▶ 70 minute~7 Chakra Meditation with 21 Antique Tibetan Singing Bowls~Crown~B thru Root~C – YouTube

▶ 70 minute~7 Chakra Meditation with 21 Antique Tibetan Singing Bowls~Crown~B thru Root~C – YouTube.

Things Keep Moving Forward

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It’s so long between my posts recently as SO much has happened. I was working part time and going to school full-time and also did a practicum as part of my schooling and seeing a counsellor to help me deal with the stress and anxiety of learning to balance so many things at once.

I made it through – I am now a certified Community Disability Support Worker. I graduated at the top of my class (I AM going back for a Bachelor of Social Work in a year or two, however) and did very well on my practicum, which was a lot different than my previous practicum. At this placement I was involved with allot more individuals with complex needs in both a vocational and residential setting.

I really connected with a few of the individuals with whom I worked and I hope to go back and work with them in a year (due to the nature of that specific agency and the types of support it offers a vehicle is a MUST have for employment). So, although I’ve been really anti-car for most of my life I will be getting my learner’s licence in the next month, and will be purchasing a vehicle in the next year or so. I’m still determined to bike as much as I can, and only use the car for things like work and getting out to the mountains to camp, and leaving it parked the rest of the time.

I am still working part time in a deli (which I’m really not fond of – but it’s simply a tool to get me from point A to point B like the future car will be) and am waiting on a final surgery to fix my hernia before I start looking for employment in my field. Because my earlier surgery was an emergency surgery they were unable to put a mesh in, and a mesh is needed in order to keep the hernia from coming back over and over again. I think it’s probably wise for me to hold off on securing a new job until that’s been dealt with as it hardly seems fair to expect an agency to invest time and money in training me (there are a bunch of courses like “non-violent crisis intervention” and “medication administration” which are required and offered on an agency by agency basis) only to have me need a couple of months off to heal.

I guess this is a general update rather than one which gets really specific. I’m working on creating some positive lifestyle changes again, and am reading a few good books (several about fermentation, one about macrobiotics, and one on returning ones lifestyle to a more balanced, natural place). I’ve been online gaming a fair bit (with the support of my counsellor, as I seem to be learning to balance things out and to use this as a positive stress release, rather than as a avoidant behaviour).

I think about this blog daily, and my current desire is to transform it into something which reflects who I am and what my interests are a lot better.  I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet – but it’s coming.

I’m going to close this update with a video which I find inspiring on a professional level. I’m interested in the field of work I am because self-advocacy and supporting people in finding as much independence as they want to have in their lives speaks to me. It took me many years, and working through a ton of fear to get here – but this is what I’m meant to be doing in the world at this time.

The support worker who shot this video is doing something pretty cool – he’s helping the individuals he supports to create businesses based on their individual skills and interests! What’s so awesome about that is that it is celebrating who these individuals are, and it’s showing that there is room for each and every one of us to shine and to contribute to society. We are all on this planet to share ourselves and to teach one another – the Universe makes no mistakes.

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Be Like the Squirrel

Loving someone who is passive aggressive (avoids talking about uncomfortable things, and runs if they feel overwhelmed or pressured into standing up for themselves) is really painful at times. It’s hard knowing that my needs are being ignored/taken for granted by someone who doesn’t know how to meet their own. It’s harder to acknowledge and accept that it isn’t their job to fix my inner wounds for me (hell, they’re fixed I just forget to live like it some days).

And the quickie prayer goes like this:

“Thy will My will, My will Thy will” (addressed to the Universe of which I Am; in all of her spiralling wisdom).

It’s hard to remember sometimes that I don’t need to let my hurt or anger run the show, and that when assertive communication fails to meet my needs, I don’t need to swing around to passivity, passive aggressiveness or outright aggressiveness. Patience, and meeting my own emotional needs are all I need right now – I do not need the immediate gratification which I crave, and I do not need someone else’s actions to fix my emotions.

I am whole, and peace resides at the core of my being, I allow myself to live in this moment as the loving, peaceful being I am, and am letting go of my hurt and anger, as they really are choices which I don’t need to make.

 

A New Year and a Fresh Start.

The above video is good food for thought for me at this point. This year has been full of challenges and obstacles, as well as a lot of growth and change.  I’ve had some backslides and some leaps forward, and I’ve remained stagnant in some areas. The main thing I’ve learned this year is that I don’t have to be perfect, and that often just showing up for life is enough to make it all worthwhile.

