Own Unique Essence

In the holidays I finished reading the book, 'Dying To Be Me' by Anita Moorjani.  It is a beautiful book with such a powerful message and I would recommend it to everyone.  In fact if I had it my way, it would be a compulsory school read for Life Skills.  Oh wow - that would be magical.  Anita had a Near Death Experience (NDE) after going into a coma and experiencing organ failure from advanced stages of cancer. When she came out of her coma she experienced a complete miraculous healing that baffled doctors and oncologists all over.

I want to share some of the paragraphs in the book that really spoke to me ...

"I saw my life intricately woven into everything I had known so far.  My experience was like a single thread woven through the huge and complexly colorful images of an infinite tapestry.  All the other threads and colors represented my relationships, including every life I had touched ... whether they had related to me in a positive or negative way.  Every single encounter was woven together to create the fabric that was the sum of my life up to this point.  I may have been only one thread, yet I was integral to the overall finished picture.
Seeing this I understood that I owed it to myself, to everyone I met, and to life itself to always be an expression of my own unique essence.  Trying to be anything or anyone else didn't make me better - it just deprived me of my true self!  It kept others experiencing me for who I am and it deprived me of interacting authentically with them.  Being inauthentic also deprives the universe of who I came here to be and what I came to express."

I really sat with that for a while because we hear so much about living authentically, but her last sentence really stood out for me as I had never thought of it that way; by not being true to ourselves, we deprive the universe, not just ourselves.  That held a big weight for me.  "Each one of us is a gift to those around us, helping each other be who we are, weaving a perfect picture together."

She also goes on to say, "You may frown or cringe at the thought, but I can't stress how important it is to cultivate a deep love affair with yourself.  I don't recall ever being encouraged to cherish myself - in fact, it would never even have occurred to me to do so.  It's commonly thought of as being selfish.  But my NDE allowed me to realise that this was the key to my healing ... I understood that to be me is to be love.  This is the lesson that saved my life"  

How powerful is that?  As a parent, I think that that is the most important lesson you can show your children. By just being yourself, giving yourself permission to be who you truly are, you are loving yourself and automatically loving those around you.

"I knew that was really the only purpose of life: to be our self, live our truth, and be the love that we are."

Okay, no need to say any more!  I strongly recommend you get yourself a copy of this amazing book and share it with as many people as possible.

My Year of Writing

This year is definitely my year of writing!  I've started a year long writing course with Angela Deutschmann called 'Writing as a Spiritual Practice ' and the scholar in me is just so excited. We received our first set of notes along with our reading and writing assignment on the same day that my kids went back to school for the new year and so I feel like I too am embarking on a new school year myself.  Only this time I'm learning about something that excites and thrills me and is purely my choice.  How divine!  My daughters are green with envy!

English was never my strong subject at school, having Dutch parents who never formally learn't English grammar and who didn't read a lot of English literature.  We also had a very stern and critical English teacher and so I always felt that I was not particularly good at English, especially grammar.  Poetry also used to make me really nervous as I didn't always 'get' what the poem was about and what message the poet was trying to convey, but looking back now, I see that a lot of it also had to do with maturity and life experience.  I was rather sheltered growing up as an only child and very involved in competitive swimming and so my world was just so different from what I was reading about and I battled to relate to it, the language used and the message conveyed.

Today, some twenty to thirty years later, with a lot more life experience, I read poems through very different eyes and am pleased to say I no longer find poetry so daunting.  Even putting across my opinion about a book or essay certainly feels comfortable because again I'm not trying to sound intellectual or pretend that I really know what's going on.  Thank God!  That I also think comes from being more comfortable in your own skin and just loving who you are!  

So here I am, a week into my writing course and I am just loving it! I have written a bit, watched a very interesting talk on writing and have read up excerpts from a recommended book, and my heart is singing, as my friend Anne says.  Where it will take me, I don't know; I just know that I'm feeling happy and joyful!

I came across this quote and loved it ...

"I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose." — Ludwig van Beethoven

Unraveling 2014

Hello hello!  And hello 2014!!  I am so excited to be writing on my blog again after a lovely long summer holiday!  The kids are back at school and this week we are back into our termly routines of school and extra murals which was all a bit of a rude awakening after such a lovely, lazy holiday.  In fact, I was actually quite nervous to get back into the fast paced action, but at least we eased into it with a three-day school week last week.

So, here we are three weeks into January and I have managed to complete Susannah Conway's Unraveling 2014.  I really enjoyed doing it and as I have said before it is highly recommended as it is a great way to reflect on the year passed and to put some thought and energy into the kind of year you would like to have.  Obviously this doesn't mean you are in full control of everything that happens in our year, but it gives us something to steer by and work with.

In the worksheet, you choose a word that becomes your word for the year and for me it was uncanny how that played out for me in 2013 and for my group of circle women who also did the unraveling.  At the end of 2012 I did it over two separate sessions and initially came up with the word 'create' which felt really good.  However by the next day, I just knew it was wrong!  And what came to mind was 'just be' which I couldn't really fathom why.  Well two weeks later my dad went into hospital for a procedure and ended up dying 5 months later in hospital and all I could do through all of those months was exactly that; 'just be.'  Only in the last three months of the year did I manage to get down and start creating! So it was amazing for me how that just panned out; two words and both had their place.

