Tag Archives: feelings

Teachings From A Two Year Old

Posted on by
2
Scottish cows grazing peacefully under the looming sky.

Scottish cows grazing peacefully under the looming sky.

As I spend days with my grandson, I marvel at how free he is. When he is unhappy about something, he lets out an “ahhhh” cry that can last two seconds or thirty seconds. Quickly he dispels the energy of frustration and is then fully present for what is next. He has a wise mom in my daughter, who allows him to voice his feelings in sounds. He is not fully verbal and truly what words are as effective in moving energy as a quick sounding of the feeling. Sounds are so much closer to the truth than the language we use which so often falls short.

I found myself asking my daughter if this was something she should try to get her son to stop. She pointed out the freedom in letting the emotions come fully through without shame or attempts at regulation. I saw how conditioned I was to some old standard to what was acceptable behavior in children. I could see how quickly things moved through my grandson. He is such a teacher in being present with what is in each moment. I am grateful for his example and honor my daughter for her wisdom in trusting him completely to be his true self. She nurtures that capacity in him which in turn, hones her own capacity and all who come into contact with this little one.

Nature shows up, ever present with what the seasons bring.

Nature shows up, ever present with what the seasons bring.

My daughter verbalizes his frustration as he vents. She says, “I see you are upset as you wanted to read another story” ….or whatever it is. She acknowledges his feelings, and in that acknowledgement he is seen and can more easily let it all go. Oh, that we could all emulate this behavior! Our bodies would be healthier as nothing would be stored deep in our cells to cause illness or disease. All would flow, moving swiftly through without getting stuck by creating stories about any of it.

This is a lesson for our times, to allow all feelings. To understand that feelings are not right or wrong, they simply are. It is what we do with our feelings that can cause harm. If we act upon them in ways that are harmful to others, then we have to take responsibility for that. Yet the feelings themselves are not harmful. We are invited to fully feel each feeling, allowing it room. I remember my shock when I allowed the feelings of bereavement to surface after my marriage dissolved. I had held them at bay for the first year or so, frightened that they were so huge as to undo me. Once I was able to face them and allow them room, I found underneath, a sense of peace that enveloped me. What a gift!

The sunlight illuminated these ferns so they seemed to glow from within.

The sunlight illuminated these ferns so they seemed to glow from within.

Everything is asking us to flow. Our world is shattering forms about us as we come to a new way of living on this planet. All is change, flowing from moment to moment. We witness time morphing and disappearing at an ever faster pace until we will live only in the now. No past nor future as a lens to look through. We will be free! Imagine that, the feeling of being present with whatever is in front of us, trusting explicitly that it is just what we need to continue to grow and expand as a being of light.

I tip my hat to my grandson for teaching me the ways of freedom. He continually shows me how to access more joy and wildness within my own being. May we sit up and take notice of the love that these little ones are streaming into the planet. May we open our hearts to be tutored in these wild ways of loving and living. I am so grateful to be where I am.

Flowers Float Me Through This Play

Posted on by
8
The blossoming that is taking place deep within each of our hearts is beginning to spill out into the outer realms.

The blossoming that is taking place deep within each of our hearts is beginning to spill out into the outer realms.

We are riding these spring waves of energy, up and down and all around. I have to laugh at the way the universe challenges us to truly own who we are. I recently had a conversation with a friend, describing my state of peace with where I am,  despite my personality self knowing my current location is not the one where my heart dances freely. I felt more in tune with my path of a “be- er”, holding the frequency of love with the earth, than ever before.  From the world’s perspective, I do not “do” anything and that has had its share of challenges, both within myself and from outside.

