Soul Speak

Creativity and The Shift

I was taught growing up that art was just for eccentrics, music would never earn me a living, and that creative dance was just a fools silly past time. Well this message caused me many doubts but I carried on with all my 'hobbies' over the years. I was told that to have respect and earn a living you had to give up your hobbies and hunker down and work hard at something you didn't enjoy but paid the bills. And what's worse, being female, it was just known that if I didn't chose to work and be single then I should just get married and be supported by a man.
For me my childhood could be described as unpleasant by some but really it wasn't that bad, I enjoyed myself immensely. I had music, dance and art. None could take them from me, no one could make them less than they were, and yet nobody ever thought very much about it either. I may not be the greatest artist, I may not dance very well and my music, well it's just average, but I love it and when I'm practicing one form or another of creativity I feel glorious!
In my reality here there is very little importance placed on creative endeavors, they are sort of seen as child's play. But really we could not get along without them, so why such a shift in thinking away from creativity? Perhaps it's just me and there has been no such shift. Maybe it's just in this part of the world. Maybe.
Why does it feel as though the world is taking such wonderful steps forward in so many areas and so many steps backwards in other areas. For one thing, money has become a priority above all else, and what's wrong with that picture? Just imagine for a moment the world run by money? You don't have to imagine very hard for that is what it is today. Think about how advanced science is and how we probably have enough knowledge to solve all the problems of the world with the economy, with medicine, and with society in general. Now think about how money runs everything.....what if there was a cure for cancer but the medical world is keeping that to itself because there is no profit from curing everyone....what if there was a way to end world hunger/poverty (and there is) but no one would get rich if this problem was solved so it remains just so, what if money just wasn't as important to everyone suddenly? What if we just boycott the need to be rich and have tons of money all together? What if we just woke up one day and realized we only need so much of the stuff and we can just get by on less? A smaller home? Less fancy clothes? Less expensive everything??? Funny to think about isn't it? What if those of us who have very little suddenly just received what they needed from those who have more than they need?
So many things would change,,,,there would be a sense of community among those who live close to each other,,what a thought, could you imagine? lol. The commercials on TV would suddenly change from selling freakishly proportioned barbies and guns for little boys to play with to selling things that people really need. Commercialism would die it's much needed death. People would stop and smell the roses more, the crazy pace we all keep to get ahead would slow down. Teens might stop rebelling, no wait that won't ever happen! But it may be milder. People will be nicer to each other. So many things would change, I'm sure you can think of many more.
There is going to be a rise in this type of thinking soon if not already in motion. Downsizing is suddenly going to become many people's best friend. Creativity is going to make a comeback and people are going to learn to live on less but be so much richer for it but not in the monetary sense of 'rich.' Priorities are going to change quite a lot from what they are today in general. I sense that this is the 'shift' that everyone is going on about now, if not then I'm just a crazy person discussing crazy notions. lol. And that's ok.
What are we going to do with the world? Will this shift ever happen?

Getting out of your head

I used to long for a teacher to come along and teach me all these things, and then someone said to me one day, "when you are ready the teacher shall appear, and until then BE the teacher you long for."
What a funny thing this was to hear, to me this sounded like I should just give up. But I didn't and that's what brought me here and that's why I'm doing all this.

There is something I would love to share if I can manage to put it into words. There is this sense now when I open my awareness up. Such a beauty and an inspirational feeling I receive when I'm among the natural environment, (outdoors I mean). Perhaps I'm just becoming more grounded now, not sure.
When I look at a tree or a plant or water I can feel it, it feels like it's part of me. This is very hard to describe. It feels like part of my consiousness is expanded but returned to me at the same time. I'll try to do better than that. For example when I look at a tree I get this feeling of going very deeply down into solidness and an opening up from above, there's also a feeling in the roof of my mouth that changes, my eyes feel different too like I'm looking through another set of eyes that is not looking but simply awareness of the I amness of it all. Yes, a tree is a tree, lol, and it knows it is. Why do we not know who we are? It is so simple and yet we so blindly confuse ourselves by being in our heads and thoughts all the time.

There is something so important about not being in your head all the time. Do you know what I mean?
Well being in your head to me means that you are overthinking things all the time, you over analyze things to the point that you don't know what to think anymore, ego is having free run, and that you are not grounded in who you are. This getting out of my head has been a hard lesson for me, one that I'm still learning to master. I have found I recognize this in others very easily and have been at a loss as to what to do to help them see it. Perhaps that's not my job, lol, but it was pointed out to me and it helped me a great deal!

I will begin by saying that today we recognize the three parts of ourselves generally speaking as the mind, body, soul, or the consious, unconsious and super consious.
Many of us understand the role our body plays in our life as our physical vessel, the soul is something we are all striving to understand and hear, and the mind is what trips us up over and over when it becomes stronger than the other two and so often is, and this is when we need to get over ourselves and get out of our heads because true awareness and connection is not made through the head but through the heart and soul.
So to get out of your head so you can hear your soul and feel oneness you must learn to be your own master. Is that easy? No. But it doesn't have to be complicated. One thing I learned was to become the observer of my thoughts. I learned some affirmations I will share here you may find useful;
"I am the observer of my thoughts"
"I am the awareness beyond my thoughts"
"I am free to think positive thoughts and rethink the negative ones"
"I release all thoughts that do not serve my higher purpose"
"I am the creator of my own thoughts and I take responsibility for them"
"I am aware of which thoughts arise from fear and which thoughts arise from love"
"I choose to be consious and awaken my soul to a higher level"

