As I did yoga this morning….I was shown a  record player ….I think the newer generations call them vinyls?

In my childhood, they were called Long play records I think.

These were meant to be played at different speeds, depending upon whether these were the big or small ones.

If we played them at the wrong speed, they would sound so silly.

Either too fast like Chipmunks or too slow, like sloths.

Now the pace at which we are meant to move ( slow mindful pace ) and the pace at which we actually move is so vastly different that its all creating a discordance which we cannot understand.

We have gotten so used to this fast pace that when we do allow ourselves to slow down, there is a sense of guilt or restlessness. A feeling that we are not being ” productive ” enough.

When we let all that conditioning go and move in accordance with the pace that we are internally guided to, how easy it is to be ” in the flow ” and ” at ease “.
Still doing what needs to be done, but without the unnatural pace and unnecessary stress.

For the longest time I carried a belief deep in my subconscious, that life somehow balances itself out.
So, for example, if I had had a childhood that did not feel good, I would then be exempt from going through a bad time as an adult or vice versa.

Ive met several people in my life’s journey who have also had similar beliefs. 
“LIfe has its ups, but then it also has to have the downs.” is one such belief.

This is one of the knots we need to untie and let go off.

It is our beliefs that make life show up in whichever fashion it does.

I choose to believe now that life is good ALL of the time.

That all is well, all of the time.

That the Universe has my back ALL of the time.

That no matter what is showing up, it is coming from a benevolent Universe designed to help me evolve and grow.

It is okay for me to choose ease.

It is okay for me to want to live with simplicity and joy with a heart open at all times, to love.

It is okay for me to consciously and deliberately be discerning as to what I allow into my experience.

Its a relief to let go of a belief that was rooted in conditionality and duality and one that was causing me to create a life that was sometimes ” good” and sometimes “bad”

Life is what it is.

I choose ease, joy, simplicity, love, enthusiasm, hope and faith.

Each day we are given countless  opportunities to ” see ” from a more expansive perspective.

Whether its people in our lives, things that are happening to us and around us, our work and our play.

We repeat dysfunctional cycles only when we are stubborn in seeing only the way, we have always “seen”.

When we shift deliberately to a more expanded perspective, we see things we could not before. This might change the way we act and react, thus breaking old, jaded and dysfuntional cycles that no longer serve us.

My guides said to me , “Have you ever wondered why when you read the same books, you get different messages sometimes ? Its not because the book has changed….it is because YOU have. So let life do what it does, you become conscious of how you are perceiving it.”

And therein lies the doorway to creating something different.

Something more aligned to the creative, everchanging force that you are. “

Everyone in our lives has a reason they are here. Even those that we think of as our ” button pushers ” 😅.

Those that love and uplift us, those that don’t , those that inspire us and those that show us what we do not want to emulate.

Each one has value. They are merely helping us evolve.
So how do we consciously choose to look at everything and everyone from a higher and more expanded perspective ?

Choose Love.

Love expands.
Fear contracts.
So choose love over fear.

You have a unique light that is so needed in the world. I say this so often because Im reminded of this so often.

We all need to step into our full power and embody our lights.

So we can be of service to the whole.

This is possible only when we know ourselves from the expanded perspective.

For this, we need to meditate and go within.
Often.

As much as it takes.

There is no work more important than this.

Much much love

We need to start, not only talking about what we are great at,  but also where we still struggle and where we are still very much a work in progress.

Especially as adults.

So the ones looking up at us (children and those whose lives we somehow influence),  do not feel so scared when they slip up (as we do) and feel like failures (as we did), so unnecessarily.

Life is a series of mini evolutions for us all through life experiences.

None of us are born knowing how to perfectly ace these life experiences.

Its not a series of  exams.
Its a series of experiences.

These experiences are made much less painful if we accept that they are just that….experiences.

And that we are not meant to do them ‘ perfectly’.

As adults, lets talk about our vulnerabilities and our experiences in a wholesome way ( not leaving the unsavoury bits out ) so our kids and others being influenced by us, do not feel they have to aspire to inauthentic levels of perfection.

None of us are failures.

We are all merely going through life as humans.

This is not an easy feat.

Why not celebrate the fact that we are here, doing this together? 

Celebrate each others wins and be there for ourselves and others in grace when the going gets tough.

There is a difference between choosing “the path of Ease” and the path of “avoidance”.

Choosing the path of ease is a deliberate, conscious, mindful way of living life with a peaceful, centered, grounded approach.

It includes being very discerning as to what you want in your life experience, but not getting involved in the stories / drama of the choices.

The path of ease is not one of cowardice.

  It is of mindfulness.

Its basis is simplicity , purity of intention and joy.

The path of avoidance seems sometimes, like its the path of ease. But only on the surface.

It is merely a postponement of dealing with, what one perceives as being “difficult stuff.”

This causes a heaviness in the energy field, as avoidance merely means  that something that is perceived as being difficult, is not being dealt with.

This has nothing at all to do with what is outside of you ( as always).

If there is a reactivity inside,  to an external source, it merely means something inside, has not yet been healed.

Choosing the path of ease, one gets the courage to face challenges with courage, simplicity and faith.

If this becomes a way of being, then all of life is approached with ease.

This does not mean it is all easy, but it definitely means that no matter what comes your way, you approach it with simplicity, clarity and peace.

Dream message

I saw all of life was designed as a game, almost like an obstacle course.

There were special effects and props that made it all look scary at times but I knew in my heart that no matter how perilious it appeared, it was designed in a way that we could all reach our goal.

All we needed was this knowing that it was designed for us to win.

As long as we focussed on staying calm and took a step at a time, the special effects would not bother us.

