Relax

A sweet angel dropped me the line : "Relax in your enthusiasm and willingness to be spiritual.  
There is no need for much effort. When we relax we blossom and open up to GRACE."

 

I immediately identified how I have been trying to grow and improve myself and yet in my trying I have created much stress for myself. Trying implies that I have still got work to do to improve, that I am not fully evolved and that I am not satisfied with who I am.

Osho says in his book 'Intimacy' "When you stop improving yourself, life improves you. In that relaxation, in that acceptance, life starts caressing you, life starts flowing through you."

I realise that I need to accept myself as I am even though it goes against my conditioning, my education, my religion, my ego.

Osho goes on to say, "What is the beauty of the poor flower? It is in utter acceptance. It has no program in its being to improve. It is here now - dancing in the wind, taking a sunbath, talking to the clouds, falling asleep in the afternoon warmth, flirting with the butterflies.... enjoying being, loving, being loved."

So my message today is short and sweet. As I pack my belongings into my suitcase and prepare for a month of holidaying at the Vaal river, I am going to be like a flower. I am going to bask in 'being-ness'. I am going to relax and stare at the clouds. I am going to bask in the glorious warmth of the sun's rays. I am going to embrace acceptance of my being without need of doing or becoming anything other than that which I am.

And I already feel the weight of self judgement and anxiety dropping from my shoulders. I feel as though I am already lying on the banks of the river. I am there.

Wherever you are this Christmas may you feel complete and satisfied in the knowledge that you are exactly where you are meant to be. You are exactly who you are meant to be and you need do nothing to make yourself anything more or less to diminish or increase your worth.

May you enjoy your rest. May you revive your spirit and I look so forward to touching base with you again in the New Year.

Have a blessed Christmas

with all my love
Nicolette

Everything and Nothing

On Course at the Mega Part One, 'Art Of Living' this weekend I was asked the question: "What do I take responsibility for?" and without much contemplation my instant response was: "Nothing". I was fascinated by all the different answers, but when my friend Sonia replied that she takes responsibility for everything I questioned myself and engaged myself in a deeper search for an answer.

As I questioned myself about what responsibility means to me it triggered the response: ACCOUNTABILITY which in turn triggered the emotional response of BLAME. I immediately saw through myself to my protective pattern to which I have clung through the years. I saw how I was terrified of owning a pet because I'd be committing to remain responsible for their welfare for a long time to come. I remember balking at the idea of marriage and children in my twenties because the thought of all that responsibility seemed too great to bear. I confronted myself on the issue of my husband's communication to me that he feels burdened with all the responsibility of our finances, discipline of our children, just everything and I started to observe that through my reluctance to commit to being responsible to anyone or for anything I had burdened him with a huge emotional load.

Delving into the possibility of stepping up to the proverbial plate and accepting responsibility for something I started with myself.

I immediately discovered that I feel fully responsible for my own thoughts, words and actions and in fact all of the choices that I make, whether they are the choice to create separation or to love. As I sat with this consciousness I explored the option of creating obstacles for others by the choice of my negative intentions and perhaps careless egotistical actions. Every thought, word or action that I initiate has a cause and effect knock on. I realise that my sending love into the world has a loving knock on effect and likewise my sending anger or egotistically charged emotions into the ethers has a negative effect.

However, how others react to the ripples I cause is something that everyone has to take responsibility for. Do we wish to perpetuate the cycle of negativity or do we negate it by propagating love. Do we become entangled in bitterness, unforgiveness and blame allowing our egos to lord it over our true selves or do we see through the dark actions of others as a cry for love and support?

The more I sit with the question, the more I observe how much influence I have in the thoughts and deeds I project. I realise too that we all need to encounter difficulty and trials so as to allow us the opportunity for growth and development. It is only when we have experienced suffering that we know how much better it feels to be free of suffering. But suffering is indeed an important asset in finding true happiness. These two opposites are vital for the existence of each other and they are complimentary.

To realise this is complete power. I realise my power in my freedom to choose. Do I choose to create division and misery and hardships for others? Do I want to be the cause of other's suffering and life lessons? Or do I want to be a gift of love, peace and happiness?

And in as much as I believe that we all need our share of suffering and sadness, I know that it is not my wish to be the creator of such. My wish is to be a messenger of love and for that I take 100% responsibility.

I pledge to constantly remain in a state of awareness, to catch myself when ego steps out of line which is a minute by minute challenge. I promise myself to think kindly of others, to give them the benefit of any doubt, to love unconditionally and to do unto others as I would pray others do to me.

If I can just be responsible for generating love consciousness and compassion in this world, then I have freedom from fear, hatred and all host of unloving emotions. When I am responsible for how I think, act or speak then I am accountable for how I influence others' lives and because I don't wish to walk around with guilt of adding to others burdens, it is my choice to be LOVE. I fully accept the responsibility.

And in accessing the love within me I realise that 'I' am nothing and 'LOVE' is everything. It is not mine to give. It is free to all of us who are receptive to it and I am just a channel through which LOVE flows.

I am responsible for allowing love to flow through me. And I am so blessed by this awakening.

May you be a divine channel of love this week as we prepare our hearts and minds for the season of giving. Let's be responsible for channelling love this Christmas. Let's see how much joy we can bring to others.

all of Love's richest blessings
Nicolette

Love Rules

How many lifetimes have we wasted obsessing about how others do things, trying to win arguments, trying to get people to see things from our point of view, trying to find perfectly like minded people? Isn't it exhausting?

Why do we need to be understood, validated and assured? Why do we constantly seek the company of those who won't challenge us? Why do we feel the need to assert our cleverness and boast our superiority? Why do we need to judge others as evil, bad, unworthy or less evolved? Why do we need to be right and everyone else wrong?

The answer: EGO

If we were to spend a tenth of the time we spend criticising and judging others rather focusing on  love and being a transmitter of compassion, we'd witness a miracle beyond belief.

To be without ego, we need to be void of thought forms and words. We need to be in the gap between the past and the future. We have to be split second present in the constantly recurring 'now'. Imagine if each one of us were to invest 2 and a half hours a day in that oneness with our creator, in that space of no judgement, just pure essence, just vibrating to the rhythm of contented bliss, peace and gratitude. How would that affect the quality of our lives? How would that spill over into our world around us?

Actually, for a miracle to occur it only takes a split second of being without ego, in a place void of judgement, in the presence of compassion.

This feeling that I'm talking about, for those who haven't experienced it yet, is the most wondrous and ecstatic feeling, more euphoric than a lifetime of orgasms. The first time I felt this was during meditation on the Part 1, 'Art of Living' Course I attended a few years ago.

To experience oneness with our creator is to awaken from our dream. It is to become aware of the unimaginable power we house within us. When we hold this loving energy at the centre of our life experience then all judgement dissolves. We begin to think like God because we are plugged in. The challenge to ourselves is to stay connected.

I don't want to waste another day, no, not another minute, not another millisecond of my precious life obsessing about what others are or aren't doing. I don't want to have an opinion about every act or occurrence in my world around me. I just want to enjoy my resonance with one and all. I want to squeeze out every bit of joy that is mine for enjoying whist I roam this physical plain. And to do that I can't be putting my nose in other's affairs. My attention needs to be inner focused.

I no longer want to criticise and complain, causing my physical body to suffer and ail. I choose joy and health and peace to be mine.

Instead of fighting you I am now loving you
Instead of criticising you I'm seeing you in all your beauty
Instead of questioning you I am now accepting you
Instead of keeping score I am forgiving you

All this precious time I've wasted
All the pain and suffering I've caused in futile ego battles
My love is far greater than these silly games

Love is who I am
Love is power
Love is the way and...
Love rules!

I love you ‘til it aches in that place where love sits and the ache feels so good that I never want to stop loving.
 
Let's see how much love we can mutiply this week. See how much joy you can squeeze out of your existence even if you have to cut the bottom of the tube off to extricate the last drop.

I love and you're next!

Nicolette

Let's Talk about War

Why do we fight conflict with more conflict? Why do we think one wrong deserves another? Why do we lash out and hit the kid who just slapped his brother? What does the death penalty solve? Did killing any murderer, who is someone's son or daughter, bring peace to our world? Think about how many wars have been fought throughout the centuries...If war resulted in peace and love then we should have abounding peace on our planet.

What is with our preconditioned responses? Why do we feel that we have to even the score? What revenge ever solved anything? How do we teach our children not to fight by smacking them as punishment? How do we stop an argument if we always have to have the last word? How do we think that giving a murderer the death penalty brings justice and restores love? It is just more crime, more rage, anger and unforgiveness.

