Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?

This weekend I gifted myself a weekend away by myself. The school holidays have been very busy and I was feeling run down and shut down and I really wanted some time and space to myself to re-balance.

I found this lovely Bed and Breakfast in Eastbourne which was just perfect with lots of space to myself. I had my own lounge with a view over the harbour, a fireplace and a spa in the garden! I usually shy away from B&B’s because when I want time to myself to rebalance I’m mostly pretty unsociable, but in Eastbourne there are no other options and the bonus was a beautifully prepared breakfast in the morning which took the self-pampering to a whole new level!

It was so blissful to kick back in my own space, to please no-one but myself. Being away from home really allowed me to feel into my own energy and to break away from the various family energy dynamics, and not just for a couple of hours but for a couple of days! Going away from home means there are no temptations to do chores or work, there’s nothing around you to remind you of what needs to be done, giving yourself full permission to totally focus on self and be completely self-full. Time to just breathe, sleep, pamper and love self and just BE! Without any demands on my time I allowed my soul to lead and focused on just what my soul wanted to do or eat.

How much can you allow for yourself? Do you allow nice things into your life or beautiful possessions or do you ‘make do’? Do you allow things to unfold just perfectly or do you self-sabotage your experience by allowing little things to go wrong or irritate you? We know that energy is here to serve us but can you allow yourself to be pampered by someone else?  As you read this, do you find yourself saying ‘yes but..  I’m too busy/ I don’t have the money/ my family needs me..’? These are all ways of affirming that you don’t think you deserve a better experience, and serve to limit your experience. How much are you willing to receive? Every moment is an opportunity to choose what we are willing to receive in our life.

This was a gift to myself because I love myself and for no other reason than that. I don’t need to justify it in anyway by saying I ‘deserve it’ or ‘I need it’, it is just a gift from the heart and what a gift! I will definitely be doing this again!

So much time to myself also allowed me plenty of time to contemplate. Lately I have been focussing on being more ‘real’, but I found myself asking; what is ‘real’, and who is the ‘real’ me?  Is it the things I feel comfortable with, identify with, or aspire to? When I’m at home I’m a Mum, a partner and an Interior Designer, but now I’m away and on my own, all those roles fall away and I found a tendency to want to revert back to who I was before all those things came into my life.  So who is the real me when there are no external expectations or references to shape my experience of myself?

Through completely getting away from it all for a couple of days and spending time with myself, pleasing just me, I rediscovered things that I like and parts of me that I had forgotten. We tend to make compromises in relationships and with the people in our lives and after a while we forget what we used to like and do. But I have been a Mum for 11 years and some-one’s partner for more than 27 years! So were these rediscovered parts of myself the real me or a just a memory, an aspect? And if they are does that make them any less me?

But as I continued to ponder the question of who is the real me, it came to me – it doesn’t matter – these questions are really just musings of the mind wanting to label something; to put it in a box.

I believe the real me is when you leave your head out of it and follow your heart. It’s the things you get excited about, the things that fill your heart with joy, the things your soul wants to do, or just be, I think that’s the real me.. So based on that, the things I’m identifying with this weekend would be the real me because they have brought me great joy!

‘I Am that I Am’ in any given moment and as long as I follow my soul and follow my heart than that is who I am and all I ever need to be!

by Natacha Anthoni

http://www.wellingtonbedandbreakfast.co.nz

The Soul and the Human

This morning was a glorious, sunny winters day and I felt the deep inner desire to go for a walk and breathe with myself. Sometimes I get a bit slack with my conscious breathing as life is filled with so much to experience.  A sure sign I need to slow down and be with self is feeling soreness in my knees… they say ‘Slow down and be with self’… finally I listened.

When I breathed into where I would wander, I immediately felt it would be Zealandia. Zealandia is an amazing wildlife sanctuary just 5 minutes’ drive from my home where you can see some of New Zealand's rarest birds, reptiles and insects living wild in their natural environment.

I sat on a small wooden bridge the rainforest section of the valley. My feet dangled just inches from the clear bubbling stream.  I was surrounded by tree ferns and a variety of smaller ferns and soft moss and lichen. The trees above were filled with birds singing and flitting around catching insects. Their songs complimented the bubbling stream. The only other sound I was aware of was my conscious breath. This is my most favourite of all spaces to be in and I’m so over joyed I created it in my life.

As I breathed, I felt such peace. I felt so connected to myself… so much so that I became very conscious of a conversation going on between my soul self and my human self. My soul, in all it’s playfulness and little or no understanding of human needs or comforts, wanted to jump into the stream and follow it on it’s journey. My human self was much more ‘sensible’ and reserved.

“You don’t know what cold is do you?” said my human self. “No way are you getting me in that freezing water. I’d have to walk all the way back to the car dripping wet!”

