Little Sleep - Lots of Love & an Abundance of Lessons

These past few weeks have been very challenging to say the least. My 20 month old son who is still nursing had been nursing to go to sleep at night and as a result was and still is still waking multiple times a night. My husband and I agreed to continue to co-sleep as it made sleeping easier on everyone but then over the course of the past 4-6 months our little guy had been waking at around 9am to both nurse and also to come to bed with us. This early waking made it impossible for my husband and I to have time to reconnect at night or to plane any date nights. Not to mention that none of us where getting the sleep we so needed. So we decided that it was time for our son to begin the process of learning how to fall asleep because that is skill he has yet to learn. And so we decided it was time to night wean in efforts to teach him other ways to fall asleep. We agreed on a gentle method of teaching Colin to sleep even though to be honest it doesn't feel gentle because even though Brett or I will hold and rock him he still cries in our arms because what he wants to do is nurse. Things are starting to slowly get better but in sort of like a 2 steps forward 1 step back kind of way. Last night for example I got 3.5 hours of sleep. So in the meantime we are all very tired and worn. Currently Colin wakes a few times before 3am during which times either Brett or I will go into his room and soothe him back to sleep. Then if he wakes past 3am we bring him to bed with us but now I hold off on nursing until the sun comes up. Since no nursing at night is new for Colin there have been days where he has refused to go back to sleep and has been up for the day at around 3am. So as we teach our little Colin new ways to fall asleep he is experiencing a lack of sleep in the process which breaks my heart in two.

Brett was out of town last night and so today I was feeling very tired and defeated from quite a difficult night. So during Colin's nap today I decided to get some release and clarity I needed to journal. I sometimes forget how comforting putting pin to paper can be. That when you clear your mind and let your heart take hold of the pen the most perfect and beautifully clear messages can come through. The below is word for word what I journaled to myself today.

Journal Entry 12.11.2013
This issue with Colin's sleep is very wearing and difficult. 
In addition to his current sleep issues he has also become a very picky eater when he use to eat so well. Also during his tantrums he has started to hit himself rather hard out of anger and frustration. I am trying my best to handle everything with grace and compassion for all involved but I too am tired and wore down. I feel that during this time there have been few to no times when I have nurtured myself and I know finding time to do that is vital. Still I need to start to be creative with how I find ways to nurture myself. I feel that during this time I have abandoned my use of a positive self dialogue so one way I can begin to get back to nurturing myself is through adopting a positive internal dialogue and to have positive thoughts about myself, others and have trust in the situation. Other ways I can nurture myself is instead of watching TV in the evening, I could take a lavender bath, do yoga for 5-10 minutes, meditate for 5-10 minutes and journal. 

I also need to be in the moment more. By being in the moment, really in it I can then be fully present and see things with clarity. Both the lessons that are before me as well as the blessings. Lessons are blessings. I need to remember that and be thankful for that. Be graceful and grateful, pause, breathe and allow divine love, beauty and stillness to come in and take up all the space where I might be feelings tired or anxious. There is love and light for me and my life. Abundance is available and waiting to flow in if I can just stop fighting and start allowing. Everything we go through in life is a blessed gift. This experience will teach Brett and I so so much about parenting, life and ourselves and will help carry us forward. This will also be a wonderful and abundantly helpful experience to share with others. 

Blessings surround and are within and are constant and are always. 
Stay steady. 
Breathe in the sweet air. 
Bring it down deep.
Let it cleanse away all worry and doubt.
Marinate in the peace of knowing all is perfectly whole and well. 

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Your Life is Your Playground

Life is beautiful. It’s colorful and complex and full of so much love and abundance. Children seem to be able to see the color of the world in brightness and wonder and tackle life in such a playful way. As we have experiences and start to grow up, most of us loose the ability to see the color of life. Then by adulthood the color becomes a sort of black and white shade. We allow certain life experiences to dull the color and beauty of our reality until everything becomes grey and serious. We then begin to reserve certain times on the weekend for “play”. But I don’t think it has to be this way. Play can and should be interwoven into everything that we think and do. In fact I think it is vital that we get back to seeing in color and in finding the playful moments in our everyday life so that we can get back to that raw since of living and seeing like a child.

