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Posts tagged ‘women’s strength’

In Beauty May I Walk – Leaps Are Optional

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.
– Carlos Castaneda

 

 

 

Here is the cast for this post, for without each one this awareness would not have been birthed:

Shakti-Samtosha (Peace-Contentment) yoga practice

Carl, representing Health and Wellness coaching

Jan, who is unraveling the grief around the death of her beloved husband after many years of illness

Ron, who is facing an activation of the cancer that he has been living with for the past year

Adam, who is caught in his own world of mental illness, but does not know it

Lea and her personal story on returning to a state of ease

Unexpected income –  who shall henceforth be named “Wealth”

Now that the stage is set, the story can be told.  Have you been told that in order to succeed, or get unstuck you need to leap off of the cliff, precipice or ledge and trust that you will fly?  Well I have, and in fact guided others in this free flight as well.   In fact I have done it many times in my life – leaping, flying, and sometimes falling on my face – with great lessons to be learned.  The question is – are you leaping away or towards yourself?

What if it is true that all the events in our life are personally orchestrated by us in order to come “home” …and without each event, each person, each experience we would not understand why we are here, and certainly wouldn’t be able to make those choices that serve our highest well being, and that of everyone and everything we touch.

This awareness may not help when we are in the midst of unbearable grief, full on fear for our lives, intense worry about financial well being, distorted thinking and a feeling of utter abandonment, or uncertainty about what our next step will be.

Yet, it is here in this rich territory of choice and head-on life that we find that it may not be as dramatic as jumping off of a cliff, but instead, like a powerful dream of mine several years ago.  A realization that as you are standing on the edge trying to think your way down to “safety” or the next leap – a path suddenly appears as you turn your head to look at what is around  you.  A path that is uniquely yours and leads in an easeful  and clear (although sometimes not seeming to) way to your next destination.  All you have to do is listen, feel, and start walking…

So, here is the story.  There is an older woman that has done many things in her life that she feels good about.  She has given birth to and nurtured 3 boys into manhood; spent many, many years in the healing professions bringing people into embodiment through touch, breath, energy, listening, guiding, and love; has created 3 businesses on her own and enjoyed the creative process of each one; spent a total of 21 years in living relationships with men who taught her a great deal; owned houses; taught yoga; traveled to far away places, had adventures,  and learned from shamans and healers; called dolphins to her in the wilds of the ocean; continues to act on her passion for writing; and adores the creative and uninhibited joy of dance and art.

This woman feels she is now at a crossroads – a pivotal point.  Many options and possibilities are open to her.  Does she start another business in health and wellness coaching, join a community of evolutionary visionaries, write her book, or stay where she is which is out-of-alignment with who she knows she is and what she has to bring?

In this only two day journey, the beginning is marked by a yoga practice focused on peace and contentment. A yoga practice that she has put on the shelf for a period of time.  Falling into her body, breath, and surrendering her tight and contracted body she cries.  The waking up has begun.

She receives an e-mail from one of her readers, Jan, that shares the fragile place she finds herself in the aftermath of her husbands death, and the knowing that she did everything she could to help him.  The reader reports that she can hardly find her way to reach out to what she may need at this time.  This honesty touches this woman reminding her that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have – including her, and that sometimes it is not right timing to reach out – that each person’s journey can only be chosen by them.

This is emphasized even more by her brother Rons quest for health and life in his journey with cancer, having to deal with some very difficult treatment choices – and her son Adams mental illness that has him locked within his own mind unable to accept the fact, or even be aware, that he needs loving assistance to come back to life – his life.

Waves of energy hit her and clarity begins to filter through.  There doesn’t have to be a leap, free fall, or soaring as the case may be.  It isn’t fear or uncertainty that make the decision not to pursue the health and wellness coaching with the large training company.  An e-mail is written to Carl, the director of marketing.  She now knows that it is alignment with beauty, peace, essential nature, and ease that has been calling for days now – not the path to growing yet another business, no matter how qualified she is.