We have to open up our hearts to really find the answers. We need to feel as though everyone else's sons and daughters are our children. Put ourselves in their shoes. If your child raped, killed, stole or whatever how would you react? Would your reaction be one of cold judgement? Would you willingly send your child to the gallows? Would you? Or would you look at the pattern of violence that has been perpetuated down the family lineage? If your child is bullying others at school, do you point the finger at the other child or do you look for the key in the behavioural patterns at home? Do you look at yourself? If you are locked in battle with your boss, co-workers, friends, spouses or kids ask yourself, "How and why am I contributing to the cycle?"

It's time we become accountable for our circumstances we find ourselves in. It's time to stop blaming each other. We are the product of our thoughts, words and actions. Our societies are a reflection of us, the individual.

Let's look at the very wars we start on a daily basis.

On rising in the morning what is the first thing you say to yourself? Do you fight with your wrinkles or your expanding girth? Do you mutter and moan at the dog or cat that is vocalising its impatience for food? As you drive to work in the morning traffic, do you try and squeeze out the other motorists because your need to get to work on time is greater than theirs? Do you hurl angry comments at the other motorists on the road as they do what you so often do? Do you become angered as you police others who are driving whilst using their cell phones or changing lanes without indicating? Do you project and anticipate the imminent war at the office as you do battle in the traffic? Do you take it personally when someone used up the last of the coffee before you had your cup? Do you look for someone else's head to bite off when your boss moans at you? What is your response when you hear over the news that that serial murderer has been given the death sentence? How do you handle your difficult clients? Do you silently seethe and call them derogatory names behind their backs? How do you react when you arrive home to a chaotic household?

O.k. I think I have made my point.

War is everywhere and we are co creators. It is time to face the facts. Until we individually can stop the war within; our world around us will continue to reflect that which we detest in ourselves.

Our work is within. We need to access our love. We need to LOVE. That is all. We need to forgive ourselves our prejudices and admit our own shortcomings. We need to own up to our own heartlessness and our lack of compassion with self first then with others. When we are brave enough to admit that there is a murderer, an interrogator, a manipulator and an abuser in ourselves then the judgement will stop. When we stop our self righteousness and blaming of others and start to point the finger at ourselves we will see that the war begins with us.

How do we stop the anger and retaliation? How do we turn the other cheek as Jesus did? We have to steadfastly and consistently seek love, be with love and access love in presence. It has to become our base, our foundation, not just something we talk about. It has to be our daily practise.

Sonia shared with me from Dr Wayne Dyer's teaching this morning. He asked; "What do you get when you squeeze an orange? Orange juice of course." He further explained that when we are pressurised we get to see what we are on the inside. Whatever it is we are holding onto is what will burst out of us. Why do we retaliate and match anger with more anger? It's because we are focused on our egos. We are forgetting who we are. In the midst of conflict we forget to reach for the light within, to use the love at our source as our anchor. We need to keep reminding ourselves daily in our quiet time that we are loving, kind, compassionate, forgiving aspects of Divine love.

We need to be the light and we need to project that light. "We need to be the change we want to see in the world", as Gandhi so succinctly put it.

Let's shine our love on the world this week

love and more love
Nicolette

Evil

Whilst spectating at the 94.7 road race yesterday,I was asked by a bystander whether I believed in evil. I don't feel that the words I used did justice to what I feel in my heart and therefore felt the need to try and capture the real essence of what I feel, so here goes.

I came across this quote this morning:

"Evil is what happens when man doesn't have God in his heart." Alfred Einstein

To understand evil it is first important to understand what love is. I believe in love. Love is everything that is. Love is pure creative energy. It is eternal, has no beginning and no end. Love is constant motion. It cannot be curtailed, owned, bought or sold. You can access love freely. There is more than enough love to go around. It never runs out. It is a bottomless well from which you can refresh and recharge for eternity. Love is power. Love is presence, consciousness and is the only thing that I can honestly say is real. Love is the everlasting residing presence in the background of my existence. Love is the intangible that makes me cry real tears when I just feel its magnificent presence. You cannot see love, but you certainly can feel it. Love is awesome and it is the essence that gives my life direction and meaning. It is the inner guidance and voice that motivates me to dig deeper and unearth my highest potential.

We all have love within us. We are made out of love, by love itself. But sometimes even oftentimes we forget this awesome power that imbibes us. We entertain fear and the thought of separation and in our misguided thoughts about being alone we forget our inner spirit presence. We doubt our power and our excellence and through our minds we play with the thought that we are separate from our 'love centre' and that we need to desperately seek it, buy it, own it or steal it. We feel insecure and worthless and paralytic with fear.

When we entertain doubt and allow fear to grip us, because that is exactly what it does, it creates a tight tourniquet which completely restricts the constant flowing force of love within. Hence the power that was divinely channelling through us, no longer passes through our veins. Without the flow we become stagnant. Our ideas and thoughts become depressed and negative. We stop reflecting love and therefore we witness fear and lack of love wherever we turn, because what we are is reflected back at us through the eyes of others. It says in the bible somewhere  'As a man thinketh, so is he".

When we switch off our power centre, we experience a massive power failure. It is equivalent to when Eskom has a massive power cut in the middle of winter on the coldest, darkest night. Our fear is very real because in the dark we cannot see that there are others nearby. We feel enveloped in separateness and fearful of the creeping cold. When the light and with it the warmth go out, survival becomes our sole concern. In our separateness we begin an inner struggle to compete and fight for life. It becomes us against them as we begin our outer search for external fulfillment. In the dark fear becomes a very real experience. In this state we do not create anything. We just remain fixated and trembling on the spot.

Now enters 'evil'. From this space of uselessness and powerlessness, our minds are easily sabotaged by our egos. We entertain thoughts of fighting 'til death for shelter, warmth and food. We feel sucked into the belief that there are limited supplies of all our needs. We feel the urge to fight and compete. We believe that it is the strongest that will survive and hence our minds start to manufacture devious ways of outdoing and outsmarting the rest.

We start to create negatively. We plot and connive in secret. We plan to overthrow and control others in the interest of building our own self esteem, wealth and material assets.

But in this frenzy, we feel no peace, just paranoia. We constantly look over our shoulders to see who is about to stab us in the back and steal from us what we have stolen. We no longer feel the warmth and protection we felt when we accessed the love within. By our thoughts we have created distance for ourselves from LOVE. The more we plot evil the darker our world within and our perception of the world without. We no longer see just fear on others faces. We see a dangerous and evil place. We see hatred and bitterness and greed. We see what we are manifesting mirrored by others and it appears very real.

But at any time we are able to recreate our thoughts and select the 'on' button to open the gates of love. All we need do is remember that we are love and permit it to flow. As the essence begins to flow through our veins we begin to thaw out. Warmth imbibes us, renews us, refreshes and enlivens us. Power flows through every circuit in our bodies. We feel alive and filled with hope and peace. We feel satiated and whole and connected to our creative genius. We are happy and content and feel interconnected with all.

So, to reword Einstein's quote I would venture that we all have God in our hearts, but we sometimes forget and when we do all our power evades us. If we shut off our power supply we become malleable to evil and dark ways. But at any time that we regain consciousness of our inherent 'power centre' which is love, the power shifts from negative to positive creation.

So, let's stay connected and never forget our 'love' because it is our love that gives us hope and it is that which we see mirrored in our world around us.

Have a beautiful week

love
Nicolette

Secrets

I abhor secrets. I battle to keep surprises like presents under wraps. It is not easy for me to withhold information from anyone. I remember my late mom telling me once that I was one of the most honest people she knew. And yet I have secrets.

Why would I withhold information from anyone? Because I fear their wrath. I fear their judgement. I fear conflict. Or perhaps to the contrary, I fear embarrassing, humiliating, offending or hurting another.

What do all these scenarios have in common? Fear.
And fear and secrets are bosom buddies.

All fear and secrets are a blockage to God's divine love. They act as a tourniquet to the one and only TRUTH, the flow of life force through our veins.

Haven't we noticed the relief on a person's face when they spill and confess. I was watching Carte Blanche the other night when one of Lance Armstrong's team mates confessed his use of drugs in the Tour De France. In closing he shared how free he finally felt now that he had let it all out. The relief was palpable on his face.

I bet you're thinking that withholding information from someone is a secret held for their highest good. I would disagree. We never know what lessons others need to evolve to their highest good. It is by our experiences and life lessons that we evolve and grow.

All I know is that when we withhold or store knowledge it is like placing water from the river of life into a large bucket and removing it from its source. It is to hide that water in a dark place away from the sunlight. What happens to water once it is removed from its life force energy? It becomes stagnant. The life goes out of it. It dies. Try and hold that bucket of water in the main stream of the river and witness the immense pressure buildup. You cannot secret away any of truth, love and knowledge without creating a tumultuous explosion. The truth always has a way of becoming known. The river of life and love will find a way of restoring the status quo. No secret that ever was or is will remain so.

The next thing I observe about my fears is that they are all of causing emotion. Secrets are the fear of causing emotions of being judged and victimised, of causing anger, hurt or humiliation. I ask myself: "Am I responsible for causing another person's feelings? Aren't feelings caused by our own choices? Aren't they navigation tools to guide us to our truth and don't we relish in our emotions when we allow our egos to sabotage us?"

