Be YOU - Day 30 Blog Challenge

The final post of this remarkable 30 Day Blog Challenge.  The ending of one commitment and the beginning of a new me.  A me that is energized to follow my heart and speak my truth.  To dig deep and find the most compassionate ways to express myself.  To be strong. courageous and have boundaries.  To be love, to feel love in all the cells of my being.  To not be afraid of the full range of emotions that may visit me at times.   May I be best friends to all of me.

“Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true. And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that's what maturity is all about.”
― Osho

I've spoken mostly from my heart during this challenge, and have not relied too much on inspired quotes.  Today I'm feeling drawn to include some poignant words of wisdom from others.  Words that seem so fitting in helping tie together what this 30 Day Writing Journey has been about for me.  

It's also a shout out to you, my beloved reader, who has made this journey so special.  For me to come forward with my voice made public and to get feedback from you as to the impact this writing is having, has been life changing for me.

How much more meaningful is a life, when we can experience being a support to others?  That we are not islands unto ourselves, but we are one tribe on this earth, sharing in the beauty of a most remarkable planet.  How can we be our best selves in this journey?  What mark do we most long to leave behind from our time here?  

 "Centered and complete are not the conditions for creativity.

Creative people ship remarkable work because they seek to complete something, 

to heal something, to change something for the better.

To move from where they are now to a more centered, more complete place.

You don't get creative once everything is okay.

In fact, we are creative because everything isn't okay (yet)." 

Seth Godin

I have built up my creativity stamina muscle during these 30 days.  Pushing myself to go deep within everyday, even on the days when I have felt the temptation to take a break. 

Committing to show up on a larger stage of life stimulates our growth.  Though sometimes there is resistance, pushing through most always leaves us feeling expanded and joyful.  

My biggest breakthrough has come from allowing myself to express before I feel I have mastered perfection.  That has been my liberation.  To learn to share from the space I am in right now.  That is enough.  In fact it is more than enough.  It is rich, dynamic and real.  It is liberating in a most primal way.  Springing up from within the present moment, unrehearsed and spontaneous.  

Most interesting and impactful for me has been using my daily experiences and soul growth as topics to write about. So, what might have just gone into a journal as random writing and "dumping" or talking with a friend - has now become resourceful writing with intention to draw insights from the day.  Sharing it publicly has been that extra step I have taken for transparency.  I feel I have come "out behind the sidelines" and have starting actually playing the game of life!  For this I feel immense gratitude.     

We are beings born to grow towards the light.  To bloom and express beauty and love.  Let us not forget that when we see around us many who have forgotten the greatness of who they are.  It is so easy to see the war and greed, despair and violence.  May we strive to lift each other up into the truth of our beings.  

And if sometimes it feels too hard to lift another, then let us be the light within ourselves, and that light will shine out and uplift others.  Being the Light is the greatest upliftment.   

Find that something to be thankful for.  Everyday.  

Be your best self everyday.

Thank you.  

The Power in the Question - Day 29 Blog Challenge

Patience, Surrender, Goal Planning, Praying, Pleading ..... the many attempts to move myself out of the present.  The many attempts to avoid accepting what is.   Always doing.   Micro managing and trying to control things.   So much busyness.  Why does the choice to sit and be still, to have no other agenda, why is this still so hard for me?  Do I think that meditation and stillness will somehow make me a better person than I already am?

I come across a quote, as I search for some inspiration for this writing.  

"Be happy in the moment, that's enough.  Each moment is all we need, not more." 

Mother Teresa

If I feel happy right now, then all should be good, right?  Does feeling happy take away my motivation to take action on my bigger goals in life?  Is drama what inspires me to improve and take action?  I can tell I'm not going to find answers in todays writing.  That's okay, it really is.  It's okay to come up with more questions than answers.  Some days are like that.  Questions are powerful.

