The mark of your actual progress along the spiritual path only comes from how you are ‘ being ‘ with your family. The family that you have been born into and the people in your family that spend the most time with you now.
Its so much easier stepping into a new understanding with regards to the world and people whose lives do not actually affect yours. The true tests come from those in close relationships with you. If you bring the same equanimity of being , unconditional love and harmony into your oldest and most intimate relationships as you project into the world, you have truly then made progress.

The key to empathy and compassion and therefore freedom from hurt, is to observe.

Those that are the most angry , vindictive, manipulative or in the victim mode etc are actually the ones carrying the heaviest burdens of fear and insecurities.
When you realise this, you see others in a different light. Understanding gives one compassion and ultimately the freedom from the pain that they try to inflict upon you.
In fact, the understanding puts you in a plane much higher than one they can reach. They are not able to hurt you anymore.

• 

There is always a choice given to you…to succumb to fear or align yourself to love.

When anyone in your experience is being angry, jealous , possessive, playing the victim card, being vindictive, spiteful etc, there is a huge temptation to also do the same in the guise of being wronged.

Righteousness, however well disguised, is also aligned to fear at some level.
The only way out of this endless loop is the choice to step up and align yourself to love.

When you align yourself with love , a miraculous thing happens. You are supported in ways that you never imagined possible. You become the light that you aligned yourself to. The memory of the hurt shifts in such a way that it feels like a faraway dream. Your perspective changes so much that you can’t imagine you were ever stuck in the futility of fear.

Love is the only way out.

• 

Self confidence.

Knowing that you are enough.

That is all that self confidence entails.

True self confidence can never be generated by anything outside of oneself.
Not through physical appearances, not any measures of success or knowledge acquired.
You can be utterly gorgeous to look at and still feel as if you are not enough in some way or another and that robs you of your confidence. You can be a professor and know all there is to know about a particular subject and yet feel as if you are lacking knowledge in some other aspect of life.
Ask yourself, were we meant to know it ALL , or BE it all ?
Visualise all the pieces in a puzzle. Each one separate does not really make sense but together it creates a complete picture. If even one of those puzzle pieces were to go missing ….the entire picture would be incomplete. Thats how important it is for the piece to be exactly who the puzzle piece was meant to be.

Self confidence never comes out of external standards of perfection. It comes from a quiet place deep within. It comes from a place of contentment. It comes from knowing that you are enough.
That in your own quirky way, you complete the picture.

Slowing down in no way means inertia or lack of enthusiasm.
In fact, it means the exact opposite.
Where you slow down enough to really savour , enjoy and be super enthusiastic and ALIVE to all that is showing up.

Like a slow walk, where you can notice every little detail…the beautiful perfect bark on the trees, the bird song , the way the sunlight filters through the trees , the dewdrops , the sound of contentment, the hugs , the feels , the taste , sounds , smells everything.
Heightened ….all of it heightened.

You are a channel.
Be a channel.
Allow the love to flow through you, to wherever it needs to go, uplifting you and whoever is in its wake.

Be a reflection of source.

Ever present in every situation and reflecting love.

Taking out all of the clutter that hinders this receiving and channeling.
The clutter …of thoughts expectations etc…removing it all and being a clear, clear channel to receive and to connect.

• 

I got this profound feeling that the love that truly transforms one forever is the immense love for Source and the one that Source has for you. It is the greatest love.
We all know at some level that that we love God and that we are loved in return .
We just don’t allow ourself time to rest in that knowing.
__________❤

“Where do I look for Source / God ? “

“Where do you think Source is ? “

“Everywhere I look ! “

“Yes and you feel that tingling excitement just saying that, because even though it is plain as day …you are just realising it at another level.
The potential…the excitement of searching for and finding your greatest love in everything that you can perceive.
Your greatest love is not out of your reach as you perceived earlier. There is no separation through distance or time or space.
It is in the very space that exists between you and all else that you perceive. Look with fresh senses.
BE ‘ in love’ because that is exactly true.
Your greatest love lies in everything and everybody. You just need to ALLOW yourself to feel it.
Source is the very energy that powers you and everything else. The one that envelops you and uplifts you and holds you.
Allow yourself to feel the magnificience of this love. The magic of it.”

