We are taught that it is important to love and be kind to others. Yet real love is not a thought or mental exercise so much as it’s a feeling. There is a big difference here. To be authentic it must come from our love of self, overflowing from the cup that is full. Here is the paradox. If we focus on ‘loving’ others, there is no real love to be found. When we focus on loving ourselves, it can feel selfish at first but then our cup begins to be full and our hearts overflow toward others. The recipient of this love knows that it is unconditional and real, knows that their true self is being seen. Our oneness is being acknowledged.
Sometimes the recipient can’t feel it because they don’t love themselves yet. We all want to be loved and the love we need comes from within, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, from the wellspring of who we really are and the gift of being present with ourselves. It can feel so uncomfortable to focus on one’s self that most of us have to be gently talked into it. It takes a little time and perseverance because the mind says it’s wrong and throws old wounds in our face, saying that’s why we don’t go there. Yet there is the way through. The way around is not working, really. This is the hardest yet most important thing we can ever learn and do. It doesn’t have anything to do with accomplishments, our weight, intelligence or degrees. oday consider the gift of loving yourself by paying attention, being present, appreciating who you really are. Breathe into the present and allow yourself to be okay right now. This is all there is.
Blessings,
Laurel and The Trees
Showing posts with label Loving Your Body. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loving Your Body. Show all posts
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Knowing- Wednesday, February, 22, 2008
The more I live in awareness of my body and breath, the more I realize how much I’ve been missing. This feels real and grounded and though I don’t know much here, what I do know is okay and plenty. The rest I trust will be shown if and when needed.
This is the difference between living in your body and living in your mind. The mind always wants more. Only when you have more, can you maybe feel safe. It’s so hard to let go and trust when the mind’s in charge. There is such an undercurrent of lack and fear and the need for more and more data. When does the mind feel safe, especially since it takes what we’ve previously learned and says, oh no, this is never going to to be okay? The mind wants to know things but that knowing is not grounded in reality, so there is this false sense of understanding that is not based on experience. The mind specializes in the past. My past is not clean and clear, how about yours?
Living in my body and breath, I live here, in the present, with the trees and all the animals and the living earth all around me and I am aware of it! I am present to this fullness that is this miracle every moment. Please join me, this is so much fun!
Blessings,
Laurel
This is the difference between living in your body and living in your mind. The mind always wants more. Only when you have more, can you maybe feel safe. It’s so hard to let go and trust when the mind’s in charge. There is such an undercurrent of lack and fear and the need for more and more data. When does the mind feel safe, especially since it takes what we’ve previously learned and says, oh no, this is never going to to be okay? The mind wants to know things but that knowing is not grounded in reality, so there is this false sense of understanding that is not based on experience. The mind specializes in the past. My past is not clean and clear, how about yours?
Living in my body and breath, I live here, in the present, with the trees and all the animals and the living earth all around me and I am aware of it! I am present to this fullness that is this miracle every moment. Please join me, this is so much fun!
Blessings,
Laurel
The Veil- Saturday February 2, 2008
One of the concepts that I’ve looked at in spiritual and religious teachings over the years has been the idea of a veil of separation between us and “God” that is supposedly an illusion. This illusion then has to be my illusion as I now claim everything to be my creation in order to see more clearly what I believe in. If I believe the veil to be an illusion then it can be my choice to see through that veil or not.
This is what I have done in my relationship with nature. A few years back in a stroll with a friend around a lake, in desperation to get out of the over focus on mental ramblings and be present with myself and nature, I decided to drop the veil. Of course, I didn’t know it would work. Immediately everything seemed to come alive. The birds came out of the background and the trees felt as present with me as the other people walking by. After a while the effect faded, but now I’m understanding that it was my focus and presence that left.
A few days ago, a simlar thing happened. I was working/playing outside around my house, emptying rain barrels, hauling water from the back barrel to the front trees, refilling bird feeders, etc. I had heard a few birds around the back early on but as I was taking my last trip to the back patio, I asked the birds if they were OK with the food I’d been putting out. There began a symphony of sound, loud and a bit overwhelming really. I drank in the love nature has for me and then said “OK, Ok, I will keep putting out the bird seed!” The cacophony died down.