If we are self loved and inwardly complete without need of praise, affirmation or approval from any other and if our egos surrender to our highest will, there should be no need for secrets. No truth can cause any harm to our higher spirit self. The only harm felt is by the ego which is our false sense of self. In fact I recently heard the suggestion that if our higher self is our Christ self, then our ego is the Anti Christ.

Surely then if we suffer at the expense of someone spilling their confessions, it is because we are so steeped in the opinions and rantings of our conditioned egos and perhaps our love is conditional. My right may be someone else's wrong. So in that case must I withhold my right so as not to wrong another? I seriously am of the opinion that we have to let the river flow. We have to allow the cause and effect. We cannot play God. We can only live our truth. Because by withholding our truth we create blockages and dis-ease within which in turn creates a ripple affecting all those in our midst.

So I ask myself: "Why do I do it?" "Does it matter if I am Judged? Isn't it better for my health and inner peace to flow with my truth, whatever the outcome? There will always be those who agree and those who don't, but we can't seek to please everyone because then we'll be living in denial and that is the worst secret of all. To deny oneself is to halt the inner flow of love and to create separation from our source.

I have spoken my truth. I look forward to hearing yours.
Have a wonderful week

in love
Nicolette

Less is More

I have had such a spiritual education in the past few weeks. Spirit has been nudging me to the self realisation of this ever so simple fact that the less I become and the more my ego is diminished, the greater my capacity to be my inherent spirit self. The less of ego I entertain, the more of Spirit I am. The less I try and control, the more satiated I am in blissful being.

Wow! I spent the weekend taking a reality check after having been on such an immense spiritual high. The reason is I attended our annual A.G.M. on Thursday night. Need I say any more?

The funniest truth about A.G.Ms is that they are an invitation for egos to do battle. Isn't it amusing to reflect in hindsight how easily we all become entangled in the web of defence. Out come our weapons to attack and protect our self imposed beliefs, wants and whims.

Well, you might be saying: "No, not me! I don't let my emotions get the better of me. I'm a lover, not a fighter."

Well, I took myself by surprise when I brought out all my big guns on Thursday night and had a field day decimating my target. Without judgement or seeking justification for my behaviour, I reflect back to the moment immediately after the outburst. My heart rate had escalated to that of a sprinter who had just completed a 100m sprint. My head felt like it was packed full of coals. My body temperature must have risen about 3 degrees. I felt like I was having hot flashes. I could feel my heart beating in just about every part of my body. I had the shakes. I was on an adrenaline high.

Feeling justified by my actions, I didn't give much thought to my behaviour until my body alerted me to some metaphysical ailment. I woke up the next day with stomach ache. It got so bad by Friday night that I had to climb out of bed at 3h00 to make a hot water bottle. Taking ownership of my self created inner tension, I acknowledged how I had turned my system acid by allowing my ego to sabotage me. I lay in bed with my hands on my stomach and tried to will myself to self heal. The harder I tried to focus on healing myself, the more it seemed to evade me. The 'I' that was trying to do the healing was just more ego and what Spirit has shown me over the last few weeks is there is no 'I' in healing. There is only healing once you surrender completely to Spirit.

The more I became aware of my self created reality, the more I wanted to reverse the state I found myself in, but the more I obsessed about it, the more it evaded me. I knew that I had to quit trying and surrender to being, but that is so easily said, but not so easily attained when one is doing battle within and trying to force your ego to lie down. When one becomes fixated on an intended outcome, it is rather like trying to catch and hold a sunbeam. You just cannot. You have to relax and bathe in its brilliant warmth. You cannot own it or control it, but you can surrender to it.

And as absolute synchronicity, as I am typing these words to you, I receive a mail from my friend, Dan. His message is a quote from Buddha: "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."

The text went on to say that it only takes 1 second for your anger to emerge. However it takes a relationship 6 months to heal and restore trust after anger.

I can testify to this fact as the discomfort I suffered in my own body was days worth, by comparison to my split second outburst.

So in closing, my lesson to myself is: In whatever I think, whatever I say or do, may I remember to operate from a place of love, from my highest self. May I remember that my self is Spirit and that everything else is unreal. When I surrender to my Self I feel bliss.

When I become nothing, then I am everything.

Have a blissful week sweet soul

love
Nicolette

The 100% Rule

How often do you climb out of bed and bemoan the weather?
How often do you regret the thought of the day ahead?
How often do you have the wind taken out of your sails, by listening to the news?
Do you feel good when you open your e-mails and find some distressing fact about hijackers and corrupt authorities?
Do you stay calm in the midst of all the panic about the collapse of the world around you?
Do you focus on how bad things are?
Do you see a solution for this world or are you dreading the worst?
Are you digging your heals in, resisting the flow of life?

Remember what you focus your attention on, is what you will manifest more of.

Let's just this week focus our 100% on what is within our reach.

Get out of bed and be grateful for the breath of life.
Be opportunistic for yet another day to make a difference in the world.
Seize the day and all its wealth of opportunities that lie in wait for you.
Choose not to listen to the news for just this week.
When you open your e-mails, delete those that have a negative context in the subject line.
Look outside the window and notice nature, always fresh and innocent and pure.
Tune out from the billboards on the side of the road and don't listen to the radio.
When sitting in heavy traffic, play some beautiful music that feeds your soul.
You make the choice as to what will entertain, motivate and encourage your senses.
Look for the 100% positive in every situation, meeting and encounter this week.

Shape your life going forward with proactive self motivation.
See it in your mind's eye and believe it.

By focusing 100% on seeing the good in yours and others lives this week, you will be generating a new wave. Remember each wave has, at its beginning, an idea, an intent, a single droplet of water and action.

Imagine a wave entertaining negative thought at the outset. If the water droplets examined their individual minuscule strength and debated their insignificance in the big picture, they could argue: "What's the point? What difference can little me make? Why try? Why get out of bed this morning? What's the use? I cannot change the outcome. I may as well surrender to my fate and shrivel up and die."

Well, we know exactly where that wave is headed for. Crash and devastation.

But suppose you are one of those droplets of water that is imbibed with faith. You see yourself as a vital participant in the creation of a whole new wave that can change the face of the world we know. You have vision and know that your contribution is vital to the collective. You realise that as we gather like minded individuals, we generate momentum, sweeping up those others who are indecisive, along with us in the swell. We are creating a new wave with our thoughts, our beliefs and our aspirations. We are creators with our vision.

We need to grow our awakening powers and expand our vision. We need each other as we grow our faith and accumulate other like minded droplets. We can create a gigantic tsunami of well being for this planet just by believing and intending and giving of our 100%.

Researchers have proven that there is a critical mass point and that once a certain number of a species have been taught something new, suddenly all or most of the species are imbibed with the inherent ability, without having to be shown or taught. They seem to be able to do it 'by inspiration'. Isn't that incredible?

Let's change our world by evolving the masses with a new thought wave. The more of us that become conscious and dedicated to focuings our efforts on our 100%, the more people we'll gather in the momentum of our making.

"We are what we think and the world is what we all think." David Icke

Let's give a 100% to the thoughts we generate this week.

yours in love
Nicolette

Search for the Unseen

In a world that is fixated with things material, striving for physical pleasures that don't bring any lasting happiness, I say: "Look for the unseen".
You've got to use your imagination to really open yourself to see. Search for signs and nuances, look for clues in the great mystery of life.
Don't take everything at face value, but rather dig beneath the skin and expect to find the hidden treasures. Expect the unexpected, because when you do, the magic that is your inheritance is there for the picking.

Life is rich with mysteries and the unexplainable. Dispense with explanations and concrete proof and live each day with the wonderment of a child who still believes in fantasy and miracles.

Find the make believe world in nature. Imagine the bees using the flowers as their doormats to wipe their sticky feet. See the magic in the golden ball of sun as it is swallowed up by the horison. See the spectacular and the miraculous in each new day and never cease to marvel at the hidden mystery of it all.

Step out of your jaded, bored and mundane point of reference. Put on some rose tinted spectacles. Allow yourself to entertain your senses with creative imaginings. Let go of control and parental seriousness. Surrender to the energetic flow of the universe.

Let today be a joyride. Especially today, notice the textures, the tones, the ripples, the insects, the stones.... Notice the miniscule, the smallest details in every situation. Look for the sign language, the unspoken sadness behind the eyes down cast or the arms folded across the chest in protection. See if you can detect the Spirit in every circumstance. See if you can feel the unseen essence that breaths life into us all.

On Thursday last week, whilst I was training Jenny in the gorgeous outdoors, one of her chickens came into distress. It seems that its foot had become trapped under a tray of wheatgrass. Wilson, her bulldog acted as the siren. He had probably witnessed the commotion and barked to alert us, and was then scolded for having caused the plight of the poor chicken. You can imagine the commotion as all the chickens flustered and flapped hysterically to escape Wilson.

