Just Be!

This is the first week of my 50th year on planet Earth. Wow! I am nearly half a century old.

As I reflect on my life so far, I am in awe of everything having occured at just the right time. I have no regrets. Every stage that I have transferred through and every moment whether eventful or void has been perfect!

When a butterfly emerges from its crysalis or summer turns to autumn or the earth turns on its axis in its orbit around the sun, each of these events happen as and how they are meant to happen. Nature just happens.

Have you ever noticed, when it comes to us humans, that from the moment we are born, the clock of anxiety starts to tick...

When will we get our first tooth?
When will we crawl?
When will we walk?
Pressure, pressure....
When will we talk?
Will we be clever?
Will we be good looking?
Will we win races?
Will we passs our grades?
What will we do after school?
Will we make it?
Will we find a partner?
Will we find happiness?
Will we amass wealth?

When I look back over the past 49 years, I see that I did everything at the right time, not at the same time as other people, but at my time and it was right for me. I have no regrets and I would change nothing.

I simply realise as Neale Donald Walsch so aptly put it in his 'Conversations with God',
There's nothing I have to have,
There's nothing I have to do,
there's nothing I have to be
except exactly what I'm being right now!

A great friend of mine, Nianell, puts it so beautifully in her song, 'Life's Gift'. 'Life's gift to me is just to be'.

John Perkins in his book 'Shapeshifting' says: 'Stop trying to become, just be!'

So my friend, I invite you to join me and step off the busy treadmill of life for a while and JUST BE!
Know that whatever space you are in right now, you're in the right place. Embrace it, breathe it, live it and be it!

And remember to remind yourself how beautiful and perfect you are in every way.
Remind yourself that you need change nothing about yourself and tell yourself that you love yourself....

"I love myself"
"I am beautiful"
"I am perfect in every way"
"I love myself just the way I am!"

Have a beautiful  and blessed week

love
Nicolette

Next Workshop

Nicolette presents

Who am I?

a workshop to help you

- release old thought patterns
- free your body

- and explore the expansiveness of your soul

at: Leafy Greens Cafe

on: Sat 21 May 2011

check Current Talks and Workshops page for  more details

Life is like a See-saw

At a talk I attended on Thursday night, the speaker made the following statement: ‘Moderation is the motto of the mediocre’

Now I have spent the most part of my life as a radical extremist who has only just emerged from my black and white world. So, with my new found freedom, my reply is :’Moderation is the freedom to choose’.

Thus far, I have been living a life of order and control. It was from a place of freedom that I chose to impose rigid sanctions upon myself and that my freedom came with a high price of discipline and self control.

We explored last week, the importance of embracing our two opposite sides, in order to be well balanced and rounded (literally like a sphere). Well then, wouldn’t living a life of extremes be completely off axis and wouldn’t we just be denying ourselves fifty percent of life’s lessons and radically reducing our experience?

Freedom is the ability to choose whatever we wish and to change our minds as many times as we like.

When we choose to walk the middle line, we can flip over to the sunny side or the dark side quite easily, however when we walk the far extreme left, we have to cover a vast amount of ground to swing to the right.

Compare the walk we choose to a see-saw. When we sit right on the apex (in the middle of the see-saw), all we need do to tip the see-saw to the right is lean a bit right and if we want to tip to the left we only have to shift our weight fractionally to cause a shift to the left. On the other hand, if we are to sit on the seat at the one end, we have to literally stand up and tight rope walk along the see-saw to past the apex in order for the see-saw to tip to the other side. It is a more radical shift.

When we walk the path of the extremist, the highs and lows are far more dramatic. We’re either ecstatically happy or heavily depressed. With the moderation scenario, our highs and lows are not so extreme and we feel more balanced and steady.

Now I am not saying which is right or wrong or which is better or worse, merely commenting on our choices available to us.

Do we choose to only eat one type of food, associate with only one kind of person, follow only one type of philosophy. Or do we choose to have as much freedom of choice as possible and the freedom to change our minds often. Do we  choose to experience our dark sides and our light sides and to love them equally?

Perhaps when we are more balanced and sitting on the middle line, we are in a better position to help others. When we are busy running up and down the plank trying to balance the see-saw, we are less likely to smell the roses, let alone see them.

