What did I learn today? Lessons on the Journey to Unconditional Self Love

What fear demands, love cannot even see. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from love's gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible. ACIM One of my mentors told me in everything you do act as if there is nothing to fear and nothing to lose because you always gain, even when or if you feel afraid still believe that there is nothing to fear and go through hard and do it! and this is one of the pieces of advice I took to heart and approach so many of my scenarios. So it was quite interesting yesterday when someone told me "you always seem to come here and act like you have nothing to lose" I stood watching her with my mouth wide open because I never told her that and it was indeed my philosophy in doing this project that I am now working on! So the lessons for me on this encounter were 1. It pours out of you - just when you think  people are not clued into what's going on inside of you, yo...

Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it—it can’t survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. The most dangerous thing to do after a shaming experience is hide or bury our story. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes Brene Brown Tell your story - Tell it because it gives you back your power. Tell your story - Tell it because you are never alone. Tell your story - Tell it in a way that empowers you, and then it will empower someone else. Tell your story - Tell it to someone who can be positive and constructive. Tell your story - Tell it because you reclaim your voice, your mojo. Tell your story - Tell it because it kills the shame and guilt. Tell your story - Tell it on paper, tell it on voice notes, tell it on your phone. Tell your story - Tell it so that you no longer feel alone in the world. Tell your story - Tell it and see who remains in your corner. Tell your story - It triggers courage and freedom. ...

Your actions reflect what you want for yourself and how much you love and value yourself. Your actions reflect how you see yourself, what you feel you deserve. Tyrese G Own your stuff! Own it! – Own the fact that you are at this stage of your life where if you haven’t made any decisions and choices you must now do so- because making no decision is also a decision and you will end up living someone else’s life or living by default. Own up if you don’t have a vision for yourself and your life, a vision is something larger and bigger than what you can see now, it involves imagination and dreaming. How do you want your life to look? What type of life do you want? having a vision makes you focused It makes you determined It makes you persistent Because challenges and hearing no is par for the course, it will not stop you for achieving the vision. If you have no vision, you will just be going along following blowing with the breeze and get frustrated. Own the fac...

"Every gift I give is always a gift to myself. I never lose! I gain, and so does the recipient of my gift, especially if he or she learns from me to give again. "Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice" (6:2).  A Course In Miracles It Pours Out of You Affirmation: We are all family and the planet is our home Journal Entry 160 : I now drive myself to and from work every day; it’s a twenty minute drive with no “jam.” I’ve noticed as soon as I start packing up to get ready to leave the car is surrounded by women looking for a ride! A few times I have been in the car with them who speak not a lick of English. Those rides show me that we can communicate without words! Then there are the story tellers who sit in the car and talk and talk and I listen and listen! I’ve started looking forward to being a taxi driver! Yesterday one of the ladies said to me “Madam, your journey here is authentic and unique, compare it to anyone you must...

It is your moral duty to be happy: however you cannot exercise this duty by clutching unrealistic beliefs, struggling with unworkable assumptions, juggling painful images, jumping to false conclusions, running with impulsive decisions or hasty judgements Sufi Hazarat Inayat Khan Do not outsource your happiness, happiness is your own responsibility. Too often we place this job on someone else's shoulders. We expect our happiness to come as a result of a relationship or getting something rather than as a premise upon which to build one. Walk with your own happiness! Know what makes you happy and own that, do that, exercise that, choose that!  If we truly wanted to be happy, we would not be so eager to sacrifice happiness for nonsense, jealousy, possessiveness, anger, fear or any other function of the ego. When you find yourself in a situation where you realize that you are tolerating "nonsense", what do you do? We cannot realize true happiness when we e...

Get a mission statement for your Life. Know where you want to go. Know why you want to go there. Then create the plan to get there. My mission: Live good and spread Love. What's the mission statement for your Life? Robin Riley David Create your own life - trust me you have that power Create your own life - so what does that really mean?  It means to  have a vision of the life you want to live and take the steps necessary for making it happen. Added to that is the person you will inevitably become along the journey. As, for sure, sometimes there will be people and even family who are not on board with the person which you are becoming Create your own life - it means having faith and believing in yourself- and I mean unwavering faith- this is a challenge for me sometimes when I don't see how things are turning out in a way I envisioned. 99%  of the time it turns out even better than you would ever even imagine Create your own life - learn to say no to the things t...