Anyhow, Jenny rescued the chicken from its misery and held the petrified little bird in her two hands. She set the bird down on the ground and released it, but it limped about 6 steps and then crumpled in a heap. Clearly its foot had been injured, but when Jenny picked it up again, its little head drooped almost lifelessly.

Assuming the worst, that Wilson had attacked the chicken, I examined the bird for signs of blood or teethmarks and found nothing. There were no signs of sustained injury other than the leg which we'd seen had been trapped, yet the little creature closed its eyes and seemed to surrender to its fate.

Jenny laid the little crumpled body down on the grass in the warm sun to breath its last and went to wash her hands.

I knelt down beside the little creature and stirred with compassion for the chicken in its last moments, I placed my right hand on its small frame. My whole hand covered the small body and I could feel its weak heartbeat and the life force draining from it. The chicken closed its eyes and the eye sockets looked sunken and translucent. I held my hand over the chicken trying to preserve its body heat and I felt this amazing warmth in my hand as the chicken opened its eye and then closed it again. Jenny returned and asked me what I was doing and I must say the word I muttered wasn't from me, though I spoke it, I answered: "healing". Jenny silently crouched down next to me and we waited and watched. Then suddenly the chicken opened its eye again and popped its head up. It laid its head back on the ground as if to rest and then lifted it up once more. I released my hand from over its body and the chicken stood up and walked off.

Jenny and I sat awestruck and speechless in complete wonderment. What we had witnessed defied words. What I had felt was the power of the unseen world. It was as though my hand had been a conduit through which the creative life force passed.

As I drove home I wept in pure wonderment and awe at the magic I am surrounded by. Every moment I breath is magic. Every second of every single day is incredible and serves to remind me to keep 'searching for the Spirit of the Great Heart', as Johnny Clegg so aptly put it in his song. It is this search which produces meaning in a concrete world.

I encourage you, go within and search for the invisible, the intangible. You will find your greatest treasure there.

Have a beautiful day!

in love, awe and gratitude
Nicolette

I am Rich

Today I have had the most awesome day
Not because anything extraordinary happened
Not because I received a material gift
Not because I achieved any great accomplishment
The world didn't stop whilst I made a life changing discovery
I didn't do anything particularly unusual or profound
I didn't have a feeling of importance or of making a huge difference

Today I just lived for the moment
I took time to connect with whomever crossed my path
I didn't get rushed and panicked
I honoured my time with presence
and gave my fullest concentration to whatever I was doing
really listening and connecting with my heart
Today I shed tears of joy appreciating the simplest of things

My day started with singing at my youngest son's assembly. If there's one thing I miss about school, and there are lots, it is singing hymns every morning. How awesome is the combined energy of a hall full of people, all unanimously harmonising to the same tune. I sang like I was a child back in school. I sang from the depths of my soul. And when we sang our national anthem, I felt like I was going to cry. I felt proud, not in a superior egotistical way. I just felt alive and connected and proud to be part of the moment.

My son wasn't awarded any trophy or colours for his sport. He did receive a handshake and his whole team received certificates. I felt for him in his disappointment and yet I felt proud because Dylan is who he is. I felt gratitude to be there for him even though his experience was bitter/sweet. There were many who received accolades for superb academic and sporting achievement. I felt huge joy for the parents and their children who were acknowledged for all their various accomplishments. I felt like their joy was mine too.

As this year's prefects relinquished their duties to next year's team, I felt a lump in my throat as I connected with the happy/sad feelings in our midst. Tears of happines and tears of sadness. Memories shared and past and the anticipation of memories still to be made.

Later, at the shops, I engaged with the other shoppers and assistants via a smile, a nod or a few words. I savoured in presence as I tuned into all those around me.

I felt sufferance for the lady who helped me at the bakery counter, who shared that the health compliant shoes she has to wear, squash her toes and cause her pain. I felt like her pain was mine as  her smile and warm manner touched my heart.

Unloading the packets, when I finally arrived home, and hanging the washing on the line, I felt blessed with a contented peace. It felt as though God had pushed the 'slow play' button for me today. I was not tempted to rush or squeeze in any more important chores. I felt fulfilled in giving my 100% to savouring the moment I was in.

As I lunched on my patio with a colourful bowl of salad, my senses were overflowing with joy.  I cried with appreciation and gratitude for my beautiful food, the gorgeous day, the rain we've had and the lushness of my garden, for the experience of being a mom and a wife, for the friends and family that bless my life with their presence, and for the interconnectedness of us all.

I chatted with my son in the car on the way home from school, after having served his first detention for talking in the corridor. I shared how proud I am of him for being exactly who he is. I shared that no matter what, my love for him is unshakeable and that everything is perfect just the way it is. I sympathised with him in his disappointment and encouraged him to keep on striving, to reach for his dreams. And together we mulled over the highlights of those who achieved and laughed as we remembered their passion and joy.  

Today I feel rich because all of my senses are alive. I feel as though I have absorbed maximum pleasure out of every split second of today.I feel like I soaked up every trace nutrient out of every never-to-be-repeated nano second and I am laughing through the tears, so grateful for the gift of being.

I am so rich with joy!

Oh, I recommend it. Have yourself a rich day.

love and blessings for the week ahead
Nicolette

You're Beautiful!

You're beautiful
You really are
When I gaze into your eyes I see God's love
Your warmth and compassion make me feel connected and help me remember who I am
I'm so glad God made you, because your being exactly who you are, blesses me.

Did you know that God made you beautiful, from the inside out, not for you, but for our benefit.
God didn't have you in mind when he made you physically gorgeous. He wanted to bless all of us who cast our eyes upon you. He wanted us to see ourselves in your beauty so that we could be reminded of our inner beauty. Each time we behold beauty it makes us resonate with our inner centre of love.

God didn't invent mirrors. Man did. It was man who became obsessed with his narcissistic behaviour, his obsession with gazing at himself in the mirror.

The mirrors God gave us are each other. We should pay more attention to our God-made mirrors. These mirrors reflect back to us from the soul. They are a perfect reflection for us of our emotions, our egos, our self love, our minds and our intellect. When we see a trait that we don't like in others, it is our centre of love nudging us to recognise that inner weakness in ourselves. When we read fear in the face of another, we are gazing at our fear in our creator's mirror. When we behold beauty in another, we are reminded of the beauty which is ours. What we are reflecting and mirroring for one another is our love. We are by God's perfect design, mirrors for one another. How beautiful is that?

Notice that earth-made mirrors only reflect our physical bodies back to us. They are of little use other than to scrutinise the outer layer, the crust that seemingly houses our mind, intellect, emotions, ego and spirit. By gazing into a man-made mirror, we become fixated with the changes occurring in the outer crust, the decay, the inevitable ageing process. We can easily become distracted as our egos become fixated with outward comparisons between others and ourselves. We become self absorbed as our egos lure our minds, intellect and emotions into its make believe drama of : "I am only as good as my facade, the one I observe in my man-made mirror."

Have you noticed when you point your index finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you?
How often do you accuse, judge and label others?
Notice that when you do, three fingers are pointing back at you.
If you tell someone: "You're stupid", then you're three times more stupid than them. And worse, when you stand in front of that proverbial mirror and point the finger at yourself and say: " I'm so useless", you are four times more useless.
But if you praise someone and raise their awareness of their hidden strengths, if you acknowledge their Godness in them, you are three times more than what you recognise in them.
So you've got to praise yourself and when you do, you will be praising yourself to the power of four.

Let's look for every opportunity to find our love reflected back at us in every other being, every object and every living creature. Let's acknowledge the majestic and magnificent in every sunrise and sunset. Let's  become like little children in our awe and excitement. Let's see our God-given beauty in everything we behold. Let's sit up and notice our magnificence. We are surrounded by mirrors.

And let's thank each other for being exactly that.

Thank you, my sweet reader, for being my mirror. Thank you for continuing to reflect for me that which I need to address in myself and that which I need to have gratitude for. Thank you for your beauty, your honesty and your love. There is no truer mirror than you.

You are beautiful in every single way.

Have an awesome week

love
Nicolette
P.S. Perhaps we could try not observing ourselves in man-made mirrors this week, but rather in the God-made mirrors that abound. Notice the nuances and inner feelings that are conjured up as you gaze into the mirrors that surround you. Notice how much less your ego is able to sabotage your feelings of self worth without man-made mirrors. Observe how much easier it is to connect with the self within, without the distraction of the peripheral mirror.

In Praise of Trees

Trees are more valuable to the universe than humans. Think about it. Trees provide oxygen for the planet. They don't litter or defecate. They provide shade and shelter for animals and humans. Many trees provide fruit and nuts, valuable nourishment for humans and animals alike. Even when they die their wood is useful for making furniture, homes, tools and fire for warmth and cooking. They decompose easily and cause no harm to any other living organism.