I could feel my soul wanting the experience so much that I nearly leapt in, yet the human stood it’s ground.

Then soul looked through the ferns and saw the tall trees. It wanted to climb them.

“Do you know how difficult and exhausting it would be to climb those old pine trees? There are no lower branches to start with.” said the human self.

I found the conversations amusing. The soul was like the fearless child and the human was the fear burdened parent.

The soul soon lost interest in the trees, not because of the practical human self, but because its attention had shifted to the birds… to flying!

Interestingly, the human self had no qualms about flying and put up no argument. It too would love the experience. When I’ve had flying dreams in the past, I was always upset when I woke and realised it wasn’t real… it felt soooo real.

As a compromise, soul and human agreed to imagine the experience together. It was so beautiful! A true blending of soul and human self’s such as I’ve never consciously experienced before. I could feel the sensation of flight. It was even more real than my dreams.  I could also feel a deeper shift and self-acceptance and self-awareness. I could feel the unconditional self-love on so many more levels.

Eventually, I came ‘back’ from my experience and I wandered a little further upstream still feeling the joy of my flight. I came across another small bridge. I breathed into my core and into my joy. I then found myself feeling into the past 2 weeks. Something had happened that had brought me more into myself. Something had happened that had deepened my love for Natacha. Something had happened that had caused me to embrace my expanded family even more. Something had happened that had me more deeply aware of my journey of choice. Something had happened that had me falling deeper into love and gratitude of all things…

Just as I was feeling into all this ‘something’… it struck me… the earthquakes! The reason so much has changed is due to all the releasing energies coming up from Gaia... not just releasing the stuck energies but more awesomely, she was releasing all the new consciousness energy that had been stored away from the beginning of time just waiting for humanity to reach this time of new expanded consciousness. It’s been 13 days since the first quake. We’ve been getting on average around 30 a day in varying degrees since then. They’re all centred in the Cook Straight where Natacha and I know the 'Heart' of New Zealand resides and it’s only 10-20 kms from us in Wellington. Wellington is the capital of NZ and the governing centre of the land. If there’s stuff to be released and changed, the country's capital is a good place to do it.

These earthquakes are creating such amazing shifts on so many levels and they are occurring with very little damage even from the big ones. We know this shift can be graceful and gentle. Nothing needs to be destructive any more. Ease and grace is the way in this new consciousness.

With so much shaking, nothing feels solid or ridged anymore... it's all becoming flexible... within Gaia and within self.  It's all quite exciting when you relate how the earth changes are affected by you and how the earth changes affect you... an amazing dance of energies heralding a new change of consciousness, of energy and all that is.

Soon after this awareness came up, the little bridge I was standing on began to move and shake under my feet. I could feel the energy of yet another earthquake... it was a strong one, 4.9, yet it had a gentleness about it. It was almost as if it was acknowledging my new awareness. It’s amazing how something like an earthquake which usually ignites fear into the human, is seen as a gift when the soul and the human blend and dance with self-acceptance.

Today is a wonderful day.

By Sue Norman

Self-Love

Heart2Heart receive many questions on countless topics. The most common are to do with abundance, relationships, health and the inability to create in the physical the lifestyle they feel in their hearts.

The answer to all these questions is the same… Self-love.

Since we left ‘Home/All that is’ and journeyed through this experience called duality, we’ve looked outside of ourselves to find love, abundance, health, security and just about every other need we ever felt including, abuse, pain, detachment and depression. This outward seeking over the lifetimes has led us on amazing adventures through which we’ve gained extensive awareness of who we/God is/isn’t.

In this awesome time of new consciousness and new energy, we are finally beginning to feel and realise that we have within ourselves, all the answers and capabilities we were previously seeking from outside of self. Everything you need to create and live a grand, expansive, aware and balanced lifestyle is truly within you.

We’ve spent so much of our past looking outward and trusting others beliefs over our own, that it can seem alien to now allow yourself to look within and trust self. It takes time to release the old entrenched behaviours and gain self-trust, but the struggle is lessened as we realise and accept all the new energies are here in this lifetime to assist us in our magnificent transition into our divinehuman status.

I can honestly say from personal experience that when I came into self-love, the partner beyond my dreams came into my life through ways I never expected. When I came into self-love and accepted true abundance, I received my abundance on all levels. When I came into self-love and accepted my body could heal itself and allowed it, my body healed itself. When I came into self-love and let my divine nature dance with my human self, illusions became reality and reality became illusions. When I came into self-love I saw there was no right or wrong, just experience, my judgements fell away and joy danced in its place. When I came into self-love and accepted myself and all people and all things as they are in the now… I found freedom on all levels.

 

The question we usually hear when we share our awareness of self-love is, ‘But, how do I love myself?’

By doing exactly what we were taught by society and religion not to do… to love yourself more than anyone or anything! You must be the most important person in your ‘world’ to change your ‘world’.