Live from the space of authenticity, not pretense. Do not go along, to get along. Flex your independence. Autonomy is a good thing. Maxie McCoy At a meeting on Saturday one of the participants said to me "why don't you push yourself up and speak more, you have so much more to offer" I listened to him go on and on about how I am devaluing myself by not speaking out. I listened to him and responded "I don't have anything to prove to anyone and that is not why I am here, this is not my show" "So why are you here?" It seems to be the question that  quite a few people ask me that said question. A Course of Miracles says,  the ego establishes relationships only to get something To the ego, the mind is private, and only the body can be shared And so, on this journey I have embraced the concept that the relationships that I establish to "get something" are based on my ego and the ones which have been established to share...

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes A divine friend of mine sent me this quote and it resonated with me over the past few days more than ever. I have been working on a project over the past couple of weeks that has been quite different to my norm. Just yesterday I kept asking, "hey, what is the lesson here?" I asked it over and over again as the challenges mount ...

To trust the light you need to be honest with yourself and with others, and you need to let others be honest with you. That’s what the spiritual path is really about—it’s the interior devotion to self-knowledge. " You commit to becoming fully honest; to doing what's right for the people you live with and for your community; and to doing what's right for your body. So when your body says, “Don’t eat this,” you stop. If you tell your body you're going take it out for a walk, you do it. Because if you can't be honest with your body, you’re not going to be honest with anybody else. Caroline Myss A woman at the mall yesterday asked me if I was religious and believed in God! I took a few seconds to respond because it is not the first time I have been asked that question! So after we got to talking and I mentioned to her how I feel about the entire thing, I remembered that someone even told me earlier this month that they realized that I have now chosen the...

  Being busy is an addiction and it can be as challenging to stop as other addictions such as alcohol, shopping, or working because it is a way to escape or numb yourself. But, unlike other addictions, Western society puts a high value on being busy. We are conditioned to believe that being busy equates to being good, worthy, and successful. Dr Christianne Northrup I am never busy I am sometimes occupied. One of my teachers on the journey shared this with me, at the time I rolled my eyes and said " you are strange" but what she was telling me, after breaking it down was a couple of things, one, do not estimate your self worth by how many things you have to DO! two, do not use busy as a reason or even an excuse to neglect the important things in life such as your friends and family and most importantly yourself (health and rest) and three question what your folks told you growing up that if you were not "busy" doing something you are a lazy sloth! The main cure ...

The universe has a way better imagination than you do. My life has no resemblance to what I thought it was going to be — and I’m impressed with where failure, and courage, and the mystery have brought me. More colourful. More expanded. Way deeper.  Way better than I imagined . Danielle La Porte Carolyn Myss, one of my favourite teachers broke it down for me in a way that keeps me so grounded,she said, not because you believe you are a "good" person that will make you exempt from the challenges of life, things happen, deal with it, that is just life! You are not so unique, it happens to everyone and please don't feel that the stuff/challenges are only happening to you regardless of what you see out there! Deal with it, learn from it and keep stepping! The worst question you can ask is "why me?"  What happens when we run and hide is that we hide deeper and deeper instead of going into the light. When we hide from the truth and we run to the other side w...

There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” –Leonard Cohen Show up as yourself, every.single.time! I learn't that on my travels and apparently this week is the week of reminders of some of these lessons! Judging other people is an absolute waste of time, yea, I said it! It is the ego on show. We judge most times because we feel we are better or superior, or we are convinced that "they should know better", "they need a talking to", "how could they?" and the list goes on.  And many times it makes us feel better about ourselves because we, are better. of course! We would not dare do what they are doing, or be so stupid or reckless or mad, right?   As soon as something triggers us, we start a response, either we  are inclined to give advice usually  hoping to be helpful, though the shadow of that is sometimes that we are distancing themselves by trying to remain “above” the problem. We may distance ourselve...

The greatest challenge to the development of patience is being able to wait for the tangible evidence that your efforts are paying off. We have a fixed idea of what we want and what it will look like when it shows up. We hold that idea so firmly that often we are unable to detect the very thing we want has actually arrived Iyana Vanzant Patience requires faith and faith requires trust. Without patience, we worry, we complain, and sometimes we give up. Growing up my mother told me on so many occasions, that I had no patience. I always wanted what I wanted and wanted it right away, I wanted it now, and if I didn't get it, all hell would break loose. As I began growing up I realized quickly that not everyone responded the way my mother did so I figured I had better give this patience thing a further look. And that I have been doing and I must say that it has changed my outlook on things a whole lot, there is a lot less stress in my life. The ultimate test is standing in a line on...

