Three Steps

Three Steps

Am I magnificent
or just massive?
My private core is pushed to the surface.
Exposed,
I lead the way with my vulnerability.
With a groan, I heave myself from place to place,
Inelegantly shuffling my swollen feet in plain boots.

Gone are my tight red boots
with their lovely toes and seductive heels.

The lilt and lightness in my stride has faded in the wake of my round belly.
The lovely slope from rib to navel to succulent hip is a distant fond memory.
The flexible hips and glorious back that could move a thousand ways to meet my lover are restricted to a pathetic jumble of awkward poses.

My swollen clumsiness has erased the faded memory of my feline grace.

How is it possible for you to see my beauty when I am blind to it?
My eyes tightly closed I fail to see
the full & luscious curve of my breast.
The round arch of my belly
flaunts my creative sexual power.

I house a miracle within my flesh,

Pure loving energy

Transmuted into tiny hands and feet.
Powerful explosive orgasmic force
effortlessly held within me.
Unabashed evidence of my sexuality
leads the way through the door.

Eyes filled with wonder follow me.
I catch a glimpse of a beautiful woman
on the street.
It takes three steps
for me
to see
that she is me.

Intentional Writing

Affirmations are a wonderful tool to change your conscious mental habits. Often our mental chatter is pretty negative, but with consistent practice of positive, loving thoughts we can change everything about our lives. We naturally filter all of our experiences through our world view. If we are pessimists, then every experience is a royal drag; if we are optimists, we can only see opportunities in our challenges. Since different parts of our brains are involved when we write compared to when we speak, writing out your affirmations can help increase the impact they have in your life.

Louise Hay has a fantastic book filled with affirmations for just about every condition or situation. She mentioned that she changed her handwriting based on the work of Vimala Rodgers. Vimala has created an intentional handwriting system and explains that each letter has a unique meaning. She suggests that by changing your writing style you can change patterns in your life.

It is an intriguing idea. I like the idea of writing carefully in a beautiful style. I’m not sure if changing your writing to match Vimala’s is as important as being intentional with your script. I resist her suggested style mainly because I have developed my own calligraphic style that I have such fun writing.

I love calligraphy and I spend far too much time playing around with font choices when I’m starting a new creative project. I often write my affirmations and intentions in calligraphy and I have found that my wishes can manifest very quickly for me when I do. I write with a pen so rarely these days that it is a fun adventure to write with both creativity and intention.

What a neat thought, though, to change our everyday writing from a bunch of scribbles to something beautiful. Perhaps that is a metaphor for the change in our thoughts; as our writing becomes more beautiful our thoughts do too.

Free your spirit

Image by petrichor via Flickr

Unforgiveness is the sticky bond that ties us to painful memories. Energetically, whatever we focus on, good or bad, gets a dose of our energy. The more hate and anger we harbour puts more fuel into the energy ties that keep the person in our experience. Forgiveness is the ultimate act of freedom for your soul.

We often confuse forgiveness with saying “It’s Okay”; somehow excusing the person or letting them off the hook. This is a mistake. When we  are harmed by another, intentional or not, it does not serve us or them by just forgetting the incident happened. What do we learn from the experience if we just cover it up? But equally, we cannot make the other person ‘pay’ for their transgression if we hold hatred and anger in our hearts. It only poisons us.

If you acknowledge forgiveness as a feeling of freedom and releasement, then you can easily experience the power of forgiveness to transform your life. Try these steps to find your freedom:

1. Write a list of people you need to forgive. Make sure to include yourself on the list.
2. Pick one person on the list to forgive. Since forgiveness is an internal shift in your feelings, you do not need the other person to participate in the process. In fact I would advise against it in most cases, because ultimately it does not matter what they say or do, it only matters how you feel.
3. Repeat the affirmation “I am willing to forgive _____” several times. Notice how you feel. Pay attention to any tightness or clenching in your body. Tightness in your muscles indicates resistance.
4. If you feel anger and contraction, or any sense of resistance at this point, you can back up a step and say the affirmation “I am willing to think about forgiving ______”.
5. If you still feel contracted or angry then visualize yelling at the person. Tell them exactly how you feel; do not go into repeating the events, stay focused on the feeling. Let it all out. The time for holding it all in is over. Do this for 10 minutes.
6. Go back to the affirmation “I am willing to think about forgiving ______”. Stay at this step until the sentence feels too long and bulky. Test out dropping the words ‘think about’. Notice what happens to your body. Use the feelings of relaxation as your guide to the next step.
7. Move on the affirmation “I am willing to forgive _____”. Again, pay attention to your muscle tension. Where are your shoulders? Are you clenching your hands? Is your jaw relaxed. Stay here for as long as you need to. Experiment with dropping the words “willing to”.
8. The last affirmation is “I forgive ______”. At this point the feelings of release and freedom will flow naturally.
9. Repeat. Go through everyone on your list and forgive them in the same way. Be sure to forgive yourself as well. Naturally, there will be some people who keep winding up on the list over and over, particularly if they are still in your life. That is perfectly ok. It is ok to be angry. It just doesn’t do us much good to hang on to it. The process gets easier and easier the more you practice it.

