Tag: Spirituality

The Answer You Seek Is YOU

Have you ever felt the need for someone or something to affirm your thoughts, feelings or emotions? Someone who can say, “Yes, that is totally normal.” or “It’s ok, give yourself a break! Great things are coming”.

If so, you’re not alone.

Best friends, books, online forums, and heck, even strangers are some ways in which us humans try to receive affirmation. It’s our human-ness, and dare I say it stems from our innate, instinctual need for the tribal qualities we find in deep community living and relationships that aren’t so common in this day and age. Unfortunately, the more advanced our society becomes, the more lonelier we are.

This might be one reason why everyone in the future just might have a coach, but in today’s post I wanted to focus on this need for affirmation.

First, there’s nothing wrong with the need for affirmation or frankly, you for asking. When you find the right person or people you can turn to, affirmations are a great way to ease your soul; to give you the peace and inherently deep knowing (you already have) that you are in fact, OK. The problem begins when you begin to depend on these outside resources and it becomes a crutch.

You see, this post today is to remind you of your own personal power. Your soul voice that already knows the answer.

What if I told you, you can turn inward to receive your answers? Whether through automatic writing, meditation, visualization, journeying, whatever it is that works for you, there’s a way to become still and listen to your own intuition.

Trust your own self. Trust the dormant power within. Trust your soul voice that is always speaking to your heart. Have ultimate faith in your own personal power.

And of course, when you do reach for outside help try to find a mentor, spiritual guide, coach, someone who can help you develop your own personal power. Someone who recognizes your own strength and light. Someone who understands you already have the capability to find the creative solution to your very own question.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Carli Jeen on Unsplash

There Is Only Love

Love. 

I was having a heartfelt conversation yesterday and we were saying how the pain and joy in life all stems from one thing – people and our capacity to love.

Some of the hardest parts of our lives stems from our interactions with one another, strangers even! And yet, some of the greatest joys in our lives come from the very same source. Ironic isn’t it?

When we feel pain, oftentimes at the root of our suffering is the perception of non-acceptance, feeling unloved or even judged.

I say perception because the deep truth of it is that we all stem from the same Source, the Universe, whatever you like to call it. We are ONE,  and yet we see each other as separate.

You see, all we want is to be loved at our core.

And here’s the bottom line – no matter what seems to be happening on the outside, recognize you are already love. Instead of looking out and the effects, look inside and recognize the truth of who you already are.

No one can take that away from you.

No one can say or do anything to make you less than what you already are.

All that needs to happen is to lift the veil so that you may recognize your own truth. Your own self.

When things do get tough I like to share a thought process Matt Khan speaks of called, “Thank you for teaching me”. 

You see, when we turn the focus around from analyzing a false thought pattern of “what’s wrong with me” to “thank you for teaching me”, it allows us to realize there is nothing wrong with you, but it is an error in our way of perception of the person or situation. Thus, “thank you for teaching me” allows us to truly give gratitude to the person or situation and allow us to learn and build our very own capacity to give love.

Beautiful isn’t it?

So here’s to truly understanding our very own essence and capacity to love.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The Courage Of The Seed

This past weekend I, along with 31 beautiful souls, completed our 200 yoga teacher training. 10 weekends, 108 asanas, mudras, mantras, and an expansion of soul, body, and mind.

To think that we all met in this time and space “randomly” would be far from the truth.

I am in gratitude and humbled by everyone’s strength, courage, vulnerability, heart, and of course wise teachings from our Rasa tribe leader Greta Hill and a multitude of other teachers who graced us with their wisdom.

Yoga has been a practice and place where I have been able to return to for strength and vitality, and I am honored to have learned the art and soul of this practice at a more in-depth level.

And how beautiful it is to wrap up Winter and step into Spring?

We all planted a seed, a rooted intention to begin this 200 hour journey, and to watch this seed continue to blossom is this sweet, magical unfolding will be truly a mystical experience.

Mark Nepo said it best in this poem below:

All the buried seeds crack open in the dark, the instant they surrender to a process they can’t see.

What a powerful lesson is the beginning of spring.

All around us, everything small and buried surrenders to a process that none of the buried parts can see.

And this innate surrender allows everything edible and fragrant to break ground into a life we call spring.

In nature, we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which is ultimately an awakening beyond all imagining.

As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace.

The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way.

~Mark Nepo

Whatever journey you yourself have been on this past Winter – trust the process, have faith in the unfolding, watch the magic.

Here’s to planted seeds and watching them bloom.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Kristopher Allison on Unsplash

Our Finest Moments

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by a discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our butts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

~M. Scott Peck

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

Trust The Body

“A trembling in the bones may carry a more convincing testimony than the dry documented deductions of the brain.”

~Llewellyn Powers

Be still. Feel. Know.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Simon Rae on Unsplash

Starting With Inquiry

I wanted to talk today about the power of inquiry.

Have you ever noticed that when you begin with inquiry people pay attention? And when this inquiry is self directed, you begin to pay attention as well?