When we are first born we are in our purest state. As we grow we allow our selves to get layered with labels and circumstances and we allow those to become part of who we are. But those labels and circumstances are not ours and all they do is dull our true reality. It’s important to shed those labels so that we can feel and see and live in our purest state.  It’s time to invite the child back in and start living in the moment and finding the play in every situation. I really believe we are here to love, play and heal ourselves and others. That is the bases for what its all about.

So I invite you to skip in the isle at the grocery store. Sing while you're washing the dishes. Do a happy dance on your way to the car in the morning.  Have your own concert in the car. Lovingly laugh and forgive yourself when you do or say something silly. Start seeing the color, vibrancy and beauty that’s all around you. Infuse that playful thread throughout your day until it becomes part of your life again. This has become a daily practice for me and I’m so glad because it brings with it beauty and blessings in abundance. Celebrate and play everyday and reap the benefits of the happiness a colorful life can bring. 

Releasing Fear. Accepting Peace.

In my last post I touched on how parenting can bring up fear and how it can be a wonderful opportunity of self reflection and healing. In this post I continue my thoughts on releasing fear and  accepting peace:

Fear is a tricky emotion. It can feel so powerful that we let ourselves identify very strongly with it and therefore make it an acceptable part of our lives. But fear is not part of who we are because who we are inside is beauty, truth and love. And where pure love lives there is no fear.

Fear can feel suffocating if we let it. I’ve recently found comfort in the knowing that fear is not part of our beautiful inner truth. The only real and tangible thing we need to know and hold close to us is that God is love and therefore everything he created is love. Therefore we are pure love.  Isn’t that so completely comforting and uplifting?

Still even in knowing the truth that we are pure LOVE there will be times when we allow fear to come in and take hold. It’s in those fearful moments when we actually have a beautiful opportunity of self-exploration! We can then use fear as a tool of self-reflection to ask and to see what exactly is causing the fear and then we can work to heal and move past it. In using fear as a tool of self-reflection and then self-healing we’ve actually turned fear into a mechanism to create good and light in our lives through way of healing. Once we dig deep to uncover the underlying cause of (the emotion that was manifesting as fear for us) we can then work to heal it and to shed light on the shadow of fear and realize that all that was ever there within us to begin with was beauty and love. After we’ve shed light on the real cause and healed it we can then boldly move forward with joy, tenacity and gratitude. 

- - Three exercises for uncovering the beauty of a situation and to let go of fear - -

1.) Close your eyes. Take in three deep breaths. Release and relax the jaw. Then relax the entire body. Think about what it is you’re feeling fearful of. Ask yourself what’s the real reason you’re feeling this fear. Is the reason for this emotion something real? Or something you are assuming or placing on the situation? Then visualize the situation at hand surrounded by pure love, pure joy and pure light. Allow your self to see it in a new and beautiful way. Then let the fear drop away and be replaced with joy and excitement. Picture yourself opening a door and walking forward without fear but with pure love and exhilaration. Take in one last deep breath of gratitude for all the love that is in you and around you. Open your eyes and walk forward without fear.

2.) Close your eyes and take in three deep relaxing breaths. Imagine that you are holding in your hand the very thing that has brought up fear. Then visualize yourself handing the fear directly to God and see him take it from you and turn it into something beautiful. Take in a deep comforting breath of gratitude and know that God is taking care of it.

3.) Close your eyes and take in three deep comforting breaths. Visualize that you are sitting on the sand at the edge of the ocean. In your hands you hold the thing that has brought up fear. Take in a cleansing deep breath then gently place the fear into the water. Then sit and watch the ocean take the fear further and further from you until it is completely out of your site. Take in a slow deep breath and know that the fear is not yours to hold on to and that the Universe is steering you towards the perfect path. Take in a deep cleansing breath and allow peace and gratitude to fill your heart.