So, the evening after this conversation, my soul created the opportunity for me to clarify and more fully embody this sense of peace about who and what I am. Oh, it is so amazing to me how swiftly we are graced with the opening to further solidify our truth. My former hubby/roommate came home from days away with the question not mentioned since the end of the year, “So, what exactly are your plans? What are you going to do? And what about our son who follows this being path?” His fears tumbled out about security and making progress in life and how much money do I have left and all the what ifs. I was able to be present, to hold a field of love that allowed the fears to be strewn upon, acknowledged and embraced. I was grateful for the opportunity to express my not knowing, my commitment to walking this path with no idea of the next step, my willingness to move or change the situation if it causes him too much discomfort, my surprise that I was still here, my gratitude for the ease of this arrangement and his generosity in allowing me this space.  I felt so unattached to where or how I live or what the next step might be. I expressed a desire for his comfort as well as mine, that we must each do as we are guided. I was grateful to feel the solidness in myself of having faced these fears, time and time again. I did find that my body needed a brisk walk in nature to move all the energy through and allow serenity to settle in once more.

The transformative energy of this year's snake spiraling up as we blossom.

The transformative energy of this year’s snake spiraling up as we blossom.

We congratulated one another for being able to have this conversation in a spirit of respect   and appreciation for the other. It is so important to express the feelings fully, to allow them movement and acknowledgment. It is freeing in itself and does not have to result in action. The expressing of the feelings is what is important. It allows space for the right action to arise in a field of love rather than being coerced by the feeling’s rushing energy. Often, no action results as the expression did the clearing needed to flow forward with life.

I have a sense of playing a part in a play, one that I am not passionate about. I simply show up and say my lines. It feels like a holding still point. Neutrality about everything. There is a peace in this as well as a flatness at times. In those moments, I sit and drink in the essence of flowers. I am a flower being as I have always felt them to be my language, the one that truly expresses my feelings.  I have a deep knowing and trust that the new world is landing in more fully each moment. I believe in this time of magic and miracles and delight as I witness it explode in my world like a burst of bloom with a wild randomness. In the in between times, I am set at neutral, idling along. I know my soul is engaged in her work with the earth and the galaxy, so this surface self drifts along in this play that is winding down. We have performed it so many times that the juice is long gone, the lessons long mastered. The play of my heart is in development, last minute editing and assigning of parts taking place. My heart knows mine is the role that I have desired to play all my many lifetimes. I know that I have the skills to play it masterfully.

A mirror of flowers to show me my true self.

A mirror of flowers to show me my true self.

Today, I sit here soaking up the brilliant yellows of the daffodils and the mockingbird’s song outside the open window. The doves are cooing, the sky is overcast and the earth feels blanketed in a soft mist. I feel like a seed in the moist earth, having burst the hard covering to send my tiny green shoot up to find the sun. I know I will break through, that I am reaching in each moment towards that light. I am at peace in my earthen home, knowing myself as the blossom at the other end of this shoot. All is in right order. All comes to fruition. My part is a grand one as we each step out to shine our true selves on the stage of this new world. Feel the peace in this and use this time to rest. Once this new play gets underway, the action will be quick. For today, I sink into this space of stillness and drift on its currents of love.

Soothing Our Inner Child and Setting Ourselves Free

Posted on by
6
Sifting through our buried emotions reminds me of coming upon these bones on a trial in Southern India so long ago. We are asked to reclaim our feelings just as our mother reclaims our bones, freeing all for new growth.

Sifting through our buried emotions reminds me of coming upon these bones on a trial in Southern India so long ago. We are asked to reclaim our feelings just as our mother reclaims our bones, freeing all for new growth.

