OpenHeartEmpire

I am sitting at my kitchen table, it feels like a Sunday, but it’s a Monday. Tomorrow I’ll be back at my day job. I’m looking at my back yard…. the grass is dead and its kind of wild, overrun… I’m not much of a gardener. I could be thinking about all of the things that aren’t working in my life and let it get me down. Sometimes I do.  All of the things that are “missing”, the “have nots”. I would love a beautiful garden, all pretty and manicured, but right now this is what I have. It’s  not perfect but it is mine and it is beautiful in all it’s wild untamed-ness.

In this moment all is perfect in its imperfection.

I often tell people that I live in the best place in the country. The best place in the world. It is beautiful and temperate, with amazing sunsets, storms and weather but really I could live anywhere and it would still be the best place in the world, because it would be the place that I am. I have learned that to get the best out of my life I just have to love exactly wherever I am, whoever I am and whoever I am with. Completely. While I work towards the things that I want. While I continue to grow, change, evolve, become. While they do too. The places, the people, the situations. I know that they are never the same. They continue to change, so the best place to be is right here, right now, in this moment.

From this moment of now I hold so much power. I have the power to create my future and heal my past. I am completely able to choose what I do next- in the next minute, in the next hour, in the next day, week, month, year…. and it too is completely changeable in the next moment or any of the following moments. I am the Alchemist of my life, with Now as my super power and choice as my wand.

I was often told that “want” was a sin. Want was a demon & I was it’s spawn, I was the “most wanting child”. Desire. Is it not just another word for goal, aim, intent…? The thing is, in my experience “want” is honest and pure. Desire is potent and powerful, underlying our everydays, though misunderstood and misguided.

The mistake lies in the short sighted idea of what desire is. Really, all motivation comes from want. Even a life of service is born from want. The want and desire to experience or gain whatever feeling, status, empowerment, payoff or need that it gives you. The choices we make moment to moment are born of desire. Those choices have short term and long term effects. Each moment we are choosing, what is the space we are choosing from?

In this moment I choose to love who I am with. The people I have in my life are there because I chose them, just as they chose me. To love or learn from, or both. If we did not choose each other, we would not be there. I choose to love who they are, not what they do. I know that who they are today will not be the same as who they are tomorrow.

In this moment I choose to love myself. I know that who I am today is not who I will be tomorrow, nor who I was yesterday and I can love the she that came before for who I am now & who I am becoming.

I choose to love the situation I am in. I know that it is temporary and changing. I also know that even in discomfort, I am growing, I am learning, I am changing and I value the good ones a little more, recognise them more readily and savour them.  Last of all, I choose to love the place I am in.. I know that a pretty manicured garden is an investment of time and I have invested that time in other ways, with choices that take me to other places. I am taking conscious steps to alchemize my dreams into realities. With that, recognising the beauty of what is surrounding me now, makes the journey evermore magical and the humming excitement of continuing change flows through me.

What more powerful tools could we have than living Now and consciously choosing from the place of our deepest wants and desires?

I have heard that the quality of our lives is reflection of the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.

If we want better or different lives, we must ask ourselves different or better questions.

When is the last time you did an audit of your life? A spring clean of your beliefs? When was the last time you asked yourself –

Am I happy? Am I fulfilled? What do I really want?

What if we did a spring clean of our beliefs like we spring clean our homes or our wardrobes?

When we spring clean our wardrobe, we take everything out and look at it. Some of it is old, tired, faded, maybe holey. Take a long look.

Does it fit me now? Do I want to patch it up? Is it dated and outworn? Is it worth holding onto?

Is it time to throw out what no longer fits and get something new, fresh and more suitable for who you are now?

Beliefs are like this too. They are thoughts that become habits but like clothes, we change, shift, we outgrow them. When we first took them on, they fit us, they had a purpose but as we change, they can become outworn.

When trying on something new, we want it to fit well, to feel good. At first, we may not be sure but if it seems ok – looks good, fits nicely, is comfortable, etc, then we may buy it. Once we take it home, we really get to know if works for us. We’ve all bought things that sit in the back of the cupboard and don’t get worn. Maybe we bought it for an occasion, maybe we were in a particular emotional state, maybe we had the encouragement of a friend or sales person that made it seem like a better purchase than it was. Likewise, a belief will fit comfortably or will not. We may start with something we are not completely at ease with and grow into it or we may find something that fits like a glove at first but find that it no longer serves us, it is tight, restrictive or just doesn’t work for us anymore. Throw it out.

Allow yourself the freeing sensation of releasing and consciously choose beliefs that fit you better. Who you are now and who you want to become.

A great belief, old or new, will fit you like your favourite dress or shoes and never go out of style. It will lift your spirits and make you feel amazing. A classic.

Like clothes also, not everything we invest in is good for us. We may have bought that flowing white dress that made us feel like Stevie Nicks, but when we looked back at the photos, we look like a we are wearing a circus marquee….. or the hideous school uniform that was scratchy and uncomfortable but becomes part of us because we had to wear it.

Not every belief is good for us, we all have beliefs that made us feel certain ways about ourselves-

I’m not good at- sports, cooking, relationships, etc, etc

I’m clumsy, socially awkward, always sick….

I never……

I’m not ___________ enough…

You get the picture.

Invest in beliefs that you want to have about yourself, your life, your abilities, etc. Even if it feels a little silly or uncomfortable at first, everything is changeable with determination and persistence.

Start seeing the things that come up around not as dead ends, but merely bumps along the way. They are there to show you what needs healing.

What are you ready to spring clean from your beliefs closet?

 

 

The beauty of a journey is in the steps, the pace, the scenery, not even necessarily in the final destination. Funnily enough, sometimes the destination changes with the journey. I love setting my own pace. Sometimes I’m sprinting with adrenaline rushing through my veins and other times I’m just wandering. I can take all the time I want or all that I need.  I don’t really know which is happening until it is happening. Continue reading “The Light that I AM” →