Twirling

It's the middle of March, which means it's almost spring, although it's -10 and we just got another delivery of snow.

This winter has gone by so fast - really truly - faster I think than any other winter. I remember the past few winters were drawn-out and unending, depressingly so, but this time 'round I can hardly believe April is only a few moons away. I have much to look forward to the next few weeks: I've got a whole lot on the go right now and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds this year.

_______

So, it's official. I have ceased to remove myself from my twirling mind; the to-and-fro that comes in waves, whispering one thing and then shouting the next, both entirely opposite pieces of advice.

I spoke to counsellors and psychologists in my late teens and early twenties, back when my anxiety was so overbearing that the world around me was as dark and hazy as anything you've ever seen; back when I couldn't seem to make a decision any better than I can now, in some ways, I suppose.

Thankfully, a handful of years later, I'm more confident in my steps than I've ever been, although there's a thing or two that always pulls me backward. I'm going to speak to another psychotherapist this Friday and I am so thrilled about it. Friday can't come soon enough, in fact. I'm nervous though, too, and mostly just hopeful that he'll be able to help me find clarity in all of the spaghetti of questions I have about life, love, moving on, and moving forward.

I'm the kind of person who needs to express how I feel by talking about stuff with people I trust. I am terrible at holding things in when something is bothering me, and this is why counselling is so helpful for me. I think everybody should invest in a few sessions with a therapist at least once in their life, during a time when they need answers, someone to bounce their thoughts off of, or to get another perspective.

For now I am writing down all of the things I am grateful for and I can't tell you why I haven't done it more often.

finding

lake wanderings from my bike ride yesterday afternoon.

Yep. I'm doing it. I'm doing it! I'm taking a time out. I'm taking a break. A leave-of-absence from all that overwhelms me. I'm so excited! This feels good and this feels right and this feels freeing in my bones. I've needed it so.

I'm off to the woods tomorrow for a week to shift and breathe and silence and reflect and connect with kindreds. But not only this, I will take as long as I need to find some steady ground where my feet can stand comfortably. Because some unsteady is what I've been amidst. Maybe I'll be steady in a month. Maybe two months. Maybe six. Maybe a year. Maybe I need two years, or three. Or maybe not. I don't know :) What I do know is that I need to find again those roots that are hiding beneath my spirits billowing wishes. They're so swollen with deep, deep longing.

I think the concept of taking a damn break has been revolutionary for me. It's required that I take a step back, my heart says so. Oh the thrill! I know why this feels so good. Shall I enlighten you? Because I've been caught in a web of uncertainty. Too much moving forward when I don't know yet, I don't know yet, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. I read through some of my blog posts from the past couple of months and I must say, it appears as though there is a theme weaving through a majority of them. Indecisiveness. Overwhelm. Uncertainty. I need a break. I need a break. I need a break.

A break from what, exactly? A break from trying so desperately hard to push myself against the wind and figure my life out when really, all I need is to stop trying altogether. Mostly, I just don't feel right putting the entirety of myself out there when I'm not entirely ready. There are answers that I need to my questions. There are holy parts of me that need to be nursed and nourished, the feathers and wings.

I'm impatient and patience is one of the handful of hurdles I am destined to overcome in my lifetime. Since last winter when I fell hard into deep darkness, I've acquired this urgency to hurry the hell up in my life because jeez, I'm 22 and I'm terribly old and simply must have my life figured out before it's too late. But truthfully, I am coming to realize that I don't even know what I would be late for. Looking back at my life over the past year or two, I should have been more patient. I wish I was, but then again, there's no such thing as should. So here I am now, embodying poise and patience. I'm flowing. I'm thinking. I'm finding.

Even more, I don't think I can possibly have everything sorted out in my life when I still have so much to learn and experience. It's this that I want to taste. I want to savor the flavours of experience and all those stories waiting to be written on my blank novel ahead.

april lessons

Salutations, month of May. It has been a long while since I've contemplatively recapitulated on what I have learned from the previous month. Oh April, you were a teacher indeed.

In fact, now that I really think about it, April certainly was a teacher and the lessons were explosive. April being the consequential month of March's springtime endeavors of blooming, birthing and renewal left me with opportunities abound and they have been very blinding. It's borderline ridiculous. It's not actually the opportunities themselves that have been so seemingly forceful and harassing, but rather my relatively new-found tendency to have great difficulties turning them down. Even so the ones that quite loudly do not resonate with my heart.

