You're a Gift

You're a gift to humanity!

Your uniqueness and special rhythm, how you move, how you speak, the life decisions you choose, your rage and your gentleness are like the ebb and flow of the ocean. Your life choices are the different hues and threads that weave our incredible tapestry of life. We are one because of each other.

Everything in our midst has rhythm. Everything that we can see and touch and smell and taste, every living organism and every object too.

Imagine this planet as an enormous orchestra. Each one of us has our own unique pitch and sound. The earth's crust sighs and groans expressing its inaudible voice. Every rock and plant, every stream and ocean whisper and whistle or roar depending on their unique pitch. We humans too, make our indelible mark. Each of our different pitches contribute to the magnificent and harmonious concerto we are a part of. Each one of us is integral to the tapestry life is weaving.

Imagine an orchestra without the wood wind instruments, or the strings, or the percussion. It wouldn't be complete. It wouldn't be the same without the full spectrum from the double bass to the sweet high pitch of the piccolo. The success of the resultant concoction of rhythms and sound frequencies lies in the inclusion of the full spectrum of sounds, audible and inaudible.

We need to uphold our differences, our different life lessons and embrace each other as the integral part of the whole that we all are. We need to reach out and draw to our bosom those who are vibrating at a different frequency. We need to include and infuse with each others rhythms and know that we are so much more than our small ripple. We are the sum of the total of all of our ripples and tidal waves and tsunamis.

We are one resounding crescendo of awakening consciousness. We are a magnificent blend of all our gifts.

I want to thank each one of you for your contribution. The world wouldn't be the same without you! Thank you for being open to hear this message and thank you for being you!

in love and gratitude
Nicolette

Simplicity

"No other life form on the planet knows negativity, only humans,
 just as no other life form violates and poisons the Earth that sustains it."                                                                                                                                         
                                                                   'The Power of Now'  Eckhart Tolle

Isn't it fascinating that depression and disillusionment are a condition unique to mankind?

Have we ever noticed a plant or a wild animal being stressed about how things are on the planet? Have we ever seen a rose that is dissatisfied with its colour or hue? Have we ever met a frog that wishes it were a prince? What about a tiger with self-esteem issues or a bitter and angry butterfly?

We really should learn from nature. Nature just is. Nature doesn't question why. Nature has a natural simplicity and acceptance, just allowing what happens to happen without judgement and scrutiny.

All life forms are born, live for a period of time and die. There is a natural rhythm which we don't see the animals and plants resisting. Why do we humans think and act differently?

Why do we complicate our lives with what we will wear, eat, do, how we will live and with whom, whether we are aging appropriately, etc?

Because we deem ourselves to be separate, separate from all life forms and creation. We have bought into the deception of our ego that we are alone, that we are not good enough, we are not complete. In fact some of us even buy into the belief that we are separate: I and me. I am my own best friend. I am separate from my mind, separate from my body. We create duality and division within ourselves. How often do we observe people who are at war with themselves over weight or addictions or with guilt or self recriminations?

Actually, we just need to BE ourselves. We need to stop trying to be anyone else. We need to stop trying to become anything (in the future) and just be (in the present). We need to stop fighting the flow and the dance of the universe and just go with it.

When the me and myself merge into 'one', we can stop judging ourselves. We will not love ourselves or hate ourselves, we will not feel sorry for ourselves or feel proud of ourselves. We will just be. We will be at ease with ourselves when we are alone. We will not seek out a person or a relationship to cover up our unease.

When we can lose our identity with self, we will no longer discover our short comings in our relationships and blame our partners for what essentially is our lack.

When we give up our relationship with ourselves, all our other relationships will become love relationships.

It says somewhere in the Old Testament: "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind". Well, if we can reach this point, we are one step away from insanity and one step away from enlightenment. Then we are without judgement and we are balanced.

Life's simple. It's just us humans who complicate it.

It's simple. Just be!

with love
Nicolette 

Lover

Being the eve of Valentine's day, I thought it appropriate to debate whether 'romantic love' still has a place in society today.

We all know that romantic love is to unconditional love what ego is to the true self.

Romantic love is an illusion. It is steeped in all kinds of expectations of what our lovers are doing for us. It's all about giving and taking. With romantic love there always seems to be the expectation of cut flowers and dates and candlelight dinners and lots of caressing and kissing and tantric love making. There seem to be so very many expectations of expensive gifts and lots of effort in planning and staging the perfect event. We set ourselves up for failure time and again, because we are pursuing an impossible illusion, one of perfection. We need the perfect sunset, the perfect meal, the perfect gift, the perfect love making and then we will know that we are loved and appreciated and we'll feel whole and loved equally in return. Oops!

How often do we hear people complaining that their partner is not romantic any more, because the act they put on to entice them in the first place, has become an impossible chore to sustain.

Why do we continue to buy into the Hollywood fantasy of fake love, when all we need do is go within, go deeper and source our bottomless well of self love. This love is divine. This love is unconditional and not needing anything to grow it or complete it. It is more than enough and the more we access it the more it is replenished. It never runs out.

