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.

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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.