I know that You know, that however You respond to events in life is entirely your choice.
You want to play a victim. That’s ok. You want to be free of drama. That’s ok.
We’re all in this together. When you choose to be free, we all have a better time. More fun, opportunities to play, connect, grow, discover, overcome and share the moments to remember!
The choice is mine. The choice is yours. The choice is his. The choice is hers. There is no right or wrong. No shame, no blame. The freedom of choice always remains.
To enjoy life together and apart. To experience the pleasure as I overcome the struggles, To live a meaningful life, whatever meaning means to me.
Enjoyment, Pleasure and Meaning I’m grateful for the Healing Power of a Triple Flame.
Shed the light that enters through the cracks and heals the brokeness you feel.
Whatever that may be. Shed the light, it’s time to heal the pieces haunting you at night.
Ode to Light, to Life – the Solstice, the sacred time to pause, to contemplate, clear the path for all that is yet to come. Fresh, new, inspiring, alive.
And above all, for more light to pour through and shower each and every one of You.
I want to focus my attention towards a particular emotional downfall I experience when I get triggered.
Seeing it eye to eye, just a few days ago, I came to realize that sadness is just another addiction. Certain emotions carry the potency of throwing us off balance and pulling us down. This happens to me when I feel sad, angry, afraid, worrisome, disappointed, insecure, etc.
I realized that the outcome I experience is a simple, straightforward consequence of a childhood unresolved trauma. I was 10 years old, my father – the key person in our family had passed away suddenly. The little me had created a story in her mind of being left behind, not loved, abandoned, nobody there to take care of her anymore – during that time I experienced and absorbed a lot of sadness and disappointment.
These were the two emotions that became prevalent in my life. I have developed a part of my identity – the sad, disappointed me, that often but secretly dominated over other emotions. This means that a part of my personality had to be continuously fed to keep on existing – which nicely led to the convoluted craziness of perpetual viscous circle of victimhood of sadness.
Throughout life I would often recreate scenarios to feed that part of my identity over and over again – this became a part of my reality.
Recently I have experience one of my self-mastered scenarios and I have finally gained insight into what was going on. In this particular instance, I was lucky to have been caught by my friend, who has a razor-sharp insight and who was able to penetrate through my unconscious self and blast out the dark chamber with the much-required light.
At the end of this drama, I realized that it was me who manifested the whole situation. I subconsciously invited the other person to play the role necessary for me to react exactly the way that had the potency to trigger my emotion of sadness. Here’s what has happened.
It was a lovely summer afternoon, we were sitting around the table, having a pleasant conversation over a dinner. All of a sudden, I went completely off tangent, babbling about whatever I started babbling about, which appeared as if I was in conversation with myself. My ‘co-speaker’ did no longer feel icluded and he didn’t feel like entertaining my solo stage diva performance. He called out the change of my behavior, stopped listening to me and I felt cut off. Suddenly, I fell into sadness that I wasn’t able to explain in that very moment.
My first reaction: “he doesn’t love & respect me” and I became deeply saddened with tears clogging my eyes, feeling as if someone started choking my throat. My connection with another human being abruptly came to an end.
I reacted and derived a false conclusion that my friend did not pay attention to what I was talking about because he doesn’t love and respect me. All that only to support my fake little paradigm.
If you have ever studied Patanjali Yoga Sutras you will remember that the author refers to the fluctuations of the mind as Vrittis. For me, the second sutra is one of the most important sutras in the whole book. It goes like this: ‘Yoga citta vritti nirodha‘. Yoga is the union of the mind and the discipline needed to achieve the unification, citta is the mind, vritti refers to a way of existing (mind modification), and nirodha means removal; inhibition; stoppage; suppression or restraint.
Putting it all together: “Yoga is the removal of the modifications of the mind – or removal of certain ways of existing – the ways that no longer serve us.” Please note, I have only provided the most basic interpretation of the second sutra – for a more in depth study and understanding, I would suggest you refer directly to Patanjali Yoga Sutras by I.K. Taimni.
I am very lucky and grateful. When something like this happens in my daily life, I have the inexplicable and urgent need to look deep inside the bothersome matter. I cannot go on without resolving the issues. My yoga is to consciously walk towards attaining unification of the mind, which means following the required discipline and practice that lead me towards that unification (also called sadhana).
In this particular case, I stepped aside and I took a few minutes after the event took place. I sat down, gathered my thoughts, required clarity and started jotting down what has just occurred and what I have experienced. I am only able to do this kind of deep work thanks to years of practicing Kriya Yoga. I’m sure there must be other ways for one to achieve similar realizations and resolutions, but Kriya Yoga is the path I have chosen to follow, a technique that works for me.
