Category: Trust

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.

Open or Closed?

by shollandsworth, posted in Empowerment, Faith, Growth, Hope, Light, Love, positivity, Power, Rumi, Self Development, Soul, Trust, Truth, Uncategorized

Understandably in life, we encounter disappointments, heart break, cruelty and we believe whether consciously or unconsciously that the answer to that is to put up a wall, build our defenses, employ watchmen to stand guard and ensure our safety from the less enjoyable aspects of life. We believe the illusion that the world is a bad and dangerous place to live and our instincts go to work to protect us. This is born into us as part of the human experience. Our ancestors used to have to literally run for their lives when up against the elements of nature. That response is in fact built into us and for us if we ever come up against a real and immediate threat. However, we have allowed it to run amuck in our lives without any sort of supervision or guidance. We turn on the television, tune into the news, read the headlines on the papers, overhear conversations in public. So much of society is set up to focus on the doomsday reporting tempting us to believe the lie that we are in clear and present danger.

At any moment, we have two options. To be open or closed. When we shut down in an attempt to protect ourselves, we believe we are keeping the “enemy” out, the hurt, the pain, the failure, etc. It makes so much sense in the logical way if you never look deeper and question the way things are. People build fences to protect their property.  Seems legit. Here we are speaking of fences in our lives. When you build a fence to keep anything out, you are in fact, just keeping yourself in. You are shutting down the natural flow and rhythm of the Universe, shutting out the good and incredible that life stands in the wings ready, willing, able and excited to send our way. Life is for you. Life is for you. Life is FOR you. Are you willing to suspend judgement, to hesitate on your need to label things as good or bad, to take a breath and give life the chance to show you just how good it really is? Are you willing to believe that pain can be a messenger, a teacher, a wise friend? Are you willing to listen? Because your heart and soul, God, the wisdom of the Universe is whispering and simply waiting with a smile to impart all of its genius.

If there is one thing I know to be true, it is that we are powerful beyond measure. The stuff of the Universe is not in some far away cosmos, it is in our DNA. God is not some distant fixture atop a cloud, God dwells in your soul. You walk with thunder and lightening in your veins! You truly are a magnificent miracle. There is nothing that you cannot be, do, or have, nothing that you need or lack. The next time you are delivered a blow and want to batten down the hatches, I encourage you to sit with the situation. To breathe through it, to open up and allow it to flow through you. To look at it, speak to it and ask it what it is here to teach you, what blessing it has to bestow upon you. I promise you it will answer, and it is always your friend. It even carries the seeds of comfort.

The more that you breathe, relax and allow yourself to open, the more freedom you will begin to feel within yourself and your life. You will see light fragments shine on once dark and forgotten corners. You will feel joy where once there was sorrow, hope where once there was hopelessness, joy where once there was shame. My beloveds, there is nothing to fear. You are not alone unless you insist it to be so and even then….you are not alone. In the eloquent words of Rumi, “We are all just walking each other home.” Be like nature…in its essence. It does not worry nor toil, and it is perfectly provided for as it perfectly provides for us. Sending you all of my love and light.

Unseen

by shollandsworth, posted in Trust, Truth

Too often in life we miss the beauty of who someone is because we are too focused on what we want from them, who we want or need them to be, the dreams we hang on their existence. We look past them to our expectations, our desires and hidden agendas. We forget or fail to recognize that they have needs, that they have value. We miss out on arguably one of the greatest and richest gifts of life. The opportunity to get to know another, to see them, to witness their journey. It could be a fleeting moment or a lifetime…we can sit face to face and walk in step with another while missing out on who they really are or what they truly feel. We can encourage them to open up, and when they do, we do not hear a word. We miss out on what they are saying because we are too busy interpreting it from the place of a past experience, from a place of fear, or busy in our minds trying to relate it to how they can help us, or how it relates to what we want from them. We may miss out on the gift their presence was meant to be because we were too busy trying to make them the gift we wanted or thought they should be. Sometimes we fail to step outside of ourselves and realize that we were meant to be the gift that in that moment they needed.

Ralph Ellison eloquently depicts a sadness difficult to communicate in “The Invisible Man” when he writes: “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me…When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.” Lets do our part to witness one another, and to let others be a witness to ourselves.