This year, my word is BRAVE.  It started out in December with a friend putting together a CD for me and I heard Sara Bareilles' song Brave for the first time and I just loved it. Then when I started playing with what my word for 2014 would be, I came up with 'truth.' I felt like I really and truly wanted to stand fully in my truth. Then I realized, in order to do that wholeheartedly, I need to be brave! And so here I am at the start of 2014 with my new word, BRAVE.  I have to say that It does make me rather nervous for what it will require of me, and for what lies in store, especially after the year we have just had.  But that's what felt right so we'll have to just let it unfold and see!

One of the exercises on the worksheet is to play around with words and images for 2014 and I decided to do a vision board for it.  I thoroughly enjoyed doing it and just love it!.  

 Any ideas for what your word for 2014 is? If you have the chance and it appeals to you, try the unraveling worksheet.  I think it is really powerful. You can find the link here ...  Lets make some magic in 2014

So as a little treat for 2014, here is the song Brave for you. Enjoy

Build what you dream

I love the message of this poem ...

Mandela has died - a poem

December 6, 2013 at 12:56pm

Madiba has died.
Today I held my little boy on my lap as he cried, inconsolably.
Not for a man he’d ever met,
But for a story that made him safe and proud.

I also want to fold my arms around our young country and say
‘There, there.
Remember how much he loved you?
Don’t forget that he gave up his anger, his righteousness, his time, his life
because he believed in you that much.

Maybe you can love him back by believing too?

I know you’ll miss him, my angel.
He will leave a grand space.
An open space!
You can grow into it, you know.
Everything you have loved in your Tata
You have in yourself.

Don’t fight, children, there’s enough inheritance for everyone.
Here, you take some of his compassion – it’s valuable, and rare.
And you, did you like his humour?
Take! Take!
Take his listening, his forgiving, his inclusiveness.
The more you spend them, the more there will be.

Invest your inheritance and build what you dream.
It is more lonely for a name to stand apart
Than alongside millions.'

Angela Deutschmann

With Deep Gratitude, Madiba

What a powerful and inspiring quote, said by a man who lived a truly great life!

I listened to a reading last night from Angela Deutschmann's (Angela) Insights from the Edge about ambiguous signals that we send to the universe with regards to our desires. The reading mentions that "the two most salient questions of your whole life are who are you? and what do you really want?"   

Daniel LaPorte in her book Firestarters, also asks "what do you stand for?"

How many of us have thought really deeply about that and worked really deeply with that? I have certainly looked at those questions, but I know that in my (and those around me) busy life, I don't focus enough of my attention on living that.  I just end up fighting fires, getting exhausted and running on treadmills that are not taking me to where I really want to be and to living a life that is "less than we are capable of living."

The reading goes on to mention how vital it is to master the choices around what we do with the resources that are truly at our disposal, i.e. time, money, energy and attention.  "Everything  you do in life, or learn about or contribute to or become interested in, whatever it may be, should be about expanding, clarifying or enriching who we really are and what we really want."  We need to be really conscious of the messages we send to life if we are interested in receiving from life what we really want.

Most of us end up sending mixed signals to the universe by not backing up with our resources that which we truly desire, which can cause fatigue, complication, frustration and even disillusionment.

If we look at Madiba, there is no doubt that he gave any mixed signals to the universe about what he wanted and what his desires were.  The reading talks about how we will be able to tell those people who are not giving mixed signals as" there will be an energy about them, an aliveness."  Many people who have met Madiba talk about his presence and I am sure it is this "aliveness" that they can feel.  His life was aligned in declaring what he wanted from it and what he stood for.

Thank you Madiba for standing in your truth, believing in it whole-heartedly and for shining your light as a beacon for the rest of humanity.


Ngiyabonga Tata

Labyrinth

I absolutely love walking a labyrinth and my most favourite (I say that only having walked a few in my life) is the one at Boondocks Mountain Lodge and Labyrinth, Boondocks, in the Mpumalanga Province in South Africa.  It is run by the nurturing, humorous, interesting, spiritual and fascinating couple, Ann and Stuart.  

It is set next to a little stream running into a beautiful dam built by Stuart under some really beautiful and powerful trees.  There is a magic to this labyrinth and although I have not been there for 2 years now, I am hoping to go back next year and have some special time on the labyrinth.  The story of how Stuart built the labyrinth is a fascinating one - all about faith and trust and just makes the labyrinth all that more special.  I hope you get to go there and experience the beauty of it yourselves

In the meantime, on this, my late father's 70th birthday, I share this labyrinth with you... Virtual Labyrinth

Much love,
Pascale

Nature, Beauty, Gratitude

I have just watched this Ted Talk by Louie Schwartzberg, and his video narrated by David Steindl-Rast and was very touched.  With this year, having been a very hard one, some days, it is hard to be grateful and so it is wonderful to see a beautiful video like this and to be reminded of the many wonders we do have.  Enjoy. Nature, Beauty, Gratitude