Going back to my story. I believe communication to be the paramount of a sustainable relationship – you have to learn to communicate if you want to cultivate a healthy relationship. You can’t just pile up unresolved issues and push them under the carpet, expecting everything will be ok and carry on as if nothing ever happened. It never works, it will erode and destroy your relationship and push you further apart. It’s not worth it – so, whenever something similar occurs to you and you have the opportunity to look into it, I highly recommend you put in some effort and find out what’s really going on – for you. For your own good. I assure you, it will make a huge difference in living your life more fully, lovingly, and freely.
At the end of my drama, I realized that all along I was unconsciously playing a very familiar game. I was using the ‘don’t love & don’t respect me trump card’ as a bait for the ego to help me spiral down the habituated part of identity I assumed as a child – sadness, withdrawal, closing down. The whole situation had absolutely nothing to do with what was occurring here & now or with the lack of love & respect my friend has for me.
Which makes me wonder. How many other similar situations have I orchestrated in life and how often, only to have thrown myself off center – depriving myself of here & now of living my full potential. How unnecessary is that – the obvious act of self-sabotage… All good, I will apply myself better going forward.
I hope that sharing my story provides an insight for you to recognize some of the blind spots most of us are struggling with. I hope you will be able to catch yourself or someone else before you/they start spiraling down the rabbit hole, while at the same time you will gain clarity to stop the game of using or falling for the ‘lack of love & respect’ scape goat to feed the hungry ghosts or vrttis.
Our beautiful minds can get very flexible and we have endless amount of creativity to produce oodles of ‘baloneys’ with our convoluted stories, just to keep the habituated victimhood roles & dramas alive and going. Once you realize that and acknowledge the fact that you don’t have to play that role again, because it’s not who you truly are, you can choose a different, more authentic way of your truer self-expression.
I also realized the love and respect I have for myself is not yet 100% – hence the projection towards someone who is close to me about their lack of love & respect towards me. Even though my projection is completely unsubstantiated. Another nugget to work through… all in its due time.
I strive to remain truthful to myself, because only truth liberates. It adds stability to my way of being, thus I face less and less reactions, self-imposed restrictions, and unnecessary drawbacks. Life can be good anf life is good.
As the guide on my side points out (with a bit of a twist of my own): “Work it out before it acts you out. Catch it early – nip it in the bud.”
The original quote goes like this: “Work it out, before you act it out”. You may want to check out more on the Private Work Self Coaching platform – it’s a useful resource, full of guided activities, designed towards generating much needed awareness and cultivating beautiful streams of insightfulness.
I have attempted to write a piece on self-acceptance half a dozen time by now. It didn’t feel quite right, so I couldn’t share. Today is the day when I feel the time is right.
What do I mean by acceptance?
The acceptance of the physical form each of us has been born with. Our physical form that enables your soul, my soul to express itself in this world – through our bodies – our vehicles – our vessels – our temples. I’m talking about acceptance of my tangible, physical form, my precious body.
Perhaps this has been one of my toughest challenges I had to go through in life thus far. Acceptance of my physical form, the way I appear to be, the way I look – the transitory vanity, yet an important aspect of our soulful expression in this world.
When we’re born, the soul incarnates.
In+carnates – ‘carneus’ – Latin word for ‘of the body, flesh’.
Each individual soul enters the body, infuses the physical form with life, with a very unique essence, one of a kind.
I can’t see any other logical or illogical way to explain my understanding of this mystical union between the spirit and matter.
When it’s time for the soul to depart, the heart beats its final beat. The soul and the body part once again. The body goes to dust, back to mother Earth who extended its own material form to give us the structure when we began this journey. On the other hand, the soul is free to float again, to linger in timeless, spaceless soup as long as that is required. Unless the soul has become completely liberated, ready to fuse back with the source. If that is not the case, the soul prepares to join the queue and start the earthly journey all over again.
Human beings – we are all spiritual beings who have been given or have chosen this transformative opportunity of experiencing life through the physical form in this wondrous realm.
It has often been said, that we are spiritual beings with physical experience and not just physical beings merely having a spiritual experience. If that was not true, it would be the body the precedes the soul, and not vice versa. Seems like a fact even logic can’t deny. Though, feel free to challenge my thought, I welcome it, because nothing is set in stone!
Why do some of us struggle in our form so much that we put ourselves through experiences that are detrimental to our body & soul, not allowing the soul to express itself freely, to the fullest? Why do we put up so much resistance and fight? What is the root cause of such an attitude devoid of an altitude worthy of every glorious soul?
Could it be that deep inside we haven’t fully let go of the previous life experience when the soul left the body to return to the ‘soup state’? Before assuming a new one? Not accepting the outcome of all our actions that have led us to another Groundhog Day, where we get one more chance to rectify all we have done and haven’t done accordingly to how things should have been done to achieve a perfect balance and harmony? Body, soul, and mind?