I heard once how the brain is designed to seek out answers to questions we present to it.  Once the question has been asked, the brain goes to work on it and will bring us the answer, some time down the road.  I'm not a scientist so I don't know if this is really true.  I do know though that I find comfort with the thought, that somehow if I can ask a good question, life will help me arrive at an answer.

Let go.  The answer will come, most likely at an unexpected time, as a pleasant surprise.  Trust in life.  Have patience.  All things in due time.  All things in their own time.  The mystery.

     

No Is A Complete Sentence - Day 28 Blog Challenge

This may be my most challenging post in this challenge.  For the first time I'm hesitant as to the topic I wish to explore.  I'm very tempted to just write in generalities.  I'm reminded of something I heard a blogger say recently, that he does not hit publish unless he is feeling some discomfort.  Well, I qualify on this one.

Yesterday, on my daily walk in the neighborhood, I had an encounter with a man.  I'm new to the area, and this was a neighbor I had recently met and he had joined me on a few of my walks.  It was a benign enough interaction that occurred, so my mind wanted to tell me.  Though my body was telling me different.

An elderly married family man who I barely knew, wanted to hold my hand as we walked and talked about neighborhood topics.  Bizarre yes, is what I first thought and I put my hand back in my pocket.

He spoke of being a harmless dirty old man.  I sort of tried to laugh it off, but inside I was boiling, though censoring myself.   Was it some age old cultural conditioning coming in?  Nice girls don't get angry and they certainly don't make a scene!  Shocking to witness myself still struggle with this, being that I have had my share of violence and sexual assaults in this lifetime.

These topics need to come out more.  

So here I am doing the tip toe through the land mines of discomfort.  

 
I'm taken back to decades ago, when I was healing from co-dependency.  In our recovery groups we had a few sayings that we often defaulted to.  "No is a complete sentence".   Another favorite was "What part of No do you not understand?"  We would laugh and joke about these sayings, maybe as a way to make light of a very challenging dynamic.  That of navigating ones safety in this world. 

It was in my childhood that I first remember losing a sense of being able to recognize boundaries and trust myself to declare a boundary in situations I felt uncomfortable in.  I can see the trauma event that occurred where I lost my ability to navigate my safety.

The body is a wonderful vehicle for giving us feedback as to what feels good and correct, and when we are in danger.  When we are in healthy connection with this communication sense, we have a solid navigational tool for living.  I lost mine very early on. 

Now a grown woman, with decades of healing and self awareness under my belt, and this holding hands encounter shows me I can still be triggered into confusion, doubt and guilt.  It's not my business if my saying no to hand holding will cause a hurt feeling in another.  No is a complete sentence and I do not need to justify it.

I noticed I wanted to be sure to avoid this person while I was on my walk today.  There's a clue.  I do not feel safe.  My body's navigational ability is returning.  I can recognize it now.

The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés, 

               Art by Shiloh Sophia McCloud              

Mother Teresa The Movie, The Letters - A Bit of Controversy - Day 27 Blog Challenge

Last night I saw the movie, The Letters, The Untold Story of Mother Teresa.  I was moved by her story, very much.  Such a strong, determined, courageous woman.  At her ceremony to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, she recited the Peace Prayer.  Here I have made some additions to it, to personalize it so I feel best attuned to it for my own path.

May I be a channel of peace, 

Where there is hatred, may I bring love,

Where there is wrong, may I bring the spirit of forgiveness,

Where there is discord, may I bring harmony,

Where there is error, may I bring truth,

Where there is doubt, may I bring faith,

Where there is despair, may I bring hope,

Where there are shadows, may I bring light,

Where there is sadness, may I bring joy, 

May I seek as much to comfort as to allow myself to be comforted,

May I seek as much to understand as appreciate being understood,

May I seek to love even more than to be loved.

For to self-forget is to find the true self,

For to forgive, one more easily is forgiven,

For in dying to the personal one awakens to eternal life.

What I most connected with in the movie was her feeling that "loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty".  The movie portrayed Mother Teresa as being driven to give love and care to those who had been forgotten by society, essentially left to die on the streets.

