We believe the lies we were told

I began writing when I was in a really dark space in my life. But then again can I really call it that because the darkest spaces actually bring on the brightest light.

So here, now, today I am not the same person that wrote any of my last entries. Then, I was stuck in this identity of someone I wasn’t. Someone who felt that because I wasn’t living up to the expectations of society, I wasn’t good enough.

But I can only talk about how I experience the world and if it resonates with you, awesome but if it doesn’t then that’s cool too. The truth is, that what I write about is my experience and some of it comes from me, but some of it is channelled from somewhere or something else and I will often find myself writing things even I didn't know I knew.

So have you noticed how everyone has so many opinions about fucking everything? What we should do in our lives what we shouldn’t do. There are sayings and quotes and writings to help us to move into a place of happiness and joy. You see the problem is that if we are constantly seeking happiness and joy we don’t find it because anything we search for stays in the future. ''The search'' is an action of waiting for something to happen in the future, something that we are lacking, and so "lacking" becomes a constant feeling. And lacking creates feeling less-than and this negative cycle grows.

The now, is this moment right here, this moment that you are reading this and this moment that you are not searching for anything so you can just relax and chill and read what I am writing and of course take out of it whatever feels right and leave behind whatever doesn’t. But you see in this moment that you are reading this you are free from your past, free from what you think your future is and free from all the negative thoughts about yourself that encompasses your life.

In this moment you are reading an article by me about how important this moment here and now is. So in this moment you are truly you because you are free from thought and self- judgement because you are focused on what I am saying.

So if I would tell you that you are perfect in this moment would you believe me? Maybe at first, because you would not be thinking because you are focused on reading but in a matter of seconds you would be back to the same old thinking that you aren’t good enough, or that you maybe cannot understand what I am saying or you don’t know these things that I do for example? But none of this is true.

You see, you are so attached to negative thoughts about yourself that you cannot even begin to fathom that every negative thing that was ever told to you was a lie. Now although you may not even remember anything negative that was ever said to you, you need to know that even a lack of positive affirmation creates a negative thought pattern.  Lies told to us by our parents, friends, whoever, is just that, lies. So we take those lies and we begin to identify with them. We become them. And we do whatever it takes to numb ourselves from these lies because they make us feel so shit. But did it ever occur to you that these ARE actually lies? These things are not true.

If a thought is true it uplifts you and automatically increases your vibration. If a thought is untrue, it lowers your vibration and makes you feel shit about yourself. But why can’t you start telling yourself the truth? Because no matter how much you have been lied to, it doesn’t mean you cannot change that around by finally beginning to tell yourself the truth about yourself. But again how do you know what’s truth and lies? And again I will tell you that truth makes us feel good and lies make us feel shit. You do the math.

So in this moment you are perfect and you are the truth and that is all that matters, that is enough. Gone are the days of having to hold onto anything negative about yourself or anyone else for that matter.

We are taught about positive thinking and self- love and so we try to do this. We tell ourselves that we are thinking positively and loving ourselves when we don’t even have the first clue as to how to do this.

And we watch people on TV like the Oprah’s of the world, or the Deepak Chopra's and whoever else that comes up with these amazing insights into life and we begin to immediately feel inferior. And we believe that it’s these kinds of people that can help us. But we can watch these programs all day and still nothing changes in us because we cannot leave the responsibility to anyone else to make us feel good about ourselves. Everything we need comes from within us, not without. Without is “with-out”.

Just a few months ago I was stuck in this conundrum of what I should be doing with my life because that’s what society believes I should do.

So ask yourself, is what I want what other people tell me I should want or is it truly what I want?

 

I took a break from writing because I wanted to figure out as a woman, what is right for me and my life not what have other people said is right for me. The unhappiest time in my life was when my life was led by what I thought others expected of me. And in this place I began to fall victim to others because I was different and never fitted into the mould then I must be bad or wrong?

We are so asleep in our lives that we have never asked the question what is right for me. What do I want?

Only you know the truth about yourself, only you remember those moments where you felt so good about yourself and those are the “truest” most real moments that have existed in your life. That is the true you. Hold onto that every second of every day.


 

 

 

Why is it so hard to express ourselves?

We all have things we want to say and our minds tick over every second of everyday but most often we keep these thoughts to ourselves.

Expressing ourselves is a difficult thing to do because we not sure if what we have to say is valid or clever or even worth saying. And so we don’t speak up. We don’t speak up when we have important things to say or when we are unhappy about something even if it’s small because we don’t want to create conflict.

I have noticed in my own life that keeping quiet to avoid conflict is a silent killer. And we land up walking around carrying the frustration of keeping quiet on top of work life, home life and all the other pressures that comes with life and so we become exhausted. We become burdened by our own thoughts that we are choosing not to express.