I really want to wow you with insight and brilliant ideas, but really I’m just doing what I need to do to keep moving forward in my life. I’m struggling pretty hard with my dietary changes right now, but I can see progress. Eventually I’ll be comfortable enough with my food sensitivities that I will be able to cook without it being a huge uphill struggle. I guess the hardest part is just that NOTHING I’m able to eat is packages, instant or effortless. I love whole foods cooking, but damn I miss the ease of just opening a package of veggie burgers at the end of a long day. I’ll get there – change usually results in some defiance, anger and resistance from me, and this change is no different.

From this point on I’ll be updating at least once a week, and probably reblogging a fair bit as well. I’m still in college, and struggling with learning how to be a student again, but it’s going ok. Last term was sort of blown out of the water by my emergency surgery and I’m working pretty hard at making up for it this term.

Food Sensitivities, Schoolwork and Kum Nye.

It’s been a wild month for me and the above picture sort of sums up how I’m working on managing things. I’m so used to just giving up and letting everything fall to pieces, so this new found willingness to work towards recovering from a chaotic situation is both refreshing and terrifying. It’s interesting watching my perspective shift and being able to act as an observer to my thoughts both when I’m being rational and when I’m feeling myself getting ready to fly off the deep end.

Basically, I’m now conscious of the fact that I get to make a decision to either hit or not hit what I’ve always called my “Fuck It” switch. It’s kind of cool to know that I can say no to self-destructive and damaging behaviors, and also to know that I get to choose to be “good enough” instead of constantly beating myself into a stressed out puddle of mess for not being perfect. I may still wind up having to drop one of my courses, but I don’t have to let my entire life fall apart because of an illness and the resulting stress and anxiety.

This past week I met with a Naturopathic Nutritionist to discuss the terrible eczema which I struggle with and she did some muscle testing and we discussed my past and present eating habits. The results of the muscle testing shows that I am sensitive to a huge portion of my diet (soy, wheat, gluten in general, corn, soy and dairy are the main ones). I’m on a gentle bowel cleansing diet now in which I eat pretty normal foods, just without the things I’m sensitive to and with fewer added fats and oils and fewer raw foods. The bulk of my diet is currently steamed vegetables, green smoothies with ground seeds and nuts and a small amount of the grains which I do process well.

So far I’m feeling pretty good, but I must admit that I am really craving plain old whole wheat bread.  I ate a lot of sandwiches and wraps and veggie burgers for the past few months and I’m missing how easy grabbing something quick used to be. These changes in my eating habits will be affecting this blog in the near future as gluten free cooking is a new and exciting adventure for me and I’ll be sharing my successes and adventures here on a fairly regular basis.

Because I’m sensitive to so many of the things I ate on a daily basis, this is going to be a challenge. Thank-goodness that being plant-based and whole-foods based will make this transition a lot easier on me than it would be on someone who eats a standard American diet. The health food shops and exotic ingredients are already part of my routine and I really love exploring new ways of doing things. The only thing I’m currently really struggling to replace in my diet is soy sauce. I have found a great product called coconut aminos, but it’s not available locally and I can’t find anywhere in Canada to have it shipped from.  Amazon won’t send it to me and Amazon.ca doesn’t carry it. I may have to beg a Calgary friend to pick some up and mail it to me soon.

My Kum Nye books arrived the other day and they are exactly what I needed right now. I still have to kick myself in the bum to get myself to meditate daily, but I know that with consistent effort on my part this will eventually become a routine I love rather than a discipline I struggle with.

 

Walk In Beauty.

 

A Brief Update About Where I’m At.

Manipura chakra (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently spent a week in hospital due to a surprise emergency bowel surgery. I’m just fine now and am on the mend and life is returning to balance for me. I did quit my part time job partly because I can’t do any lifting for six weeks (4 now) and largely because I really need to use the time I have to scramble and get caught up in my college courses.

I am focusing on strengthening my meditation practice (the solar plexus chakra aka manipura is the area in which my surgery was, and this chakra is associated with anxiety when it’s not functioning properly) and am working kum nye yoga back into my routine as I need to balance my body, mind and spirit in order to heal correctly. I literally, blew a chakra due to stress and anxiety.

I know that courage of conviction and living in my personal truth and power are areas which will greatly assist me in returning to the state which I was born to be in. Part of this for me involves finally getting active within the animal rights movement, as well as returning to practicing more natural and holistic healing in my day to day life. There is (metaphorically speaking )an old village wise woman who occupies part of my mind, and I really need to allow myself to both hear and heed her more of the time. I KNOW my path, I just often veer off course and need to redirect myself.

Anyway, I am working on a creating a schedule in order to get caught back up (yesterday was my last day on medical leave from school) and also begin blogging weekly again. I really miss having this project to work on, and with some of the perceptual shifts I’ve had recently I believe this blog will be growing in a new and exciting direction soon.

