New Beginnings....

Out the cave and in the forest! Everything appears to be bright English-countryside green!  My heart expands and is full of gratitude for my life : my whole life, caves and forests and all.  I am profoundly aware of the value of the dark dungeons of pain and voluntary cleansing that goes with sitting with your pain.  Eckhart Tolle calls it The Pain Body, Martha Beck calls it cave-diving and Debbie Ford calls it The Shadow.  Well, whatever you want to call it, it feels the same : like a scab has been removed from an old wound and now it is bleeding freshly, vulnerable to the elements, and it feels raw, exposed and deeply, profoundly painful. But, my goodness, when it heals, it feels marvelous : new found strength, new found gratitude for the healing and new found appreciation for the beauty of the scar, forever a reminder of your strength and courage to look at the pain and work through it.  Somebody once told me (or I might have read it somewhere) that the definition of courage is being scared and doing it anyway.  That is how I see working through emotional pain : freaking courageous!  I have only just started the career of life coaching (cringe at the label), or as I prefer to see it, witnessing other people's courage - and it is a complete marvel, watching others move through their pain.  In these moments, their beauty and strength and pure light shines through their human shells; their keeper's-of-spirit, and I feel like an avatar greeting another avatar, ' I see you'.  The great big feeling of connectivity, being one with it all, pervades my being and I am in awe of the other.  I feel a huge sense of privilege doing this work and an immense admiration for the other being in the room.  The whole process is not like that : there are itchy, scratchy bits and bits that want to bite and bits that feel bitten, yet the river flows onward and a change occurs and the world shifts.  They say that action is borne out of contrast, so the dark moments are necessary, a gift if you like, to bring about action, change and transformation.  Working with uncomfortable feelings instead of resisting the circumstances, the gift, the cave, just be there as a witness to your own journey and the wound will heal over and a stronger, more brilliant 'you' emerges, more whole, more comfortable in the human body, loving life, joyful, free.

Joy vs Self loathing

Isn't it ironic that my first blog comment would come out of a place that is less than joyful? I uploaded this image of myself because a fellow coach once told me that this is how others see me.  I battle to look at photos of myself and still haven't done a photo album in 12 years of having children!  The photos remain in boxes in a deep dark cave taken for the purpose of being seen, yet hidden with cobwebs, untouched by a smile prompted by a fond memory.  I am a thinker, an analyser, one who ponders everything that engages my mind, which of course is limited by my curiosity, but I cannot look here, at me, in the mirror or at a photo because I am always disappointed at what I see.  I am devastated that I was not born with big blue eyes, brown skin and a tall willowy body. This, I am sure, would have made me happy and filled me with joy.  I would have been popular, interesting, worth knowing.  And so this disappointment has followed me my whole life.  I am like the birthday girl who upon receiving her gift that was not the one she wanted, pretends that this one is lovely nevertheless, big grin plastered on her face, blinking back the tears, disappointment written on her brow and the edges of her smile.  Why was I not born beautiful? Over the years, I have grown to see beauty in parts of myself but my life is littered with self-loathing that extends beyond the physical.  I have grown to understand that this is my particular challenge in life : to love myself unconditionally.  Now to some this may be a breeze and sound like the most pathetic whine in human history!  But not to me.  It is like being born in a stainless steel lead-reinforced tomb that only on certain (but ever-increasing) occasions manages a slit of light in and then the joy bursts out of every seam and the tomb is well lit and forgotten for the beauty of the forest that lies beyond!  Because I am so invested in my mind, I have committed myself to understanding this state of being by educating myself in all manner of things: from psychology to life coaching to positive affirmations to shadow work to limiting beliefs to energy medicine to reiki and crystal healing to charity work and helping others suffering from HIV/AIDS to prayer and meditation to silent retreats to oil painting and art therapy to journalling and writing to shouting and screaming to falling in love (highly recommended to let the light in!) and getting married young to having 1, 2 then 3 children ( a roller coaster of light and dark) to spiritual support groups to  channellings and psychics to watching EVERY single Oprah recording to doing healing myself on others to living authentically to saving the planet and growing my own veggies, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam and nauseating...  Exhausting, really. And sad. But true.  I look for answers and really commit myself in pursuit of an answer.  But there is no single answer, I have discovered.  There is no place to reach. There is just the journey. And sometimes, like today, I am in my cave.  And that is okay. (Thanks, Martha.)  And sometimes I frolic in the forest outside the cave, sometimes contemplative and quiet and sometimes loudly joyful where I want to inject some of my joy in everyone I meet so that they can experience the blinding light I see in those moments. And that's okay too.  Starting this blog is a commitment to my Essential Self.  My Essential Self is not bogged down with self-doubt : it sees the value in my lessons and wants to share this with others by giving me a career in Life Coaching, Healing, Painting, Teaching, Whatever (it doesn't care for labels too much) and this was a medium with which this can be revealed. So be it and so it is.