The Path of Enlightenment

When I was younger and more naive, I longed to be enlightened because I thought enlightenment was the answer to all my problems. I imagined I'd have it all together, that life would be simple, that nothing would ever bother me again. I thought I'd just live 24/7, in the inner peace I'd found through meditation. In a war of good versus bad, I honestly thought good could win.

I had knowledge that I would say but lacked the wisdom to really understand, like you can't have good without bad because they define each other. What I've come to realise is that to be on the path of enlightenment means to grow, continuously. There's no there that you get to and stop growing because there's no end to the depth of understanding of who we are. And this is wonderful really because if there was an end, I think we'd get bored.

The path of enlightenment or spiritual growth (or even just self growth) isn't a path of lollipops and rainbows with your head in the clouds. It is the constant breaking down of your beliefs and a renewal of your truths. This can, at times, be difficult. Your thoughts, beliefs and thus, your reality go into chaos so that your thoughts and beliefs will break down and re-organise into an evolved, higher understanding of yourself and reality. During the chaos phase, you can find yourself lost and confused. You may go through times where it feels as though everything is falling apart, however in reality, everything is re-organising and falling into place in a way that's better than you ever imagined.

Everyone, whether trying to or not, goes through growth. You grow to a new level of understanding when your current view of reality no longer works for you. Some people stay where they are for a long time because it works for them on some level, whether functional or dysfunctional.

You can purposely grow by using awareness, become aware of your inner thoughts and feelings and observe how they motivate your behavior then you can question your beliefs. They may be as simple as "I can't lose weight" or "I'll never be able to cook like my mum" or they may be bigger and effect a large portion of your life like, "I'll never be able to make a career change" or "Everyone is against me" or even staying on the topic of growth, when things go into chaos and it seems as though everything is going wrong, you may ask "Why me?" Only making it harder for yourself. Or it may even be your core understanding of how life works, according to you. Maybe you believe in a higher power guiding you. Perhaps you lean more towards atheism or maybe you're in chaos right now with no idea how life works.

 You'll have many beliefs you're unaware of. Being aware can bring light to those and this can be the key to your failure or success; to your unhappiness or happiness; to your inner stress or peace. You may also enjoy my other post about the power of belief, "Believe in Yourself"

With awareness as well, the chaos doesn't have to feel bad, simply being aware that you're on the verge of growth and a new epiphany can sometimes be enough to get you through. You may feel better through purposely being aware because you realise, you are not your thoughts and feelings themselves, you are the awareness. Awareness may help you see any dysfunctional patterns that you can then choose to change such as, going into victim mode ("Why me?") when things aren't going the way you wish.

This constant breaking down of your perspective of reality to new, higher understanding is the continuous path of enlightenment and as your inner world improves, your outer world will follow, it has to because it is your inner talk and emotions that influences your behaviour and creates your reactions and it is your beliefs and expectations that attracts your reality and molds your world. 

Although I had a naive perspective about enlightenment because I was yet to understand, it is everything as promised, just not in a way that you can imagine when you haven't experienced it yet:

• You do find more peace, more connectedness with others and the world, you deal with things better, from a more optimistic point of view.
• You can shift into mindfulness at any time
• You can also meditate with great ease
• You are more accepting of people and circumstances. 
• You are open minded and know you will be learning forever, because your beliefs have changed so many times and you're aware that even through the many epiphanies you've had, you still are no where near knowing everything, in fact, it makes you feel even further from knowing everything. 
• Constant growth also humbles you as you know you are equal to everyone and everyone is equal to you, we are just different, we are all a unique expression of consciousness itself.
• You accept yourself and decide to give yourself love  
• You can sense why you're here, for divine to express and experience itself.

We are all spiritual beings having a human experience, not human's having a spiritual experience. Relax as you go through hard times and know that it is happening to grow you. Know that all things work together for a purpose.

Namaste
Belinda

How to Connect to Your Guides

I was connecting to my guides long before I was even aware of it and perhaps you are too. In this post I'm going to go over what I believe our guides are and how you can connect to yours for guidance in your life.

 So what are guides?

In short, your guides are with you and are guiding you all the time. Signs, epiphanies, coincidences and miracles are all guides and your higher self at work. Sometimes, or even a lot of the time, you may mistake your guides and higher self for your own thoughts. With practice and awareness you can distinguish between you and your guides, you may never get to a point where you always know though because at times, it's in your best interest not to know. Once you're aware of your guides and know how to communicate with them you can ask questions. You'll know you've connected to your guides because the answers you receive will feel like epiphanies.