I awoke from a dream where one of my children was crying in distress. My heart is still feeling this as I tune into the earth in these quiet pre-dawn hours. There are many souls in distress as we move more fully into the light. My mother’s heart wishes to enfold all, as I echo our Mother Earth’s heart that holds us all with such love. I hear her intone the age old mother’s sound, “Hush, hush now my child.” Soothing us, as I did my babes, with a hand caressing our brows. February began with that energy for me, a hush from the earth. We are in need of this soothing touch as the love streaming into our planet is touching each of us in such personal ways. Any wall that we had erected about our heart, as a form of defense, is being melted away. Indeed, the light is piercing inward to all the closets and drawers where we stored feelings that we did not know how to handle. It is as if a mighty wind has blown through and we are left with all our belongings tossed on the curb, for all to see. Distress is indeed present as we attempt to gather the feelings up and stuff them back in drawers. But the winds of love have done their job well as the drawers and closets are damaged beyond repair. There is nowhere to hide these feelings, no place to stuff them safely away. Each feeling must be picked up and addressed, one by one. There is no other way. You may believe otherwise and take off running down the road, only to discover all your baggage following you. You may try to throw it on your neighbor’s pile, thinking no one would notice, but it all comes back to land in front of you, once again. You may stand and shout, “This is not mine!” But it all carries your identifying signature. There is no escaping it. Embarrassment, worry, fear, panic, rage, anxiety…..all may arise in response to all these unfelt feelings. Many are sitting on the curb, wailing their laments. Others are begging for help, which is a wonderful first step as our angelic team awaits our call in order to step in. The process must begin and no one can do it for us.  It takes our commitment and love to release the stored energy. All of it wishes to be freed back to the reality of love that it truly is. All of our feelings arose to assist us in our growth. We were misled, taught to store feelings that felt too powerful, too awful, too raw, into our beautiful  bodies. We were taught to erect a shell about our heart in order to be safe. We were taught that we were not strong enough nor good enough to face the world straight on.

We are strong enough. We are good enough. Say that out loud to yourself a few times: I am good enough. I am good enough. I am good enough. How does that feel? Do you believe yourself? Hold that thought and pick up the first feeling in the pile you see lying in front of you. Oh my, it is from my twenty- two year old self, who has just listened to her mother screaming; “Who do you think you are? You will never get that knight in shining armor you seem to think is coming!” Breathing it in, recalling my mother’s pain when I refused a marriage proposal. Oh, this was about her desires and disappointments, not mine. I let the feelings go through, compassion arose, for all her dreams that had not come true. A smile burst forth in my being, I AM going to be met in love. It has not happened yet, but the knowing of its arrival is strong in me. I am worth dreaming big for, I am going for the gold in love. With that, the feeling of pain disappeared. One down, what is next? Oh, this is my three year old self who realizes that she is not to play, but rather be responsible for her siblings. I feel the pressure to keep them safe from the angry adults but am so small myself. I hold her and tell her that I will watch out for the others and she can scamper off to play. She can be the child.

The lightness we feel when we allow our inner light to shine!

The lightness we feel when we allow our inner light to shine!

One by one, we are the adults who can now clear up all this debris. It is possible to have fully open, spacious hearts, allowing each moment a wide field of love in which to unfold. We can choose to feel every now moment completely. If pain arises, I can sit as witness to that pain. I can open my heart field of peace and allow it to be enfolded. There is nothing to fear. This field of love can handle guilt, shame, sorrow, grief…….all of it can be projected onto its screen and viewed as the cry for love that it is. We can sit back and watch it and let it go, ready to view the next scene. We do not have to replay a scene over and over. That is the old way and it got us nowhere. By being the viewer, the observer, we allow the scenes to come and to go. This pile of unresolved feelings begins to disappear. Our hearts grow lighter and we move with new freedom in our bodies. Massage and other body work can be helpful to dislodge deeply embedded emotions. I have sobbed on a yoga mat as a movement released some feeling as well as on a massage table. A loving voice of a friend,  can provide a release as can a piece of music. There are so many avenues open to us to welcome these feelings in and allow them to release back to the love. Acknowledgment from another, validating what you experienced, can be liberating but is not always available. I did not have that opportunity with my parents but give it freely to my children, apologizing for harmful behavior that my awareness now allows. I give it freely to myself, playing the parental role.

We are only as conscious in the moment, as we are. This thought can bring freedom as we let others off the hook, knowing that they did the best that they could at the time. That thought has helped me through many a dark night. The majority of humans want to be good, do good, bring good to others. They give as much as their woundedness allows. We are poised to create a new earth, we need to bring our wholeness to the task. That means we must take the hand of our inner child, soothe them and strengthen them so that our actions reflect our inner field of peace, acceptance, and love. So, pop a batch of popcorn, sit on the sofa and begin the viewing of all that is ready to depart. See it, feel it, love it and release it. Consider it your earthwork, recycling heaviness into light. Our mother will be smiling at you with such love and gratitude.

