Day 9: Being moved by the sharing of others

I follow Andrea Schoeder's (at Creative Dream Incubator) blog but I didn't know about her "Give Your Dreams Wings" blog hop until I read about it on Effy Wild's blog, as she is a participant.  Yesterday I picked one of the participants blogs to read, Victoria Brouhard of The Practical Art of Letting Your Soul Lead the Way.  In her blog titled, "How to Come Back to Your Dream After Heartbreak," she wrote the following:

"I thought I wanted a thriving business that would allow me to look forward to getting up and going to work every morning.  That's still true, but what I wanted even more was to be connected to myself and my soul so deeply that nothing could disconnect me." 

When I read those words I actually stopped reading, put my phone down, and walked away, telling myself, out loud of course, "I need to sit with that for a moment."  It was as if those words were lit up like a neon sign with blinking lights and an arrow that said, "Tia, look here."

She articulated what I was feeling and the thing is, I didn't even know I was feeling that way until I read her inspiring words.  And her words hit me deep.  True, I have been working toward re-connection to myself and my soul because disconnect seems to be a default setting I have allowed myself to stay in since childhood, but what I hadn't thought about was a connection, "so deep[ly] that nothing could disconnect me."  Those words feel powerful, those words move me, those words express a longing I didn't even know was there.

As a child disconnect was a form of survival from the molestation I experienced and the violence I witnessed.  When you go into survival mode, that's the body's fight or flight response, the fear of it all leaves you wanting to run and get the hell out of whatever situation you are in.  I lived that fear long enough that the disconnect of fight or flight became ingrained as a pattern within my energy.  It gets to the point where I realize I am not feeling many emotions, no love going in, no love going out.  I do, however, experience frustration and anger  So, it seems that part of my fight or flight involves me closing off my heart center.  And let me tell you, I seal it up fast, without realizing it.  If I'm hurt, even in the tiniest of ways, it gets sealed off.  That is not how I choose to live life.  And I understand that my clinging to this pattern and not bringing awareness to it has allowed it to become so ingrained.  I also know that I have the power to change it.

In "Spiritual Liberation," Michael Bernard Beckwith says, (and I don't remember the exact words so this is a paraphrase), "It's easy to close your heart off when you have been hurt.  The challenge is to keep it open even though you have been hurt."  I agree with those words.  It is so easy to close yourself off when you have been pained.  Especially when you open you open your heart to someone in such a deep and vulnerable way, more so than you have with anyone, and you find yourself being shattered.  It takes effort to come back from that.  It takes effort to open your heart up to the world despite the fear and the pain.  And it has been interesting to me how the energy of closing off happens without my knowing it, that is, until it's already been done.  Which tells me, as if I didn't already know, that it is a subconscious pattern.

I know there are things I can do, I can meditate on it, work with affirmations, create it right open.  And I am getting to that point.  But I have to be honest, right now I am scared, and I don't want to be.  And while I say I chose to feel the fear and do it anyway, that choice has not yet finished its journey from my head to my heart.  I could sit with the fear but I know why I am afraid.  But pain is part of the process, pain is sometimes how we grow and I know this pain is not the last I will experience.  I do not want to be a person who closes off, that kind of life is not the life I want to live, nor is it the person I want to be.  When I was with my ex I chose to open my heart and feel the love he, and other people in my life, had for me.  I didn't do it for him, I did it because I wanted to be a person who felt the love coming in,  not just going out.  I know I can make that choice again.  This is an opportunity for me to learn about true Divine love at an even deeper level.  And I am determined to do that, otherwise, it's not really living is it?

I am so grateful that I read that blog and those words.  I love to inspire and I also love to be inspired.  I love when I am blessed with witnessing the vulnerability and authenticity of others.  I love when what they share stops me in my tracks and reminds me of Who I Really Am.  For all of you out there who do that, I appreciate you and I am grateful for you.

May you be blessed with love and light,
tia

And on the 8th day of the blog along...a bit of gratitude

It's been a long day.  Things are stewing in the back and front of my mind, gently coming together but not quite complete yet.  I'm hoping to spend some time with where I am in my inner world so that I can share more fully, open my heart up more completely.  That is one of the big things I noticed yesterday when I wrote, Day 7: I took a walk down social media memory lane,  that I do not share as completely and fully as I did just a year ago.  My heart has been closed off for what feels like a very long time, too long.  It's not something I do consciously but I am becoming more aware of it.  Whenever things are going on, I've been hurt, I'm overwhelmed, I'm carrying too much of the energy of pain for others, I go in to fight or flight mode and I seal my heart off.  It's an energy pattern I have been noticing more and am working very hard to change.  That is part of what has been simmering within me.