So that's what guides do, but who or what are they?

The concept of guides confused me for a long time. I connected to them and had some amazing epiphanies through them but still had no idea who or what they were.

For a while I believed my guides to be aspects of myself such as my inner child etc. I also believe we are all connected as one with all the consciousness of everything therefore all information, all knowing is available to us so I believed I was tapping into that. I didn't quite understand what all that meant at the time because I didn't truly understand myself.

 As I've grown spiritually and spent a lot of time meditating and connecting to my guides I've come to a deeper understanding of who I am. A divine aspect of a soul, choosing a human experience to enable consciousness itself to experience and express itself. Me, my higher self/my true self chose a traumatic childhood because it would push me to question reality, why we're here and the purpose of us, animals, the Earth and the Universe and thus force me to awaken to my true self, allowing consciousness itself to become aware of itself. I have come to this conclusion through experience with my guides and higher self. My guides and higher self are aspects of me and I am of them. We are divine beings working collectively in this experience of me and of life itself as everyone and everything is one.

This of course, is my interpretation of guides and the best way for you to discover and understand guides is for you to connect to them yourself because even if you come to the exact same conclusion as I have, it's best understood when you discover the answer for yourself.

How to connect to your guides

At first it may seem hard to connect to your guides as if it's a new experience, a new sense but really, it's quite simple because your guides are always with you. One of the ways to connect to your guides that I read a few years ago was to start by pretending because you always are anyway. As you pretend to talk in your mind to your guides, you will notice responses that don't seem to come from you.

Here are some guided meditations to connect you to your guides and higher self:

First, begin your meditation by mentally readying yourself and making yourself comfortable. Take a few deep breaths and then re-check that you are comfortable and move if you need to. Continue deep breathing and focus your mind to your breath, continue this until you find your mind is clear and you are deeply relaxed. 

Once relaxed you see yourself stood on a train station. This is your own train station, it can look any way you like, there may or may not be other people, it's up to you. You stand waiting for a train, your train. This train will take you to see your guides and higher self. Watch as the train approaches and look around at the detail of the train as you board. You may meet one or more of your guides on the train, sit with them and have a conversation or you may enjoy the ride and meet them when you arrive. The train chugs along on its tracks and winds through beautiful mountains and then before you know it, you're arriving at another station, this is where you get off to meet your guides and higher self. 

The details are up to you, you can purposely choose how everything looks or you can simply allow your mind to make it up for you. As you meet and talk to your guides and higher self you will receive answers to any questions you have in a way that is in your best interest. For example, I asked my guides why I took someone's opinions so personally. As I was new to talking to my guides I thought they would tell me that I was sensitive as I believed that to be the reason but my guides said "Someone's opinion is only as important as you let it be". Immediately I felt better and let go of caring about their opinion. I still remind myself of this if I feel affected by someone's words.

Another way to connect to your higher self is to start your meditation as before and once relaxed, imagine you're walking along a path through a beautiful forest. The path is windy and you cannot see where the path ends. Eventually you reach a gate and you know that this gate leads into your secret garden. As you enter, the garden is beautiful, the features of the garden are what you most desire in it, you may see flowers, trees, vines, fountains, mushrooms, fairy's... anything that tickles your fancy. Inside, you see a bench and sitting on one side of the bench is your higher self, your higher self welcomes you to sit with them. From here you can talk to your higher self. You may also meet guides in your garden as well. 

Enjoy connecting to your guides and higher self. Don't worry if you find it difficult, even after years I sometimes have days where I feel I can't connect, you will connect when the time is right. 

Namaste
Belinda

Believe in Yourself

Believing in yourself is the most important step in achieving what you want, if you've already decided to believe you can't then you won't even bother setting a goal to achieve what you want let alone make any steps to achieve it. The ego would rather be right than achieve inner dreams so will even go to lengths to subconsciously sabotage you.

You can even experiment with "I can" vs "I can't" by swinging back and forth while doing something, I did this with my children, we all stood on one foot and said, "I can't balance" and we fell back to 2 feet over and over, when we switched to "I can balance" we were able to hold the balance for a long time. I tried to do this with my partner but it didn't work because he was so confident in his ability to balance that he was unable to really convince himself even for a second that he couldn't. This is the power of belief. 