Test it out in your life. Observe your relationships shift on their own accord without any effort on your part. What else might shift in your life, now that you are free?

Party Time

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There is something magical about having friends over for dinner. Sharing food, stories and laughs. It lights up the whole house for days afterwards. Friendship is not just a nice to have thing, it is a key ingredient in our health and longevity.

We are social creatures and we need strong, healthy connections to other people. A fascinating site, realage.com, has a test that rates your biological age; it takes into account your health history, emotional well-being, diet and fitness. Having healthy relationships make you younger. Think about that. Having a good friend is as important as eating your vegetables.

This is some thing you can feel after a great chat with a friend. You are uplifted. Burdens are lighter. Friends help you see your life from a different angle and often provide great insight.

So live a nice long life, and call a friend. 

Discovering the size of your spirit

How much joy do you let in? Do you stop the flow of goodness before it starts. When things start to get really good for you do you find a way to stomp the happiness out of it? We are trained to believe that we are these small, helpless beings tossed around in this sea of chaos called life. We accept that we can’t change anything and that we should just keep our heads down to avoid the rubber bullets that get aimed at dissenters. But that is just plain nonsense.

We are these huge, magnificent beings that get the brief pleasure of walking around in these physical bodies. Our directed thought toward what we want is all that is needed to begin to change matter itself. Through the power of pure feeling, we can manifest our greatest joy or our greatest sorrow. Everything in your life can turn around in an instant the second you think a different thought. So what kind of life do you want to have?

In the centre of your heart is a source of power so tremendous it can bring you all of the solutions you are looking for. The odd thing is that our ego guards this light so fiercely it can convince you it isn’t there. The ego is a swirl of illusions and separation, it keeps a petty little record of all of the times you have ever been hurt, humiliated or harmed. The ego brings all these things up when you get close to your inner source of enlightenment. It is sort of like an advanced burglar alarm gone haywire; the ego has forgotten that you live here.

So there is a shell of pain and suffering that surrounds your inner light. This is why meditation can be so difficult at times, to get to our core we have to wade through the muck of emotions that we haven’t yet finished with. As we let these old emotions go, one by one, we get closer and closer to our own Source energy. If you are feeling sadness, stay with the sadness; don’t distract yourself from the feeling. Just dive into it. What you find is that the more you focus on the emotional state you are in right now, the faster it shifts. It pops like a bubble.

What you are left with is a view of your infinite well of energy, right in the core of your heart. All you have to do to reach enlightenment is let go of everything that weighs you down and believe you can.

I have had little brief glimmers of this state that keep me going back for more. I find the true challenge is to hold that expansive feeling in your mind at the same time as you are able to focus on the details of living. After all somebody still has to pay the bills and feed the cat. I think that is why most of the enlightened sages in the world had a team of people, followers, around them that took care of their day to day needs. The most advanced spiritual training is not to escape to a distant monastery to find enlightenment, but to find it where you are, in the middle of a busy city, living a busy life.

The best medicine

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Ever laugh so hard you snort? I was rewatching “My Name is Earl” on Netflix tonight and I snorted with laughter, and not just once either. What a great feeling, laughing with total abandon, without trying to make it pretty. Our society has an odd relationship with laughter. There is a right volume, right pitch, right duration and right timing. Defy any one of these rules of merriment and you face odd looks or even ridicule. So many rules just to have fun. No wonder adults don’t laugh as much as kids. Indeed to grow up is all too often linked with getting serious and stopping all the laughing.

So silly really. Laughter releases wave after wave of endorphins, the body’s own opium, and in turn boosts the immune system. That endorphin hit is probably the reason behind getting a fit of the giggles. We all have felt the tension releasing lightness following a good laugh. Our interaction with each other is smoother after we share a communal laugh. Laughter is the lubricant.

My hope is that one day everyone feels free to laugh as long and as hard as they like. Without being shushed or admonished. A few months ago I went to the Garden Variety Show in Calgary. There was a lady in the audience who had a delightful snorty kind of laugh. Her laugh was natural and sincere. She bravely made no effort to cover up her unusual laugh. On a subtle level she gave us all permission to laugh as we liked, natural and unguarded. It made the fantastic show all the more enjoyable. It was probably the best comedy I have seen live in my life. But maybe it wasn’t the jokes that made it so good, maybe it was just the permission to laugh with abandon.

When we have the courage to be ourselves, we give everyone around us permission to do the same. So practice your snorty laugh and make it a habit.

Why Feet?

I’m a big fan of feet. As a reflexologist, maybe that is not so surprising. I really fell in love with reflexology the first time I went to get a treatment. My reflexologist was a brilliant woman, and was the most spiritually connected person I have ever met. The first session she looked at me and said “ah, another reflexologist!”. I quickly said, “No, no, that isn’t me. I’m not sure what I want, but I doubt I’m good for anything other than getting treatments.” Funny how things happen.

So this wise woman went on to teach me about the reflexes and the connection of our health to our emotions during each session I had with her. It was a wonderful immersive experience, to learn spontaneously in a very relaxed way. I went on, many years later to complete my training and get certified, but I still consider her to be my first teacher.

