Post Birthday Reflections

After having a whirlwind birthday weekend where my kids and I battled being sick for days as well as falling on Easter weekend, I haven't had enough time to truly reset my morning routine and intentions, which I will work on and start tomorrow morning. However, during a moment of reflection, a deep appreciation surfaced for possibly the biggest life lesson I have learned in this last year and I would love to share that with you.

We can not control the actions of others so how do we take control of the less than desirable relationships and situations when they feel as though they are infecting our lives?

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

When I began to change my state of mind, my state of being naturally followed, as did the rest of the outside world. When my predominant thoughts were that of gratitude, love, being of service, vulnerability and being as authentic as I could to myself in each and every moment, I began to function out of a state of flow where things effortlessly started falling into place. I found myself getting less stressed, less worried about the how and just knowing things would work out. Now again, I am human and far from perfect so this is not and all day every day, but I would say that it is a regular practice that I remind myself often, to live out of this state of intentional presence.

What has completely transformed my life this year, is that as I healed and brought deep attention to how I was treating and talking to myself and stopped focusing on how the perceived thoughts words and actions of others towards me, made me feel, an interesting phenomenon happened. I found a deep trust, love, and appreciation in all that I am and especially all that I am not.

I stopped allowing how others showed up around me to dictate how I felt and started standing strong in my inner truths of love and self-respect, and then spoke my truth from my divine feminine, those that did not align fell away. Simultaneously, that approach began to naturally deepen and richen my closest relationships to a level of intimacy that I could have never imagined as well as draw in new connections that reflect and elevate my values and beliefs.

What we focus on grows so the more attention we bring to the people and situations that are no longer serving us, we unfortunately, by that very action, keep them active in our lives.

Every day, I chose love, laughter, connection, mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual depth, expansion and intimacy and have had an absolutely amazing year!

We can not, nor should we ever want to control the thoughts words or actions of others. People are who they are. Surrendering and allowing people to show you who they are and believing them, while staying true to who you are and allowing things to unfold, blossom, or crumble as they are meant to, has been a life changing shift to witness within myself. This doesn't come without its efforts like boundaries and taking inspired action to stay on the write path, but for me, the process starts with the inside and then radiates naturally out.

May we all continue to grow into our more authentic actualized selves each year as we shine like the bright starts that we are!

All the love,

Pamela

Reflection

With my birthday just days away (secretly already celebrating in my head!), I love to take this opportunity to connect with who I was one year ago, on that very day. Doing this every year makes it very easy to tap into this process of reflection and resolution. I take the time to sit on my meditation mat with my journal, look myself in the eyes in the mirror and ask some high-mileage questions. This gives me the opportunity to expand my thinking, encourage exploration, and lead to greater levels of self-discovery. Having this honest conversation with myself allows me to be humble about where I see my potential for growth, build momentum and confidence for progress! Who have I shown up as for this last year? Where have I grown? Have I grown in the ways I expected? What has gone well this last year? What areas of my life could use some growth to feel like I am more authentically interacting with my life?

This year, I have decided to take this process a step further and begin a brand new "Birthday Journal" that I will only write in once or twice a year to set my goals, acknowledge my dreams and desires, as well as reflect on regularly to see how far I have come and celebrate progress and manifestations, no matter how big or small.

All too often, it is easy to feel stagnant and like things aren't really moving or changing but just like watching your own children grow, because we are in it daily, it's hard to see the shifts, however, it's the same as when we see a friend's child that we haven't seen in a year, we say "Oh my goodness! Look how big you have gotten!" Witnessing ourselves and our growth is kind of the same. Growth, evolution, and expansion are happening on a daily basis so we often don't take stock in the subtle shifts, but when we have a reflection routine, we can more easily measure the progress in a year's time.

“Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.”

~ Robert L. Rosen

Do you care to join me in my birthday celebration? Let's be grateful for all that we have been through to get us where we are, all that we have become, here and now, in this breath, in this moment and for all that we are actively becoming.

Saturday, 3/30, I will sit down, quiet my body, thoughts and emotions for a moment to dig deep and ask myself these questions ~

• On a scale of 1-10, how fulfilled am I in the 12 areas of the IIN Circle of Life?

  1. Joy

  2. Spirituality

  3. Creativity

  4. Finances

  5. Career

  6. Education

  7. Health

  8. Physical Activity

  9. Home Cooking

  10. Home Environment

  11. Relationships

  12. Social Life
      

• How does this compare to where I was last year? What has changed?

• What am I most proud of:

  • Mentally

  • Physically

  • Emotionally

  • Spiritually

• Where are my growth opportunities?

  • Mentally

  • Physically

  • Emotionally

  • Spiritually

• What do I need to let go of that is no longer serving me?

  • Mentally

  • Physically

  • Emotionally

  • Spiritually

• What am I no longer willing to tolerate that I used to settle for?

• What is the most pressing thing happening right now?

• What's working well in life right now?

• Where do I feel stuck?

• What am I most grateful for in this moment?

• What feels out of balance?

• What is missing?

• If I knew I had nothing to lose, how would I act and what would I choose?

• What are my core values?

• What is most important to me and how does this align with my values?