Another experiment I did was kind of by accident. A few years ago while exercising I got to the point where I felt I could no longer keep jogging, I heard myself think "I can't, I can't" and I stopped with exhaustion as I began jogging again I decided to use affirmations, "I can, I can" "I'm powerful" "I can keep going" I went on for a lot longer than I'd previously believed I could, the affirmations gave me more energy to keep going, it amazed me how energized I felt inside! It also made me start enjoying exercise. 

From these little experiments and understanding that it is my belief which determines my success I have been able to achieve many things in my life that I first thought weren't possible. I assumed that after 2 kids I would never get back down to the size I was before kids but with a shift in my belief, I did. I thought I was an easy target and that everyone ridiculed and put others down but with a change in my belief I allowed myself to drift apart from people like that and attracted those who love and support me. 

I achieved what I thought was impossible over and over but I didn't even bother trying to until I shifted my belief from impossible to possible. From "I can't" to "I can and I will".

At times you'll be working towards goals and they just won't go to plan. This isn't proof that your goal is impossible, it just means there's a better way to go about it that you aren't aware of yet. When your plan fails, don't take it personally, just use it as feedback and ask yourself, if that way of going about it doesn't work, what else can I try? Perhaps you have set your goal too high and as much as you try to use affirmations to achieve your goal, your inner self just doesn't believe it yet, set a lower goal and achieve that first, then you can keep raising your goal. When you start small you get to celebrate every step of achievement along the way. 

Sometimes, you may even find that you're thankful for blockages that come your way because you realise that particular goal or that way of going about it isn't for you after all or everything seems like it's falling apart only for you to realise later that it was all really coming together in ways better than you ever imagined. 

This isn't just true for goals, this is true for everything in your life. Experiment with this so you can experience it for yourself, it's very powerful. Question your assumptions about yourself and life, become aware of your inner beliefs and change the ones that aren't serving you. When you switch around your thoughts and feelings you'll be amazed with how much changes, you'll attract people, things and circumstances to assist and guide you and everything will fall into place in better ways than you can imagine.

Start with your beliefs, believe in yourself and write affirmations because as Henry Ford said, if you think you can or you can't, you are right.    


Namaste
Belinda

Mindfulness

Being mindful is a wonderful practice which brings you into the bliss of now, creates gratitude within you and de-stresses you much like meditation. Mindfulness pulls you into the present where you sense your true self and your connection with all. Here are some ways you can be mindful.

The most obvious way to be mindful is through meditation. Meditation is about being in the present, knowing and sensing your true self. It is the bridge between here and source and the awareness of the present. 

Another way outside of meditation to practice mindfulness is to hold a mundane object in your hand, something that has no significant meaning for you and has no writing on it. Close your eyes and imagine that you are new to this world and have never seen anything before. Open your eyes and look at the object in your hands with no thought. Do not label it, remember you're imagining you've never seen anything before so you have no labels or judgements. This exercise will have you seeing in the now, what is infront of you. You may realise that most of your world is labels and judgements in your mind and you spend most
of your time thinking about everything rather than experiencing completely. Now is all there is, past and future only exist as thoughts in your mind.

Once you have done this exercise and you have shifted from being in your mind to being here, in the now, you can then choose to shift to the now any time you like. You can be mindful watching your children play, while being in nature, while bathing, while with your partner, even while doing the dishes.

Another great exercise is mindful eating. As you eat, do it with full attention. Use your senses in the moment to feel and taste your food. Not only will you enjoy your meal entirely but you'll also take your time and chew properly ensuring you get the most out of your meal.

Speaking of senses, you can use any of your senses for mindfulness. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you completely, practice "no thought" by completely listening.
Listen to the silence in between the sound. Touch a flower's petals or a pets fur and feel how it truly feels without labels. Breathe deeply and focus on your breath.

Feel and sense each part of your body, feeling your energy within. If you're unsure how to do this, close your eyes and without moving or touching your hand with the other, ask yourself, "how do I know my hand is still there?" Notice yourself sense the inner energy of your hand.

Practice  realising and noticing that you are the awareness of your thoughts and feelings, not the thoughts and feelings themselves.

Being mindful can transform your reality as you notice more in the moment and you sense your true self and oneness. This brings a sense of appreciation for life itself and inner peace. You realise that many of your problems are only thoughts which you've been holding onto and do not exist right now in the present. You find yourself transcending your ego and letting go. 

Have fun playing with mindfulness, use your senses to discover the joy of being mindful. 