Do you want it more than you are afraid of it? Do you want it more than you are afraid of failing? Do you want it more than you are afraid of not doing it "right"? Do you want it more than you are afraid of what people will think of you? Do you want it more? Want it more than anything else. Then go get it. Aren't mirrors fun? My friend asked me that today. Not the traditional mirror where we see a reflection of ourselves, the ones where you meet someone and they reflect back to you some of the behaviors and attitudes that you have inside of you, what's frightening to most of us is that when we see a behavior we recognize it immediately as someone else's fault and not something that we have to work on. And then the conversation starts about what they can do differently or what they are doing that they should not be doing yada yada yada. Pay attention to the people in your life, the close ones especially that you chose to have around, they are reflecting to...

Life requires release. You are not here to collect people and things. You are here to experience and remember.   Stacy Herera Do you remember the t-shirt you bought on your last holiday? Or maybe it was a key ring, some sort of memorabilia? What do you remember most about the holiday? What you bought and collected or how you felt?  We get caught up in collecting things on the journey, and many times it is unconscious, other times it is to show other people where we have been or to feel good about ourselves. The memories and feelings you get are priceless, and shape how we show up in our lives as we move along how we treat our fellow brothers and sisters. Same with people we meet, we meet someone on the journey and sometimes we want to ensure that they remain a part of our lives forever, we want a piece of them. Sometimes they are passing through on your journey as well, and forcing it is an absolute waste of time, effort and good sense! It's like the sun rising, you ...

I have a Happy toolbox. It is filled with things that I can go to at a moments notice to get me back to my Happy place. Know what makes you Happy. Know what can get the sunshine back in your day. When the storm clouds of Life come you don't have to sit there and get wet. Run to your toolbox! Mine is covered in glittery sparkles and is filled with music I feel in my soul, a barefoot walk outside and Rocky Road ice cream. What's in yours? Robin Riley David Changing my thoughts are simple and easy - this is an affirmation I use on a daily basis. Why? to remind and programme myself to remember that they are my thoughts and some of them are not always for my highest good and need to be entertained. So when I see the crappy ones appear I say hey there, I know you would like to come in but sorry, walk on by! Some of them I just yell stop! And then I started reading some of Robin Riley's work and discovered her Happy toolbox theory. So what's in mine? David Rudder's ul...

Create what you cannot find. If you really can’t find anything out there that speaks to the issue of your concern or that is doing what you want to see get done, create it. Stop waiting for some other group to form or some other person to stand up. Form a group or organization of your own. Call a meeting. Hold a rally. Raise your flag and see if anyone salutes . Neale Donald Walsh I have never been a big talker, now I have started doing it for a living- go figure! I prefer to act, I prefer to do something first and then talk about it after. The downside to not talking however is the limited expression of my feelings to the people around me, but I must say I have been getting much better at it. Having said that, I am not one of the view to talk a situation to death, moan and complain about it forever thine kingdom come! Complaining is so easy, as  Bob Marley says " you're saying prayers to the devil" it gives us a feeling as if we are doing something, news flash, you ...

So what do you choose to Be right now? Happy? Content? Safe? Peace? Forgiving? Compassionate? Love? Go ahead, choose. As many as you wish! NDW Live right now. Right this second. Don't wait to be passionate until you have a job you're passionate about. Don't wait to marry the person you love to see big, bountiful love in the eyes of the postal worker handing over your statements. Don't wait for the perfect home to find grounding in the present. Don't wait for future dreams to be grateful for  this  day. Because some where to someone, you're living it. You're living the dream  right now . Wake up and see it. You won't be different  when . You won't be better  when . It's right now. It's all of today. Peace

Call it whatever you want but more importantly: explore it. understand it. release it...the subconscious crap you're holding on to that's showing up as physical pain. What you think matters. It's energy. Thoughts and beliefs, while not seen, are pumped with energy. So too are our bodies. And our pain. It's all cosmically connected. From the inside out. Maxie McCoy Your beliefs shape you and your thinking (although sometimes it is good to question some of those beliefs, anyway I digress) So I believe that life always speaks to me and when I am not listening it does things to get my attention, I believe that my intuition speaks to me in stillness and pain is a wake up call to pay attention inward now. So I needed to pay attention apparently, Going along my usual Sunday business, I run on a Sunday morning, I decided to go to the beach and run. The scene was straight out of a movie, no one on the beach, the sun coming up, and I am happy. And then I fell, and the ...