When we express ourselves it’s not up to us how the other person takes it. I believe if we speak our truth from a place of love and kindness, then we have done enough.

So what is truth? Well my truth is what I believe to be true for me. It is not THE truth, it’s just my truth and what is right for me. We all have our truth about what we feel is true to us and we can’t actually judge someone for speaking their truth no matter how different it is from ours.

I believe another reason why it’s so hard to speak our truth is because we worry that if we do, others won’t like us. But it is really difficult to speak up when we have been brought up to keep quiet, to sweep things under the rug because difficult things are seen as ‘’bad’’ to talk about.

The hardest thing I have ever done is talk about my truth and it still hard. I am a typical example of someone who worries that what I say may be too different or too challenging. But I have realised that the hardest things to talk about are always the most meaningful.

I think we are so afraid of the others reaction and we are so afraid of a negative response so we would rather keep the peace. But keeping the peace is a false and it doesn’t exist. It’s what we tell ourselves so that we can say “Well I have done good today, I managed to keep the peace instead of creating an issue”.

But my question is who cares if there is an issue? The fact is we didn’t create it because it’s already there. We are now just going to talk about it. Things like anger, rage, and sadness are emotions that are in fact extremely healing to us when expressed. When we can give ourselves permission to feel those things, we become human.

But we are so focused on being good. Like our parents told us that we were good when we were happy, but as soon as we got angry we were told we were wrong and as soon as we cried we were told to stop so we were brought up learning that anger and sadness are wrong to feel. Many of us weren’t allowed to get angry at our parents, or other adults or even our siblings and friends because that made us bad.

So now when we want to express our anger it comes out all wrong and in the most dysfunctional manner. Some people are passive aggressive and hold that quiet, internal anger that eats away at them, others blow up and become aggressive and some only express themselves when their inhibitions are gone, under the influence of a few drinks. Often we don’t even know how to express deep sadness so it comes out as rage.

I have felt especially recently that I have lived a life of keeping quiet, about everything because that was the right thing to do. And so the anger builds and builds and in my case it took a toll on my physical health last year. Imagine what 29 years of keeping your mouth shut does to you.  And for others, it’s been much, much longer.

So here I am expressing myself through writing and does the whole world know I have issues? Yes. And does the whole world know some of my deepest darkest thoughts? Yes. And am I still learning how to express myself without shame? Definitely!

 But this where healing lies. In expressing who we are and what we feel.

 

 

 

Its ok to feel fear and doubt for the upcoming year

So 2013 has begun even though 2012 only ended a few days ago and somehow we have to find the balance between one year ending and another beginning.

For some reason, the beginning of this year has felt particularly difficult, not because the holidays are over but because there there seems to be a feeling of fear and insecurity in the air.

Since the year began I have found myself doubting if I can achieve what I would like to and be as successful as I want to be in everything that I have set out to do. I wonder if I will be able to live up to the expectations I have set for myself and if I should be actually setting these expectations at all.

There is a certain amount of pressure we put on ourselves when we say it’s going to be a good year because we then have to somehow find a way to make it so and if it doesn’t turn out that way we land up feeling like failures, or that life has done us wrong.

On New Year’s Day I had this overwhelming feeling like I was starting all over again. Over the last few months my life took on a whole new dimension, and I would say I almost found a "New Talya'', but I am now feeling like what If I can’t live up to this. I am wondering if I can still be proud of myself if I am not always happy, and if I can still be loveable and be someone that people look up to even when I am not doing as well as I would like to. But more importantly, if I can be kind to myself when I feel I least deserve it.

A part of me feels like I need to be that inspiring, happy and fulfilled person all the time. I love that feeling but most of all I love myself more when I am happy because I feel like I am achieving something great. But when it comes to feeling sad or down is where the self- judgement comes in. I know when I put too much pressure on myself to stay in a good space, the opposite happens.  

Since the clock struck twelve on New Year’s Eve I suddenly felt as if I was looking up at a massively high mountain that I now have to climb. And like clockwork, as January hit I started my negative self- talk and my self- confidence took a dive. And the ever so pointless question of ‘’what if’’ came back with a vengeance. What if things don’t change the way I want them to this year, what if I fail, what if, what if….

So my only New Year’s resolution is to be kinder to myself in the times where I am finding life difficult and challenging and remind myself that I am worthy even when I am struggling. I don’t know how I am going to achieve this, but from experience, the universe always has a way of making sure we get the experiences we need in order to make whatever changes we need to, or want to.

I think we could all afford to be kinder to ourselves when times get tough because we have no control over what happens to us but we do have control over how we treat ourselves.

So I am starting the year with much doubt and fear but I am also starting the year out acknowledging that that’s actually ok.