I know that all of nature is alive and yet, like most of us, I walk around thinking I am separate from it, that it isn’t really real but as a backdrop for my real life, which is what anyway? My arrogance is huge when it comes to nature. I assume that what I do, what I eat, etc is a small matter, yet I can look at what’s happening ecologically and understand that it really is each and every thing I do that matters. If I believe in that veil of separation then I can drive a gas guzzler, import my food from South America and ignore all those pesky recyling fanantics. I can separate cause from effect because I don’t live in the present where everything is sacred and everything does matter. Matter is what we have been given to play with and energy is our tool. If we are not present, we can’t see it, we can’t feel it so we are dissociated from our lives. We can’t feel the answer because we are not accessing a creative solution from the depths of our inner knowing, which is connected to all things. We don’t care. We have left HOME and are living in an illusion.
Time to come back to a real life. Time to breathe and love again. Drop the veil. All of nature is waiting for you, ready to love you. Ready to see how you define love and accepting everything you give her with a full embrace.
Blessings from The Council of Trees,
Laurel
Comments:
Asia Guyer
I love that you shared this experience.We all need to be reminded of how lifes interconnections are subtle but very present in every moment, and can be felt and yes- sometimes heard, if we just slow down and pay attention. Nature is constantly communicating and we need to listen.
This is what I have done in my relationship with nature. A few years back in a stroll with a friend around a lake, in desperation to get out of the over focus on mental ramblings and be present with myself and nature, I decided to drop the veil. Of course, I didn’t know it would work. Immediately everything seemed to come alive. The birds came out of the background and the trees felt as present with me as the other people walking by. After a while the effect faded, but now I’m understanding that it was my focus and presence that left.
A few days ago, a simlar thing happened. I was working/playing outside around my house, emptying rain barrels, hauling water from the back barrel to the front trees, refilling bird feeders, etc. I had heard a few birds around the back early on but as I was taking my last trip to the back patio, I asked the birds if they were OK with the food I’d been putting out. There began a symphony of sound, loud and a bit overwhelming really. I drank in the love nature has for me and then said “OK, Ok, I will keep putting out the bird seed!” The cacophony died down.
I know that all of nature is alive and yet, like most of us, I walk around thinking I am separate from it, that it isn’t really real but as a backdrop for my real life, which is what anyway? My arrogance is huge when it comes to nature. I assume that what I do, what I eat, etc is a small matter, yet I can look at what’s happening ecologically and understand that it really is each and every thing I do that matters. If I believe in that veil of separation then I can drive a gas guzzler, import my food from South America and ignore all those pesky recyling fanantics. I can separate cause from effect because I don’t live in the present where everything is sacred and everything does matter. Matter is what we have been given to play with and energy is our tool. If we are not present, we can’t see it, we can’t feel it so we are dissociated from our lives. We can’t feel the answer because we are not accessing a creative solution from the depths of our inner knowing, which is connected to all things. We don’t care. We have left HOME and are living in an illusion.
Time to come back to a real life. Time to breathe and love again. Drop the veil. All of nature is waiting for you, ready to love you. Ready to see how you define love and accepting everything you give her with a full embrace.
Blessings from The Council of Trees,
Laurel
Comments:
Asia Guyer
I love that you shared this experience.We all need to be reminded of how lifes interconnections are subtle but very present in every moment, and can be felt and yes- sometimes heard, if we just slow down and pay attention. Nature is constantly communicating and we need to listen.
Being Present- Monday, January 21, 2008
Dear Friends,
Today is a good day to spend a little time with yourself. Today is a new beginning, a day like no others. Give yourself this gift of today. Take a few deep breaths and settle into your body. What cozyness is there? Are there any places of tension? Breath into the tension and let it go now. Today is your day so take with you just what you want and let anything else go. ( I drop my shoulders ) Listen carefully to the magic in you, the wondrous workings of your physical body and the subtle feelings that move through it. Wiggle a little, access the little child in you who wiggled alot all day long. Maybe wiggle a lot if it feels good:)
I want to share a story that helped me understand the wealth of depth and memory of what’s in our bodies. Quite a few years ago in a CranioSacral Therapy class for treating children, I had an unusual experience. In order to teach us about the birth process, we were lead back through our own birth. We did this a few times, starting at conception and feeling and moving with the process as it flowed. We were working in groups of two and I had teamed up with a kind gentle man that I felt I could trust to let go deeply. It was instructive to feel so much of what was going on with my parents and feel the whole journey from start to finish.
As I came out the birth canal, the whole room reaked of cigarettes. I kept asking my partner if he smoked and he didn’t at all, never had. Where was the smell coming from? It was coming from me, from my memory, from my cells memory! I knew my Mom smoked during the pregnancy, but this was NOT from my thoughts, this was from me. It took me awhile to really understand that it’s all in us, really it’s ALL in us. Every memory, every smell, taste, touch, sound is planted in you way before your cognitive processes develop and function well. This may be forgotten as we grow into our minds and we start allowing our thoughts to rule what we attune to each day.