“If we weren’t trying to control whether a person liked us or his or her reaction to us, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control the course of a relationship, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control another person’s behavior, how would we think, feel, speak, and behave differently than we do now? What haven’t we been letting ourselves do while hoping that self-denial would influence a particular situation or person? Are there some things we’ve been doing that we’d stop? How would we treat ourselves differently? Would we let ourselves enjoy life more and feel better right now? Would we stop feeling so bad? Would we treat ourselves better? If we weren’t trying to control, what would we do differently? Make a list, then do it.”   ―   Melody Beattie Many of our decisions are based on what other people would say, think or want us to do. How did we get to that place? What about doing what brings you peace, joy, love, harmony and doing...

You are the beginning and the end of the phenomena called YOU! Iyanla I love my grandmother, she tells me in her scolding voice "Yaki, what you see in the mirror is just a little piece of the whole of the best of you, so do not ever be fooled" I always used to laugh when she said it, now, today my friend has passed I wish I passed on the message, I am doing it now to all of you You look in the mirror and you see yourself but really it's not you at all I mean, there is your eyes, your nose and your cute little smile but that's not all there is to you Because you are not seeing the amounts of lives you've touched with your presence You are not seeing all the people you made laugh and smile You are not seeing how strong you are In fact all the battles you have overcome are  completely invisible when you look in the mirror, hidden beneath your outside features So my darling, listen to me when I say this, you are not as simple as a reflection You are...

You are the creator of your own reality, and so you are not in jeopardy. You do not need to control the behaviour of others in order for you to thrive. Your attention to things that you think they do keeps you from thriving is, in fact, what keeps you from thriving. It is not what they do to you; its what you do to you in fear of what you think that they will do to you Abraham. A crazy thing happens when you stop all of the chasing and consider attracting.  What would it take to attract everything you want, the opportunities you're seeking, the doors you're opening and the people you're wooing. It would take knowing who you are and what you are when you've dropped the hustle. It would force you to know what brings you joy other than finally climbing that mountain you tasked yourself with. It would require you to know fulfillment brought by something other than "inbox zero", something other than "I'll be happy when", something bigger tha...

Hey there don't you know, there's an isle with a style and a win that sings a calypso, and a soul calypso sun with a people with a passion forged from a fire Two island in the fun, with a spirit that moves as it grooves just taking you higher Here's a super island, call it T&T Heading back to T&T today, it's been fun, its been lessons, its been love I had the great privilege this time to have my family supporting me, even in Toronto, that was pure love! I had a few days that I really had to dig deep and remind myself "Why Are You Here?" and I had a few wake up calls in between where I had expectations that were based on my own wants rather than the reality so it's now great to know what works, what does not work, who are friends and who are just people you know and like (if that makes any sense!) be still.observe.indentify.accept.eliminate - lesson on this tour and what I will be taking with me as of today So thank you for joining me on ...

When you come clean and tell the truth, you can be sure that it will blow up an old pattern in your life. And it might even end a relationship. But living a lie is far worse over time   Dr.Christiane Northrup Statements and Sangria - book readings in the garden. I can't even begin to explain! I am grateful beyond anything that I can explain for the love, the support and the fun that I had yesterday in the Brooklyn garden of Miss Phoebe, who embraced me as a daughter after reading What Did I Learn Today? Lessons on the Journey to Unconditional Self Love she offered her beautiful home and garden to host a reading and what a lovely time it was to see my friends who, some were in NYC passing through, shout out to Maxine and Sirlon, some were from London, shout out to Geraldine, and of course I made some new friends yesterday as well. All I can say is thank you! Ekhart Tolle says, if the only prayer you can offer is Thank You, that alone is enough! And honestly, it is all that I...

I   talk to myself constantly. I am ALWAYS in intentional inner conversation with myself. I tell myself how capable, amazing, valuable and needed I am. If I pass a mirror I say "hey gorgeous" if I need motivation, I go to a mirror and give myself a pep talk. If I am mad, I discuss my feelings with myself. The parts of my body I don't like, I tell it "I love you and I'm going to make you better." If I don't get something, I ask the Holy Spirit to teach me. I make sure that I'm rehearsing in my mind what I want to see play out in my day.and I'm always SPEAKING OUT what I desire to see happen. Shanell Cooper Sykes Today is the annual Queen Series Extravaganza, it's a celebration of womanhood, of sisterhood, of love and sharing, being held at the YWCA in New York City, I am quite humbled to be a part of this celebration! Truth be told, I am nervous and this is where I call on my friends and teachers like Shanell Cooper Sykes to remind myself...