Tag: mental wellness

4 Agreements

The Four Agreements

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.”

~Don Miguel Ruiz

Art | Catrin Welz-Stein

The Grace Project

So I had shared this lovely photograph of my beautiful artist friend and Grace Goddess Marianne Duquette Cuozzo… along with these fabulous words of Glennon Doyle… The post went viral… and now Facebook deleted it and said “I was going too fast”… Ugh… this platform!! Here are these fabulous words and Mariannes gorgeous photo again: “Your body is not your masterpiece — your life is.

It is suggested to us a million times a day that our BODIES are PROJECTS. They aren’t. Our lives are. Our spirituality is. Our relationships are. Our work is.

Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it’s all you’ve got to offer the world. Your body is not your art, it’s your paintbrush. Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that YOU HAVE A PAINTBRUSH which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life — where others can see it and be inspired and comforted by it.

Your body is not your offering. It’s just a really amazing instrument which you can use to create your offering each day. Don’t curse your paintbrush. Don’t sit in a corner wishing you had a different paintbrush. You’re wasting time. You’ve got the one you got. Be grateful, because without it you’d have nothing with which to paint your life’s work. Your life’s work is the love you give and receive — and your body is the instrument you use to accept and offer love on your soul’s behalf. It’s a system.

We are encouraged to obsess over our instrument’s SHAPE — but our body’s shape has no effect on it’s ability to accept and offer love for us. Just none. Maybe we continue to obsess because as long we keep wringing our hands about our paintbrush shape, we don’t have to get to work painting our lives. Stop fretting. The truth is that all paintbrush shapes work just fine — and anybody who tells you different is trying to sell you something. Don’t buy. Just paint.

No wait — first, stop what you are doing and say THANK YOU to your body — right now. Say THANK YOU to your eyes for taking in the beauty of sunsets and storms and children blowing out birthday candles and say THANK YOU to your hands for writing love letters and opening doors and stirring soup and waving to strangers and say THANK YOU to your legs for walking you from danger to safety and climbing so many mountains for you.

Then pick up your instrument and start painting this day beautiful and bold and wild and free and YOU. Paint this day beautiful, bold, wild & free.”~

~Glennon Doyle, Momastery

Life Lessons

10 THINGS TIME HAS TAUGHT ME

1. Most of our life is spent chasing false goals and worshipping false ideals. The day you realise that is the day you really start to live.

2. You really, truly cannot please all of the people all of the time. Please yourself first and your loved ones second, everyone else is busy pleasing themselves anyway, trust me.

3. Fighting the ageing process is like trying to catch the wind. Go with it, enjoy it. Your body is changing, but it always has been. Don’t waste time trying to reverse that, instead change your mindset to see the beauty in the new.

4. Nobody is perfect and nobody is truly happy with their lot. When that sinks in you are free of comparison and free of judgement. It’s truly liberating.

5. No one really sees what you do right, everyone sees what you do wrong. When that becomes clear to you, you will start doing things for the right reason and you will start having so much more fun.

6. You will regret the years you spent berating your looks, the sooner you can make peace with the vessel your soul lives in, the better. Your body is amazing and important but it does not define you.

7. Your health is obviously important but stress, fear and worry are far more damaging than any delicious food or drink you may deny yourself. Happiness and peace are the best medicine.

8. Who will remember you and for what, become important factors as you age. Your love and your wisdom will live on far longer than any material thing you can pass down. Tell your stories, they can travel farther than you can imagine.

9. We are not here for long but if you are living against the wind it can feel like a life-sentence. Life should not feel like a chore, it should feel like an adventure.

10. Always, always, drink the good champagne and use the things you keep for ‘best’. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. Today is a gift that’s why we call it the present. Eat, Drink (or don’t) & Be Merry.

Donna Ashworth

From ‘To The Women: words to live by’

https://amzn.eu/d/boCNeID

#growingolder #women #inspiration

#ageing #wise #wisdom #menopause

Birthing

“They told you about the contractions but did they tell you about the expansion?

Did they tell you how your body would open to make way for the whole universe to pass through?

Did they tell you how your heart would explode with a love bigger than anything you’ve ever known as you pulled your baby to your chest

They told you about the ring of fire but did they tell you about the crown of stars?

Did they mention that there is a moment when your baby enters the world and you leave your body and touch the heavens and become the light of a million galaxies?

Did they tell you how the pain of stretching to receive your child would be more exquisite than any sensation you’ve felt?

They told you you would scream but did they tell you about how you would roar?

Did they tell you about the power that would rise up from your belly as you called your baby forth with your mighty voice?

Did they tell you how you would embody the wild woman within you and breathe fire with your song?