But until then I'd like to share a bit of gratitude.

I am grateful that I woke up to see, feel, hear, experience another day.

I am grateful for my sweet puppy who I know is here to help me open up my heart space.

I am grateful that my new oracle cards came, "Oracle of the Shapeshifters:Mystic Familiars for Times of Transformation and Change."  They are already giving me messages and insight and they are so beautiful.

I am grateful that, "Brave Intuitive Painting-Let Go, Be Bold, Unfold!," by Flora Bowley came.  I am super excited to get into that book.

I am grateful for my creativity, my creative supplies, inspiration and all that other artists share.

I am grateful for the courage and bravery that so many people share by putting themselves out there, being vulnerable, being authentic, sharing where they are at.  I am deeply inspired by so many of them.

I am grateful for the Soul that I am.

I am grateful for the place in my healing journey that I am in.  I can feel things coming, healing, transforming and I know that it is a really beautiful place to be, even when it doesn't quite feel like it.

I am grateful for the beauty in nature.

I am grateful for so many things, almost too many to list.  This was just a short sample.

Oh, yes, I am also grateful to participate in this Blog Along and to have the opportunity to dig deep within myself and share.

May you be blessed with love and light,
Tia

Day 7: I took a walk down social media memory lane

Once upon a time I had another blog.  Actually, I've had two other blogs and I just abandoned them, left them to float aimlessly in the wind.  I was looking for something today that I had posted to Facebook a few years ago and I saw links to my last blog and decided to go there and read a little.  It was interesting.  That blog had more of a name that was about my creativity.  I shared my healing journey as well but I wanted a blog name that spoke to my being a healing coach so I started a new one.  Of course, I share creativity here as well because I'm passionate about many things and whatever blog I have will reflect that.  While I was looking at that old blog I happened upon a poem I wrote and posted there and felt like sharing it today.  

She speaks in soft whisperous tones

As she takes a cautious step

Into the ground that is her truth.

She's careful not to put the full weight of her foot down

As she's used to stepping on shaky ground.

Then she realizes

That that is the past.

That shaky ground beneath her feet no longer exists,

As it faded with the passing of its time.

And she remembers

That the stability of the ground of her truth

Is determined only by her belief in it

Not on the past of it.

So she places her foot firmly

On the solid ground of her truth.

She knows the time she's spent rebuilding the foundation of it.

She knows that it is that that she needs to remember.

She sees the security of it now,

Security she has built on her journey back to wholeness.

And she places her "truth" stamp on it,

And she stands firmly there

Rooted in her foundation,

Speaking her truth in audible tones

From her Divine spirit within,

That she has finally claimed as her own.

And the past slowly fades away,

Illusions of some distant day.

They served her well in reminding her

Of who she is and who she is not.

But they were never meant to be contained

And projected into her future.

They were never meant to manifest fears

Freezing her in time.

So she releases them gently,

With love and appreciation,

And they blow away with the wind.

She has traveled long and deep

To find the truth she now holds.

And whether she's flying towards her dreams

Or dancing to her own tune,

She knows her ground of truth will always be there for her,

Strong, stable, and secure.

And she now trusts herself to remember the existence of it that she built.

Now that I've gone back there and re-read parts of that blog, my mind is reeling with so much about where I was, what I was internally working on, and where I am.  Sometimes it feels like I keep coming to the same place but I know it really isn't the same place, it's a similar place further up on the spiral because I am a different person.  I am not the same person I was yesterday, nor will I be the same person tomorrow that I am today.  I noticed that I seemed to have shared from a different space then.  Perhaps it was a little more free I guess.  I talked more about what I was doing and shared a little more.  Even though I have had moments of great vulnerability on this blog, there seems to be a missing element from the old one and this one.  It requires more thought so I will let it dance and swirl around within me until I gain a little clarity about it.

The other interesting thing was looking back at my posts on Facebook and seeing how they have changed as well.  Oh, and I never did find what I was looking for, perhaps I never posted it there to begin with.  As I was reading some of my posts it felt as if I was happier then.  The past year and a half has been challenging, I have said that before, and I know it has affected me in many ways.  I've been thinking about that lately.  Thinking about healing and emotions and how, when you don't feel what requires feeling, it clouds you, clouds your awareness.  I feel like I'm being cryptic and unwilling to share and it's certainly not my intention to do that.  There is much I have to say but it's late and I am tired and I know that, in this state, I will not do justice to what I am wanting so much to articulate.  There are 23 more days for me to get into the depths of all of that and I promise I will.

For now I'm going to sit with all that I saw today, what it said about me, and where I was in relationship to where I am now, as well as going forward.  It's amazing to me how much things change in a relatively short span of time.

