two of the great lessons humanity
will learn in the 21st century will be:
to harm another is to harm oneself
when you heal yourself, you heal the world
reclaim your power,
heal yourself,
love yourself,
know yourself—
these phrases are becoming
more and more common. why?
because they are the pathways to
our own freedom and happiness
contents
distance
union
interlude
self-love
understanding
distance
before i could release
the weight of my sadness
and pain, i first had
to honor its existence
i was never addicted
to one thing;
i was addicted to filling
a void
within myself
with things other
than my own love
to solely
attempt
to love others
without first loving yourself
is to build a home
without a strong foundation
three things make life harder:
not loving yourself
refusing to grow
not letting go
i lived so long
with a closed heart,
not because
i was afraid to get hurt
but because i was afraid
of the pain
i had hidden away
before we can
heal and let go,
what ails us
deeply
must first
come to the
surface
i spent so much time
creating versions of myself
that were far from the truth,
characters i would perform
depending on who was around
layers that could hide
the inner dance of turmoil,
between my lack of confidence,
the pain i did not understand,
and the uneasiness that comes
with reaching out to others for the
love that i was not giving myself
(before the healing)
i kept running away
from my darkness
until i understood
that in it i would
find my freedom
many of us walk the earth as strangers to ourselves, not knowing what is true, why we feel what we feel, actively working to repress experiences or ideas that are too jarring for us to observe and release. it is a paradox occurring in the human mind: we run away from what we do not want to face, from what brings feelings of pain, and from problems we don’t have answers to, but in our running away from ourselves we are also running away from our own freedom.
it is through the observation of all that we are and accepting what we observe with honesty and without judgment that we can release the tension that creates delusions in the mind and walls around the heart. this is why the keys to our freedom lie in our darkness: because when we observe our darkness by bringing our light of awareness inward, the ego begins to dissipate into nothingness and the subconscious slowly becomes understood.
the mind is full of shadows, but shadows cannot withstand the patience and perseverance of light—our minds can become like stars, powerful united fields of pure light. but unlike a star, the healed mind will dwell in awareness and wisdom.
when we disconnect
from our pain
we stop growing
when we are dominated
by our pain
we stop growing
freedom is observing our pain
letting it go
and moving forward
it is not love
if all they want
from you
is to fulfill
their expectations
one of my greatest
mistakes
was believing
that another person
could hold together
all the pieces of me
make sure
the walls
you build
to protect yourself
do not become a prison
changes in the external world can cause great misery when we do not know how to engage and heal ourselves. moments of pain and discomfort, or encounters with ideas that may break the mental images we have created of the world, are normally things we not only run away from but also things we build walls to defend ourselves from. these walls we build in our minds and hearts make sense when we don’t know any better. we all have the right to protect ourselves from pain, but be aware that these walls can turn from protection into prison—the more walls we build around ourselves, the less space we have to grow and be free. we have a harder time releasing the habits that cause misery when we are surrounded by the psychological walls we have constructed, causing us to stagnate and fall into a rhythm where we are always running within a space that is slowly growing smaller.
the opposite of this mode of being is to have a practice that helps us go deep within ourselves to dissolve the walls, to heal the patterns that cause us pain, to release burdens and traumas, and to discover the universe that dwells inside each of us. when we journey inward and release the blocks that we first built as walls, we naturally begin to create a new and wider space of awareness. now when things happen in the external world, we have more space and time to examine how we would like to respond as opposed to reacting blindly and reinforcing old patterns.
the body contains
our past emotions
healing work
creates space
for the release
of what we felt
long ago
don’t run away
from heavy emotions
honor the anger;
give pain the space
it needs to breathe
this is how we let go
reminder:
when the body is tired
the mind will often create
worries to focus on
ask yourself often:
am i observing the situation
accurately or am i projecting how
i feel onto what is happening?
sometimes
we feel like exploding—
not because of anything
or to hurt anyone
but simply
because we are growing,
releasing,
letting the old parts die,
so that new habits,
new ways of being,
have space to live
(shedding)
sometimes deeper mental clarity
is preceded by great internal storms
healing yourself can be messy
seeing yourself through honesty
can be jarring and tough; it can even
temporarily cause imbalance in your life
it is hard work to open yourself
up to release your burdens
like removing thorns from your body,
it may hurt at first, but it is
ultimately for your hig
hest good
the dark clouds of rainfall are
necessary for new growth
an apology to past lovers:
i wasn’t ready
to treat you well
i didn’t know love
was meant to be selfless
i didn’t know my pain
had control over my actions
i didn’t know how far away
i was from myself
and how that distance
always kept us miles apart
(blind heart)
when passion
and attachment
come together,
they are often
confused for love
i spent most
of my life
to myself and others
that i had no pain
and felt no sorrow
some people hit rock bottom before
they change themselves drastically
because at that distance they can
best see who they really want to be
questions:
am i being honest with myself?
am i allowing myself the space to heal?
am i being compassionate and patient toward myself when i am not meeting my goals as quickly as i had intended?
am i doing what i need to do to thrive?
