How does it look like To receive a loving command How does it feel To deliver a loving command
Sometimes Your are not In a place Of receiving Sometimes You are In the clouds Of melancholy
What does that place ask from you? Is it being heard? What happens as you push? Does it feel better?
What happens when you pause? What do you notice? Maybe a pain Maybe a tension Who wants attention
What does it tell you? What does it need? What would happens if you Allowed it to be Just the way it is right now No pushing away No walking over it No pitying Just listening inside Gently Without force Nor demand Patiently For the child To come In its own timing Maybe it won’t come today Just be there Come back Gently present Loving her
How can you work with life, use the existing currents for your higher Purpose and Wellbeing instead of fighting upstreams.
This is the exploration I invite you to take as we contemplate life’s cyclical nature.
I never questioned the daily cycle of night succeeding to day. I accepted getting tired at night, not questioning the signal to go to sleep, knowing that there would be a new day with renewed energy after I slept. This has been the cycle most obviously accepted and followed in my life and in our culture.
Seasons are also obvious in the countries I have been living in. But I’ve never really met any deeper acknowledgment of winter’s invitation to rest and reflect nor even really the suggestion that so was the case before a few years ago. It was more something to work against: take some vitamins, find alternative sources of light and keep going in your work and life.
As I went through my journey, learning natural farming 9 years ago, spending blessed hours in my kitchen garden 🪴 under the sky and with Life, I began to feel the desire to live more in symbiosis with Life and the seasons.
3 years ago in a weekend retreat I heard about “8 shields” (www.8shields.org) where the similarity in energy of the daily, yearly and human life cycles were highlighted and explored as a compass to navigate life more harmoniously and it reinforced my desire to find ways of living honoring more of these natural rhythms.
Still I needed to understand deeper and integrate that much more of life is cyclical.
I had really hard times in my low energy phases and emotional state. I grew up with a mother who experienced depression most of her life. I also experienced times of depression. So each time my energy goes in a lower low, there is a contraction growing in me, a fear of staying stuck in that energy level.
Have you ever felt in a similar way?
A couple of years ago as I worked with my mentor Stephanie Fabela (www.allaboutintimacy.com) I began to understand that my emotions also where following a wave, and that any high would be followed by a low, like night follows day. And that I wasn’t feeling low energy because of anything I would have done wrong. Still I had a hard time to trust that lows were as temporary as highs were.
Last year my awareness was drawn to the moon cycle and more and more of the other planets 🪐. Hearing about these transits and the influence they have helped me relax more and make it less about my own abilities but understanding that this is the world I’m living into and there is so much more than the succession of day and night that is around and impact my energy. It teaches me deeper acceptance of my energy level, not needing to know exactly what is at play, but just know that my tiredness is part of my body intelligence so that I may take a pause, reflect, integrate and reassess.
This knowledge helps my mind to accept more easily to let go of blindly pushing through and instead give myself what I need, liberating a lot of energy otherwise used in creating additional mind made suffering.
When I can see my emotional waves as a cycle that I don’t have to question in the same way as night following day, I find a deeper trust in life and can ease and embrace my low times, going with the flow of life instead of fighting against it.
In Creative Conversations Ep.5 we talked about cycles and the impact of understanding and honoring or ignoring the multiple cycles that are woven in the fabric of life and it made it clear that this conversation is needed as it hasn’t been a way of approaching life for many of us before starting our transformation journeys.
The video in this post are my reflections extracted from this Creative Conversation.
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We might all have heard at some point that we need to love ourselves better and that’s what makes us able to love others and the world fully.
Self-love is what empowers us to face Life creatively instead of sticking us in the legs and loose our energy in destructive self-talk.
See through your beliefs and improve your loving self-talk
It’s so commun that we rely on others reflection of who we are. But this is only a reflection, depending on the person mirroring, like the moon sends back to us some light of the sun, but we don’t fully know the sun by looking at the moons reflection. We can have some people who are able to see our beauty and reflect it to us. But ultimately, what will empower us is to be able to see our own beauty ourselves, to go from external acceptance toward internal self-acceptance. So we need direct observation of ourselves to see the true you.
And for me, for this direct observation of oneself to be fair, self-love is needed.
And one aspect of developing a self-love that goes beyond words, is to understand that we look at the world and ourselves through the lens of beliefs of how things are and work.
As an exemple, I’ll use my belief that things are as simple as the plan that we make, like the rational mind sees it.
From a rational view you could say: 1. There is a plant 2. Make a hole in the soil 3. Put the plant in the soil 4. Give some water 5. The plant blooms Simple!
Or in another situation: 1. Decide who to call 2. Pick up your phone 3. Have the conversation 4. Get an answer – get the job, the agreement… the result!
This belief has very disheartening effects. When I find myself not being able to fulfill the plan the inner voice says “But it’s so simple, and I haven’t even been able to do that. So what about more complex thinks!”
With such a self-talk, I feel like there’s something wrong with me. If I can’t handle “simple” stuff, how will I ever do anything of importance.
And this might be a belief strongly seeded as you grown up, by being met with impatience and dismissive expression when you didn’t know or managed to do things that your caregivers or other influent adults like school teachers perceive as something you should already know and master.
So later on, this beliefs pervades your perception of the world and of yourself. To be self loving, you need – in that example- to get aware of the “This should be easy”-lens you are looking at the world and yourself and question it. Is it really that simple? Are these simple logical steps all that is at play and necessary for the plant to bloom? From this reality check, it’s possible to reply to the inner voice of “This is so simple” that if it was, I would already have done that. So obviously there is more to it. And from there, instead of making myself wrong and doubting of my capacities and self worth, I can look at what more is at play and take care of that – find some help, information or support – whichever is relevant.
From Alana Fairchild “Sacred Rebels” oracle deck
So self-love is the voice who recognize the beliefs we collected through life, and know that there’s nothing wrong with you and that puts your energy in places that will support what you try to achieve instead of mining your self worth and undermine you.
❤️✨
How does it sound when you talk to yourself? What’s the pattern? Is it supportive and inviting for finding new ways? Or do you feel bitten down, drained and disempowered by your self-talk?
When you notice a thought that turns you down. Pause. Wonder. What’s true. Have a reality check.
To see through these beliefs that we usually don’t even know are at play can be tricky. There others you trust can help.
How can you show yourself self-love today and see more of your true self with love and compassion?
Share and comment! And reach out to trustworthy people for help and support.
Olivia Florian 