But humans, on the other hand, litter and plunder, defecate and destroy the planet. Humans are major consumers. They take but how much do they give back? They rape and pillage the environment because of greed. So often humans are consumed with satiating their immediate needs for food, comfort and shelter, that they forget about correcting the imbalance caused by their taking. We humans consume oxygen, but we don't convert our carbon dioxide back into oxygen like plants do.

The footprint we make on our planet is huge. Every hot bath we run comes at the cost of coal that is mined out of the earth's centre. Every time we drive somewhere we are using up the fossil fuels which are mined out from our earth's belly. Every week we throw out piles of rubbish and are unconcerned as to where it is dumped. What do we do as individuals to reuse and recycle our own rubbish?

I have noticed how very few of my neighbours make use of a recycling company to collect their waste products. Every week the bins are piled high to overflowing with human waste. I notice people stripping their gardens of plants and discarding them in the rubbish heap. Diamonds and gold, copper and other metals are extracted for human want and greed. We are so busy hoarding and taking like worker ants, that we are oblivious to the major devastation we are causing to our environment. Man-made factories spill their chemical waste into our river systems killing fish and other organisms.

We really ought to learn from nature and start consuming just what we need. We need on an individual scale to give back to our planet. We need to start doing things that enhance our planet for the benefit of everyone.

I have always been a tree hugger and fanatical nature lover. I seem to have a close bond with everything green that grows. I have green fingers and am passionate about saving plants and finding homes for plants that have become over crowded. I couldn't imagine living in a place devoid of plants, lush green vegetation, gorgeous soft grasses and shade giving trees. The colour green calms me, providing me with a warm inner peace that gently soothes my senses. When I have spent all my energy and have been indoors for a while, there is nothing more appealing and soothing than walking outside in nature, sitting on the grass or in the shade of a magnificent tree and breathing. I thank God for trees. I am so grateful for and dependent on the plant life of our planet.

So please, I urge you when you cut down a tree, plant another in its place. Become green. Start a compost heap and sign up with a recycling company. If you utilise plastics and all manner of chemicals on a daily basis, you need to be accountable for how you dispose of them. It is our responsibility, not someone else's. Yes, we hear lobbyists who make a stand, but what are we as  individuals doing?

We need to connect with nature and feel its rhythm. We need to walk barefoot and soak up the messages that mother earth has for us. We need to listen, see and feel with our core and be sensitive to the natural flow of energy and life on our planet.

So, I ask you: "What are you doing to improve this planet? What are you doing to give back? What is your value to planet earth?"

If you aren't recycling yet and you reside in Johannesburg, South Africa then here's Mama She's Waste Recyclers contact details 076 041-6764 or carmen@wasterecyclers.co.za. They make recycling so easy. If you live elsewhere look up your nearest recycler and give them a call.

Make your mark. And don't forget to hug a tree and give it thanks for its contribution to your existence.

lots of love
Nicolette

Just Give, Just Receive

I spent the long weekend attending an Art of Living workshop wherein we explored the art of giving.

In my daily reflection today, I explored my feelings and questioned myself if indeed it is better to give than receive. After all the two exist because of each other. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? Imagine a world with only givers. Who would they give to?

I know I've so often missed the essence of giving because I've been hung up on reciprocating, instead of allowing the natural ebb and flow of imparting and receiving love.

Let's step away from the entanglement of material gifting for a while and focus on the gifting of our talents, our time and our love. What greater gift can we give another than our unconditional love? Can this love be measured? No. Unconditional giving is the essence of true giving. It is actually the only way to give, without needing anything in return. When we give without seeking praise or credit or reward or recognition, that is true giving. It is this true giving of ourselves that satisfies and blesses us and others.

When we give as an act of service, we give of our energy, our talents, our caring and compassion. We give with humility and our egos bow to the Divinity within us. These qualities when imparted cause an incredible outpouring of love, which causes a vacuum within. This vacuum in turn creates a pull and is rewarded with an in pouring of Divine love. That in pouring is the feeling we get of being blessed. There is no greater feeling. When we receive this in pouring of love, it feels as though we are kneeling at our creator's feet and being showered with compassion.

In closing the course yesterday, we did an exercise in which we were instructed to walk around the room in silence and find a partner. We were then to gaze into one another's eyes until one of us felt the urge to kneel at the other's feet and receive their blessing. When we felt complete with their showering of love, we stood up again and reversed roles. It was our turn to bestow blessings upon them with our intentions of love, healing, forgiveness and compassion as they bowed before us and laid themselves at our feet. We repeated the exercise until we had all been blessed and bestowed our blessings on one another.

I can't tell you how many tears I shed as I felt equally passionate as the giver and the receiver. There wasn't a separation. The two were one and the same entity. One minute I felt like an angel with all the compassion in the world, as I showered my love upon a colleague, tears streaming down my cheeks. The next moment I was shaking uncontrollably and sobbing as I felt the loving compassion of an angel standing above me, tenderly radiating his/her love and support.

The energy in the room was powerful, as love multiplied and flowed in and out, in and out. 

What is more beautiful than that. You see every act of giving has a reciprocal flow.This is a law of science. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So if we give out of guilt, we will receive out of guilt. If we give unconditionally, without expecting anything in return, we receive more than we could ever imagine, we are filled to overflowing with abundant joy. Spiritual giving is rewarded with Spiritual blessing.

But in order to give there have to be people willing to receive. We all need to be willing givers and receivers. That is how God's Divine love is kept in motion. What a Divine plan God manifested.

So, my blessing to you this week is a request to keep the flow of the Divine in motion. Be a willing receiver and giver and seek ways to give of your time, your love, your support, your compassion and understanding this week and be prepared for a peaceful power to imbibe you.

Richest blessings
Nicolette  

Take that risk

Too many choices? Scared of making the wrong one? What if I choose and then change my mind? How will I feel if I make a mistake and commit to a path that doesn't lead me to where I want to go? Will I be judged for not getting it right? Worse, how will I judge myself?

Does any of this sound familiar? How many of us are too scared to commit, whether it is to relationships, work, life path, personal issues or taking life altering steps in evolving our souls? And just sometimes we are so used to our protective patterns that we don't even know that we're sitting on the proverbial fence, watching others plunge fearlessly into their challenges. We try and learn through other's successes and failures, so as to avoid the hurtful experiences ourselves. We try and take an emotional shortcut. I know I have. I've been storing away my emotions rather than facing and dealing with them. So afraid have I been of confrontation, that I've become a master of navigating my way around circumstances or walking away.

I ask myself; "What do I risk?" I risk feeling emotion. "Why do I fear showing and feeling emotion?" Because I won't be in control of what is happening to me. "Ah, so you'd prefer to have a controlled, lukewarm experience with few bumps along the path? By never taking a risk, you will never fully experience your life, nor will you satisfy your soul's deepest longing? It's rather like never eating anything else other than porridge, for fear of tasting something you may not like, or like throwing acid in your eyes to prevent seeing anything you may regret. This is all fear and the reason for the self imposed control."

What I risk in surrendering to my emotions, is a life of passion, of highs and lows. I will experience love and unlove and I will know 'love'.

What makes a mistake, a mistake? What makes how we acted yesterday with conviction, wrong today? It is our altered consciousness that has caused us to shift our perspective, due to processing of the resultant outcome. It is our mistakes that cause us to challenge ourselves, our lives and our choices going forward. That's how we grow spiritually.

Socrates said: "An unexamined life is not worth living."

We actually have a duty to ourselves to throw ourselves in and try. Life cannot be learnt from a manual. Feelings can't be experienced through studying other's responses to similar experiences. We have to risk feeling, whether it's pleasurable or gruesome.

It is through making  mistakes that new discoveries and inventions are born. Do you not think Einstein, William Bell or the Wright brothers made numerous mistakes along their paths to their breakthrough inventions? It is only through repeated failure and commitment to persevering through doubt and disappointment that these people found the answers and made life changing discoveries. It is all credit to the courage of  inventors like them, who risked mockery and failure, sticking steadfastly to their goals, that we have evolved from cavemen to the species we are today.

If we had continued doing the same we had always done, we'd still be achieving the same result. We'd  still be hunters. Imagine hypothetically that a caveman dropped an orange and chased after it as it rolled down hill. That accident might have been the catalyst in causing a caveman to consider rolling his supplies instead of carrying them. It takes for something to go wrong to produce a different outcome and to challenge our conditioning.

Some of life's biggest mistakes have been the cause of life's greatest inventions. We have to challenge and risk failure and try new things and throw out our old perceptions and conditioning. We need to commit to failure. For out of failure is born creation.

I am newly inspired to push new boundaries and risk failure, to experience and feel whatever life has for me, because I know that surrendering myself fearlessly to life, I am opening myself to my creative potential.