I cringe with embarrassment when I remember back to my first year of marriage and on hearing my husband, Chris' desire to take up golf, I literally shut him down with my response that there was no way he was going to play golf all day and turn me into a sporting widow. How insecure and clingy and dependant I was way back then.

It has taken quite some years to arrive at the place where I now find myself contented and whole within. In fact I welcome Chris' outside interests and hobbies and am only too pleased for him to pursue his passions because when he returns from a motorbike ride with the boys, he literally oozes happiness and that happiness is contagious.

When couples are comfortable, trusting and encouraging of each others interests that are outside of what they do together, don't we observe a stronger love bond between them? When we individually complete ourselves and then come together, what a union!

"Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other, but choose to live with each other."                                                     The Road Less Travelled   M. Scott Peck

Osho says in his 'Yoga: Science of the Soul', that the reason lovers fight is because they place their happiness in each others hands. Think about it. When we place all expectations of fulfilment and happiness on our lover, we have just given them the key to our happiness. Now they become our jailer and we have made ourselves their prisoner. What prospect of future happiness do we have with this kind of union?

It is beautiful to have two passionately contented people who choose each others companionship without ownership of each others soul.

I celebrate LOVE, because LOVE is ALL there is.

Happy Valentines Day

love
Nicolette

Holding the Space

Working on my talk, ' How Ego prevents us from Living in the Now', last week, I refound some little gems that I'd forgotten about and decided to share them with you.

The first is that we cannot try and stop our egos from controlling us, because that is just more control and again ego or being in the mind. We cannot try and let go of our attachment to things. It is impossible. What we do need is to rather become aware of our attachment to things e.g. observe how we feel when we lose a favourite piece of jewellery or our car gets bashed? Are we devastated and attached to that thing? You see what we resist persists, but once we acknowledge and identify our attachment to stuff, we start noticing our false sense of self and it starts to diminish. We need to sit with our attachments until they no longer lure us, until we realise that we are not our possessions, addictions, etc. They are not part of our identity. 

When we are so identified with that voice in our head and we buy into all the emotions that are attached to it, we are in the grip of ego. It is in this space that we are unable to just “BE”.

We are spiritual beings who are here on earth to do all manner of things and experience all manner of experiences. We cannot cop out and run away to the highest mountain and sit and meditate all day long like monks. We have practical obligations and commitments to our families and loved ones. We have specific life purposes here on earth which relate to co habiting and interacting with our fellow human beings.

How do we go about our doings and at the same time remain conscious and present and free of ego?

We need to feel acceptance, contentment, gratitude and/or passion in whatever we are doing. If we are not in at least one of these states then we are in ego and self creating our own suffering. We do have the choice if we don’t like doing something to fight it or accept it e.g. when we are sitting in heavy traffic which is not greatly enjoyable, we certainly won't be passionate or grateful to be whiling away the hours waiting. We do however have the choice to fight the situation over which we have no control and thereby create more suffering for ourselves as we stew in our self-made seething and frustration, or we can choose to accept the situation. If we choose the latter we may observe how we literally come off the boil. We may take a conscious breath or two and as we create a gap in the incessant, uninterrupted babble of our minds we might gaze outside the car window and notice the crowd of people waiting for a taxi in the sweltering heat. Suddenly we are feeling deep compassion for these people and much gratitude for the comfortable, air conditioned car in which we sit. We take a few conscious breaths and switch on the radio and as our favourite song plays we realise we are smiling and we are content.

Now how easily did we transform ourselves from impatient, bitchy bastards to patient, contented, humble beings? You see it's just a choice.

It is really good to have a daily meditation practice, but if time is short, we can also do awakened meditations, like breathing consciously in the supermarket queue or walking slowly, eating and savouring our food with gratitude, listening really attentively to someone when they speak, without finishing their sentences for them, being totally conscious of our thoughts when we think them and aware of our attachment to ego (believing that we are our emotions, possessions, addictions, etc.).

We need to find our peace every day and then we need to practice holding this space of awareness outside of the yoga studio or the garden at home and carry it into our daily lives. 

We need to ask ourselves: " Can I sense the essense of who I am in the background of my life at all times? Can I sense the I am that I am at this very moment? Can I sense my essential identity as consciousness itself? Or am I losing myself in what happens around me, losing myself in my mind, in the hustle and rush and the material stuff? Am I at peace? Because peace is the end of the ego”

"Stillness is the language God speaks. Everything else is a bad translation."

"We don’t live our lives, but life lives us", says Eckhart Tolle.

When we realise and accept that the present moment is inevitable and don’t have any resistance to it, we become empowered by life itself. The power of allowing lies in non doing.

So I urge you: "Let's make our lives an awakened meditation. Let's remain connected to our spiritual identity, consciousness. Let's not become blind sighted and caught up in the rat race of life. Let's choose to accept what life throws at us and let's become empowered by life!"

Have an awesome week, my friend

love
Nicolette