May you be blessed with love and light,

tia

Day 6: I think some winter symbolism...

I grew up in Upstate New York.  I remember sledding, snowman building, ice skating, and the cold.  I wasn't a big fan, especially as I grew up and had to scrape snow off of my windshield in cold that would burn my lungs when I breathed.  The cold and gray were two of many reasons I moved to Southwest Florida as an adult and lived there for 15 1/2 years.  While it did get cold on occasion, for the most part I was able to wear flip flops and tank tops for much of the year.  I left winter far behind and barely gave it any thought, and I liked it that way.  I loved that on some winter days I was wearing shorts while old man winter was wreaking cold and havoc in other parts of the country.

I associated the cold and snow with winter and lost sight of the symbolism of this much needed season.  That is, until I moved to a small town in Northeastern Tennessee last August.  As winter approached, and my dread of the coming snow crept in, so did the meanings and symbolism associated with this season I had come to despise.  I remember the first real snow we had after I moved here, everyone else was so excited to see snow while I was very humbug about it.

One morning I woke up, as I often do, before anyone else, and came out into the garage and looked out the window to see snow.  Everything was covered in it and it was still snowing.  I sat here thinking about how I didn't like it and I didn't want it and I wished it would go away.  But then I realized something, as the Universe whispered into my heart through the snowflakes drifting softly toward the ground, that I had moved to a part of the country that experienced winter, a place in which it got cold and in which it snowed.  I could either resist it and be miserable, or, I could practice acceptance and see what winter had come, in this very appropriate time in my life, to teach me.

The resistance eased up and I stepped outside.  I had forgotten how quiet and peaceful it was outside when it snowed.  I opened my eyes to the beauty of it, I stood in it, arms outstretched, head tilted toward the sky, and caught a snowflake on my tongue like I did when I was a child.  I built a mini snowman in it, I enjoyed it.  Now, that doesn't mean I'm in love with the snow because I'm not.  I have full intentions of becoming a snow bird once my son grows up, and spending the majority of my winters in a much warmer climate.  However, I am able to see the beauty in it and appreciate it in a way I had lost sight of.

Winter isn't just about snow and cold and ice, although it certainly felt like that this year especially.  Winter is a necessary part of the cycle of Mother Earth and Mother Nature.  When I think about the symbolism of winter I think of how things die off and go back into the ground to become nourishment for new life, and I think of hibernation.

There was a great deal of change for me last year, the abrupt ending of a relationship that I thought was lasting, leaving my job, and moving from Florida to Tennessee, just to name some big ones.  All of those changes brought emotions that required me to sit with them, and I wasn't necessarily great about doing that.  With those changes, as with all change, comes letting go, letting things die away and open up space for new experiences to sprout and grow.

While I have done an incredible amount of healing work, there is still much to be done and part of what needed to be done, and some that still needs to be done, is letting go and letting things die away.  Sometimes things die away and we cling to them.  It's interesting because they are no longer there, there is nothing left to cling to but the holographic distant memories of what was.  Sometimes it's a relationship, sometimes it's a resentment, sometimes it's a person and although those situations are no longer present, emotions left unfelt and unprocessed tie us to the past causing us to be dragged by the present moment, sometimes kicking and screaming.

There was much for me to heal this winter, much for me to dig up as I found myself in layers so deep I didn't even know they existed.  I barely had a shovel long enough to get down into those spaces but they needed tending so I found a way to reach them.  This is when the hibernation came into play for me because I dug into the layers, brought up a lot of ancient wounding and outdated energy patterns that no longer serve me and then, I had to just sit with them.  And it was more than sitting with them.  I had to crawl into the dark den and sleep, curled up with them, up close and personal, and allow my Soul and my energy to play it out.  Part of that process was writing in my journal, part of it was pacing around and talking to myself, and part of the process was allowing large amounts of anger to come up and examining why I was so angry.  And it was exactly what I needed.

Winter has taught me so much this year and for that I have a newfound respect and appreciation for it.  Don't get me wrong, I still don't like the cold.  I still miss my tank tops and my flip flops.  But I'm okay with Winter now.  I have a greater understanding of the symbolism of it and the need of it, not only in Nature but in our lives.

I'm not sure where life will take me next, if I'll be required to go through the process of another Winter or not, all I do know is that I am loving the birth of Spring.  I'm loving the warmer weather, the buds on the trees, the flowers, all of it.  I love the symbolism of Spring, new projects, the energy of rebirth and renewal...it's awe inspiring.  I am open to the blossoming opportunities of this Spring season and grateful for the Winter that chilled me while helping me to heal.