- - -

I use some form of the above quick meditations/visualizations whenever I feel a roadblock of fear. In doing this it has then become easier and more lovely to learn to appreciate fear for what it teaches me about myself and what I still have to work on. Over time by accepting the peace thats within it becomes easier to allow love and faith to lift the burden of fear off us so that we can live in freedom and truth. It's beautiful to know the truth that if we allow it, fear can actually be used as a positive tool of self reflection and that once we have learned what we need to from it we can send love and gratitude to it, then let it go and allow happiness, abundance, freedom and love to flow in. Then the darkness of fear actually becomes a light and is therefore love. Everything is love. 

Mirrors, Trust & Growth

Lately I’ve been working a lot to release fear from my life. I’ve been working to release fears so that I can live in a way of complete flow and complete trust in each step and in every part of my journey. I had been making wonderful progress in releasing fears I had attached to my self over time and then last week I had a set back. Last week my 18 month old son came down with a cold that caused him to get a nasty ear infection. Truth be told when my son gets sick I feel that I loose my grace and can quickly go into “worry” mode. Our doctor prescribed a new antibiotic that my son had not taken before and I was instructed to give him the first dose straight away, which would be before bed. When we got home and I gave him the medication, fear arouse in me in the form of worry and questions: Was he going to be ok on this new medication? Would it have any side effects? Would it even help fight the bacteria in his ear? Was it smart to give it to him right before bed when I wasn’t right there to watch him?

My husband was out of town so I tortured myself with this fearful inner dialogue for a few hours until I got myself so worked up that something had to give. I knew that my fear and worry had taken over me and that I was not living in trust. I knew I needed to work to release the fear and get back into a peaceful state of living in the flow. So I had to work to release and let it go.

Through the process of being a mother I’ve realized that being a parent can bring up so many issues that mirror the seemingly week or broken aspects of us. But really the beauty in it is that it brings up these aspects so that we can clearly see them and then work to heal them so that they don’t carry on to the next generation. It is a beautiful symbiotic relationship and I am constantly and continually in awe and grateful for the healing opportunities parenting has given me thus far. 

So in using parenting as a mirror I’ve come to the realization that I’ve always had a deep fear of losing people I love. And so in knowing the truth of that fear I realize that the fear that arouse in me that night was in actuality linked to my deeper routed fear of losing someone I love. By being honest with myself I know that I have an underlying fear that I need to work on. 

Aside from needing to do some deeper work, in that moment on that evening when I was feeling fear and worry I knew I needed to let go the grasp I had on it so that I could be more present and peaceful for my son. So What I did was stop, breathe and do a calming visualization (I’ll list some fear releasing exercises in my next post). And then for that moment I released and let it go.

There is so much quiet comfort in completely realizing and letting go of a fear. It allows for an instant inner peace to arise and there is beauty in knowing that at any given moment peace is waiting to take hold of us if we just let go. It’s letting go and realizing and knowing deep within us that God is in control of everything. I am learning to have faith in not just the easy parts of my life but also the challenging parts too. Because it is giving up control and having faith in those challenging parts of our lives that help us to grow and be free. It is having trust in the struggle and knowing deep within that everything will and always does work out as it should and in Divine perfection for our path. 

A BEGINNING

A few months ago I had been noticing that for some time I wasn't feeling like myself. That I was feeling more sensitive than usual and I felt that I wasn't handling stress with grace and life in general seemed hard. I couldn't quite put a label on this feeling or find "the source" but I knew that I needed to do some healing. So my intuition led me to an acupuncture session and then to an energy healer my friend had told me about. The energy session was amazingly liberating and gave me a new perspective on life and gave me insight on the complexity of our being . In the days that followed that energy session I experienced some intense physical and emotional detoxes and as a result some liberating openings. The energy healing seemed to put back some pieces of me that had been out of sorts for some time and opened the door to universal curiosity and universal love. Since that experience I've been working to get closer and closer to my essence in an effort to continue my healing journey. I'm now of the belief that we all have healing that needs to be done. We have a duty to heal and remove the shadow of our past pain and to remove the labels we've attached to ourselves so that we can be our lightest and brightest selfs and thereby fulfill our life's purpose and be free. This is a space where I will record my observations and my experience with life, love and the healing process. (And shamelessly I'll probably share some photos of my sweet son and some recipes along the way too.) In the end the real gift of life is to be liberated and healed enough to experience the realization of pure peace and joy and then to assist others in doing the same.
This is my journey.