April unraveled into a strenuous month of yes versus no; decisions to be made, growth to be had, expansion to be experienced. Truthfully, I wished for myself to not have to make any more god damn decisions by the third week but, of course, they kept coming full swing because April was the month of following my heart. So naturally, I had to have experienced trying situations which required me to employ great efforts and courage to do what was right for me. It's not an easy gig being honest with guilt. Guilt. Now that's the verb of the month. I've lost count on my fingers how many consecutive instances I have felt that gnawing, drowning sense of guilt. It's not particularly comfortable.

By the final, fourth week of April I was un-coincidentally reunited with my path. My purpose. My soul's joy. It was as if it was knocking on my door for ages and I finally opened up. I must learn to cease my mind's useless fictional chatter. Until then, the pondering will carry on.

I think the lessons that have been learned are that doing what's right, following your Truth, speaking up and being authentic isn't always in someone or something else's best interest. But at the very least, we can move forward knowing that it is in ours. 

found

Found Self,

magic erupts with a peaceful mind

heart ever-expanding

ever-lasting knowing...

fear escapes, inhabiting a new world

love is found within and

freedom downpours

bound by the sky

a limitless flight.

I've been so indecisive. I've thought I've known the answer, and then I have no idea. It's the realness that frightens me yet all she is, is freedom. Abundant offerings are found along the path of Truth.

I guess throughout the winter I did lose track of parts of me. A readily influenced, timid chameleon. All the busyness has left me dazed and docile. Fear has been holding hands tightly with Ego and one foot in front of the other they lead except, their destination is a foreign land.

The trees whisper clarity and paint me with answers. The stillness is freeing and the frozen winter is literally a frozen standstill.

A found self is reclaimed amidst peace. Peace is found in silence. Silence is found in stillness. Stillness is found in  us.

Wisdom lies beneath

and he's terribly patient.

Manifestation & Magic

I don’t even know where to begin! That’s how major my life changes have been these days. You know how I’m feeling? Infinite. By infinite I mean fully embracing my innate power as a human being. We are so powerful! So much is changing and shifting lately, and has been for many months now. Can you feel it?

I think back to my life years ago when I was mostly lead by fear and insecurity; treading along behind the rest because, well, that’s just how it was. Beneath the layers of shallow, dull living reside deep, powerful, full-forced infinite potential. We all have it within us. Accessing it is a matter of taking a step back, viewing our lives objectively, and, perhaps, arriving at an oftentimes completely unintentional life-altering, mind-blowing, terrifying yet ecstatic awakening. That’s what I experienced in my life, anyway. It did and still does involve a series of life-changing epiphanies and revelations.

When you put forth your true intentions and focus on what you want, you inevitably manifest your deepest desires. It’s all magic, quite frankly. Things appear in your life. This occurence actually reminds me of something I have been pondering lately. You know how we grow up learning about magic (and even going as far as villains who want to rule the world) only to be true in movies, existing as only a fairy-tale, a fabrication? Well, I have learned that those very things are actually real. Yep. You heard me. We are damn magical. I’m even a witch, who makes potions. Oh my!

When I say things can just *appear* in your life at the right time, just like you’d imagine such things by snapping your fingers, I’m being serious. We are capable of focusing on something that we want to manifest or appear in our lives, and literally have it come to be. Oh, Universe! How I enjoy relishing in your infiniteness!

What are you focusing on these days? And in turn, what are your current life manifestations? Are you manifesting what you want? You simply are where you are because that is what you are focusing on. :)

paths

And so she said,

"Living in the present moment!"

"Yes," I thought, "that's how it should be."

Indecisiveness. What happens when we want to go one way, but want to go another way, too. Or, we don't know which way to go altogether.

"Which way?" We ask ourselves.
"That way." We respond.
"But what if that way isn't the right way?" We ask again.

And so we sit. Silently. Intermittent frustration. Intermittent certainty. Waiting for guidance. Sometimes we just wish someone would simply tell us the answer. You see, then we'd know which way to go.

Answers do flow freely from us, our internal wisdom, though it often goes unnoticed. Fear has a strong grip, or so it seems.

Everything is a journey!

change

These days I've felt incredible urges to change things in my life. I want something different, I want something new. I feel like doing something. Painting my bedroom, rearranging my furniture, cutting my hair. I seem to go through these phases at certain times of the year (must be a seasonal thing). I feel like I'm an onion lately, peeling away at layers. Unraveling and unveiling pieces of myself that have been repressed and have needed to shine through.