Join me as I dive into uncharted waters with a willingness to touch, taste and feel.

Have a magnificent week

love
Nicolette

My Path to Peace

I spent some beautiful time this morning outdoors reconnecting with nature and spirituality. How amazing to forget about the pressures of city life for a while and go within to the pure, blissful, pristine peace that resides within this physical body. With my eyes closed, I followed the path of my breath, which is like a bridge from the seen world to the unseen inner world. It is rather like submerging oneself in the wonderland of the ocean. As one steadily sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, the concerns with the world on the continent seem to become faint distant memories. How intense is the inner silence. The stillness reassures and comforts me. I feel encapsulated in a protective energy.

The silence helps me notice my inner well of spirituality and love, a universal wisdom so strong and powerful. The feeling is of being filled to the brim by an osmotic warm presence from a source deep within myself.

I sit quietly and reflectively with my eyes closed, absorbing the power and acknowledging its potential, I am overcome with emotion, powerful feelings that move me to tears. So beautiful is the feeling that I don't want to leave this space. I cling to the moment, almost hypnotised by the feel good emotions that are resonating within me. I breath effortlessly and imbibe more divine energy. I feel so safe in this unseen world, protected from everything seen, rather like a child, who trying to hide, closes her eyes in the belief that "if I can't see you then you can't see me".

So great is the power of peace I own in surrendering to the stillness. I am plugged into my source and thirstily soak up the divine presence like a dry sponge. With every heartbeat warm golden light is transported from my heart centre to my periphery. And at the same time I feel the sun's warm rays like golden hands caressing my outer body. My pores hungrily absorb the sun's glorious warmth as I am bathed with healing balms of golden energising orbs. All my senses are seduced and caressed simultaneously.

What a gift it is to remember the presence that resides within me. I feel as though I have been reunited with a long lost friend. What relief!

I have left that space feeling strong and connected, newly charged. My emotional batteries have been refreshed and re tuned.

I now carry the memory of that feeling to remind myself, as the day progresses and the events begin to whirr, to stay tuned within. It is my challenge to walk my walk from my heart centre, from this place of peace.

I have such intense gratitude for the love that I feel and I pray that I should never forget this all powerful connect, with its resultant feelings of self assurance, confidence, peace and positivity.

All I need is to remember, to quieten myself and allow the essence to flow. There is no love that can satisfy like this universal love, this comforting, all embracing sense of peace.

As the week progresses, my prayer for you is that you make time to reconnect with your love centre. May you find your peace.

Have an awesome week

love
Nicolette 

Entertaining Emo

I sit in a place of receptivity as I listen for Spirit's guide. What is it that Spirit wants for me to share with you today?

I know this, that what I share comes from a place of truth and honesty.

I have been wrestling lately with entanglement with my emotions. I discerned an inner need to invite my emotions to visit and meet with me personally, in order to fully grow and connect with my higher self. This is quite a scary decision, given that I have worn a mask of super control for the last 50 years. You have to know that for reasons unknown to me, I was unable to cry or feel compassion for myself, in fact I was in denial that I had any feelings other than happiness, courage, faith, bravery, determination, etc ,that is until anger visited upon my doorstep and introduced himself to me. I kind of didn't want to admit that I could even entertain such a wild and volatile guest. I had nothing in common with anger. What would we talk about? How could I relate? I have never known  anger, hatred, depression, unhappiness, frustration.... Oops, maybe frustration, yes and a bit of intolerance. Oh, yes to that too.

As I spoke with anger I started to realise that anger has many faces and as I peered through the eyes of anger, the more faces I started to recognise. Resentment, judgement, victim, control, fear, fury, impatience, and so I could go on. Beneath my calm facade I detected layers upon layers of different faces, different emotions that had been secreted away. I started to recognise that all these faces are a part of who I am. They are all choices which are freely available to me. Because I had judged all these emotions as bad, I feared entertaining them lest I should appear weak and so I forcibly repressed them inwardly beneath my lid of cultivated control. What did I fear? I was in fear of these emotions taking control of me. I feared that by allowing them to manifest and present their case to me that I would become their slave and that I would lose my freedom.

So very slowly I braved it and delved within. I entertained sadness and hurt. I put them on and wore them to feel how they felt. I traded my happy shoes with depression's ball and chain and got dragged down to the lowest of lows. I dined with resentment and grief, despair and rage. My body was starting to feel completely shattered, rather like the feeling one gets after an extreme roller coaster ride. So great was the onslaught of so many diverse feelings all at once, that I began to feel an anxietous knot at my core.

What if I can never get back? What if I have become a slave to these dark and ominous feelings? The thoughts of terror were huge and all encompassing.

All these visitors had drained away my life force energy. I felt exhausted and imprisoned, completely powerless. I lay down for a sleep and journeyed back in time with my emotions revisiting the scrapbooks of my youth.

As I emerged from my dreams I became aware that I was protected by a presence deep within me. Behind the fracas of the house guests I had entertained, still remained the pure calm essence of who I am. Love spoke to me and assured me that I had freedom of choice. "Emotions aren't real" they told me. "They are perceptions. They are our navigation tools to help guide us to the choices we have the freedom to make." Wow! I sat up with a sensation deep within the pit of my stomach as I felt a smile begin to erupt from that place. I felt power returning to my limbs and, with just a thought, peace, serenity and happiness flowed right back into my midst.

I was overjoyed that I had remembered my truth, my power that resides within me and the freedom to choose my destiny.

You see fear is just a tourniquet that halts the eternal flow of love and in the stoppage of this powerful life force our emotions arise to alert us to the breach in our life support system. The weaker the flow of love, the greater the emotions of panic, chaos, hatred and depression become. Our emotions are not who we are. They are our indicators which serve to warn us how close or how far we are from love.

Having gone on a journey with my emotions, I now feel hugely sensitised, rather wiser and definitely empowered by the knowledge that my emotions are but a thought away. I shall now pay greater attention to what I am feeling as I now know that my feelings are fine tuning me to a more balanced experience of who I am.

From a newly converted emo

I wish you a wonderful week

love
Nicolette

Humility

There's a certain niceness about doing chores, a kind of satisfaction in cleaning up after making a mess.

My angel helper who has been assisting me with my housework for the last 18 years, is in hospital and I have been afforded the opportunity to acquaint myself with the finer details of the washing,  ironing, mopping and scrubbing.

I can't say that I have found any of it unpleasant. I have to the contrary, found it rather therapeutic, kind of like an awakened meditation. Whilst your body mechanically vacuums and mops, your mind is free to wander deliciously at its will.

It's almost as though as I feverishly scrub and iron I am working away credits for my next playtime, my well earned state of relaxation. I feel satisfied and humble. I have a sense of connectedness with earth. I feel grounded and I have also discovered a fresh appreciation for my helper who does these repetitive chores, week after week, thereby freeing me up to do what I choose.

I know that some people feel led to travel afar to ashrams to clean other people's toilets, but there is a deep contentment in cleaning one's own toilet as I have found over the last two weeks and I didn't need to travel anywhere.

So, as I reflect in the afterglow of content, I realise I have found meaning in doing the simple things today.

May you too find pleasure in the simple things

lots of love
Nicolette

Don't Pray for Me

Don't pray for me! Please don't pray for me.

You cannot know my circumstances or my needs. You have no idea what my highest purpose is. That is between God and myself.

When you pray for me, you assume to know exactly what it is that I should have and what I should be doing, according to your own prejudices and perceptions.
If you pray for me, you are in judgement. You assume that you are right and that I am out of line or in need of changing. You assume that I have a lack. You do not know if my wanting is a test of my faith from my higher self.

Take a look below the surface of your well intentioned prayers and ask yourself: "Does this prayer come from my highest self or is my prayer a request to try and manipulate my world to my way?"

O.k. I'll give you an example. Let's just say that you pray to God that He will make your partner more loving and supportive, that He will heal the greed and corruption of the people in government, make your boss more generous and approachable and your children more obedient and less self centred. You ask God to change all these people so you can live in a perfect world.

Would you consider this prayer to be for the highest good of all those for whom you prayed? Or is it rather a cleverly disguised request for self? The perception that your partner, your children, your boss and the government need to change, assumes that you don't. It reinforces the 'I am right and they are wrong' perception?

Why do you assume that they need to change? Why does it make you uncomfortable that they are what they are?

I'll tell you why. It is because you are in judgement. You are looking without and not within. What do you see reflected in their eyes? You see you. You see your own flaws. You are looking without for others to meet your needs. You pray for them to be perfect because you're not. By praying for anyone else you are turning the spotlight from yourself and avoiding confronting your own issues. Don't be fooled by your ego's cunning manoeuvres. Don't assume when you pray for someone else that you are being pious. You may well find if you look a little deeper that your prayers are inadvertently seeking to fulfil your own needs.