Life is a miracle, and this illness is a breakthrough, not a breakdown.

Walk in Beauty,

Christine

Syria, Interdependance and Peace.

Awaken the World

 

I apologize for posting so little as of late; I’ve been working a lot, and have also been quite under the weather with a cold.  I’ve pretty much just been in a repetitive loop of eat, sleep, work repeat, with a bit of snuggle time with my boyfriend squeezed in whenever we can find a few moments off at the same time.

I’m doing a lot of thinking during this time and I have to admit that Syria is on my mind a whole lot right now. I don’t want a war to happen, I want us to behave like the intelligent , loving  and inter-connected species we are and resolve things with one another without war. My parents were hippies and I was raised (and fully embraced) to be anti-war and anti-violence. I’m not wishy washy about it – I feel that there are times when physically defending ourselves is our only option, but I see it as a last resort and a really sad one at that.

I don’t claim to be a keen political mind, or a greatly educated person, but I do recognize a lie when I see/feel one, and right now we are not only being lied to by our governments, and our media, but in not rising up to put an end to war we are also telling ourselves a massive lie. Supporting corruption and greed is a lie we allow ourselves to tell our Spirit.  It is not Our nature  to stand by and allow injustice, it is not Our nature to standby and to turn a blind eye to the truth, which resonates deeply within all life.

We need to stop killing each other, and start loving each other.

Interdependence IS the solution.

The I in the Rose.

“I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Photo credit: novakreo)

The above quote really struck me as lovely today. I have been working really hard at reprogramming my thoughts about myself and my body, health finances etc and this quote reminds me that I need to treat myself AND those around me with a higher level of respect and a lesser level of judgment.

It’s pretty fascinating and inspiring to realise that one can reprogram one’s thinking and emerge out the other end having impacted not only oneself, but also the entirety of the world  positively through making fairly moderate effort.

Sometimes it’s disappointing to see how bent out of shape my thought processes are, and to think about it in terms of how much effort it will take to heal the scars of life is kind of overwhelming, but I really am up for and involved with meeting the challenge. I have grown tired of “feeling broken” and bit by bit I’m beginning to feel whole.

The world really is reaching a spiritual awakening, and I for one am becoming more and more aware of it, and it’s positive impacts on all of us.

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Branches, Leaves and Fruit Revisited.

Imagine a container the size of your heart. This container is the sole source of all thoughts. Whenever you think something, you must go to this container, select a thought, and send it out into the world. Using this metaphor, the real issue isn’t about simply selecting positive, loving thoughts and having your world shift back into balance. The real issue is what’s in the container–that is, what’s in the heart reservoir you have inside of you to give to others. This container within is connected to an endless supply of love; you need only turn your thoughts to that Source to be filled with love: love for yourself, love for the world, love for life, love for all others, and most significantly, love for your Source of being. Then this is all that you’ll have available to give away, and consequently, all that returns to you.

– Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, “Being in Balance“

I am not a religious person, but I am very influenced by spiritual principals from many paths. I do my best to follow the teachings which I’ve been exposed to which have really spoken loudly to my heart.

I suppose some of what I believe has been handed down to me by my Buddhist Father and my Christian Mother, but I’ve also been fortunate enough to be gifted with a mind which filters and discerns all that is presented to it in a fairly objective fashion.

I believe that all paths and beings are equal, and I try very hard to remember this in all of my dealings with the world. I try very hard to walk the Middle Path while at the same time practicing the Baha’i Principals in my day to day life. I do not follow these guidelines religiously, but I do hold my personal actions up to them as a gauge of how close my behavior matches my desired standards.

It’s really quite frustrating for me, as a person who tries very hard to respect other people and their rights to be involved with any sort of political, ethical or spiritual movement as it seems to be quite acceptable to many people to violate other people’s rights in order to “move the cause forward”. I believe that social change comes from within as does spiritual and emotional change. We will never change the world by being mean-spirited, by violating the rights of ANY being, or by placing our own agendas ahead of the agendas of our fellows.

It IS possible for us to work together toward the betterment of humanity without harming one another, without going to war, without squabbling over who is right or who is wrong (as we’re all on one team, we just don’t realize it much of the time). Being right isn’t the solution, growth is.

“Ye are all leaves of one tree and the fruits of one branch.”   Bahá’u’lláh

I Am

An addict

A feminist

A vegan

A Witch

A woman

A carnist

An eating disorder

A punk

A Buddhist

An abuse survivor

An Atheist

A goth

A socialist

An anarchist

A hippie

An employee

A student

My thoughts

My likes

My dislikes

My body

Me

…and me is what exists in the silent moments