We would not get scared.

Unconditional love is what motivates us to play this game.

Reaching that part of us that is unconditionally loving.

Connected to all there is.

Also in my dream I saw people falling …but I also saw they were unhurt and were trying again, knowing better the second/ third time around.

I realised that instead of telling them what to do or not do, all I needed to do was focus on crossing the obstacles in a mindful way and by doing so, the ones behind me were automatically learning how to do the same.

At the same time, seeing so many ahead of me, gave me immense faith that if they were able to, I could do it too.

The inevitability of reaching where I needed to reach, made me feel so much hope.

From my dream, I also understood that we cannot know and understand everyone around us and the only actions we have any control over, is our own.

Focussing on our path with love is what we are here to do.

❣️
I was just sent this beautiful poem that reinforces the message of my dream 💖

“A seeker asked the dervish one day,
“How did you find holy ways?”

He smiled, “I know what’s in the Koran’s heart,”
A mysterious answer, a wisdom to start.

Curious, another asked to unveil,
“What secrets lie within the sacred tome?”
The dervish’s reply, both simple and grand,
“Two pressed flowers and a friend’s loving letter in hand.”

Scriptures guide us on life’s twisted road,
Focus and quiet calm the soul’s heavy load.
Yet, living experiences of love reveal,
Our intrinsic wholeness, our radiant zeal.

In holy texts, we find wisdom’s seed,
But love’s embodiment makes our spirits proceed.
The dervish knew this truth so divine,
Embracing love, our true selves align.

May we, like the dervish, find our way,
Through love’s gentle touch, each passing day.
And when asked about life’s sacred text,
May our answer be love, in every style and context”

I think all of life is a rite of passage to embodying our purpose with fearlessnes.

All rites of passage go through the ” ignorance is bliss ” phase and then the encountering of challenges that have the power to transform us or the power to subdue us.


We start out being more connected to our inner voice, but over time we allow the noise in the world to dim that voice inside of us. Afterall the noise outside is loud and the voice inside is quiet and does not insist upon being heard.

It respects free will.

Coming home to ourselves is therefore where we start to let go of the outside noise and turn inwards.
As we listen inwards more and more, our courage returns.

By this time we have first hand experience of our dashed expectations and broken dreams (in most cases) and so whilst we are aware of all that can and has gone ‘ wrong’, our inside voice tells us that it is all ok as everything that happened was within the Divine plan.


And if we listen to that wisdom within us we have nothing at all to fear.


So we start to build faith again

This is when we can start to really tune into our purpose with faith and awareness of the support and love with which we are held.


However, as human beings, we can at any time be seduced by the illusionary drama playing out and can forget to listen inwards to this quiet calm voice.

That is when we step back into fear.

Fear is how the illusion perpetuates afterall.

What are you choosing in this moment ?

In my waking state, if I feel Ive accomplished some level of embodying surrender and going with the flow, in my dream state, Im being shown how much control I still subtly exercise over this experience.

That, whilst my understanding has shifted, the letting go by my ego is still very much a work in progress.

I learnt from my dream state, that I am still stuck in some of the sticky traps of this human experience.

It is what it is.

There is work to be done …and Im realising that the only way this work can be done, is to remain in awareness of my thoughts and observe my reactions, as they spontaneously arise.

That is the only place I can truly grow.

The rest follows.

__

What is enlightenment and can we achieve it without suffering?

At a certain level of consciousness, we feel enlightenment is a state of ultimate knowing.

A state in which one has achieved a permanent zen state.

In my experience, all of us go through a series of transformations and enlightenment in parts.

This includes going through periods of darkness / emptiness / voids/ dark nights of the soul whatever you want to call these periods.

Every time we bring something that was in the darkness, into the light of conscious awareness, we are ‘ enlightened ‘. We can either do this because of the suffering we go through which causes us to seek answers within us ( because try as we might, we will never find the answers outside of us ) OR we can be active seekers and be proactive and connected to our intuition and therefore understanding the life themes and what we are here to  experience/ remember without the suffering.

In fact a lot of the suffering is something we bring upon ourselves because of the thoughts we create in our minds around what is happening.

Life just is.
It is neither good nor bad. We classify it as such.
As we go on this path however, whilst we become more discerning, we lose the urge to judge and classify stuff into ” wanted ” or ” not wanted” , ” good ” or ” bad”


Enlightenment ultimately , is all about seeing life as a series of experiences and not needing to classify parts of it as suffering.

It is remembering who we truly are completely and being free of the illusion playing out.

Last night, I fell asleep pondering upon the power that words have.

Pondering upon the energy that actually creates words.

Contemplating on how when we are no longer in this world, words are no longer needed to communicate.

I woke up, aware that I was being dictated a poem, ( as it often happens …Im very often taught through poems ) so I grabbed my phone and started typing it all down.

The poem was simple and beautiful and spoke about how to remain free and impertubable in this world, full of words.

It spoke about the power that words have upon our experience here in this world and how we can be swayed and bound by them.

It spoke about remembering that our ultimate destination is that beyond any words.

And it spoke about always remembering our true nature whilst we live in this world.

It was a beautiful poem and right at the end, as I signed it with my name ( as I usually do) my finger in my sleepy state, hit a key that wiped out the entire poem.

For an instant, I was dismayed, then I got the joke and the powerful lesson that I was being taught.
Theory and practicals in one shot ….and how I laughed.

I woke up laughing at the sheer absurdity of me trying to hold on to the very words that the poem told me to remain free from.

So sharing the joke and the powerful lessons with you, my dearest ones who are on this journey towards surrender with me.

Even our words do not belong to us.

So what else are we holding onto and not surrendering ?