Wow! I feel FANTASTIC!

I am feeling so much joy today I cannot contain it!

I almost feel guilty for feeling so happy! But instead, I am deeply enjoying the feeling of having my soul fly, my heart expand and my voice sing.

This must be the thriving I've been writing about moving towards. Yesterday, I made myself a bracelet to remind me to stay present to myself in each moment. So often my pattern is to abandon myself and exist for someone else - whether for a moment or for years. I finally feel and understand the damage this does to me and I choose to be different. I choose to be present to myself and stay there. As Byron Katie would say, what is going on for others is none of my business! My little bracelet has helped me come back to myself on a few occasions already - to remind me that I need only be present to myself and everything else takes care of itself (it is great to feel that I can give myself the help I need). Today I feel deeply present simply to what is. I've had moments of anxiety or sadness or concern for others but through it all, my joy has persisted. I suppose this is, again what Byron Katie would call, Loving What Is.

I have not read her work for some time but it feels like it has sunk in today! I feel highly motivated to help myself and others. I feel confident in speaking my mind. I feel so much love. And I feel, not just happy, but joyful - content and peaceful with how things are right now and not needing them to be any different. And yet also inspired to make changes and do the work required to better my circumstances - because this means being more fully myself. Rather than trying to change things simply because it would give me a better life, I have awakened to the idea that these changes will happen naturally simply by being myself - wholly, completely, actively myself. And anything and everything feels possible in that.

I choose to feel like this every day. Whether I feel sad, happy, angry or fearful, I choose to be fully myself in that. I see that I am capable and confident and energetic. I see that I am also lacking in all these qualities at other times. It does not really matter. What matters is the choice I make because that is what shapes my reality. If I can still love myself and be present to myself in those moments when I am so afraid I get stuck or so angry I shake or so hurt the pain and tears feel like they'll never stop, this is where joy comes from. Real inner joy. Not the come and go happiness that is reliant on external stimulation but profound joy which comes from inside me and can never be taken away - only temporarily misplaced by me when I forget to be present! I think maybe in the past I've been pretty forgetful!

Now all I need to do is keep remembering! And with my presence bracelet there to help, I know I can do it.

Love to you,

Lyra ♥

Change is Gonna Come

"Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever." -Leon Trotsky, revolutionary and writer (1879-1940)

I read this quote this morning and found myself understanding it in two rather different ways. 

The first is that when we are in pain or have suffered in some way, the lessons we learn at those moments tend to stay with us. These are insights which are hard won and so we do not easily forget them. So far so good.

However, it is Trotsky's use of the word 'ideas' which I found rather more bleak. If you grow up in a household in which there is abuse of any kind, you are constantly 'under fire'. You are also constantly learning lessons - mainly in how to survive. The thought that these ideas we learn - about ourselves and the world around us - will remain in our minds 'securely and forever' is, to me, a rather depressing one! It is also untrue.

I learned from my upbringing to be a certain way and had many ideas in my head about who I was, what the world was like, who I could trust, what I felt I deserved, what I needed, how I felt about things....... Many of these ideas entered my mind under the fire of an absent father, an abusive, alcoholic stepfather and a depressed, vulnerable mother (and that of wider familial and social conditioning). I learned that women were passive and men were in control of things; that I should always put others needs before my own; that it was more important to please men than myself; and that my natural inclinations, emotions and sensitivities were somehow abnormal.

The thought that these ideas might stay securely with me forever is truly horrific!

I have begun to learn that they are not true but these beliefs still haunt me on a daily basis in different ways. I have to believe that Trotsky was wrong about this to keep the hope alive in my heart that I can change - that my ideas about myself and the world can change - for the better.

I suppose I already have proved to myself that I can change for the better and that the ideas I learned as a child about who I am are not all true. The ideas which have taken their place have been learned and are still being learned under the tutelage of self-care and self-love. These insights come gently and repetitively until they sink into the essence of my being and become a part of me. They take their time and even when they come to me suddenly, they do not hit me with a bang but instead expand my heart and mind to make room for themselves. They are infinitely more precious lessons than any I have learned before and these are the ones which I know will stay with me for life - securely and forever.

Love to you,

Lyra ♥