My resistance in this life was so deep and strong that I manifested a life where I was told from an early, most imprint-able age that I was ugly, slow, dumb, and weird. The mantra slipped so deep under my skin that it became my reality, although it was not. It was all happening in my mind.
I was always a very skinny, lean child – however my self-perception got distorted. As I became a teenager, every time I looked myself into the mirror, I would see myself being too large – even though that was not the fact.
When someone took a picture of me all I would see was an image of an unattractive face that I deeply disliked. When I look at those pictures today, all I can see is an innocent, beautiful looking child with glowing eyes.
Such false self-perceptions, reinforced with reoccurring, not-supportive parenting methods in upbringing can lead to various eating disorders that have a potential to disrupt the balance body, mind balance, it can mess up essential digestive fires, and interfere with the will to live. I have experienced this first hand. Due to my self-destructive behavior, I nearly drove myself over the edge. I was lucky & graced to have found a way out. It probably took a setback of around 12 years of my life when it comes to my career, relationship, peace of mind, general stability and balance in life. What a price to pay, nevertheless, it all fell into place at the end.
My stomach & digestive system was out of synch; my body cells were so inflamed that it took 10 years of intense healing to restore it to its original state of homeostasis. State of balance, harmony, and peace was not there. I was saved by the grace and grace alone. If it wasn’t for my dearest friend, his kind and generous heart, I would not be where I am right now.
What have I learned? I have learned about the enormous power that external projection has on forming our self-perception – the way we see ourselves and our bodies and what an important part it plays in the upbringings of every single precious child. The impact it has throughout our entire life if perceptions remain distorted, hidden in the subconscious, and unhealed. Our reality becomes twisted and it can take years to undo the damage.
Food plays an incredibly important role in our life; it sustains us, nourishes our bodies, provides all the nutrients required for us to function. The balance is very delicate, yet incredibly crucial for the journey of the soul.
Will the soul be able to shine through or will we get lost in struggles and shadows of self-destruction, resistance, various food related obsessions, issues with visual appearances, and false perceptions?
Quick reality check: Ask yourself a question: “What is your relationship to food?”
How much time in my life have I already managed to hijack from myself – from my soul’s full expression? Do I still want to continue doing so, or is it time to resolve and let the soul shine through?
I know that only by welcoming myself fully, accepting the full length of how my life has unfolded can set me free. Accepting the way I look, how I sound, the way I move, my thoughts, how other perceive me; accepting myself physically, fully, 100%.
No external opinion about my appearance, no remark, no comment anyone makes can shake me anymore. Even when those comment come from the people closest to me in my life. I understand that whatever somebody says has nothing to do with me and everything to do with themselves – their proclivities, projections, part of their healing process. All I can do is listen and stay consciously aware.
This can only happen because I have fully healed that aspect of once my wounded self. If I get triggered and react it would simply mean I have some more work to do on that front – some more outstanding healing.
I also accept the fact that whatever has happened to me in the past was for a reason. It’s what we make out of it that crates a difference and that mostly depends on our level of awareness at any given point in life.
When I was a child, I didn’t have much awareness, hence I was easily manipulated in thinking whatever anyone else had thought of me. It took many years to figure out who I was and get rid of all the projections my brothers, parents, school, society, etc., has imprinted upon me. I had my weak spots. At some point in life, every weakness has the potential to turn into the source of our greatest strength. That depends entirely on me in my case or you in your case.
Today, food is my source of strength, health, creativity, and inspiration. I have developed a deep appreciation and respect for what sustains me in life – what keeps my cells alive, gives me power, and adds clarity to how I think, what I do, what I’m able to share, and how I am able to express myself in this world. Thank you, life, for all the teachings, for all the abundance I am able to receive, for all the blessings showered upon me and us all. Thank you, life. May all be free.
What is desire? What drives our desires? Why do we sometimes get blinded by desires and lost in desires? What is the root of human desire?
If there was no desire I would not be here and now. I would not be alive. Could desire be the foundation of life itself?
On a daily basis, desires manifest through many expressions in life. For example, food, love, sex, solitude, touch, a kiss, connection, high speed, prestige, status, this woman, that man, danger, extreme sports, productivity, excitement, attention, winning, losing, drugs, alcohol, arts, sports, pain, pleasure, a combination of several things together that amplify our experience in life. It often leads to so called dopamine spike.
What is the common denominator of all these expressions of desire? To feel alive!
I get attracted to something that stokes my inner – possibly – latent fire, which I am not able to stoke myself otherwise, hence I need a certain external stimulus to feel more alive.
Are there different kinds of desires? Such as healthy vs unhealthy desire? What happens when desire turns into obsession, or even addiction? When it takes over and you lose yourself, your mind, even your life?
What about healthy desire? The one that stokes just enough fire to still make you feel alive in relationship towards yourself and the rest of the world, and yet you maintain perfectly balanced, content, and composed.