On the second day of this awakening a friend Lea (www.ReplenishYourSoul.com) writes of her journey back towards ease in her life, having seen the effects of struggle and pushing patterns in body, mind and relationship over this last year. Just a gentle walk to another location inside that says here – here is where you are to be.  Trust and honor what you know.

Guidance is coming in many forms now as the waking up – speeds up.  A letter arrives in the P.O. box which says in the window – Pay To The Order Of – with her name on it.  Unexpected income.  Flow of Wealth. The message – honor your path and the flow returns.

Not making a choice because it might be “good for her to take yet another leap”  – but acknowledging and honoring the place inside that says TRUST – it will be shown to you.  There are many ways to return to and know your path.  Listen in to your bodies messages.  Just turn your head and start walking.  Leaps are sometimes necessary, but always optional…

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
– Henry David Thoreau

P.S  The woman is me. Deep gratitude to the cast!

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:  www.BreathingSpaces.net

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Awareness, Courage, Divine Inspiration, Manifesting Your Dreams, Vital Health & Well Being

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If I Were Brave

May today I find peace within.

Green Tara

May I trust my highest power
that I am exactly where I am meant to be.
May I not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May I use those gifts that I have received
and pass on the love that has been given to me.
May I be content knowing that I am a child of God.
May this Presence settle into my bones,
and allow my soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

– St Teresa of Avila (16th Century Spanish Saint)

It is with the quote above that I start this post on being brave and courageous in your life.  I too, like so many of you, stand on the precipice.  As I stand here I remember that you are here with me as well, but that somehow doesn’t stop the thought – Gee, you would think that it would be easier by now since I have been here so many times before.

Perhaps that is the definition of a life well lived….you stand here many, many times and have the opportunity to create your own unique leaping dance trusting that even if you fall on your face….. there will be a “lifting up” that inspires you to leap yet again.

As Chameli Ardah states on her Awakening Women blog “the Green Tara above embodies the fearless and protective aspect of the feminine, but it is not courage which resists fear. If you think of fear and courage as two ends of a spectrum, we need to be willing to move through the whole range”.    This means that standing in the fear is part of this leap process.

Thus easy isn’t quite the word that defines this passage.  I have learned that when we are seeking alignment with our passions and the Divine plan for our life, it is then that we consider taking those leaps and making those choices that bring us into the discovery of what that still small voice has been saying to us for oh so long.

It is here that faith and trust in the wholeness of who we are comes into play.  It is also here that we remember who we really are….and say YES!  Yes, to the healing, yes to one more day to love and be loved, yes to starting over again one more time, yes to the creativity that sometimes rocks us with its insistence that it be brought out into the world, yes to the risk of finding more of who we are, yes to being vulnerable, being “seen” and surrendering the resistance, yes to giving back from a full place with every fiber of our being.

It can come in big leaps, but also can come in stages like the walking of a labyrinth where each step brings you closer to the edge of discovery…and then to the heart of the matter.  The clues are all around us right now.  All we need to do is be still and listen carefully.  The answer is always there.

As you watch this video by Jana Stanfield remember that you are also one of these women that reached deeply inside, found her strength and courage, was not afraid to ask for support as needed, and leapt into Herself, settling into this Presence deep within  your bones.  Rock on!

Thank you to Jana Stanfield and the sponsorship of Robin Rice (The Awesome Women Hub)  and Randy Grossman  (Randy Grossmans Amazing Music Portal)
for birthing this project.

If I Were Brave – by Jana Stanfield

 

Other Blogs by Gaye Abbott:  www.BreathingSpaces.net

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Awareness, Courage, Creative Expression, Manifesting Your Dreams

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Busting Loose From The Aging Game

72 year old Ernestine tells it like it is in this video!  At this writing I believe that she is now 73 years old and still going strong.  This didn’t happen overnight for her.  What it took was daily commitment to her health and fitness, and an inner faith that she could change her life for the better…and in turn change many other women’s lives as well.

A new friend and I had breakfast this morning and we were discussing the manner in which our generation is aging.  Some of you may have read Busting Loose From The Money Game by Robert Scheinfeld.  Well, my friend Lorraine came up with Busting Loose From the Aging Game. In other words, we get to choose and create how we play the aging game and what kind of “rules” we want to live by.  What fun!!

