Category: Truth

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.

Lay Your Burdens Down…

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

I had a very big day yesterday. I have been “broken” for a long time now. Although I have been committed to choosing my mindset, overcoming and rising up, my mind and spirit still carried the residue of what my body had been through over the last few years. While I had chosen my perspective rather than wearing the one given to me by others or by my unconscious self, I was still haunted by the events. It is not far fetched or unreasonable that when you go from “wonder woman” to near death in an instant that it would affect you in more ways than one. It is not shocking that the time spent running from annihilation during my coma would leave a trace of darkness somewhere in my psyche. It makes sense that being treated and handled with extreme care and caution following the series of events would become a new way of life. No one would blame me if I stayed in that place. No one would blame me but why would I ever choose to stay there? I think where we typically go wrong is first and foremost in the unconscious. Most of us are living and operating from an unconscious reactionary state. We are unaware of what we are thinking, feeling, choosing, etc. Things begin to change dramatically the day you become a force in your own life and create your life rather than react to it. We look at all the evidence that we have gathered from the current circumstances which are only there based on our thoughts and choices (whether unconscious or not) up until now. The second we choose to change, choose to become the force, circumstances will begin to shift dramatically. We have to give our lives time to catch up before we make conclusions about what it all means.

Let my life be living proof for you. I was not handed anything on a silver platter. No one came to save me. I screamed and yelled at God, I begged God, I ignored God. This Being, this Force, this Entity loved me enough to allow me to save myself. I can only imagine how difficult that would be to watch someone you love so deeply in such despair and not save them from it. But that is a true and deep love. A love that is willing to sit in its own pain so that the object of their love and creation can be truly born. God sat by, and I believe sat directly in front of me breathing love and strength into me while I found my own. You see….my entire life, I was seeking my own strength. On the outside looking in, it could have looked like I had had it. I had my shallow strengths temporarily taken from me so that I could discover the strengths that could never be taken or destroyed. I stand here in immense gratitude for the fruits of that battle, I stand here a butterfly emerged from my cocoon.

I say all of that to say this….Lay your burdens down. Resist the urge to continue hitting the replay button. What happened to you is just that…it happen(ed). Past tense. It was then, this is now. It is over and done. You are not your experiences or your circumstances. You are what you choose to do with and about them. You are who you become from the journey. As a coach and trainer, I am forever hearing people talk about their weak wrists, nagging ankle injury that they have had since childhood. I will never forget an amazing client I had who on day one of training with me spent fifteen minutes explaining every physiological issue they have had since birth involving both their personal and what they believed to be genetic issues. I listened and smiled and led them straight into and through those issues and watched them come out the other side without having to carry those particular burdens any longer. Your freedom is through. Your freedom is in letting go. You are not chained to your finite experiences. You are the creator, you are the author. You have a choice and you have the power. All of my love and light to each and every one of you today. Blessings. SaraMae

 

 

 

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.

Feeling stuck? Be the catalyst.

by shollandsworth, posted in Empowerment, Faith, Growth, Hope, Motivation, Power, Self Development, Truth

 

Where in your life do you feel stuck? Literally or figuratively? It is so easy to give into the thought process, the illusion and believe that it is logical to make a change once the “stuckness” gets removed by some outside force or condition. We say that when we have energy, we will exercise, when we have motivation, we will workout, when we have time, we will take up that new hobby or volunteer, when we have money, we will have xyz. It seems counterintuitive to give of ourselves where we feel we lack. Life responds to us. It responds to our intentions, our beliefs, our commitments, our actions, our words, our thoughts, our states of being. There is nothing that we cannot do, be, or have if we are willing to become that thing. There is nothing that any of us are lacking at any time, in any condition, under any circumstance. There are degrees of difficulty, but never a lack of anything. And the tiniest shift, tiniest action, tiniest amount of money, tiniest fraction of time can create a completely different reality.

I understand how difficult it can seem when the entire bottom has fallen out of your life. I have experienced every single aspect of life falling apart and having to pick up the pieces. I know people who have faced the same levels of devastation, and I am here to tell you that I believe in the very core of my being that it is often in those moments, in those circumstances that our greatest blessings lie. It can seem so far from that, but if we are willing to think of them as such, they come to shake us up for our greatest and highest good, to help us become unstuck, to break open.

What are you wanting in life? More time? More money? More love? More support? More kindness? More resources? More fun?  Be that. Give of that, give the very thing you think you lack and watch the universe completely come to your aid and conspire in your favor. Don’t take my word for it. Do it for yourself. Are you short rent money? Find a cause you love, find someone else who is short on rent money and give whatever amount speaks to your heart…hundreds or pennies. The greater stretch, the greater blessing, the greater shift in your being and therefore your situation, but start with where you are, when you are and how you are. Want more love? Be loving towards someone else in any manner, especially if you are slightly uncomfortable. Feel all alone and like you have no support? First, see if you can support yourself more and then extend your support to anyone else. Whenever and wherever you feel tempted and compelled to hoard and withhold, give there. You are powerful beyond measure, and have the power to completely alter your circumstances along with as many others as you choose to serve.