With love and light,
Tia

Day 5: Some works in progess

 I have a confession to make, I am a messy artist.  When I am in the middle of working on a project (or two or three :), my work space explodes into a whirlwind of inspiration and, yes, total chaos.  There's paint, paper towels, colored pencils, oil pastels, glue, everywhere.  I also try to keep an art journal out to clean my brayer, clean up extra paint and to just be there in case I get inspired to create a page.  But...once the project or projects are finished, I do clean up and put things away.  So it's not that bad, right?

Right now I have five paintings I'm in the progress of doing.  They are a series of paintings for the bathroom that my shower curtain, (pictured below), is in.  I haven't started on the fifth yet because I'm waiting to see how the other four paintings want to end so that I can incorporate a version of them all into the final piece.  My hope was to be inspired by the shower curtain, which I absolutely love, but not copy it.

shower curtain by Deviant Art

 I think I started out trying to mimic it too much.  I started with the turquoise colored paintings first and when I first started them, I hated them.  But if I've learned anything within the process of my creativity, it's to stick with the painting through the "ugly and I hate it phase."  I'm so glad I did because as I continued to work with them I started to really love the way they were growing and progressing.

I then moved on to the orange ones and it was a little rough in the beginning of those as well but, same as with the first two, I am really enjoying their progress.  The colors are the same in both of the orange ones but the colors in the second one turned out muted in the picture.

They aren't finished yet, they are calling to me to add more bits and pieces and I am excited to see what they wish to be, especially because I've never done a series of work before.  You never know until you try, I might fall in love with the idea of doing a series and you may see more of them from me.  I'll keep you posted on how these turn out.

With light and love
Tia

Day 4: Empty spaces

We are not meant to fill the empty spaces, the holes, the vast void in others.  We are not the right shape, size, or substance to do so.  Sadly, too many of us walk away from childhood not only not knowing that's what we are doing, but also not knowing that we feel "not enough" because we could not fill those spaces within the influential people of our lives.  That's nobody's fault as people can't teach what they do not know and have not been taught themselves.

Still the issue remains that some of us spend our lives not knowing that a portion of our energy blocks come from feeling like we are not enough.  And if we are aware enough to understand that we feel that way, how many people truly understand that the reason might be that, as children, we could never fill those holes in other people.  If we just did this or that, we would be enough, good enough, worthy of love and positive attention from the people in our environment.  We struggle and strive to be able to do something worthy, something to help them see us for who we are.  But it seems they just don't.  We don't understand that we have handed over responsibility for declaration of our worthiness, of our enoughness, to a vast majority of other people and other situations, all outside of us.  When the truth is that we are the only ones who can truly declare it, as our declaration of it is the only one that matters and that that declaration has to come from the inside out, not the outside in.

I think that, as children, unless we are taught otherwise, it is natural to assess our world and worth based on the responses we get from our environment and the people in it.  I said "natural" to, I did not say it is the healthiest way.  It happens and unless we become aware of it as adults and teach our children that they are the ones who make the declaration of their value and worth, then unfortunately this unhealthy method will continue.  But I digress.     

I originally started the above post on December 31st, 2013.  Often times when I am creating and/or writing and I'm think about what to do or write next, I have to get up and start walking around.  When I got to that point with this post, my thoughts started rapid firing, the anger and resentment swelled up within me and I was ready to get up on my soap box and start wagging my finger in imaginary faces.  It wasn't pretty and it wasn't helpful.  Well, it was helpful to me because it pointed to deep dark places which still were (and some still are) in need of feeling and healing.  But to write a blog post in that state would not have been helpful.  While anger is a natural emotion, there is healthy anger and there is resentful, bitter, pissed off anger.  I didn't feel the later would be all that helpful in the state I was in.

So I let the post sit.  I hibernated with it.  I dug deep into many internal spaces over the winter.  I put it on the back burner and let it slowly simmer, allowing other background parts of me to figure it all out.  The other day my Soul and the Universe whispered some wisdom to me.  "The idea that we have empty spaces is an illusion.  We are not at all empty, we just come to believe we are."  I'm surprised I didn't understand that before because I believe that we are already whole, we are born that way.  Part of the healing journey is traveling back to the space of remembrance in which we knew we were whole and in the realization that we never stopped being whole.