What really sold me on reflexology, though, was my own experience. From the first session, Denise kept asking if I ever hurt my back or hip. I kept saying “No, no never”. That is until just before my fourth session. Many months before, I had slipped on some black ice on the sidewalk. I had bags of groceries in my hands so I just crashed down on my hip. It was one of those falls where it took a long time to get up, and I was so sore I could barely walk for three weeks. I had completely forgotten it.

The realization that I had completely forgotten such a painful event made me understand just how powerful our brains are, and it drove home the need to ask clients questions and know that they most likely will not remember all of their history. Often it is the health problems that are forgotten that hold the key to unlocking the health of the body.

The next session arrived and I relayed my recovered memory with my reflexologist while she worked on my foot. She asked me questions about it and explained that all too often we don’t heal fully, we just cope. Coping is not the same as healing. At the end of the session, I reached into my purse, and that tiny twist caused something in my lower back to release with a loud pop. I discovered later that I had likely locked my L5 and my sacrum when I fell about four months earlier, and that after my reflexology treatment I finally had movement in my lower back. It felt amazing.

Up to that point, I had coped so well I didn’t even know I had injured myself and I felt no pain. After a few rounds of reflexology, I had health. But what is more I had a profound example of how this therapy works. Reflexology is holistic and shifts energy in our body as quickly as we allow it to shift. The session is just the tip of the iceberg, the truly profound changes happen when we go home and make many thousands of choices just a tiny bit differently. Those subtle shifts add up to profound, long lasting changes in our bodies. It is a beautiful process to watch, and to experience.

The power of clutter clearing

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I just finished de-cluttering my bedroom closet. It is just one of those to-do list type things that stick around in the back of your mind for far too long. As Denise Linn says “Clutter clearing is modern day alchemy”. I must say that I whole heartedly agree. Nothing moves energy faster than clearing space for it to move in your home. I alway notice a wonderful shift in the energy, not just in the room, but also in me.

I like to approach clutter clearing with the attitude of an archeologist, or maybe a psychologist. If you view everything in your environment as a symbol and the location and placement of objects as intentional (maybe on a  very subtle level), then you get a wonderful glimpse into your mind-set when you put all that junk there in the first place. This elevates clutter clearing to something deeply spiritual. It is delving into the corners of your mind and clearing out the cobwebs.

There are many forms of clutter that can clog up our space. Karen Kingston has a fantastic book “Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui” that goes through the types of clutter we could have and many helpful tips on how to get rid of it. Denise Linn also has several great books on the subject and puts it in a straight forward way “If you don’t use it or love it, it is clutter.”

So give it a try. Test out this experiment. Clear the clutter from one area of your home (it could be as big as a room or small as a drawer) and observe how your energy shifts. Pick an area connected to an issue you are dealing with right now. For example, if you have trouble with your finances, clear out your purse; if you have trouble in relationships, clear out your keepsakes from old flames; if you have trouble in your work, clear out your desk.

And if you are really finding yourself stuck, call on one of the many wonderful professional organizers out there. I’m not biased or anything but my sister just happens to be the BEST!

Gratitude in Latitude

Image by ifijay via Flickr

Gratitude is pure alchemy of spirit. Nothing will move your life faster forward than a healthy dose of gratitude. There is a shift in thinking that creates an immediate change in your body chemistry. It interrupts mind chatter and cortisol just as effectively. If you are having trouble finding anything to be thankful for after watching the evening news, then just latch your juicy brain on these hooks. Hitch a ride on these everyday grateful things and add your own in the comments.

The curve of a petal in a bouquet of fresh flowers.

The profile of a little child’s face, tiny nose, tiny chin.

Crimson, golden, green leaves dancing in the sun.

Sunshine so bright all you can do is close your eyes and smile.

The crinch, crack, crunch of freshly fallen leaves.

The smells of trees.

Holding the hand of the one you love.

Hugs.

The clean, warm, calm of a roof over your head.

The sound of a kettle boiling.

Cinnamon.

The royal luxury of a hot, indoor bath.

The abundance of breakfast options.

The wealth of friends.

The releasing tug of a nice stretch.

The warm flow of love.

The first cosy second in a fresh bed.

A long drink of water on a thirsty day.

Smiling eyes.

Smoothing your hand over a new page in your journal.

Reading the last page of a book, just one second before you close the cover.

Snuggling in for a good movie with homemade popcorn.

Being able to have a conversation with the phrase ” The beautiful thing about our relationship is…”.

The quiet, settled, peace of a house asleep.

Crisp morning air, filled with pinks and purples.

Pulling on a nice jacket.

The intimacy of sharing something embarrassing about yourself.

An unsolicited neck rub from lovely hands.

Hearing “Please” and “Thank you”.

Cookies.

Dancing in your living room.

…

Good morning

Leaves softly rustle outside my window.
Soft light, soft breeze
Invite me to wake.
Distant rush of traffic
Rush, rush, rushing
It does not reach me.
I am still.
Moving in stillness,
Softly stepping in a different pace.
Breath in the soft smells of morning light.
Love this time, love this morning.