So today take back your body, it’s not just something your mind drags around to do what it wants. It’s you, an important part of you and keeper of so many feelings and understandings. It is your master puzzle. Pick up a piece now and take it in, fully allowing yourself to be with it. You can accept it now, you have the maturity and insight to know it doesn’t have to run you anymore. Breathe it in and then let it go. Your life now is what you choose and all the memories can be opened gently so their weight doesn’t hold you back anymore. Now you belong here, now you are free.
Blessings,
Laurel
Today is a good day to spend a little time with yourself. Today is a new beginning, a day like no others. Give yourself this gift of today. Take a few deep breaths and settle into your body. What cozyness is there? Are there any places of tension? Breath into the tension and let it go now. Today is your day so take with you just what you want and let anything else go. ( I drop my shoulders ) Listen carefully to the magic in you, the wondrous workings of your physical body and the subtle feelings that move through it. Wiggle a little, access the little child in you who wiggled alot all day long. Maybe wiggle a lot if it feels good:)
I want to share a story that helped me understand the wealth of depth and memory of what’s in our bodies. Quite a few years ago in a CranioSacral Therapy class for treating children, I had an unusual experience. In order to teach us about the birth process, we were lead back through our own birth. We did this a few times, starting at conception and feeling and moving with the process as it flowed. We were working in groups of two and I had teamed up with a kind gentle man that I felt I could trust to let go deeply. It was instructive to feel so much of what was going on with my parents and feel the whole journey from start to finish.
As I came out the birth canal, the whole room reaked of cigarettes. I kept asking my partner if he smoked and he didn’t at all, never had. Where was the smell coming from? It was coming from me, from my memory, from my cells memory! I knew my Mom smoked during the pregnancy, but this was NOT from my thoughts, this was from me. It took me awhile to really understand that it’s all in us, really it’s ALL in us. Every memory, every smell, taste, touch, sound is planted in you way before your cognitive processes develop and function well. This may be forgotten as we grow into our minds and we start allowing our thoughts to rule what we attune to each day.
So today take back your body, it’s not just something your mind drags around to do what it wants. It’s you, an important part of you and keeper of so many feelings and understandings. It is your master puzzle. Pick up a piece now and take it in, fully allowing yourself to be with it. You can accept it now, you have the maturity and insight to know it doesn’t have to run you anymore. Breathe it in and then let it go. Your life now is what you choose and all the memories can be opened gently so their weight doesn’t hold you back anymore. Now you belong here, now you are free.
Blessings,
Laurel
Hugging a Tree- Sunday, November 25, 2007
One of the best things about a tree is when you hug it, it pulls you into itself, which by the way is part of yourself. Your body is so very special and like the earth itself, it needs to be respected and taken care of. This is a deep ecology that has always been here. The earth takes care of us and we take care of our home.
The trees are speaking out now because we may be ignoring our home, the place where our bodies live. The Judeo-Christian theology says the mind and spirit are good and the body and emotions are bad, thus continuing a split that happened so long ago. Your body is great and so is the earth that nourishes it every day, through water, food, and shelter. Take back your body and your earth. Breathe in and connect to the crystalline core of this amazing planet. Feel at home. You are at home.
If you wander around only in your head, it’s easy to forget why you are here. Having a glorious body allows you to be a creator, to manifest your soul dreams here. No body, no manifesting. The mind traps you in fear and doubt about who you are and why you are here. You spend your time and energy outside of your self, away in your mind or paying attention to everyone else’s wants and loose your SELF. Breathe. Breathe in the truth of you, whatever that may be. Only you know your truth; how you feel and what your experience is. Be there, relearn to trust yourself; to listen to you. So much trust has been lost or forgotten between your body and your emotions and your self. Time to get it back!
When you have a chance, hug a tree and allow it to remind you who you are. And always breathe and listen to you:)
Blessings,
Laurel
The trees are speaking out now because we may be ignoring our home, the place where our bodies live. The Judeo-Christian theology says the mind and spirit are good and the body and emotions are bad, thus continuing a split that happened so long ago. Your body is great and so is the earth that nourishes it every day, through water, food, and shelter. Take back your body and your earth. Breathe in and connect to the crystalline core of this amazing planet. Feel at home. You are at home.