Through the process of life some people come to believe they have empty spaces within themselves, perhaps it's a lack of fulfillment, or painful wounds, something or someone, that has caused them to feel this sense of a void that needs to be filled.  Lacking awareness or simply not knowing better, they search to find something or someone to fill the illusion of that deep dark hole inside of themselves.  We fill our voids with food, drugs, alcohol, sex, TV, you name it.  And sometimes, in our pain, we try to make other people fill up our empty spaces.  Sometimes we try to shape our children into the right size and stuff them into our empty spaces, not realizing that when we do that they wind up feeling like not enough because they can't possible fit into that space.  Not only because, like I said, other people are not the right size, shape, or substance, but also because there is no space to fill.

Trust me, I've felt those empty spaces inside and I know that when I felt them they felt very real, very cold, very hollow.  I searched high and low to find something to fill it up.  I tried filling it up with drugs and all that did was temporarily numb the pain while slowly taking the life out of me.  And while I am grateful for that journey, that journey is filled with a lot of pain and self-loathing.  The only true way to relieve the pain associated with the illusion of emptiness is healing.  The only way out of feeling that way is through the door marked "in."  The door to our inner world, the door that goes into all the pain, hurt and deep dark places that exist within us.  To dig deep into our stories and our perceptions and our beliefs and bring the light of healing to all of that.  And through that healing process we come to realize that we were whole the entire time, we just forgot.  Just like in The Wizard of Oz when the good witch reminds Dorothy that she had the power all along.  And so do we.

Perhaps if we changed our perspective and entertained for a moment the belief that,  no matter how empty, how broken, how lost we may feel, we are in fact brilliantly beautifully whole divine beings.  What if we entertained that thought?  What if we lived our life for just one day from that place?  What if we believed that healing is the answer, the thing that will bring us back to that feeling of wholeness from which we were born?  What if?

With love and light,
Tia

Day 3: Some thoughts on writing

When I was younger, teenager years, I wanted to write stories.  The problem was that, no matter how I tried, I always made myself the main character and the story about whatever it was I was currently dealing with.  I couldn't find a way to blend real life with fiction in a way that felt natural to me.  Then I started writing poetry.  I found a certain kind of freedom within my own freestyle poetry that allowed me to cryptically write about what I was going through without people realizing that was what I was doing.  I found it to be a very therapeutic outlet, and then I started journaling.  The combination of the two provided an emotional release for me and helped me to make sense of what I was feeling and going through.  They still do that for me today.

Writing is something my Soul needs, much like creating art.  Writing and creating art are, as I already stated, an emotional release for me.  They have also helped bring awareness to where I am at and when I notice that I am avoiding my journal and/or my creativity, I know that I am avoiding myself and that I am disconnected.  I have realized that, while once upon a time I wanted to write fiction, my unique perspective, the one that I feel allows me to best be of service to myself and others, is writing where I am at and what I am currently navigating through.  It's a natural gift for me and the more I embrace that gift, the less I have the desire to write fiction.

My main desire is to use my unique creative talents and abilities, the ones I know of and the ones that have yet to surface, to be of service to myself and others.  When I write a blog post about navigating my inner world, it helps me in that it gives me the opportunity to be vulnerability and, it is my hope, that it helps someone somewhere who might be facing something similar.  I suppose that's why it bothers me that I go for long periods without writing because I know that I have gifts to share with the world and it does not serve me or anyone else when I let those gifts sit quietly inside of me.

It gives me a sense of fulfillment to share my story and it fills my heart when someone reads it and lets me know that it helped them.  That is one of the main reasons I decided to commit to this Blog Along, to be of service to myself and others.  To give myself the opportunity to be vulnerable and stay in the light after I have done so, instead of running and hiding and watching from the shadows to see how it is received.  Because, when I write from my Soul and am in the zone, it flows so effortlessly and beautifully and I love how that feels.  Because I believe that part of the reason that I have endured the challenges I have is because I am supposed to use the experience and wisdom gained from those experiences to help other people.  I feel the pain of others and it pains me deeply to see and hear of people hurting.  I am passionate about people healing the wounds deep within them, rediscovering their own empowerment and innate wholeness, and creating the life they've only dreamed of.  That is something I feel very strongly within my Soul that I am here to do and this is one of the platforms I can share those gifts with.  My artwork is another.

This is about more than making a public declaration and commitment to blog for 30 days in a row, it is also a declaration to the Universe and my Soul that this is important.  That I am committed to helping myself and helping others.  This is me taking a step towards my dreams.  Of letting myself know that this is important to me and come hell or high water I am going to write and share for the remainder of these 30 days while sending love, light and healing to any who wish to receive it.  This is a message to myself that what I have to say is of value.  This is out of love for me and the world.
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So while I did face a heap of resistance today, I wrote anyway.  Stephen Pressfield says, "Put your ass where your heart wants to be."  So I put my ass at my work table and created some art and then in front of the computer and wrote.  All in all a good day.

With love and light,
Tia