Ever since I was about 13 I've wanted my nose pierced. I've thought over it through the years and always resonated with them. Last night after ruminating over it for a good 30 minutes I just grabbed my car keys and left to the tattoo parlor. Wee!

It hurt a lot. Some swearing happened. But, only momentarily.

Fear, Fearlessness, Careers, Authenticity.

I took a solo trip downtown Toronto yesterday afternoon to the CHFA East, a natural health and organics trade show hosted at the ginormous Metro Toronto Convention Center. It was nice, being surrounded by that which I salute. I felt independent, busy. I got free stuff. I equally felt little and young. I was, after all, told the other day for a third time that I appear to be the age of twelve. Twelve...? Hm. I grimace at these such remarks only half-seriously, for I am rather content with my apparent youthful disposition, though feel an irking when I'm told upon repetition that I resemble that of a child. It runs in the family. I also happen to be on the shorter end of the five-foot-somethings.

So I've been thinkin' lately. Ultimately it stems from a deep underlying intuitive feeling and knowing of my place in this world. This is something that I have been dealing with and have needed to work through.

I am wholeheartedly, passionately and happily in alignment with my love and pursuance in the field of holistic health and nutrition. Holistic living is my CORE. This is not the issue. What I'm really referring to here is my natural and automatic withdrawal and resistance to anything that makes me feel boxed in. Hmmm... let me explain:

For myself as a Holistic Nutritionist, I am not merely a nutritionist. I am girl with a plethora of passionate interests in which I plan to pursue, without a doubt. When I envision my future, it is not merely comprised of telling people to eat more carrots. Yes, I want people to eat more carrots and I will forever encourage nutrition, but I am feeling utterly inspired as of two days ago to explain here on my blog my own personal place as a writer, a creative expressionist, someone who loves eating and promoting the consumption of wholesome foods (a.k.a nutritionist), a painter, a photograph-taking-lover, someone who enjoys spiritual ventures and musings, a philosopher, a cosmic-enthusiast, and as a girl. 

My fundamental point here is that I have been desperately yearning for the ability and permission to be wholly authentic, in myself and in my business. I want to display, promote and express a whole assortment of things, not linearly or exclusively one thing. When I say "permission" I am indeed referring to this apparent fearfulness and need within myself to have approval and reassurance from others. Reassurance from society perhaps, that I can and will succeed in this world as an authentic woman who stands true to her morals and beliefs. I realize society will certainly not provide me with the approval I seek. So I am giving myself permission. Right here, right now. It's ok. It's ok. It's ok.

I see people that make livings through carrying out a variety of different jobs that are authentic to who they are. Creative writers that are doulas and yoga instructors and musical teachers and farmers and photographers and bloggers, all combined. Seeing people who live this way inspires me tremendously, for it is that which is precisely my desire. To live a versatile life. A simple life. My at times depressingly disapproved stance on nearly all things I am aware of in this society leads me to an inherent need to flee from it all and remember who and what I am as a human being.

So, once again, my fundamental point is really that I am not interested whatsoever in just expressing merely nutrition as part of my role as a Holistic Nutritionist; as part of my "career". As part of what I'd like to offer others. As part of what I'd like to talk about, write about, blog about, educate others about. I have opinions, beliefs, ideas, philosophies and knowledge that I simply cannot refrain from expressing to solely please some invisible standard and thereby sacrifice who I am. I am a nutritionist, but not only that. I am only at the very beginning of my journey of blossoming.

For what it's worth, here is a list of a few things I intend and absolutely plan to pursue. This is a confirmation for the Universe to allow it to manifest, of course!:

• Yoga Instructor certification (in India, preferably)
• Take part in some sort of art course/retreat (painting, drawing, sculpting, etc.) for several weeks far away, up north, away from city life.
• Take a course in Energy Medicine
• Take a Reiki course
• Take a course in metaphysical sciences
• Become a doula (once I've experienced NATURAL childbirth and have become a parent myself. I've always been fascinatingly interested in the human body, the female body. The magnificence of it all. Long story short, I've become obsessed with and intrigued by pregnancy lately).
• Travel the world.
• Live in a cob house.
• Live in British Columbia. Or Norway. Or Switzerland.

Bangs, etc.

I got me some bangs last week. Was a result of my realizing I am where I am now, I am not in the future. Long story. Either way, I grabbed my pair of scissors and chopped 'em off. I had bangs for years and was always in love with them, though decided to begin growing them out last summer and found myself ever since wishing them back!