Category: authenticity

avoidance and destiny

by shollandsworth, posted in authenticity, avoidance, destiny, Empowerment, Faith, freedom, Growth, Light, Love, Motivation, positivity, Power, Self Development, Soul, Trust, Truth

Where in your life are you in avoidance? What are you resisting whether consciously or unconsciously. It most likely holds the keys to your greatest breakthroughs and even your destiny. At this point in life, many of us are aware of the existence of our ego. The poor ego has gotten a bad wrap. People want to make an enemy of it, kill it even. I like to think of the ego as a toddler. Toddlers are adorable, certainly not bad, in fact, they need our love, protection and guidance. We would never give a toddler the steering wheel and let them drive. So why would you allow the ego to steer your life? The ego has one main goal: to keep us safe because it love us, and they believe that staying where we are accomplishes that. When I was little, fear was all I knew, it consumed me. I remember having diving class, and I dreaded it. I was a natural swimmer, a fish. My parents recognized it in me and encouraged me, and I was even pursued pretty heavily all my life by swim coaches. I probably had the innate ability to take it to the highest level, but I had all of these irrational fears which are not relevant here. Back to the story….I recall my first lesson where we were to jump off of the low dive. I absolutely did not want to…actually I desperately wanted to, but I was paralyzed in fear. I kept walking to the edge and freezing. Eventually the instructor coaxed me off the edge, and it was game over after that. Shortly thereafter I was doing back dives and one and a half flips off the high dive. I found freedom in the dive, I connected to my natural gifts, to my essence. You see, the toddler in me wanted me to stay safe while the higher self in me knew what was to be gained by bailing off a perfectly steady board into the unknown…everything.

In my life, this willingness to dive led me to many beautiful cliffs as well as many exciting adventures. That willingness embedded itself in my spirit and has made it possible for me to take risks that I otherwise would never have considered. Not every breakthrough lie through huge life changing leaps. Sometimes it is the smallest tweak in a habit or thought pattern. It can be a chore that needs to be ended to, or a scary business opportunity. If it creates discomfort in you, be willing to take a look at it. Avoidance always means something, and it can almost always be traced back to our little well meaning but misguided homie, the ego. We must always be willing to turn the light on and look at that which we would prefer not to, and always without judgement. Simply observe, take note, and choose consciously, wisely, bravely.

Do the words someone said create an irritation in you? Why? What are you not wanting to see in yourself or in your life? Does it bother you that someone is living their life differently from yours? Could it mean that your highest self wishes you would choose courageously to step out onto a different path? Are you afraid that you are wrong in your beliefs? It always means something otherwise it wouldn’t create friction within you. And it typically calls for a change in perspective, change in beliefs, or change in self, in action. Avoidance is our compass, our north star if we simply allow it to guide us. We have been led to unconsciously believe that if we ignore something it will go away. The truth is, it won’t. It never does. In fact, the longer we wait, the more we ignore and avoid, the steeper the price we will have to pay to change whatever it is. The more effort we will have to exert, the more faith we will have to exercise. Get the lesson now, take the guidance. It is all a gift, it is all for you. There is nothing to fear.

Walk to the edge of the diving board, the cliff. Dangle your toes…bail off that thang and find your freedom, find your liberation, find your purpose, find your bliss. Its all there waiting to embrace you. You have everything to gain. Love and light homies.

Calling all LOVERS…..

by shollandsworth, posted in authenticity, Choose love, Empowerment, Faith, Hope, Light, Love, positivity, Power, Rumi, Truth

 

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” Rumi

It is so easy and tempting to fall into the belief, temptation and gut reaction that in the face of tragedy, hate, terrorism and violence that we are justified if not compelled to react in hate and fear. It is human nature to react. We are animals. However we are also creators, we are also beings with higher consciousness. That is what separates us from other species. DO NOT allow yourself to fall into the trap that when faced with fear and hate you should react with more of the same. It is completely natural and okay to feel those things, but we do not have to become vessels and channels for them. We can take in the feelings of fear and hate and transmute them into peace and love. That is the great gift of LIFE. Who wants to run around the planet reacting to every thing that occurs big or small? We are not rats in a maze. We are conscious creators. We are POWERFUL.

There is no reward in meeting hate with hate. Someone jumps in front of you in line, pushes past you, says an unkind word. What do you believe you get out of putting someone in their place? When you know who you are and whose you are, where you come from, what runs through your veins, you can be like the water. When we dive off of a cliff with great force, it merely yields to our bodies. It makes space for our intrusion, it even offers us pleasure. Do you understand the power of meeting hate with love? Fear with peace?

We know not what burdens and wounds others carry. We know not why they act in the way they do. It always boils down to fear and an absence of love. The times and situations when it is most difficult to respond in love are the times when it is most needed. It is the most unloveable who need love the most. That is never to say that you should stay in a toxic or abusive situation. Our own energy is sacred and of the highest importance. But it takes nothing from us to extend love in any situation, in fact it fuels our own life force, it multiplies our own essence. The more you react from and come from a place of love, the more you become love, the less the other energies will pop up in your reality. It is a truly beautiful and powerful process. When your love becomes so bright, you begin to repel and even transform fear, hate, anger, jealousy. When you buoy your own life force and energy to such an extent that you begin to affect the force field of another, you get to taste what creation and purpose are really all about. That is how we change the world. In all things, in all places, in all interactions, choose love, be love. We eradicate terrorism on the global scale by eradicating terrorism in our everyday interactions. We are the change. And the smallest, most seemingly insignificant interactions are the exact path to change on a global scale. Turn off the news, look out your front door and give love. Give it every time all the time. Be love.

“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.” Rumi

 

authenticity is the way.

by shollandsworth, posted in authenticity, Empowerment, freedom, Growth, Hope, Light, Love, positivity, Power, Rebirth, Self Development, Soul, Truth, Uncategorized

More collaboration, less comparison, less competition. We have become so ingrained in our society to buy into the competition lie. We believe that for us to win, someone else must lose. That when someone else gains, there is somehow less available for us. That also leads to comparison. We look to those who achieve, win, etc and begin to believe that we must somehow be like them to also win. We slowly begin to chip away at our uniqueness, at our perfect and valid and necessary expression of life and become a ghost of ourselves, a shadow, an eclipse. We begin feeling less, thinking less. We become programmed and hollow. We put on masks, try on other’s clothes, thoughts and beliefs. We no longer differentiate between our own unique thoughts and feelings and those put on us by our peers or by society. We become sheep. We no longer live and act from a place of masterpiece. We were created. Specially. Specifically and Uniquely. We were painted, sculpted, written and photographed. We are art.

The more you shed the inauthentic and claim your authenticity, the more resistance you may begin to encounter. Claim it anyway. Make authenticity the path, the way. Be authenticity. Breathe authenticity. Speak it. There is no need to fight against the resistance. Make space for it. Smile at it. Breathe through it. Direct love to it. Your conviction to live from that space quietly gives permission for others to do the same. And whether you ever directly get to experience the currents of that particular wave, it happens anyway. It is a great gift to give the world.

You cannot be successful living in someone else’s skin, beliefs or convictions. You cannot be whole, you cannot be effective. Begin to create rather than to consume. To be a force, you must stand silently, peacefully and powerfully in your own truth and let the truth make the noise. Let that truth set the world ablaze. Let that truth heal those with ears to hear. You have a specific, special and unique impact to make. Make your tracks. Let others follow those tracks until they find their own. Light the way. Love and light.