For example, Ernestine started out when she was 56 years old.  Going shopping for bathing suits with her sister for a pool party they were invited to, both of them realized that they definitely wanted to look a little bit different than what they saw in the mirror.  They were taking on the aging game of their generation, and both decided to invent a new one!

Beginning with an aerobics class, they both started to feel better and look better.  It wasn’t however, until Ernestine’s sister died suddenly of an brain aneurysm, that Ernestine decided to commit to much more than she had been doing to work through the grief over her sister’s passing.  Now 17 years later, at age 73, she runs 80 miles a week, lifts weights most days, can bench press 150 pounds, has completed 8 marathons, and teaches other women how to believe in themselves, find health, vitality and empowerment, and create a different game for aging. 

If we create our reality, and I believe that we do, then what kind of aging game would you like to create?? It will be uniquely your own…so ready, start, GO!!

OTHER BLOGS:  www.BreathingSpaces.net

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Manifesting Your Dreams, Vital Health & Well Being

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Pivotal Points – You Are THE Creator

“I learn and love in the liquid flow of life standing in my strength and in my weakness, shining with the light of ten thousand moons over water…I flow with the lightness of the emancipated soul”. Marilyn Patterson from Wrapped in Sunrise

Breath coming in gasps, yet expanding to power you along the “straight up” hillside.  Instead of being weakened or drained by the climb you are strengthened and filled with more life energy.  Why?  You have decided that it is so as you show up as you are in the moment…. YOU are the creator of your experience.

At a brief pause about half way up you see a blackberry bush just loaded with the largest, juiciest blackberries that you have every seen!  But…that bush… although a short distance away, is surrounded by tall grasses and potentially prickly things which you must traverse before sampling the sweetness.  Who knows what is lurking in the hidden depths??  You have a choice – chart new territory and take the risk, or walk on by perhaps regretting that you did not go the distance.  Both are possible actions that you can take.

At the top you reflect on a journey from the past navigating the Na Pali coast on the Hawaiian island of Kauai many years ago.  One day into the 11 mile one way hike terror reigns supreme in your mind and transfers to your body the night before crossing a particularly treacherous piece of the trail.  The full day’s hike had seen you in the back following everyone else, negotiating streams where, we were told, people had been washed away to the sea….and using every muscle, some of which you didn’t know you had.

Once at the evening camp site while reviewing the next days trail ahead,  the inner voices ask, “would they really miss me if I didn’t go ahead with them in the morning?”  Do you turn back…or do you, the next morning, get an early start and start hiking before the others so that you are first and they follow?

Well, here is the truth telling, as this was my journey today…..and several years ago.  I passed by the blackberry bush… satiated by the luscious berries that I had already amply and easily sampled on my way up.  Sometimes we take the challenge and learn new skills and gain awareness (or taste the sweetness in this case!), and other times we take our attention back to what is right in front or inside of us – resting easily in the flow of receiving.

On the 11 mile one way to Kalalau via the old Hawaiian trial along the breath taking beauty of the Na Pali coast on the island of Kaua’i…. I did go ahead of everyone else that morning turning a 90 degree corner on a very narrow trail with sheer drop off to the cliffs and ocean below on my right, a fierce wind blowing, carrying a heavy backpack, with nothing to hang on to but trust in my ability to breathe one breath, and take one step…. at a time.

The destination reached – Kalalau – with prawns in the streams, fruit on the trees, a waterfall for a shower, nightly sunsets painted by the Divine, a Hawaiian mythology story teller for late night entertainment, an astronomer to show us the magic of the night skies where stars and planets covered every inch of sky, a chiropractor to soothe our misaligned and sore bodies, and even a composting toilet!   We came together from varying parts of the world ,separately along the trial, to convene at pivotal points in our lives.

Are you at a crossroads in your life?  You are the Creator.  There are a multitude of choices…trust your intuitive creation!

Gaye Abbott – Catalyst, Guide & Creative Mentor

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE:  www.BreathingSpaces.net

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Creative Expression

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