• What things/people/places make me feel the way I want or expect to feel?

• What is holding me back?

• What am I afraid of?

• What do I need to release that is no longer serving me?

• When I close my eyes, where do I see and feel myself one year from today, in all 12 areas of the IIN Circle of Life?

• What is one action step I can take in each area of growth, this coming month to get me closer?

I truly believe that when we place intention and attention to areas of our lives to create harmony, that energy propels our desires into physical reality. By setting clear intentions and directing our attention towards them, we build coherent focus that accelerates the manifestation process.

May you be blissful and free. May you know the joy of your own true nature.

All the love,

Pamela

Alchemizing Our Fear

In last week's blog, I talked about how we can use fear as our compass. Energy is not created or destroyed so I love the idea that we can transmute anything in our energetic body into a more supportive and productive energy. So now, the question is how do we go about doing this? Obviously, there is only so much that I can offer in a blog post but what I can do is tell you a personal story about an experience I had going through this and then pose some questions to hopefully make you curious enough to explore this theory on your own.

Recently I was face to face with some of my oldest patterns and limiting core beliefs. I truly felt, in every cell of my body that I was not safe and needed to self-preserve and protect. For weeks, I woke up with a feeling of dis-ease, anxiety, urges to control or micromanage. I knew what was happening. I knew this was me meeting and edge that I hadn't yet crossed and a ceiling that I needed to break through, but that didn't make it any easier. When the hormones and feelings are surging through your body, they are intense and impossible to ignore. I continued to practice my daily morning routines that keep me grounded and connected with my core and higher self, yet even that just felt like I was merely going through the motions. I Journaled, I meditated, I did my breathwork and they all would take the edge off for a short amount of time but eventually, the fear would creep back in. They craziest part is that I would ask myself what I was afraid of, and I couldn't even logically come up with an answer.

I have learned about this edge of discomfort, I have coached people through it but when you are in the tornado of it, it is so hard to see the blue sky. I just knew that all I had to do was not do what fear told me to do. So, every time I felt fear rise up. I listened to her. I held her close. I respected the role she played for me. I allowed her to yell and scream at me. I know she was just trying to keep me safe. And then, like I would for one of my children, I told her, "Sweet girl, you have nothing to worry about. I am here, I've got you, you are safe now - I am driving."

Then one day, out of the blue, I had a reflective conversation that put everything into perspective. I was able to zoom out and see the truth of life and my journey in it. In a snap, I felt all my tension that I had been carrying around, fall to the earth like sand. I felt a rush of love in its purest form, course through my body. I felt the truth and trust that everything is working out perfectly for me and the greater good. I just have to allow the discomfort and transformation to happen. I need to let go of resisting. Let go of thinking I know what is best for me. Let go of trying to be more clever than life so I can protect myself. All I am doing in that state of being, is resisting the blossoming into the next chapter of my evolution. As random and unexpecting as those uncomfortable feelings hijacked my body, I just as quickly and unexpectedly felt as though I was seeing life from an entirely new lens of love and deep knowing that I never felt before.

When we can hold the grace to allow our perspective to be such, the greatest challenges in our lives are often the greatest gifts for our soul's expansion. Just as anything dying in nature becomes an offering of replenishment to the soil for the next chapter or phase of growth, we have the opportunity to alchemize our struggles, challenges, and sufferings into a more beautiful and fragrant flower. When difficult situations or emotions are forced upon us, they are often mirroring back to us the things within ourselves we need to let die in order to be redesigned.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

~ Nelson Mandela

I know that I have forever shifted my relationship with fear. Not that we still won't have our meetups, but I have gained so much love and respect for the soul's healing journey she provides that I now see it as delicate dance. When we can change our relationship with fear it can remove the anticipatory anxiety as we begin to feel her creeping up. I now feel a deep sense of love and trust in the process and know that everything I am feeling is for my evolution and can surrender to the process. I know that fear is just a sign that I am ready to peel back the next layer and heal another subconscious story that has played in my head and body for long enough.

• What if every time you felt the sensation of fear in your body you felt gratitude and excitement instead of worry?

• What if the next time you felt fear, you listened closely to the self-limiting belief, story it was telling you about yourself and rewrote if from a place of self-love. "I am not worth" becomes, "I am a divine being and have always been worthy".

• What if the next time you felt fear, you closed your eyes, connected to your breath, and imagined all the uncomfortable feelings and limiting beliefs, magnetically attracted to the center of your abdomen, and forming a heavy black ball? Then imagine that ball becoming a beautiful glowing ball of white light and love, that grows bigger and bigger until it explodes and all that alchemized love and joy spreads to all your cells in your body. What if you allowed yourself to be overcome with the feelings of invigoration and peace, and just knew a healing on a deep level was taking place?
  

We know that perception, perspective, and projection play a huge role in not only how we see our life, situations and even conversations but also how we react or respond. How great would it be to use that same understand towards fear and learn to welcome the process. Knowing what I know now, feeling this freedom, inner peace, and self-love that I never imagined I could access, I am grateful for that challenging internal struggle. When we show up for ourselves, we heal on every level and the ripple effect pays off in all areas of life.

All the love,

Pamela