“It sounds so exciting but my innocent love for God as a child , with that complete faith……..I do not know how to retrieve that”
———–‐———————❤

We start out knowing and loving ourselves completely and knowing that we are deserving of this greatest love. As we go along, we get hurt , start doubting our “lovableness” and start to protect ourself by shutting out the sensitivity to any emotions that can potentially hurt us.

But then a selective shutting down is not possible. As we refuse to feel the depths , we cannot possibly feel the heights.

The key is to ALLOW ourselves to feel again. All of it.

———————-❤

• 

Another theme suddenly sort of locked into place today for me. Until you learn a theme completely, it keeps showing up in different aspects in fascinating ways so that you understand it in all of its nuances.

When others lean on you and it starts to overwhelm you , the only reason it does that is because you feel that…

1) you must fix problems for them or cheer them up or be their strength as you have in the past.

2) you feel the weight of their expectations to do so (whether or not they expect this of you )

3) you do not project your own vulnerabilities to them and always try to sort out your own problems by yourself, so they forget that you can be vulnerable too.

4) You build up the reputation of being the ‘ fixer’ or the ‘ calm one ‘ and you feel the pressure to fix stuff for them.

5) and sometimes you discover that the only reason you want to quickly fix things is because you simply cannot bear for them to be not fixed.

They bring up old childhood fears of broken-ness. You cannot bear the drama, so it is in the abject fear of any drama that you hurry to set it right even though you may not have caused the drama in the first place.
You have carefully maintained a cocoon of gladness or positivity but it is not impenetrable and often those that are closest to you can easily invade your cocoon with their imbalances and misery.
The intent behind your need to fix everything is that you don’t need to deal with the drama.
That intent is not good enough to keep you in balance.
The only way is to first understand that all dramas are NOT your responsibility to fix.
Each one of us is responsible for our own paths and journey. Each one of us faces the consequences of the choices we make.
Why do you feel responsible to fix the consequences of all those choices , even though most of them are not yours in the first place?
The second thing to understand is that most of the times people are not even wanting you to fix their problems for them.

They just find your ” presence ” and ” compassion ” enough.

To get them used to you giving them solutions is counterproductive and disempowering.

For them and eventually for you as well.

• 

Whenever you want ‘more’ of anything in your life…you are in a state of NOT being completely present in your NOW.

In relationships, in success , in wanting fame , time ,health, money….. the ‘ more ‘ that you want will NEVER be enough.
These are human desires. As souls in a human experience we all have these desires…of wanting love ,health, attention, fame , fortune etc etc. It is perfectly normal for us to have these desires. However when we pursue these desires, thinking that they are the ultimate giver of joy in our lives, we find that no matter how much we have of these, it is never enough. These desires and their pursuit do not allow us to be WHOLE as we are then feeling incomplete in the not having of these. When we are not whole we are in a state of imbalance.

We will not be joyful UNLESS we find satisfaction in the NOW moments.
Afterall, how much is enough ?

The secret is to do what you love to do for the love of it….for the joy of it.
The secret is to find complete satisfaction and deliciousness in every moment, of your life.

When you start to focus with appreciativeness of your life in every moment…you start to receive joy without being in pursuit of it at all.

It comes to you. In small miraculous unexpected , beautiful , magical ways.

• 

All it takes to consciously connect to Source energy ( Love which encompasses wisdom), is the wanting or the clear intention to become aware.

That is all that it takes.

There is no one who is more privy to this and no one who is denied this.
There is only the wanting or the not wanting.
Either ways it is ok.

Some need to develop the faith in themselves first and they find it easier to have faith in anothers ability to connect.

As the love grows …the conditions lessen and suddenly you are ready.

To receive directly what you thought was only possible through external channels.