I hope these can help a little. The other things you can do is to be as grounded as possible and follow your quiet inner voice instead of your thoughts, after all YOU are NOT your thoughts, YOU are not your body either, but YOU are your SOUL. It is what you come into the world with and it's all you get to leave with so treasure and honour it.
Getting out of your head is but one lesson on the path to higher consiousness and awareness but I found it a really important one. When you are not ruled by your head (or ego) you will know who you are, you will not question yourself and your decisions all the time, you will be more firmly planted in the inner knowing of yourself, you can hear your soul or inner voice more clearly, your thoughts won't rule you, you won't lay awake night after night thinking things and worrying about things over and over, you may cure your insomnia, lol, your dreams will reflect a more peaceful YOU, you may even find such a lovely coming home to yourself feeling like you've never known, and I hope you do.
Blessings all and always. Continue on your journey and may you know yourself, your true self.

Reclaiming your Shadow Self

You may be wondering, what the heck? Reclaim your Shadow Self? Why would you want to do that? Isn't the Shadow Self a part of you that you don't want? A part of you that is bad and dark and nasty? So why claim it? Why recognize it?
Because it's a part of you and to deny it only makes it surface in another form usually as a mirror in another person that is close to you. Perhaps I better explain what I feel is the shadow self. It's an interesting archetype discovered by Carl Jung. That's how I first heard of it anyway.
The shadow self is an unconscious or unaware area of your mind. It is the repressed, suppressed or unowned qualities of the conscious self. There are both constructive and destructive aspects of a person's shadow self. To own or discover these qualities transforms them and is incredibly healing to ones consciousness.
This process can be quite threatening to some but I would choose to simply see it as an inner transformation to becoming more aware in your everyday life. It brings more light into your life and definitely helps you to find a sense of peace. Personally I found it incredible and it assisted me in my own awakening which is still an ongoing process.

"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual’s conscious life,
the blacker and denser it is.
At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag,
thwarting our most well-meant intentions."
— Dr. Carl G. Jung

How to recognize your shadow self? Well this is how I do it...
If you can be 100% honest with yourself, take a look at all the people in your life, look at your relationships that you've had over your whole life. Now take a deeper look for a moment and do you see a pattern emerging? Do you attract the same kinds of people over and over? Somewhere in there is an aspect of your shadow. I'm not talking about the nice loving people( however they are a lighter side of your shadow), no, I'm talking about the ones that hurt you, that cause pain and grief, the ones that push your buttons and make you feel irrational, rude, emotional, distressed, repulsed, angry, and just plain, old, uncomfortable. Those ones.
What kind of person keeps popping up in your life that has some of these effects on you?
Keep going, I am going somewhere with this I promise...
Make a list of all the feelings and emotions these people bring out in you that really bother or upset you.
Now the hard part. I want you to take responsibility for bringing these people and these experiences into your own life. Yes, you did it to yourself! You have to own this and take responsibility for it. This is part of your shadow that you have yet to transform. Once transformed these things will not bother you, there will be a shift, an inner transformation will occur. It's true and it works, and I speak from personal experience, 100%.
Change your attitude from one of blame to responsibility, and an amazing shift will happen! Unconsciously you did attract it to you in one form or another. This doesn't happen instantly, so be patient with yourself and do it gradually perhaps with each person or relationship on your list. How you feel on the inside does affect your external environment. What is within us will also be outside of us.
Then what I did was I took each emotion I took a long look at myself, and made another list of all the times I unknowingly acted in this way myself! I claimed these actions or emotions as my own. Yuck! It was hard medicine to swallow I'm telling you! But I did it.
After I felt lighter and sort of cleansed. I thought "but how can this do anything to help me? What could it possibly change about the horrid people I was attracting in my life?" And there were a few.
Well, after that work I noticed that these people stopped irritating me as much, they didn't rub me the wrong way so to speak the way they did before. I think it was because I was so aware of how I had been reacting to them in the past and I had changed that. My whole environment changed in a matter of weeks. It was amazing, I felt so free and in charge of myself for a change. It's still ongoing. I never stop paying attention now. Whenever I come across someone I can't stand or they irritate me, I stop and think for a minute, why? What about them really bothers me? And usually I can find some part of me that I dislike that I find familiar in them. Then my defenses lower, I see them in a different light, and they relax and everyone gets along just fine.
Doing this work also breaks the pattern of negative energy being drawn to you, it changes the types of people you attract into your life, it changes your relationships. I always said, so funny, that I never changed but everything around me had changed. But really it was just me. I didn't have to confront the people that bothered me to set things right, I didn't have a battle of wills on my hands anymore, and I didn't have to feel like I was getting ready to go into battle every time I was around certain individuals.
Other examples that you can also catch your shadow coming through when you have a slip of the tongue. You know when you say something silly or rude to someone and then say "just kidding," or "just joking," right after saying it. You did mean it, it was an aspect of your shadow speaking. Or when someone makes a comment about you in regards to your character and you feel defensive after hearing it, or you say, "I'm not at all like that!" That's part of your shadow trying to remain unseen. Another example is in the people you really like and are really attracted to but could not imagine yourself being like. The attributes they possess that you really admire are actually other clues as to what your unconscious side is crying out for you to explore. This is the law of opposites at work. These people are usually totally different than you are, or the opposite.

It is impossible to learn and grow as human beings if we only know one side of ourselves. Why not know as much as we can and evolve. This shadow work has done wonders for me and I will continue doing it on a daily basis. That is why I'm sharing it here. Thanks to all who read it. I hope it works for you as well as it did for me.