Desire to feel alive rings a bell. The more disconnected I am from my true self, the more extreme becomes my sport.
As if my cells are longing, yearning, needing for something that is not here. As if I am missing a part of me and I just don’t know how to rekindle and reconnect. It’s like – sometimes – I feel hungry, yet it is a very different kind of hunger compared to being hungry for food. It doesn’t matter how much I would eat and whatever I would consume I could still not satisfy these deep cravings, this deep hunger that can drive me to the edge if unsatisfied. There is no material food in this world that could satisfy that mysterious hunger.
It feels like when you try your best to grasp the air and no matter how deep is your breath, or however much oxygen is out there, you can’t get enough of it. It’s just not there.
Have you ever experienced that?
Food is a big part of human existence. We need sustenance to survive, to thrive, to be healthy, to receive and convert the required fuel so our beautiful bodies can operate, and our souls can express. Yet, we often confuse our hunger with the inner most hunger that nourishes our being, our soul and our cells – with hungry for food. Food is the easiest, most accessible, and closest type of satisfaction most of us often resort to.
Once I grasped this subtle distinction between hunger for love vs. hunger for food it hit me quite hard. The realization that there is no such thing as compensation for love – the most important nourishment for all the cells vibrating in our body.
Love vibrates at a certain frequency and only that frequency is able to penetrate deep inside, to infuse us, to sooth us, so that the whole fabric of what we’re made of gets nourished.
Desire, hunger, love, craving, obsession, struggle, destruction or liberation. Our life begins out of desire, the first thing we experience when we’re born is hunger – both hunger for food and hunger for love. When either of the two is out of balance we struggle. Imbalance can lead towards variations of destruction or freedom.
The only savior in case of imbalance is love.
Being around people we trust and love, who reciprocate our love is one of the greatest blessings in life. It’s like magic, but much better. It’s natural, effortless; the ease and abundance of being in the moment with your loved ones is the most precious and fulfilling experience in life. Learn to recognize ‘transactional’ types of people, so you don’t get disappointed. Surround yourself with people you love, who love you. People you can ask for or offer help when needed most. Recognize those people and be grateful. Every present moment filled with love is a gift, it’s the only true gift that never expires, the most precious gift you can pass on.
We all have our own unique perception of our unique experiences in life. Stories I write come from my experience.
I am trying to understand why so many people who have experienced a lot of pain and suffering continue paying it forward and allowing their pain and suffering to spread through them – onto others.
Perhaps some people still carry a lot of pain, and they’re simply trying to lighten up their own burden? Being alive, we share what we are -and can can only spread and share what we carry inside.
I can clearly see a distinction between the actions of individuals who have brought their pain and suffering to their awareness and stopped the spread, and the reactions of those who still haven’t, yet are on the way.
Sometimes they simply didn’t have a chance to do so. Life has not yet afforded them with enough space for self-reflection. They were too busy, existential needs were more important. And eventually, pain and suffering trickled down so deep that even when they would have the required time and space, they could no longer see it, reach it. The deeper our pains and sufferings slip in, the older we get, the harder it is to shake it up and bring it up to the surface, where we can face it. It takes a lot – sometimes an accident, a burnout, or a disease such as cancer or a stroke, paralysis, and sometimes death itself. That’s a difficult way to go.
Even if someone else is able to see how much you struggle inside and wants to help you, while you still have a chance, no one can change your. Unless you are ready to do so. One can only fully accept you as you are, love you, stand by your side, nudge you, support you, show you the way, the door, hoping you will see that door and walk through. Yet, to walk you have to be ready and make a first step.
Environment we grow up in paints our reality, hence, it is important to put things into perspective and include the historical and cultural views – among many others.
In addition to the country where you grew up, if either of your parents have experienced being repressed when they were children, there’s a good chance you carry the legacy of repression, of some sort. Important to add, it’s not their fault, there’s no one to blame here. They simply inherited certain behaviour patterns from their parents and probably never had a chance to contemplate about it and get over it.
For example, the wounds inflicted by horrors of war can last for decades. The second world war ended in 1945 – that is over 80 years ago. However, the pain and suffering inflicted upon people did not yet come to an end. And the history repeats. Just when the younger generations might have healed or began healing the wounds they inherited from their parent and grandparents, the bombing starts again.
Anger & aggression cause damage and should not have a place in anyone’s home – in the ideal world. But that’s not the world we live in and sometimes we just have to learn how to deal with the consequences and reverse those negative impacts that might have happened while we were children. In order to heal and end this perpetual infliction.
The power of the fierce soul continues shining through, it resists being taken over, and is rising all over again. Just like the sun; just like Phoenix rising from the ashes. Emerging more powerful, smarter, and stronger. It’s all a matter of time.