 

Allowing my Feelings to Flow Fully

Posted on by
6

I continue to marvel at the way life brings to us exactly what we need, when we need it. I look back at all the years that I lived my life trying to orchestrate events through my mind. I was not able to accept life as it presented itself to me. I attempted to control how others should act, to control my feelings, tamping them down in the mistaken belief that life would be easier that way. I believed that I would be happy if a set of circumstances that I held to, came to be. I spent a great deal of time and energy opposing what was, in an attempt to create my own version of the magic lands.

I love the fierceness and wildness of some of the Maori images. They are expressing truth.

And lo, and behold……I am living in those very magic lands these days. I arrive more fully each day as I begin my day with a surrender to my higher self, Sophia, to be in the driver’s seat. I put all my trust in her, which of course, is myself. I trust me completely. I trust the benevolent nature of this universe. I trust Creator. From this place of trust, I observe everything that comes into my world. The energies are becoming much clearer in vibration and tone. I watch the interplay, hear the music that is being sung. There is only one tone that captures my attention these days. It is the tone of love. I want to listen to it, broadcast it, be bathed in it, sing it with others in conversation and silence. I hear it underneath all other tones, asking to be heard and amplified through my heart. The tones of love are what make up this world of ours.

Love resides in everything. It is the most freeing of feelings as we are born to love. We are love! I am feeling the freedom of loving all of life. It is a fiery feeling, the intensity is immense. I used to be afraid of my feelings, of the power of love that I felt coursing through me. Society taught me this from a young age. I felt too much, I wanted too much, I was too much. We were taught that you could not love freely, it was reserved for certain people in certain times. We were taught that you must love your parents, even if they were awful to you. We were taught that you could not love someone if they were in a relationship with another. We were taught to mistrust others of our own sex, that they were competition for the scarce commodity of love that was out there. We were taught that our feelings were dangerous and were to be hidden from others to the point where we hid them from ourselves.

In doing so, we have allowed the shadowlands to grow in size and scope. We are a society riddled with addictions, fearful of owning our truth, fearful of being seen. We have lost the ability to see others as we have not been able to fully see ourselves. We have been taught to shine out our bright side, to hide any sign of weakness as our enemies might use it against us. We have created an us vs them world. Yet, there is only us….one people on planet earth. One tribe, the tribe of many colors, the rainbow tribe. It is time to take off the masks and uncover the truth of ourselves. It is truth that what we judge in another is a part of ourselves needing love.

I have just finished reading, The Flaming Serpent by Aine Armour. Here are some of her words that resonated deeply in my heart:

“You must be honest with your feelings. You must allow yourself to feel them. They are the language of your own soul speaking to you…So often humans judge their feelings as wrong and so they suppress them, repress them. The feelings do not go away. They go into the body, into the energy system and continue to create-feelings create.  They are the juice of creation, the water of life. If they are repressed and unacknowledged they begin to create the shadow of the feeling they originated from….It is not the feeling that causes harm, it is what we do with the feeling that can cause harm.”

We fear the flame with its dying, forgetting it unleashes the seed of the new. In every death, exists the rebirth.

I so enjoy uncovering another belief that I have been unconsciously living by. I love the freedom that comes as I dismantle the lie and allow myself to breathe fully in the open space now at hand. I AM LOVE! This I know in all of me. I can allow myself to feel this love fully in all of its aspects. I can use my discernment as to when and how to act upon my feelings as they show up in my world. Who in this world has enough love? Who would not be grateful to know that they are loved? We have so limited our version of love. If it be for someone of the opposite sex, we bring sex into the equation. We do not trust ourselves to love deeply for fear we may cause harm to another. Yet, it is our intention that is all. I intend no harm come from my love. My love is a cosmos and we limit it to a physical expression that is the tip of the iceberg. We are taught that romantic love is all with its erotic charge that quickly grows stale. We are taught the sanctity of the parent- child relationship without allowing it the freedom to be more or less than that.