So just as we are spheres of light and dark, so too is the world a macrocosm of different shades coloured by the  radicals and the conservatives and all the shades in between. We have the freedom to choose to be whatever and whoever we like.

Living moderately needs not be boring, safe or as a result of fear. Living moderately means having one’s eye on all possibilities, being able to see the benefits of all sides. Moderation says, ‘ I can try this and the opposite without fear or condemnation’

The deprivation that accompanies extremist choices causes a torrential build up of force, which, just like the river we spoke about 2 weeks ago, will inevitably burst its banks. If you swing a pendulum to the far right it will, without a shadow of a doubt, counter swing to the far left.

We need to experienced living both ways, find the elusive line, sit on it and then walk the plank to the extremes and experience the thrill of the chaos we have the ability to orchestrate or control.

Swing or cruise the straight line, but always remember that we are free to change our minds at any time we so choose. And know that when we sit on the see-saw seat it is no fun until we have someone to play with, who will sit on the opposite side and set the see-saw into motion. Sometimes the motion of flying up and down is exhilarating and other times the calm of sitting still and just balancing is what we choose.

Live the life you choose and be who you are!

There is no right or wrong

So until next week enjoy playing on your see-saw

Love

Nicolette

Beneath the Mask

This subject fascinates me.

You know how we all choose to wear the mask that we think the world will approve of most. It's actually the side we approve of most and choose to show the world.

I believe that we were all created with two equal sides: the light, happy, loving, fun side and the dark, angry, fearful, sad side. Imagine the world with the one side that's facing the sun all bright and shiny and the side that's away from the sun in complete darkness. That's how I visualise us.

Our conditioning has taught us that the sunny, happy side is good and the dark side is evil. I would challenge this as I believe that we have been created with perfect balance. We are a complete complement of all the emotions possible so that we are fully able to experience a life of balance and integrity.

Imagine never having felt sad. We would never know what it is to feel happy. Until we have suffered, we have no compassion for those who have and are suffering. How do we know how we like to be treated until we are treated in a way we don't like.

We can't have the good without the bad or the desert without the dinner. It's the balance that we require.
So I challenge you to really think about this.

The next time you are sad and feel like reaching for a happy pill, embrace the moment and relish being with yourself in your feelings. Listen to yourself for the wisdom in the lesson. Learn from the space and from the emotions that are resonating with you. Life is the greatest teacher if we'd just take the time to listen and learn.

We need to visit our so called 'dark' side in order to understand ourselves better and to completely love ourselves. We cannot be one dimensional. We would be off axis. Imagine the world trying to spin if it only had one side.

I believe that it is only when we make peace with our two sides and give them both space to express themselves, that we are truly living.

Have you noticed how easily we can swing from being madly in love with someone to being completely enraged by the same person. Perhaps you even wonder sometimes, like I do,whether you have lost your marbles. 'How is it possible to love one minute and hate the next?'

It is perfectly possible and normal. We are just conditioned to think that it is not normal and that we should not express ourselves. We are conditioned to think that we are out of control and behaving badly when we feel anything that falls on the dark side.

So let's begin by loving our sad selves as well as our happy selves.
Let's love our angry selves and our happy selves.
What about loving our jealous selves as well as our loving selves.
Let's love our fat selves and our skinny selves.

You see, we are all of these.

Perhaps we should take a look at why we become angered by some people. Observe the next time you are in the company of someone who rubs you up the wrong way and look for that irritating trait in yourself. You will find it!

The very traits that we hate in ourselves, are the ones we observe in others and become angered by. You see like repels like and opposites attract.

That's why we seek someone who is so different to ourselves as a partner. They complement and balance us.

So in order for us to start loving others unconditionally, we have to first stop judging ourselves as bad, aggressive, jealous or fearful. We need to embrace all of our qualities as worthy and part of who we are.

Let's love ourselves whether we are in autumn, summer, winter or spring. We are not just the season that we are experiencing, we are all the seasons. And just as spring will follow the winter, so will our happiness return after a season of sadness and depression.

So I encourage you, no matter what season you find yourself in, love youself.

Tell yourself:

I love sad me and happy me
I love dark me and sunshiny me
I love fearful me and brave me
I love poor me and powerful me
I love angry me and loving me
I JUST LOVE ME!

Until next week, roll over and embrace the you beneath the mask

love
Nicolette