Be the catalyst of your life. Be your own hero. Come to your own aid. On the days when you feel especially exhausted, lethargic and unmotivated, lace up your sneakers and go anyways. Trust the energy to come to you by the mere conviction of your actions. Life and God know when things are particularly difficult but we act in spite of and do it anyway. Its in those moments, when we feel the least like it, when it would take the most effort, the most faith, the most strength of character; when we rise up and take that leap of faith, that first baby step, that first shift in the new direction, when we creak the doors of our mind open with our willingness to believe differently. There are roars of applause that go unheard but sound off anyways in support of our growth and expansion. It is why we are here lovelies. To kick ass and bless others. Love and light. SaraMae

On choosing love…

by shollandsworth, posted in Faith, Hope, Love, Truth, Uncategorized

It can be difficult at times to know what direction to take in our lives. Something that I have found to be true is that there are always two paths: fear or love. They do not always present to be this cut and dry. Sometimes one path presents as security (fear), while the other presents as a leap of faith (love). One path may seem safe, familiar, reasonable, in line with the status quo while the other will cause you to grow, to stretch, to open your mind, to invest in and believe in yourself in a way that you have never done before. There will always be internal arguments for both. You will hear voices convincing you of the rightness of their argument much like that of a political debate. The rub comes because the voice of fear is so much louder than love. It is louder in our thoughts, louder in our lives, louder in the world while the voice of love whispers to us as if carried by the whispers of the wind, and can often only be heard after we ask for it and get quiet inside and out to be receptive of its wisdom.

I find that it always boils down to love or fear. Sometimes the divide seems so imperceptible by our senses, and often it is almost impossible to detect with our five senses. If one holds fast to the intention of choosing love in all things, the universe will heed our call and conspire in our favor, the way will appear, often one step at a time, brick by brick. When our five senses are not enough to detect the way, we always have the option to become quiet and still and feel our way to the truth. This often takes much intentionality and practice as we are not in the habits of feeling our way through life. Society has taught us that feelings and emotions are weaknesses, frivolities, liabilities, nonsense. So it may take some time and effort to get to a place where we can feel anything in any perceptible way.  You can get quiet and still and decide to suspend judgement and commit to just feel what comes up with an open mind and heart. When you think about one path, notice what feelings come up and then do the same for the other. Again, this can often be difficult to perceive. If your choice is between two jobs or two geographical locations, you may need to not just feel what comes up, but ask probing questions and allow your highest self, yourself unaffected by the trappings of society or ego to begin to answer for you. How would it feel if I let this opportunity pass? How would I feel if I stayed where I am? How would it feel to wake up in that new city? How would I feel by remaining here?

It helps to be willing to notice any resistance that may come up. Resistance is not necessarily the same thing as fear. In fact, resistance often acts as the very compass that will guide us to our happiness, purpose, growth, joy, expansion. All good things lie on the other side of resistance. Our egos act to keep us small and safe so they set out to convince us that staying where we are is safe and will make us happy. While good intentioned, it is not in our best interest. And if we do not turn within and begin to shine a light on the thoughts that we have been listening to for a lifetime, we will in fact believe and follow all of this misguidance. We will be reactionary robots rather than creators of our own realities. Love is what we are all here for, it is our natural function as humans, but we have had it drummed out of us. We have a bad experience with love, and we curse it away for the rest of our lives. Love does not just represent the romantic connection with another, or the sentiment experienced in the familial bond. Love represents all things light: joy, compassion, hope, creativity, kindness, open mindedness, contribution, expansion. While choosing fear represents stagnation, safety, security, hate, close mindedness, waste, violence, etc.

Love is at the very basis of creation while fear is at the very basis of destruction. It is said if we are not growing, then we are dying. It is always a choice. By choosing and leaning into love, our lives will become a testimony and example of love and all of its inherent qualities. By choosing fear, we will be another statistic of a life not fully lived. Outer circumstances do not dictate nor justify our choices in each moment. It can often seem as if there is no choice, but that is only when we do not realize the extent to how powerful we are. We are truly reality makers. We can not only change our worlds, but the entire world. Powerful callings will demand powerful choices. Powerful dreams will demand powerful actions. The point of power is always within our direct control: through our perspective, our thoughts, our choices and our actions. Do not die with your music still in you. Do not believe the lies that you are without power. You, yourself are an entire universe. You possess the power to design that universe, and every increase in the vibration of choices, thoughts and actions that you make will simultaneously affect every other person in the universe. God did not create a bunch of helpless humans, he imbued our spirits with the very power of His Being. It is not something to be bestowed upon us, it is what makes up that which we are. Here and now with where you are and what you have. There is nothing that you cannot be, do, or have. No ceiling to the level of joy, love and impact that you can experience if you continually lean into love.

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.