what I really want!? Do I not love myself enough to allow myself to be happy!? Why do I continue to give the power over to other people and to the excuses? All I can hear is my mothers voice telling me that I live in la-la land, that my dreams are not real and never will be real, it’s all just a fantasy that I have made up in my head, that the reality of it all is that I have to keep doing what I am doing because that’s all that’s available to me.

Am I practicing what I learnt, no! Am I listening to my truth teller, no! Am I being true to myself, NO!!! Maybe I should re-visit those classes, it is obvious to me that I have let moon people back into my soul house and they are having a wild party in there, destroying all that I have built/repaired, while I sit there watching, wrapped up in the straight jacket that I have put on myself.

Ok so here is my message to myself, received from the Brave Girls Clubs' “a little birdie told me…


Dear Lovely Girl,

It is so important to listen to the right voices. Many times, we must tune out almost every voice around us to be able to focus on what is true for our own lives.

Please don't give any heed at all to the useless opinions of others, beautiful friend. Act for yourself. Face your own truths...then act on your own truths.

Turn off the confusing lies, tune them out...plug your ears when there are annoying, loud, negative voices that have no business giving you opinions about your own life.

You know SO much more than you think you know. Your inner compass will guide you. Those feelings in your gut are your deepest wisdom. Be brave and tune out all of the voices, except the voices that are speaking your truth.

You are courageous and amazing....and oh so loved.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

I have a choice and that choice is mine

When I think of choices I think of a journey along a path, with multiple paths all connecting into it, many going forward, many turning back on to itself, some lead to nice places and some lead to some not so nice places.

I know that my choices have lead me to where I am today and that my choices continue to guide me and be my navigation to where I travel but I think that a long time ago I put myself on autopilot and ignored where that path took me. When I finally opened my eyes and went back to the helm I was confused as to how I got to where I was and I tried to find the answer from outward sources but I now know, deep in my soul, that I am where I am because I chose it.

I also had never really thought about how my choices made me feel. I always seem to blame everything and everyone else for my lot in life. Now I understand that my choices determine my feelings, and not some outside thing or person. I now know that everyday I have a choice when I get out of bed to either smile or frown, no one, or thing, makes that decision for me.

I actually don’t like having this knowledge, knowing that I am responsible for where I end up. I have spent so many years blaming my upbringing for where I am and how I feel about myself, that now knowing in actual fact I am responsible for it all means if I want my life to be different, better, I have to do things differently. I have to make better choices, new choices, hard choices, and that makes me experience one of my biggest fears – the fear of failure. Failure to me equals being seen as a bad person, an unlovable person, someone no one will like. Failure equals being stuck and never amounting to anything and never getting out of the rut that I perceive my life to be stuck in.

A belief in myself and my ability to succeed, determination, a positive attitude, and proper planning, with the support from those around me keeps me on my true path; it helps me to go forward. But not believing in myself when things have got tougher, being around negative people who tell me I’ve set my goals/sights too high, pulls me off my path and the more I focus on these things, the more I stray from where I want to go, where I want to be.

The biggest surprise for me has been that all this time I thought I had been taking responsibility for myself but in reality I really wasn’t, when I look at my destructive patterns I can see how much I have continued to automatically blame outside influences for where I am and why I do things.

Knowledge is power and I am excited that now I have identified how I have been sabotaging myself, I can start taking steps to get back on my true path. I must admit though, I am hugely fearful that I will make these plans and goals and promises but I will continue to let myself down and stop experiencing life and continue to self destruct.

I know now that if I want to end up where I want to be each day, I have to plan things out, I have to have a ‘fall-back’ plan for when things show up outside of that plan that could potentially pull me off my path. I need to surround myself with positive people, and may be even learn positive meditation techniques where I say positive affirmations about myself to myself. I need to stop listening to my moon people and I need to talk to my truthteller and listen to my truthteller, I need to make time in my day to do yoga and practice meditation and I really need to stop putting myself onto autopilot.

I don’t have to live like this any more, I can change how my life is by changing my patterns, and that’s ok to do. My patterns are only patterns, they are not solid matter, and I can change them and make new patterns, positive ones that will benefit my life, not hinder it or stop me. I can do this, even if things get hard I can do it anyway, the choice is mine, I deserve this, and this is what I want for myself.

DO IT ANYWAY!