The sense of loneliness, despair and being unlovable were some core wounds I was born into, I sense from previous lives.  However, how all that really plays out I don't know.  What feels true is there was a wound inside me, a story I told myself, that needed healing.  That of no one cares for me, and my feeling of being unlovable was over whelming at times.  My path this life was to go deep within and heal that from within.  To be able to love myself and bring myself compassion. 

Mother Teresa gave such a gift to the world, to help others feel loved, when they were in such deplorable conditions, that any inner work to find the love within was a near impossibility.  Those of us in the luxury of having our basic needs meet, have a greater freedom and choice to do the inner work to heal ourselves.     

Now, in case anyone reading this has adverse feelings about Mother Teresa.  Let us remember no one has the full story, the complete big picture.  We do what we can, as best we can.   My biggest message is, what do you draw from this so to live your life with greater integrity and purpose?  What can we learn from any of Mother Teresa's perceived short comings, that we can take out into the world and make needed changes for the evolution of us all?  

What I encourage is what can we take away from this for our own learnings and renewed strength for our chosen path. 

May there be love and may it begin with me.  

My Testimony for the 30 Day Blog Challenge - Day 26 Blog Challenge

The Learn to Blog 30 Day Challenge is the most engaging, creative, productive, fulfilling group endeavor for an online business that I have ever been a part of.

I found my public voice through this writing journey. Broke through my blocks to get a blog up. The group supported me to set up a super easy blog with google+ , taking less than 30 minutes to set up. I had been wanting to create a blog for almost two years and could not get myself into action. The technical skills for having a fancier blog will come later. The impact of this challenge was to get me into the game and writing! And that has been a 100% success.

The brilliance of the commitment based solely on the creative process, so no pressure on product creation or marketing or having a perfect blog design - was the perfect mix to get me moving on creating. And the fact it was free also really worked for me. It was another level of proof for me that this was a project based on love and the process of creating, purely for the art itself.

Now, at day 25 I see that I could very well have in my possession my first book from the material in the blog. Like with the blog, the book is not about perfection, but rather the art of creating. Even if I just produce a Kindle book, it would be about the joy of sharing my creation. While also achieving a cherished goal to have an actual product for sale on Amazon!

Creating a book was not at all in my thoughts when I joined the 30 day challenge. This seems to be just a natural by-product of following a heart based creative process. One does not know where their art will lead them.

It's really hard to put into words what a massive breakthrough this has been for me. The structure of a daily blog post got me focused on producing to publish, so my trap of overly thinking and writing too much simply was not an option within the time constraints.

I tried getting my first book written last year, and on my own, I got bogged down in my perfectionism, and the book project got over whelming for me and fell to the way side.

This blog challenge of 30 days is so manageable! It's a stretch for sure, but a time frame that has been achievable for me. I must say writing is my natural gift and love, so the process of writing itself came very easy. My struggle has been in being concise and focused and getting stumped by the technology, while also needing to be in a field of group support while being led by a very inspired leader.

Bradley Will is certainly the leader and the glue that held us all together. I also found great support in the frequent videos Bradley would produce for us. Sometimes while walking home from the gym, out for a brisk morning walk in the Chicago winter, or late night reflections. I found his videos helped me so much feel connected to a larger group and a bigger purpose. His transparency also has been an inspiring model to help me be transparent in my writing too. 

This was a game changer for me.  Changed me for the better, getting me out of my head and into action and creation.  Something I have desired for a very very long time. 

Thank you Bradley Will for your courage to act on your inspired vision.  I am forever grateful.   

The Big Why - Day 25 Blog Challenge

For years now I have heard personal development leaders speak on the importance of the “Big Why.”  That in order to accomplish things of great significance to us, we need a powerful motivating factor.   Something we feel so strongly about, that when the going gets tough, this reason, this Big Why is what gets us to dig in deeper and persevere towards our desired future.