If you wander around only in your head, it’s easy to forget why you are here. Having a glorious body allows you to be a creator, to manifest your soul dreams here. No body, no manifesting. The mind traps you in fear and doubt about who you are and why you are here. You spend your time and energy outside of your self, away in your mind or paying attention to everyone else’s wants and loose your SELF. Breathe. Breathe in the truth of you, whatever that may be. Only you know your truth; how you feel and what your experience is. Be there, relearn to trust yourself; to listen to you. So much trust has been lost or forgotten between your body and your emotions and your self. Time to get it back!
When you have a chance, hug a tree and allow it to remind you who you are. And always breathe and listen to you:)
Blessings,
Laurel
Sacred Breath- Thursday, November 13, 2007
Awareness of the breath allows you to come back into your body. There are some schools of therapy that want you to breathe perfectly, not too shallow, not too deep. But if you allow the breath it’s own course and not control it with your mind, something deeper begins to happen. The focus allows us to get into a state where we are more in touch with ourselves, we relax and the body enters a state of self-regulated homeostasis.
It’s about trust. You loosen up the control of your head and trust your body, which, by the way, has been doing a great job all these years. Trust your breath and allow it to take it’s natural course. Allow your focus to bring you deeper into yourself with respect and care. Where has all that mental control taken you? Usually it’s more things to control and more thinking and less being. Let’s begin each day in love with our bodies, in love with our breath and in gratitude for the sacredness of being here. Allow your awareness to ripen your being to the fullness of your experience. Be conscious and allow yourself to just be. This is enough because it’s all in you, remember?
Blessings on this rainy day:)
Laurel
It’s about trust. You loosen up the control of your head and trust your body, which, by the way, has been doing a great job all these years. Trust your breath and allow it to take it’s natural course. Allow your focus to bring you deeper into yourself with respect and care. Where has all that mental control taken you? Usually it’s more things to control and more thinking and less being. Let’s begin each day in love with our bodies, in love with our breath and in gratitude for the sacredness of being here. Allow your awareness to ripen your being to the fullness of your experience. Be conscious and allow yourself to just be. This is enough because it’s all in you, remember?
Blessings on this rainy day:)
Laurel
It's All in You- Saturday,November, 10, 2007
What’s missing in a tree? Nothing. What’s missing in you? Nothing.
This is one of the most important things we can learn from the trees. You are whole within yourself, period. It seems we are so trained from an early age to focus on the external world and often raised to value what’s outside of ourselves more than what’s inside. It’s great to pay attention but let’s do it from deep within our own being, from our center. Let’s find that first so you know where you’re coming from!
As you breathe in your world today, breathe in you, listen to you, feel you. This may seem self centered at first. Let’s just say it’s self-full. It is from a full self that you know what’s real and true for you.
Listen to your body, listen to your mind, listen to your inner wisdom. It’s all there in you. What you feel and know inform how you see the world today, so start there. Is there something bugging you? Can you hold a space for it to be instead of running away? Breathe into whatever is coming up and allow it a safe space to exist. It does exist, might as well welcome it as your teacher and friend. Whatever you can allow won’t go hide and bite you later! As you are truthful with yourself, more truth can come in, so you will find yourself more aware. Give yourself the truth of you today. Allow a safe space for all of you. All feelings, all thoughts, all wisdom happen within you. Begin to make friends with yourself today. Show your human self a little kindness and compassion, you’d easily do that for others. We are all human, it’s okay:)
Blessings,
Laurel
This is one of the most important things we can learn from the trees. You are whole within yourself, period. It seems we are so trained from an early age to focus on the external world and often raised to value what’s outside of ourselves more than what’s inside. It’s great to pay attention but let’s do it from deep within our own being, from our center. Let’s find that first so you know where you’re coming from!
As you breathe in your world today, breathe in you, listen to you, feel you. This may seem self centered at first. Let’s just say it’s self-full. It is from a full self that you know what’s real and true for you.
Listen to your body, listen to your mind, listen to your inner wisdom. It’s all there in you. What you feel and know inform how you see the world today, so start there. Is there something bugging you? Can you hold a space for it to be instead of running away? Breathe into whatever is coming up and allow it a safe space to exist. It does exist, might as well welcome it as your teacher and friend. Whatever you can allow won’t go hide and bite you later! As you are truthful with yourself, more truth can come in, so you will find yourself more aware. Give yourself the truth of you today. Allow a safe space for all of you. All feelings, all thoughts, all wisdom happen within you. Begin to make friends with yourself today. Show your human self a little kindness and compassion, you’d easily do that for others. We are all human, it’s okay:)
Blessings,
Laurel
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