ego is
self-doubt
self-hatred
anxiety
narcissism
fear of others
harshness
impatience
a lack of compassion
and illusions
ego sees problems
consciousness sees solutions
ego is not just the idea that we are better and more important than others; it most often arises in the form of fear-driven emotions that grip our mind when we no longer believe ourselves capable of great things, when we look down on ourselves and treat ourselves harshly.
ego makes us see the world through fearful illusions; it makes us give the same punishing treatment we give ourselves to other people.
ego is a cloud that surrounds consciousness and disturbs its clarity. when we grow our self-love, our ego diminishes; when we purify ourselves and let go of mental burdens, the ego loses its power. as we learn to heal ourselves, we do not hate our ego, nor do we become complacent with the limitations it imposes on our lives. the highest happiness, the deepest sense of freedom, an unshakeable peace is possible when the ego no longer reigns, when the love of consciousness can flow without interruption.
the world itself is currently shifting from being ruled by the fear of ego to being liberated by the love of consciousness; what we face internally is a microcosm of what humanity faces globally—this is why growing our self-love is a medicine for our earth.
if you measure
the length
of your ego,
it will equal
the distance
between you
and your freedom
if you
are far away
from yourself,
how could
you ever be
close to another?
what is happening within us
will reveal itself in the energy
of our actions and words
honesty creates intimate connections
and decreases the turbulence of life
dishonesty creates distance and problems
that have to be dealt with in the future
if we are
not growing,
then we are
probably hurting
there is not a single moment when change is not present. the constant of the universe, the motion of impermanence, is observably evident in the world around us and the world within us.
if we examine nature, it is clear that everything is in a constant state of dynamic change. trees are a great example: in cycles they alternate from experiences of growth to experiences of releasing, all the while alive, all the while growing. if we are refusing to grow, then we are moving against the flow of nature; the flow of change is so powerful that resisting it can only cause difficulty.
sometimes growth hurts, but it is the type of pain that is easier to endure because it is helping us come forward as a better version of ourselves.
the greatest gift
sadness gave me
was the motivation
to transform
do not let a cloudy mind trick you
into doing things you are done with
reminder:
you can love people and
simultaneously not allow
them to harm you
the most widespread affliction
that people suffer from is a lack
of belief in their own power
to be so broken
to have
f a l l e n
so deeply
that the only thing
you can do is
r i s e
into a new you
(phoenix)
union
the healer
you have been
looking for
is your own courage
to know and love
yourself completely
it did not
happen overnight
and it was not
given to me by another
i am the maker
of the happiness and love
growing within me
make your growth
sustainable
by moving at a pace
that is challenging
but not overwhelming
there is a tendency to doubt
your growth in the midst of a
big leap forward; hold steady
and allow yourself to bloom
i do not wish
to change the past
it made me
who i am today
i only want
to learn from it
and live in a new way
letting go
doesn’t mean forgetting;
it means we stop carrying
the energy of the past
into the present
healing begins with acceptance and culminates in letting go.
when a great misery occurs, it remains with us for as long as we hold on to it. attachments form because of the energy we use to keep what happened, or the image of what we want to happen, locked away within our mind and body—this is the cause of tension in our being. when we hold on to these attachments, they travel with us as a burden, from our past, to our present, and into our future. they can even be passed on to our descendants long after we are gone.
the miracle of healing ourselves is so powerful, because in the movement of accepting and letting go, we relinquish the energy of burden not only in our present but in our past and future as well. imagine the time line of your life. now imagine the burdens that you carry as an extra line layered on top. as we let go of our miseries, this extra layer becomes thinner and thinner. it will not change what happened, but the extra energy we carried because of these occurrences will no longer weigh down the time line of our life. what happened, happened, but now these moments are no longer attachments of pain and sorrow; now they are experiences we learn from, lessons that bring us into a present of greater freedom, happiness, and wisdom.
when you grow rapidly
and experience
such deep insights
that you can no
longer
look at yourself
or the world
in the same way
be kind
allow yourself
the time and space
to settle into the new you
(integrate)
let’s make
s p a c e
for deep healing
in our world
a real sign
of progress
is when we no longer
punish ourselves
for our imperfections
you have
walked through fire
survived floods
and triumphed
over demons
remember this
the next time you doubt
your own power
she believed that the damage
to her mind and heart was permanent,
until she met wisdom, who taught her
that no pain or wound is eternal, that all
can be healed, and that love can grow
even in the toughest parts of her being
ask yourself:
is this worry real or is my mind just
looking for something to grab onto?
the mind is a series of patterns
if we wish to change ourselves
we should create new habits
when we build new habits
we are creating a new life
we carry
our attachments
and pain
in our bodies;
as we let them go
our bodies change
a body is a field of moving energy and a system of information. as life continues its fluctuations, we tend to gather attachments, burdens, and sorrows. we hold them so tightly that they become embedded in the body, causing blockages and disruptions in the flow of our system, which can limit access to the best possible version of ourselves—this sometimes manifests as ailments or disease as well as a lack of belief in our own power and a lack of understanding of the universe.