Are you feeling any anxious feelings or deep irritations from that statement?... If you are, that’s your past life behaviour patterns of looking outside of yourself throwing a fearful tantrum… asking you not to do it differently, not to be selfish, not to trust this thing called self-love.

In truth, you can’t give anything to anyone else if you don’t first have it within yourself. Self-love is not selfish, it’s selfless. The wonderful side effect of self-love is that you automatically become a ‘Standard’ for humanity and spirit alike. The grand and creative potentials you generate from loving self are the same potentials you place in front of humanity for them to leap into if and when they choose. As more people fall into self-love and radiate out to the world, a domino effect is created allowing the awakening of humanity to occur at a rapid pace.

I could say, ‘Trust me it works!’… but I can only say that to myself… and because I do trust and love myself, I’ve seen situations and people around me go through grand changes in ways I never before thought possible.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, the truth is, moving into self-love is deeply challenging, confusing and heart aching as you begin to let go of who you thought you were. It’s particularly difficult to release the old patterns you have with children and those you love deeply. You feel as if you’re deserting them, as if it’s wrong to love self more than them. These are your great challenges, but in truth as you love self more, you’re allowing yourself to love them beyond the old karmic and ancestral patterns which release them also and gives them new clear potentials to embrace if they choose. Releasing my daughter was the hardest for me. It led to a lot of deep emotional unravelling. In my heart I knew no greater gift to give her than the freedom from old patterns and the awareness of self-love. At times it was difficult to stay in that self-love as I missed having her around… but in my core I knew that if I did, it would benefit her in the grandest ways. Now, with a warm heart, I can say we have a new acceptance in our relationship which continues to expand.

It takes courage to make the choice to be all that you are and step out of the old mass consciousness quagmire. There are many times you feel you want to give in and hide within an old behaviour, addiction or drama. There are times you feel you want to die, and in a sense you do, yet you stay in your body and breathe and transform and emerge like a butterfly with a new expanded awareness of self.

Then there are days you wake up and you can’t put your finger on it, but you know you’ve changed… you feel ‘lighter’, a little hollow, a little unsure. You realise deep within that you’ve stepped through something, released something and you know it’s wonderful even tho you may not be able to understand what it is in your mind. So much of the old illusion of who you thought you were fades and you start to hear a new voice in your heart… your voice. From that moment you realise joy and freedom are now foremost in your feelings rather than the old fears and challenges. From that moment, the challenges are less potent and you find you move past the old issues with very little game-playing or without engaging at all. You also become aware that yes, the universe is supporting you in your choice to be all that you are… and the journey into self continues with more ease and excitement than trepidation.

Self-love is self-acceptance in the now moment... from there, Anything IS Possible!

  

By Sue Norman

If You Knew Then....

How many times have we heard the question, “If you knew then what you know now, would you do it differently?”…. and most of us said willingly, “I wouldn’t change anything!”

The truth is, we say we wouldn’t change anything as a form of comfort for self because we either believed that we needed all the pain and drama to get to this point or we figured there’s no way of ‘going back’ so why torment ourselves with ideas and potentials we perceived as impossible.

Now, as I embrace the full acceptance of self, All that I Am, ascension, enlightenment… whatever tag you’re comfortable with… I realise I Am doing it all again, in this lifetime… differently!

From the space of self-acceptance/self-love, I’m now making choices to live this lifetime totally differently to the little human perspective of who I thought I was! I don’t mean I’m just doing it differently from what I’ve learnt from who I thought I was previously, I mean I’m living my life ‘instead’ of how I chose and created previously.

I’m allowing myself to not only love and experience myself as a divine human, but I’m also allowing myself to unconditionally love others, friends, partner, step children…. I’ve had many friends and lovers previously, but I never allowed myself to really, honestly love them because I didn’t really love myself. I held myself back even when it came to my children… my love and parenting skills were limited by my lack of self-love. Now, I’m releasing the judgement, illusions and games that made me small. In choosing to change my perceptions, actions and consciousness and do it differently in this NOW, I know that this potentially changes the reality for all those people that experienced me as less than all that I am (if they choose).

Let’s face it… everything’s occurring in the now moment… time frames are a human illusion so we can understand experience. If it’s all in the now, you CAN choose to do it differently in the now.

And then, if we take it further and release the illusion of right or wrong, we free ourselves even more and create even grander lifetimes. (Don’t worry you won’t hurt anyone, if you can grasp the concept of no right or wrong, you’re too evolved to create pain or drama anyway).

Why is all this coming up now?… perhaps because my birthday is only a few days away and while I’ve chosen to party and celebrate this occasion, I’m also choosing to release the ‘numbers’ which kept me attached to old aging beliefs and patterns that kept me out of the now and assisted in concealing my true awareness of self.

By Sue Norman