Power from Within

Sitting alone on the balcony before dawn this morning, I reflected on where I was at this moment.  Not yesterday, not tomorrow.  Feeling the coolness of the air touching my skin, watching the sky whisper with the  glow of sunlight, I realized my soul was quiet.  Taking some deep breaths, I allowed my gratitude to fill my lungs, connecting with what was going on in my body.  I realized the backache and hip pain has left me.  Sipping my coffee and listening to the morning energy in the complex rev up, I gave thanks for many things.  The fact that my daughter and I are attending physical therapy together and both taking responsibility for the pain of inactivity.  We have been doing it for weeks, but yesterday it dawned on me how important doing that together is to me.  Anytime you can have an intimate moment with a teenager should be a blessing! 

Life is about relating, relationships.  How I see myself with you.  What I feel with you, in a certain situation, or practicing a certain behavior.  But I have to slow down to experience it.  Learning to relate to myself, finding out who I truly am, what I really believe, and evaluating whether I want to continue thinking the way I do, is important to my growth.  It is when I am able to embrace all of me, that I learn to embrace you with my spirit.  What I don't accept in myself, I fear in others. For when I judge you, I am really connecting personally to something I recognize but don't want to see in myself.

Today I had the awareness that I still have moments of trance-like existence while in the same breath realizing how alive I really am. The knowledge that I have changed dramatically yet slowly are found in those Ah Ha! moments when I look back and wonder WHEN I changed.  I capture those moments in a journal because I need to see evidence of that change.  My self esteem grows when I can look at the things that I have accomplished by looking for what no longer works in my life and discarding it to make room for new behaviors.  I find peace in this practice for it is the substance of who I am and what I am capable of.

Find a Place of Joy

What is proper behavior?  Most of us walk through life with a preoccupation that others are watching and judging us each step of the way.  Who is really doing the judging though?  Is it the voice of a family member telling us we need to act more mature?  We get stuck in trying to behave in a "proper" manner without really asking ourselves "WHAT DO I WANT? WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY?"   Sometimes all we need to do is allow the child in us to run free.  When we let go of our fears of how we look to others and live solely in the moment, it changes our perspective on the entire world.  How can you worry about the future when you are living fully in the now?  Why not take some time today to pull out a pen and paper and write down what truly makes you happy?

Power on the Other Side (A Series)

"But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope." (British Writer..George Elliot)

Unfed hope.  Hope is a feeling that what we want can be had.  What do we want?  How many of us really sit down with this and identify it?    

A baby bird who wants to be fed opens his mouth wide and stretches his neck with the expectation that something will come to ease the emptiness in his belly.  Just like an infant child he cries out to be heard.  He instinctively knows that his cries will bring results. As an adult we have the capabilities of getting what we need but often are too afraid to use them.  This inability to get past this fear is what causes despair for many of us.  Finding a way to feed the hope so that it matures into joy is difficult for many.

What are some ways to feed the flames of hope?  Discovering the "feeling place" you are in and finding a way to elevate it even a tiny bit, is a start.  Discovering what makes us feel good is an important part of the process of feeding hope. So what makes you feel lighter? Happier? Less heavy?  Peaceful? Giddy? Do any of these words resonate with you?  Remember the fragrance when you opened a new box of crayons as a child?  The first brush stroke of paint on a white sheet of paper? The discovery that you could ride your bicycle faster and farther today?  The sweetness of a cold popsicle on your tongue after playing in the sprinkler on a hot summer day?  The way your heart feels when you stroke your favorite pet?  How about the fearless laughter of a child?  Starting from this place with pen and paper in hand and writing down the way these things feel can rev up your energy and help you find a place TO hope.

Keeping a journal is one of the most beneficial tools for changing the way you see yourself and the way you process those thoughts. In the next post we will look at other ways to feed hope.

To learn more about the benefits of journaling:

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/