Typical statements, commentary, and self talk is, well, just that – typical. It’s expected and it’s on auto pilot. So much so that it becomes habituated. Even the responses become habituated!

But when we start by inquiring, “the beginner’s mind”, as it is known in Zen Buddhist traditions, we are met with qualities such as awe, curiosity, and wonder. And this positive resonance has a deep impact in how we approach the very thing we are dealing with, whether in the outside world or our very own inside world.

Inquiry allows for possibility.

To inquire means there is a curiosity in getting to know something or someone. It means you are open to learning. And this is beautiful.

When we approach with inquiry we are more open than ever. We begin to see things we never would have seen. We begin to feel things we never would have felt.

As an experiment, try it today! Whether it is with a difficult emotion you are encountering or headed into work and seeing old & new co-workers, start with inquiry. See what comes up before your brain goes on auto-pilot. Ask yourself:

  • What’s new here?
  • Why am I feeling this way?
  • Why am I thinking this way?
  • What can I learn from this?
  • Is there anything else I can learn from this?
  • With assumption X, can I know this to be absolutely true? (ref, Byron Katie)

And watch what happens. Observe the response, and even in the response inquire even more.

You see, when we inquire we not only allow for possibilities and higher resonating qualities within us, we are, as a byproduct, being mindful of what is in front of us as well as what actually arises.

Here’s to a bit more inquiry in our lives and seeing what newness unfolds.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Cody Davis on Unsplash

 

Following The Emotional Breadcrumb

Oftentimes it’s easy to run away from our emotions. In this day and age, it’s almost too easy to numb out.

Whether that’s picking up the phone and checking Instagram or Facebook, reaching for the bag of chips, or turning on Netflix and binge watch a whole season of GOT. The options are a many.

And while it may seem scary to actually face the demons, sometimes that’s exactly what we have to do in order to see what’s really under the covers.

Remember when you were a little kid and you ran into your parent’s bedroom saying you couldn’t sleep because there was a monster under the bed, or maybe in the closet? Then your parents (or heck, maybe you even did it yourself!) would walk you back into the room and lift the covers or open the closet? There was nothing there and you faced your demons, the so called monster.

Facing our emotions takes work, but it’s the work we must do in order to integrate ourselves fully.

When we turn toward our emotions and follow the breadcrumbs of this feeling and that feeling, we begin peeling the layers of the onion and truly understanding ourselves on a deeper level. We may discover the true reason for our emotion was actually something completely different than the situation itself! We may even discover a limiting belief causing such pain on an conscious level.

Can we trust and love ourselves during this time? Can we maybe turn side ways the first time and gently feel into it so that next time we can turn the whole way into the depths of our emotions?

And no matter the answer – may we trust and love, just a little more, where we are in this moment.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

When You’re Lost In The Knowing

Whether you’ve been dabbling in the field of personal development for a while or whether you’re new, it becomes incredibly empowering to learn new techniques and frameworks to help make sense of ourselves and our lives. And when we practice these techniques and frameworks, our lives literally can make a 180 degree turn. How amazing is that?

However, there will come a time, possibly many, where given the knowledge and resources we have we may feel we already know the answer, yet, we don’t see a shift in the situation or our emotions.

This is when we, as I like to call it, get lost in the knowing.

Suddenly we’ve become involved in our own story. We’re so deep into wearing the detective hat, that we’ve lost our way in the vortex of our very own knowing.

Ironic isn’t it?

When this happens, I always invite myself and others to ask, “What can I learn here? What is this situation teaching me?”. Or as Matt Khan so passionately says about any situation, “Thank you for teaching me.”

When we step out of the control and into surrender, there is grace; there is self compassion. And suddenly we ease into the situation as opposed to trying to conquer the situation. Quite different isn’t it? 😉

No matter what you’re going through, just remember… this grace is precious, and it’s in each and every one of us.

 

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

Friday Focus – 1/19/18 {The Photographer’s Lens}

Photography is very big in my life. I love capturing the beautiful soul I see during portrait sessions, and particularly love the special family moments, the in between as I like to call it, during family sessions. While I don’t do nearly as many sessions as I used to years ago, I still love it when old clients ask for updated photos.

Earlier this week I was noticing how, as humans, it’s incredibly easy to focus on the minutiae. Our focus tends to be on ONE thing, and when I say ONE thing, it’s hyper focused on that subject and moves on to the next when we feel like we’ve resolved (aka controlled) it in some way or another.

And I thought to myself, what if we zoomed out?

How much of this precious life, this day, this landscape are we missing by zooming in? What if we took a step back (for those of you that are used to primes) and saw the bigger picture? Just how much meaning of the bigger picture does this “one” thing end up having?

Oftentimes we forget. We forget how much grandeur, mystery, beauty, and synchronicity there is to life.

We forget just how much beauty there is everywhere, including our own selves.

Can we zoom out today? And begin to appreciate the bigger picture? What other beautiful mysteries might we be missing?

I hope we find out.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Alvaro Araujo Alcalde on Unsplash