Would it not be better to rather pray: "Dear God, help me to not judge others. Give me patience and understanding and acceptance of their needs. Help me to become a better listener, to really see and hear from my heart. Help me to dispense with my ego and my judgements towards others. Make me supportive and kind. Let me die to my past every second and not hold anything against anyone who I perceive has wronged me. Let me not assume through my own prejudices to know anyone else's needs.  Help me to focus solely on other's good traits and not on their bad. Help me every day to walk your path of love and find every opportunity to humble myself and keep my nose in my own business. Give me the strength and courage, Lord, to change me. And forgive me for judging others. Change me, Lord. Change me."

You see, I firmly believe that all our prayers should be focused on ourselves. If we each just pray for one person every day, this world would be a wonderful place.

If we could all become the person we want our partners to be, we'd be living our dream.

So please, please don't pray for me, pray for yourself.

have a wonderful and blessed week

love
Nicolette

A Prayer

Lord, help me to remember I am human,
to dust myself off when I miss my mark
Remind me to not be so hard on myself
and to forgive myself everything

May I never forget that you are my source
and that you have all the answers
All I need do is ask for your guidance
and have faith that my needs are met

May I remember that through you I can do anything
I am much more than a physical body
When I am quiet and still my mind
I can feel your strength within me

May I never lose my humility to ask for your help
May compassion be my prime motive in everything I do
Help me to remain open to your teaching which
I experience through my interactions with others

Thank you for your gentle guidance
for using others to mirror my lack
Thank you that your teaching is so gentle and noninvasive
as you patiently await my growth

Remind me often that what I do to others
I do to you and to myself
We are not separate, which is what I so often forget
Please help me to walk my walk in love

Give me the wisdom to see that all my desires
come from you, via your Spirit
and to know that by accepting my desires
I walk in the knowledge of who I am

Amen

Have a beautiful week, dear soul
love
Nicolette

Always Be You

           "Always be who you are

            unless you can be a unicorn

                   then always be a unicorn."

                                                                                                               Anonymous

I absolutely crack myself up every time I think of this quote which my son's girlfriend sent to him.

How fickle we are as the human race. How discontented we are with who and what we are. Why is it that we argue with ourselves about the physical traits we don't have, the possessions that would make us happy, the health that we lost, other people's lives that seem so much more together than ours?

Why are we so seldom contented with who we are?

Why is it that everyone else seems to have the life we want?

Just suppose everyone out there is in the same self perceived rut. If everyone is coveting what others have got and not appreciating what they have got, then all those people that you're wishing you were like are probably wishing they were like someone else.

Life is so simple and yet our human minds are so complex.

This clever little saying really says it all. You have to be who you are. You can only be who you are. And if you think like most of humankind that you can be something else, like a unicorn, that is a fantasy. Actually most of humanity is masquerading as something they're not. Most of us live in an illusion of who we are, at least some of the time. Are you trying to be a unicorn?

Why have we allowed our minds to fantasise a different life for ourselves? Why are we constantly trying to skip our assignments and take short cuts to achieve our perceived fantasies.

I believe we have allowed our minds too much time in front of the television. We have too many mirrors in our homes. We don't dig and toil in the earth enough, if at all. Actually most of us don't interact with nature at all.We spend far too much time in buildings, shopping centres, sitting in air conditioned cars, offices or homes. 

We have lost our true nature. We have become buried in our man-made perceptions and entrapments, obligations, guilt and greed. We might be the most financially endowed of all the generations in history thus far, but we are so spiritually deprived. We are so cut off from the rhythm of the earth as we sit in our glass houses like poor little rich children with tragedy written all over our faces. We sit and work and stress, but we don't play.

We are disconnected from nature and from spirit/God. We are disconnected from our soul.

It's simple. To be who we are, we need to spend less time in front of the TV and more time observing nature. We need to walk more than we drive. We need to spend more time outdoors than indoors. We need to walk barefoot as often as possible. We need to breathe and sunbathe.

So, if you've got a laptop, take your office outdoors and don't forget to stand up and walk around and move frequently, to get the blood circulating. Kick off your shoes and walk on the grass.

Find perfection in the simple things. Start by being you.

Have an awesome week

love

Nicolette

    

My Confession

Whilst I was doing my awakened meditation on my stationary bike this morning, I mulled over what Spirit has been gently nudging me to see.

As the queen of fair and the champion supporter of the under dog, I had to take a look in the proverbial mirror and weed out some deeper undealt with layers of judgement and criticism.

Oh, I do love life and the way she surreptitiously offers us opportunities to reflect through the eyes of others and by discerning some sense of unease, nudges us to take a closer look within and find that very aspect of ourselves, so beautifully and carefully hidden.

The warning light that I have been detecting in everything around me, is just my centre of love calling for me to wake up and shed another layer of unlove, so that love can flow out of me.

We are all such masters of detecting those attributes we don't love in others. But how often do we spend the time to make the connect and fathom that the very thing that cries reject, resist, disgust, is housed within us? It is love's way of trying to offload the layers of debris it finds itself buried in.

Wow! This is such a simple and yet most profound message.

I now stand before myself and open my heart and what do I see?

I see years of discrimination and judgement, so entrenched by intellectualised justifications. And I know that the only way forward is to offload these outdated opinions thereby allowing the love of God to fill the newly vacated space.

I ask myself, "How in the name of God/Love can I justify any thought of judgement towards any other in how they choose to express their love?"

The answer is of course, "I can't"

If I am created out of love, in the image of love, then I am Love, as we all are. Then how can I not love every single thing about every other being, unconditionally. We all have the same God energy at the centre of our being. It may be that some of us have more blockages and deceptive layers shrouding our most valuable inheritance, but we all have at our core a huge dollop of God's love.

All we need do is start to see and experience life from this centre and not from the eyes of our egos.

So, after beating around the bush, I wish to spill my confession.

"I have been judging others religions."

What a relief it is to shed that baggage I've been carrying for an eternity. How blind I have been as I clung to my prejudiced self righteousness.

In my valiant quest for seeking one love and one God who is the master of all, I chucked the baby out with the bath water. I wrote off the individual pursuits of so many like minded individuals, whose only purpose like mine, is to seek closer intimacy with our creator. Through this arrogance, I created separation from my source and creator and therefore also between myself and others.

My challenge to me this week, is to return to the church of my youth and go and celebrate my new found connect with Love. If I am free of judgements and I am operating from my centre of Love, which I acknowledge is my inherent nature, then I am able to fellowship with and celebrate God's joy with every other person who's desire is the same. It does not matter what form that takes. It doesn't matter that the outer packaging is different. As long as the intent is to access love, then love triumphs and goodwill is done to earth and beyond.

I feel an outpouring of compassion for myself as love fills the vacancy created when judgement left. I have compassion for myself in the knowing that more opportunities will present themselves to unleash my prejudices as I journey to fully access my soul. I forgive myself my double standards and release myself from any attachment to guilt. I am free.

As I embark on this first second of the rest of my awakened journey, it is my intent to walk this Love into every situation, experience and chore I have set before myself this week. As I go about my daily doings I am going to be the LOVE that resides in me.

I am so excited to welcome what new challenges life has in store for me.

May you be blessed with God's richest joy this week

love
Nicolette

Satiate my Soul

What does my soul crave?

It craves intimacy with other souls. It seeks an intimacy, not with words, nor with the physical act of love, but rather a mutual seeing and being. It longs for fellowship and an unwritten understanding with others, a communion of being that is free of guilt or obligations or conditions. An understanding that surpasses cultural bias, education, class or upbringing. It is a connect, a communion without man made laws or prejudices.

What could be more comforting than the reciprocal sharing of unconditional love? I wonder if that is a fantasy that my ego has manufactured or whether it is a state that is indeed possible in this life time. I am convinced that it is this yearning which drives humanity to keep on seeking intimacy in partnership.

I ask myself why we humans seek partnership and the answer I get is "companionship". We try and find someone who is the same as us, but invariably find our opposite, because we're focusing on our outer attributes. We spend the rest of our time together trying to make that other a carbon copy of ourselves, fighting and struggling to align their outer character to ours, forgetting our true nature which is spirit and which is identical. Our egos battle it out as we challenge one another and the power shifts from one to the other. Relentlessly we continue the search for companionship. Often times we stick out turbulent relations just because of the fear of being alone in the material world.

It seems that so much of the stuff of relationships is shrouded by our over controlling egos. And yet somewhere deep down inside myself I detect a glimmer of fire. It is the yearning of my soul. My soul seeks fellowship, closeness, love. This companionship is far deeper than the outer layer of fulfilling loneliness with material gratification, group identity or human presence.

I struggle as I try and put this feeling into words. You see, I don't believe that the loneliness I feel when I am surrounded by people is solely a feeling of separation caused by my ego. I intuit that this loneliness is my soul's inherent need to connect with other souls, the soul of the universe.