That Big Why is going to be unique for each person and my sense is it is most powerful if we find it by going deep within.  I used to want to hear what others big whys were, so to give me some ideas to help me figure out mine.  Some reasons I've heard are: so to buy a house, help those in need, give a good life to the family, financial freedom so to travel, great health, lose weight, super fitness, help the environment, become enlightened.  

Though I never called it a Big Why, my life journey has been totally committed to my inner healing and spiritual path.  I've achieved great highs there, and its why I am who I am now, and I like that person.  So that's all good, really good.  My Big Why was a search for well being, peace of mind, freedom from a victim mindset, a way to feel safe in the world, to clear the emotional traumas out of my body.

What did I hope these Whys would then give me?  An ability to unleash my gifts and creativity.  To feel a freedom to fully enjoy life, to know genuine gratitude, and possibly even uplift others along the way! 

I now have an inner foundation of well being and trust in life.  I'm awakening to an inner spaciousness that is eager to explore a larger arena of life.  That of how to give back to the world, be of greater service, and find purpose and meaning through being a part of the larger planetary unfoldment and evolution.

My task now is to ask myself regularly what is my new Big Why.  I'm in need of a new reason for being.  A reason so big, grand and inspiring that it awakens the entrepreneurial giant within me.  Then I will have the inner drive to arise to the challenge of  this next chapter of my precious life journey.  I've identified here a good many whys that could be my motivators.

Now here is what I feel is key in this.  I need to also be clear on what I hope I will get from my new Big Why.  What outcome am I seeking?

Coupled with the Big Why, I would also include the Big What.  What is the Why going to give me?

How about you?

        

Intention - Day 24 Blog Challenge

INTENTION

I seek to heal with someone close to me.

I clarify to myself my intention to experience healing with them, to bring peace to the past stories I have of this relationship.  Conflict quickly arises when we are together and soon I realize we are not joined in the same intention.  We have been spending a few months together in the same home.  I see we have both brought expectations into this time we are sharing together.  The expectations are different and thus we clash.  Each disappointing the other.

I quickly shift gears and realize my work is to bring healing into my thoughts.  This is when I clarify my intention is simply for love.  Love and kindness.  It's not my role to stress out another if they do not wish to look at our shared story together.

This is a rich time for me to look at whatever I am still clinging to.  Where in my past stories have I felt this person disappointed me, failed to live up to my expectations and needs of them?  How am I holding this still?  I see how it bleeds over into my other relationships.  A part of me trying to work out this unresolved issue in my current relationships.  Thinking it's a problem with the current person, but really I have overlaid my past onto them.  My current relationships helping me with yet another chance to come to peace with my past.

I sense a need that I separate out my fantasy and hopes with what the person really was offering me. This feels key to bringing completion.  I see so often in these types of dynamics I had hoped for something more intimate and the other did not feel the same.  My place of being stuck lies in my not accepting that.

What does completion and peace look like in a connection like this?  Often when we feel hurt we can strike out, usually in a subtle but potent way, in some form of verbal or mental attack.  It's our way to externalize the issue, as something outside of us.  When it really is not.  It's pretty much our movie we are making up.  Do we see the other as someone out to harm us, or as someone hurting and asking for love?  Deep down that usually is what is going on in most connections, we all just want to be loved.  Even in violent situations, somewhere deep down, the person is looking for love.

During the creation of this post I came upon an interview with Peter Russell where he spoke on this issue of intention and to bring into our relations the intention that the other person feel okay, loved, respected, supported as a result of our expression.  What a powerful intention that is.  Can I bring this desire into my healing with another?  Letting go of the belief I was wronged.  Truly taking the more noble path to wish for love to lead the way.  My path is to shred light into the subtle areas where I may still be holding on to the small self.    
    

 "The solution is to monitor ourselves to be sure, whatever we say or do, that there is not an element of attack.  When we notice there is some slight element of attack there, just pause.  And reflect on how to respond in a way that the other person feels loved, respected, supported."

Peter Russell