Love is to be fully felt, fully given in each moment. We can look into another’s eyes for a moment and exchange lifetimes of love. There is such a blessing in this for both parties. I am learning to love so fully that I no longer hold anyone or thing that I love. I bring all of me to each moment, allowing the love to flow in a continuous stream from my heart. I am free to bathe all of it in my love. I recognize no limits nor confines for this love. It flows in a never ending stream from Creator to my heart. My chalice which I offer anew each day to my Mother/Father, is filled with a radiant stream of liquidlovelight that overflows from my heart to yours. I am a conduit for love. I am the stream of love. I am infilled with love. The wonder of this!

I used to hold it in my heart, even close off my heart from receiving what my Mother/Father freely gave. I used my mind to decide where the love should go, who was deserving of my love. I gave time and again from an empty cup as I did not believe myself deserving of love. I felt flawed, damaged. If I expressed any emotion but love, I crawled into the shadows of the cave of shame where no light entered. Anger sent me there, impatience was a pass to the cave. I judged myself harshly and meted out punishment without mercy. Talk about an executioner! Whew, I wielded that sword with a vengence. Each time I crawled out of the cave, determined to be love, to walk in light, to take the high road in all situations. Each time an emotion other than love rose up in me, I took myself to the cave, asked for the nails to be hung on the cross of shame and guilt. My self loathing grew with my rage. My former hubby used to say that he was a good guy 26 days out of the month, but watch out for those other few days. That was when the illusion broke and the moon in her wisdom, drew forth the fiery truth of my soul. I would find myself raging, as feelings stuffed all month long, came pouring out in a violent cascade. They came to teach me, to ask for honoring. I would respond with horror and as my hormones settled, I would stuff them back into the recesses of the cave and place myself at the entrance, setting guard so that they would never see the light of day. 26 days later, they would overwhelm me once again and make their escape into my outer world. I suffered, those around me suffered their wrath. The remorse, the incrimination would enter in and the cycle continued its mad merry go round.

Part of a Nicholas Roerich painting that was a wedding gift eons ago. I have always loved this image of a man sitting on a mountaintop, tending the fire of his heart.

Eventually, I went deep enough into the darkness that I longed only to stay there. That is when I discovered a flame inside of me that illumined a truth. It told me that I was good, that I was love, that I was lovable. By holding to that flame, allowing it to burn within, I found my way out of the cave. I live in a state of grace and peace these days. I feel every feeling that comes my way, fully and completely. I can feel anger without spewing it at another or myself. I did not know how to do that before. I accept all that triggers me as my own, not looking to another to be the cause of my feelings. I thank each person that flips a trigger in me as it allows me to let go the charge. Once fully felt and met, triggers disappear. No one taught me this. I have learned to use my voice to express whatever feeling is present. It is the quickest way that I have found to move energy. I identify where the feeling is in my body and allow the sound it is holding to come out. I do not judge if it is a pretty sound or a grating sound, a groaning or a whining or a keening. All is welcome to be expressed. I tone until the space is clear and empty. I then use my voice to infill that space with my Mother/Father’s presence of love. I ask Sophia to more fully inhabit that space, to love it completely. I know of someone who had cervical cancer. She realized that the cancer grew in the place where she had not fully loved herself. The space she had not fully occupied. Nature abhors a vacuum. I wish to occupy my whole self, this beautiful body which works so hard to hold my light and points out to me where the darkness is that is seeking release through the tones of love. Our bodies know all! They are the wisdom keepers. Ask and you will be shown where you are unaware, where vacuums exist, where cobwebs have been allowed to grow. How many of us have parts of our body that we think unkind thoughts to; “I hate my butt, my shoulder is a pain, my breasts are too small…” The litany goes on. Our body is our friend, seeking love as we are. We can speak to it with tenderness, gift it with what it needs rather than what our minds tells us is the latest news as to how to treat it. We are unique and there is no one size fits all treatment for our bodies though society would have us believe it. We would rather see a doctor and take a pill than take the time to listen to our body. It will tell us exactly what it needs to be a healthy container for us, but we must become able to translate its thoughts. We do this by engaging our senses in the subtle realms of spirit.

We are all looking for permission to feel without judgment.  I give you that permission this day. In doing so, feeling everything that shows up in our world, we begin to know ourselves. And what beauty is there, waiting to be seen! Claim it! I love you.