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
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Monday, 17 September 2012
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
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
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
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
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
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
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
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
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