Namaste
Belinda

There's a Secret in Meditation

There's a secret in meditation. It's not that it's purposely kept from us, it's simply that there are no words to describe it, no meaning to define it. One can only point the way for you to discover it for yourself. 

Source

It's a place, a feeling, a sense, a harmony, a connection, it's bliss... it's all of those and yet so much more. It's here, in the now, in those one of a kind moments, like a baby being born or the "I do's" of a marriage. 

Source

It's in nature, all around us, in the rustling of the trees, the beauty of flowers and the songs of the birds.

Source

It's in the sea, the mountains and the forests. It's in the volcanoes and the storms. It's in the clouds, the sky and the stars, it's all through the universe. 

Source

 It's in your best friend's laughter, the sparkle in your loved ones eyes. It is the potential limitless within the perceived limitations. It's between the silence and the sound, it's in art and music.

Source

It's in you, it's the you that is, that always has been and always will be. The you who you don't realise you are and yet know you are. It is the awareness of your thoughts and feelings. 
  

Source

When you find it, it's like finding the rarest and yet most abundant treasure. You wish you could give it to the world, you wish there were words to describe it or one thing that could show it to everyone but you also realise that it's best discovered.

Source

It is that which dissolves all your problems in a way that transcends them. You experience what it's like to be and know consciousness itself, you understand the purpose of it all, even for a split second only to forget again, but you know that this is part of the plan too because to forget and then remember brings the deepest appreciation of life and consciousness.

Source

 And although you know you've found it, the depth of your experience of it never ends. You feel as though you've unlocked the secret of the world and yet you keep expanding and discovering more...

Source

Namaste

Belinda

Self Love

We give our loved ones affection and appreciation but we forget the most important person in our lives. Our selves! When we love ourselves, we are better able to love those around us, we have more energy and oomph for life and we're happier.

Here's 10 things to do to show yourself love. 

1. Tell yourself you love you. 

Stand in the mirror and and tell yourself how much you love, adore and appreciate you. This may feel hard at first but with practice everyday you will come to love yourself more and more.

2. Make a list of the things you love about yourself. 

Your skills, talents, traits, beliefs and values. Be creative if you like and use different colours to write, write anywhere on your page and/or draw pictures along with your words.

3. Take time for yourself regularly. 

 I used to think it would be selfish to take time for myself, especially as a mum! However, I realised when I take time for me to meditate and take care of myself I'm more present and pleasant with others and have more energy for other tasks in my day. 

4. Forgive yourself. 

We all make mistakes, forgive yourself for your mistakes and forgive yourself for judging yourself when you've made a mistake. 

5. Feed yourself wonderful food to provide your body with nutrition and vitality. 

Show your body love and appreciation by feeding it nutritious delicious food and eat it mindfully, enjoying the experience. Feel grateful that we live in such a wonderfully food rich society where all of our needs are met abundantly. 

6. Listen to your heart. 

At times, we may feel low, perhaps something isn't going the way you'd like or you're just having a bad day. Take some time to sit in quiet contemplation, ask your higher self and guides for assistance and work out your problems. Try not to suppress your feelings as they will cause other problems later, know that the answers you need are within you and work towards letting go.

7. Spend your time and energy on people and things you love. 

Sometimes our lives become full of toxicity; people who suck our energy dry and things we feel we have to do but don't like doing. Spend more time with people who love you and find gratitude in the things you do. As you focus more and more on love, toxic people and things will drop away over time. 

8. Accept that life has ups and downs. 

You can't have only one side to a coin. Good and bad only exist in contrast to one another. I used to believe that life could all be peaches and cream and hoped one day everything would just fall into place and I'd live happily ever after. What I didn't realise, is that by holding onto this belief I was hurting myself because I was unable to handle the downs that came after the ups and would even spend time in the highs just waiting in dread for things to go wrong. Now that I've accepted the highs and the lows, I'm grateful for the lows as they're an indication that I would like something to change and they make the highs feel good in contrast. 

 

9. Love your strengths and your flaws. 

No one's perfect and if we were, what would be the fun in that? There'd be no room for discovery, change and growth. Love all of your traits that make up the unique and wonderful you.

10. Give yourself affection. 

Hug yourself, kiss yourself, do things for you that you would do for a loved one. Value you and show yourself that you know you deserve love and affection. Give yourself the same attention you would give to someone else you love.

Wishing you love and light

Namaste

Belinda