I believe we have more than one fellow soul or soul mate. I also believe that the intimacy we seek need not be sexual or physical. Our souls seek to connect with and relate to and merge in union with others who frequent the same space of love and passion for being.

We all seek a significant other or others whom we can confide in about matters close to the heart, someone who won't judge us or feel threatened by our opinions, someone who sees us, who really gets us, someone who doesn't need to convert us, someone who meets us on our spiritual path. We seek company for our soul. When two souls merge, the result is a feeling of warmth and comfort, a sense of relief, a feeling of contentment like when you arrive home. It is like finding your family.

It is this yearning that I believe is at the core of our quest for intimacy with others. It is a pure spiritual need of our souls, which are small portions of God energy. We yearn to anchor ourselves to other pieces of God energy. It is a way of finding ourselves in the collective by piecing together all our souls like a great big puzzle and in so doing, realising our identity which is God. When we gather in union with other like, loving souls we gather power and it feels good. It satiates our souls.

We need to reach out and connect with all our soul pieces. It is not that we need just one intimate soul connection. We need one another. We need us. All our relationships ought to be love relationships and then.....we will feel like we have found our family.

I see you, I feel you, I know you fellow soul

blessings and love

Nicolette

Men Don't read this!

Here's something I just read this morning from Deepak Chopra's 'The Daughters of Joy' -
"Feelings are the echoes of past reactions, which live in us until we call for them."

Well, that provoked a bit of reflection, as I am fully aware of how these past reactions can become the theme of our lives rather than an echo from the past, which would be the correct place for them.

Feelings are like our receptors that help guide us through our sometimes turbulent journeys. I like to refer to them as our navigational systems. Women are brought up and encouraged to express them whereas men are taught to suppress and bottle them.

But whether you find yourself in a male or female body, I am sure you'll identify with what I'm about to say.

We all hide our feelings. We fear expressing them too openly, because we may be ridiculed. We may be judged as too hard, too soft, unprofessional, inappropriate, you name it.

I believe the real job of our feelings is to awaken us to our surroundings and our fellow beings, so that we can better communicate and interact in an interdependent way. We really are all interconnected. We are not independent as we may like to think.

The more I reflect on our ability to hide our feelings, the more I realise that hidden feelings have a way of surfacing in a rather peculiar and yet predictable pattern.

Let's take for example the man who doesn't want to express his feelings of sadness because of his own fear of seeming weak. He is quite likely to develop a pattern of expressing anger as his way of unleashing his emotions. Of course the reaction he is met with will most often then be the opposite reaction to the one he's seeking. It would take someone with intuition to read his fear and offer him the comfort he so desperately seeks.

How often do we repeat the tough love we were taught by our parents, denying ourselves a smidgen of sympathy for self or others. What about those of us who wrestle with self esteem issues and who wear a mask of 'people pleaser'? How many of us have felt the need to put others down to make ourselves feel better? Why do we laugh hysterically to hide our feelings of inadequacy?

We put on a facade of control and self discipline to hide our low self esteem. We wear a mask of anger and warrior to hide feelings of fear and weakness. We wear a happy face to hide our sadness. We show the world our 'devil can care' attitude to hide our feelings of neediness.

Isn't it time we throw off our masks and play with our real emotions and stop trying to second guess  each other's motives?

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to be REAL? Imagine not having to entertain the world with your happy mask or your competent mask or your angry mask or any of your incompetancies.

I'm sure that as we start to discern the masks that others wear, we'll start to recognise the masks we wear.

Anyhow, as I sign off, I wish you a week of listening to your emotions, not the ones on the surface, but the ones lying just beneath, the ones which are calling you to wake up and take note.

Have an awesome week

love
Nicolette

The Jester and the Mind

I've been wrestling with an issue and can't seem to quite get my mind around it. My question to myself is this: "What is the order of superiority between Spirit, personality, ego, mind and emotions?"

Well, there's one thing I am sure of and that is Spirit/consciousness is top of the list. Spirit/love is the non material essence of which we are all made. It is the God essence, our Divine presence which is the parent figure in the relationship or our higher self.

But which of the other four intelligences ranks next? I know that in Yogic theory Ego ranks next, but I wrestle with this because I know that when my ego has me by the little finger, I always manage to rein it back in with my mind. However, I have been reading a new book called 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman and he splits the mind into two; the rational mind and the emotional mind.

Come to think about it, how often when faced with a difficult decision, do we wrestle with following our heads or our hearts? Now I ask you: "Which one most often wins?"
I think you'll agree with me. It is our hearts. So we tend to favour the decisions made by our emotional mind over our rational mind. It seems therefore that these two have a very close relationship. We know that whatever we focus on with our minds determines the emotions that we feel.

Now, my next observation is ego. Ego is the false sense of self, the self that deems itself separate from the soul. Through this perceived separation which is a lie, the ego experiences fear and then searches to complete itself by sourcing love, safety, power, self esteem, etc. from external means. This searching for what inherently lies within all of us keeps us in a constant state of trying to reach the mirage on the horizon. It keeps us in a constant state of emotional neediness.

So ego and emotions are also very closely linked. Well then, which comes first: mind, emotions or ego? And where does personality come in? Personality definitely flavours our thinking. Perhaps it's the wardrobe of the mind or the creative department?

O.k. I think I'm getting somewhere. I know that when I think of a happy memory I can trigger all kinds of happy emotions and likewise when I recall a sad memory I can sometimes induce tears, so my mind would appear to rank before my emotions. In fact if I focus solely on a happy memory I temporarily block out unhappy memories because it is impossible for the mind to focus on a negative and positive thought at the same time.

Now for the confusing one, 'Ego'.

Ego is controllable by utilising the rational mind to realise it's perceived attachment to the emotional mind. Wow! I think I may have got it.

Ego must be part of the mind. It's like the jester. It sits and juggles between the rational and the emotional minds, constantly tipping the scales, Perhaps the three: The rational mind, emotional mind and the ego form a triangle just beneath the Spirit. Let's face it the mind and ego and emotions all seem to be in constant activity and are rather challenging to silence. It is only when they are in Spirit presence that they are silenced. And unless you are a regular student of meditation, your success in stilling the mind, ego and emotions will be quite limited.

Well, those are my thoughts on the matter, I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Hope you have a week of discovering some little gems and sharing them with me

lots of love
Nicolette

Messages from the Matriarchs

I have been reflecting on some of the wisdoms passed down to me by the Matriarchs in my family and thought they were worth sharing.

My late grandmother on my Mom's side, who died at the ripe old age of 102 and a half, almost 2 years ago, was the epitomy of youth, fun and living life to the full. She was a risk taker, living for the day and letting tomorrow take care of itself.

Remembering back to my teens and a conversation I had with my gran, I recall her words of advice. She was telling me that she never felt a day older, even though her physical body was old, but that she cherished the wisdom that came with her maturity. She taught me that although my physical body was going to age, as will all of ours, the maturity and wisdom that I was to gain was something to prize and look forward to. I certainly haven't been disappointed in this regard and eagerly seek more knowledge at the price of my ageing body.

On a separate occasion she shared with me her sadness that she had only ever known one man, sexually speaking, and that was my grandfather from whom she'd been divorced for many years. She envied me growing up in different times where young people were allowed to experience getting to know others in an intimate way before settling down to marriage with one partner.

I could only be grateful that I was not born in the Victorian Era. I am so grateful to have been born into times of equality, democracy, financial freedom, freedom of the press, freedom of self expression, etc. and glad that we no longer have the creed that children are to be seen and not heard. I know that humanity has a long, long way to go, but we forget the origins of our ancestors and we assume the freedom which is now ours.

My late Mother-in-law used to have a favourite saying: "Slowly, slowly, catch the monkey." her words of wisdom were cautioning me to slow down and have patience. I never even heard her whilst she was alive, but now her words hover over me and sink into my psyche and I acknowledge her wisdom.

It's amazing how we are so busy rushing around in our self made dramas, that we often miss the pearls of wisdom in our midst. We record the messages we're hearing for a later time, a time when we are ready to hear them, perhaps for a time when we've weathered some more storms and emerged a bit wiser from our own experience. Why is it that we are unable to learn that which we are taught, prefering to learn it for ourselves?

My late Mom left me with some of the most valuable life lessons. The most profound and true was that we need to listen to our inner voice and always follow its lead, as then we will always know what the right course of action is. Our hearts never lie.

She shared that it was always best to be flexible and let each day unfold in its own way, without trying to resist and control it, allowing oneself the pleasure of the adventure. When we learn to accept each day as a fresh new opportunity, we become more intuitive and are able to read the signs and can access greater peace.

I am ever grateful to these beautiful women for their mature wise words. I know that part of them resides in me and that I too will have opportunity to impart wisdom to my children and their children in time to come.

What a beautiful gift the circle of life is.

Wishing you a week of insights

love
Nicolette