Today is a day to test me… how well do I do as I say?  I awoke feeling very tired and not wanting to get out of bed.  Yet I had to race off and teach 2 Nia classes this morning, followed by some errands, a long list of email and phone messages to reply to…. and I am teaching a 2 hour Nia workshop tonight.  All when I would much rather be in bed resting. 

I’ve been watching my self-talk all day.  Catching and stopping myself when I’m tempted to whine “I’m tired!”  Thinking of things that I am grateful for, like all these opportunities to connec with people and offer them opportunities to experience joy and love in their day.  And I will be compassionate with myself – have a little nap and take a nice hot shower before I have to change and run out the door again.  Take  alittle me time in between all this, because I know I won’t be serving the world if I don’t take care of my needs first.

The rest of the ‘to do’ list will have to wait another day….

I’m feeling pretty good about managing to  balance this attitude of forging on and getting things done, and taking care of myself.  I encourage you to do the same.

Namaste,   Tina

Wow. I just got off the phone with a friend and we were having a pretty deep conversation for Monday morning. We talked about where we’re at right now and the ’stuff’ that has been be surfacing for us to deal with over the last few weeks. It’s weird. Issues that I never knew were issues or things that I felt I’d dealt with long ago have been appearing and re-appearing, like Scrooge facing the ghosts of Christmas past. She and I (and a number of other people) seem to be dragging up all this history and slogging through it all, as if we have some lesson to learn from it. She said she’s come to a place of doubting whether or not all this is necessary, or serving us in any way. Do we really need to relive all this ’story’ we have from our pasts?

I told her that’s why Neil loves personal coaching so much. It’s about being future based – looking at how you want life to look from this moment forward and just leaving the past behind.

As we delved deeper into our conversation, I was reminded of another conversation I had with another friend last week. Stephen Garrett (of Warrior Sage) stayed in our home last Tuesday, and we shared some amazing conversation. He shared a vision he had in one of the Illumination Intensives of people sitting before him with these huge strands of history fanning out behind them, strapped around their waists… the baggage and stuff we carry around from our past. He could also see these incredibly beautiful streams of potential and possibility beaming out in front of them. He felt so sad that no one else could see it.  He could see their beautiful potential shining forth before them.  I could actually see it in my mind’s eye as he described it and I was reminded of Rev Toni Hegge’s (of the Westside Centre for Spiritual Living) definition of God – the Possibility of Possibility.  I saw, in that brief moment, that life would be so much easier if we just let go of that fan of our past and focused on God – the limitless possibility before us.

I shared some of this with my friend this morning, and said, “why don’t we just undo the straps and let that fan of history just drop away and walk away from it?”  As I said it, I could feel it.  And I felt freer.  As my friend shared with me the beauty of some journeys she’s done – some travelling without plans that left her feeling so free, I was brought back to my first trip to India. Those days that I travelled completely on my own, I wasn’t carrying that fan around. I left it behind at home so I could be so fully present in the moment that I was in. I felt freer on those days in India than I have ever felt in my life.   I was in the moment.

As I write here I think about how often Neil and I have had animated conversations about dreams and their value. He will pleased to know that I see, in this moment as I write, that dreams are those strands of potential and possibility that fan out before us.  Now that I’ve dropped the fan of my history, I can enjoy this moment and look with love upon the fan that spreads out before me, the limitless possibility – my dreams and hopes and so much more, for God (the Universe, the Source, Love) has bigger visions that I can even imagine.  Holding myself open to these possibilities, there is no thing I cannot manifest.  Hold intention strong.  Be clear about what I want to feel in my life (not what I want to achieve, necessarily) and allow.  Surrender.

Surrender.  That’s a word that’s been following me around for a number of years!  I still haven’t learned to fully surrender (I still try to maintain some sort of ‘control’ over my life) and Michael Beckwith reminded me, in the movie Spiritual Liberation, that true freedom will come from total surrender to Divine Love/God.  Surrender to the possibility and potential of life.  Surrender to living a life on purpose – in service to the world – without holding on to my ’stories’ of the past.

I think I’ll head out for a walking meditation and ask for the abiltity to trust in spirit and surrender to the beauty that life is.

Talk to you tomorrow!

With love,  Tina

Eons ago my wonderful husband and business partner, Neil, set up this blog and encouraged me to write. I wasn’t into it. Just couldn’t be bothered. It seemed like just another task to ‘have to’ do in my already ridiculously long list of things to get done. 

Then out of nowhere this week, as I was taking some serious down time to reflect and process my reflections, a thought popped into my head, “I want to inspire people to live joyful fulfilling lives, and I like to think I do that when I am presenting a seminar, workshop, speech or retreat… but what about every day that I’m not in front of people? How do I reach them then? ”

I love to journal – writing helps me process information. So it just popped into my head that a blog entry is a way to both things at once. Process information for me and perhaps impact someone out there in the world at the same time.

Does that sound a bit arrogant? To think that I can positively impact people just by sharing my thoughts? Hmmm… I am often inspired by other people’s thoughts when they are sharing with me, so why wouldn’t there be a chance I could inspire someone else with my thoughts? As long as my thoughts aren’t just a negative dump of energy, my thoughts put on paper are my energy being shared with the world.  I like the idea.  I do believe blogging could become a supportive new habit for me to develop.

If you’re out there reading this blog, send a little encouragement my way, please, if you’d like to supprt me in developing this new habit.

Create yourself a beautiful day!  (That’s just as much for me as it is for you, whoever you are reading this.)

Namaste,  Tina