They told you you would bleed but did they tell you how that sacred blood wouldn’t scare you?

How you would feel grateful for that magical liquid of life as it trickled down your leg?

How you would honor its flow and how it would help you heal a lifetime of hating your body’s bleeding cycles?

They told you these stories and taught you to fear birth, to fear your power, to fear yourself.

But you’re stronger and wiser than that mama.

You know that birth is your divine dance, your soul’s song, your moment with God, and you walk fearlessly into her open arms.”

~ Catie Atkinson

https://m.facebook.com/spiritysol/

@spiritysoul on Instagram

Art: Medha Srivastava, “Motherlove”

https://www.facebook.com/medhasrivastavaa/

#SacredSistersFullMoonCircle #Spirituality. #WomensWisdom #WomensEmpowerment #RedTent #SacredFeminine #Goddess #GoddessCircle #WheeloftheYear #Mythology #Magick #FolkTradition #GivingBirth #Birth #Childbirth #SeasonoftheMother #GodtheMother

I wish I knew

She spoke to the teachers

they told her to sit

to wait for her turn

and to speak with respect

She spoke to her parents

they told her to try

to never give up

to work hard and strive

She spoke to her friends

they told her to change

to act more like them

to stop being strange

She spoke to her self

she wondered what’s wrong?

why don’t I fit in?

why cant I belong?

And finally when

her exhaustion was high

she wandered bereft

out into the night.

She spoke to the moon

and the stars let her see

you’re already enough

why can’t you just be?

You sparkle with life

you’re so full to the brim

why worry about

the need to fit in?

You’re made of pure sunlight

with so much to share

don’t walk down the same road

you’re not going there…

Donna Ashworth

From ‘I wish I knew’: https://amzn.to/3JVMJlZ

#poetry

Art by Josie Wren #josiewrenart

Line Em Up – James Taylor

Of course I’m a huge fan , my Dad and 2nd son are named James , which translates to supple-mentor.

A deceased soul mate was also named James and died of extreme complications from years of IV drug use .

The detached upbringing and loss of both parents ; created this grieving soul who captured my heart in a bond that I could not escape . Addiction to this addict did not resonate and I married for several weeks to break the tie that bound me . I had experimented to better understand and it did not please me and it was easy to abstain except for “pot”.

In marriage it was the same , an occasional Valium , or smoke.

Sleep was threatened from the get go , with intense snoring and I don’t do well with lack of sleep . My nature then was high strung and active but I became weak and moody but did not understand why .

The reasons have lined themselves up , as it were . Our family was destroyed for reasons of addiction , control and ego .

The eyes have become more beady . And darker . As have some of our leaders , exposing a consciousness lack that is staggering .

After hearing Romney state that morality had nothing to do with politics , yesterday I heard the GOP rep talk about morality in the GOP.

That’s a good thing because I know Republicans that are moral and the greedy eyes are lining up . I don’t need to name names but look at the eyes ! Note who peers over their glasses in a passive aggressive profession / authority , manner ?

We each are part of a whole and as the harvest comes in we do harvest the truths that are clearing the way to new earth and less greedy little eyes !

youtube.com/watch

Relationships ; Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell on MONOGAMY:

“I don’t know if I’ve learned anything yet.

I did learn how to have a happy home, but I consider myself fortunate in that regard because I could’ve rolled right by it.

Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff. That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line.

But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing. I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.

You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.”

~ Joni Mitchell

Art: Joni Mitchell, Self Portrait, 1997

#SacredSistersFullMoonCircle #Spirituality. #WomensWisdom #WomensEmpowerment #RedTent #SacredFeminine #Goddess #GoddessCircle #GoddessStudies #CyclicalLiving #WheeloftheYear #Mythology #Magick #Folklore #FolkTradition

Holding a patient ( child) overlong ( as long as insurance pays )

We admitted Tom to a developmental disabilities unit at a psychiatric hospital nearby in January 31 – as you know things had been very hard for a long time. They were getting really difficult at school as well. Meds weren’t helping and they kept prescribing one on top of another without taking the prior one away, because they’re psych meds and you have to taper and there’s no time for that when he’s in crisis. He’s been ready to be discharged for about 2 1/2 months, in my opinion. The hospital team suggests residential placement – since nearly the time he was admitted. He’s doing so well now and the hospital team are seeing that he’s now having aggression because he’s sort of pushing back against the very restrictive environment. But there was no in home support to be found (no applicants) and wait lists a mile long with no guesstimate as to when a spot would be available….so he’s just been living in the hospital. He asks to come home almost every day and for sure when we visit. He even asks for his school teachers and speech and OT and school social worker. I miss him so much.