Blessed Be Summer Energy

 

 

There is great energy in the world right now.  The light is long; the sun is hot.  Now is the time to light white candles, wear lavender.  Time to find summer flowers that speak to your heart. and bring that aroma of wonderful wild flowers into your home. 

The world is alive and full of natural magic. The heat of the day and the softness of evening engages our senses more than any other time.   We may feel the weight of some carried emotional weight and our dreams may be very powerful and strange, needing to be released.  This is a time of self-compassion.  Our heart deeply desires to blossom with deeper love and peace.  We do, and should, seek it. 

Ancient Chinese calls this the time of excess heart fire.  We may feel obsessive about some things.  We desire connection.  We can be overly enthusiastic, overly reactive, to the point where we can feel anxious and agitated.  In fact, we may be sharp-tempered.  Even the tip of our tongue might be hot and sharp.  We have to watch this in ourselves. 

I wear, decorate with, pink crystal that is a balm to such negatives in things. I weigh relationships, carefully, during this time.  What is more important, peace and love in relationships or a sharp rebuke? Compassion and kindness far outweigh misguided misunderstandings.  Rose Quartz promotes peace, calm and self-love.  It truly emotes unconditional love, if we allow it.  Serenity is more available.  Rose Quartz promotes pure love and compassionate balance. 

As well, our world, today, is in chaos, and divisive, and we are tempted to crawl down the rabbit hole of the internet and find all sorts of conspiracy theories to all things.  This can cause us to be hyper-negative and discouraged.  Look for seeds of peace and serenity to add to your country, community, home, family, and self.  Be that improvement to calm, compassion, and peace in all areas.  Be that peace amidst chaos. 

Safeguard your inner peace by practicing mindfulness.  Keep control of where you body, mind, heart and soul wander.  Sit outside in the early mornings and see Mother Earth awaken to bird songs, butterflies and hum of people beginning their morning chores. 

The way to safeguard your serenity is to set good boundaries.  If you are, like me, a professional people-pleaser, define what you are doing as people-pleaser versus, seeking personal serenity.  I made a huge decision a year ago.  I closed the door to people-pleasing and began my journey into self-care.  I am making it a priority to walk, to write to experiencing the circle of life bringing me back home.  It was tough, believe me, to abandon someone I was caring for.  I have to fill up my own time with love and things I enjoy, and spending time being loved by my children and old friends.  Practicing gratitude and staying away from negative people, what I call soul-suckers) is part of it all. I am releasing my need to control things and learning to surrender.  I do a great deal of self-talk.   I am reconnecting with nature of home.  I am developing new ways of recharging and reconnecting to new space(s) and soothing the angst that even came from my childhood. 

This means there is a great deal of forgiveness happening.  I can not weigh down all this positive energy with past. I am learning to live what I value most:  family.  And being the true ME.   Yes, there are lots of times that I feel challenged and uncertain because I have spent a lifetime pasting a smile on my face and feeling guilt and rejection over and over.  Summer is my high-energy time and all my energies are going towards finding beauty, peace, and a sense of grace.  I feel it beginning to radiate from me, as have others.  Blessed Be.

©Carol Desjarlais 13.07.26

 

Integrity: Gossip And The Whole Truth

 

 

 

“We say what we mean and we mean what we say.”  – Dr. Seuss

I am one who speaks my truth.  I do not seem to think things through as to how they might be taken, how they might be construed, and how it may become gossip fodder.

I was involved in an incident where I told my truth to someone, to ask forgiveness for my misunderstanding.  In the telling, I had told where I had gotten information (misinformation) that led me to need to tell my truth to the first.  I needed to clear the air.   I had told where the misinformation came from, in the first place.  It included another lifelong friend that had, without knowing of the original truth, confirmed the misinformation, with no fault to her.  The person I confessed too, twisted the incident and words and created great discordance with the third.  I was attacked, verbally, by the third person because of gossip.  It ended a lifelong friendship.  Actually, the friendship had had another dent in it.  She had believed someone else’s gossip about me and confronted me as if it were true, but closed the door, for a time, to our friendship.  I was so hurt that I did not defend myself.  I had not tried to defend myself in this last gossip event.  Why do people choose to believe gossip as truth?  I cannot figure out why I was not asked about it all before judgement was made.  I cannot wrap my head around it.  I have, after a few years, spoken to the third and said we needed mediation because she had not been told the whole truth.  I have, since, decided to let it go.  I opened the door for mediation, and now I will simply leave the ball in her court.  I cannot say that I wish we could clear the air, still. 

This all comes down to integrity.  I am, pretty much, an open book.  I am not unaware that things can be taken in a negative way.  I have been misunderstood before.  And, because of that, I really try to have integrity and be credible with what I speak of.  I am a practice what I preach type person, as well.  If I say something is my truth, it, also, I am aware, that it is my truth at the moment and I might become aware and change what I have said is my truth.  I think truth can be a learning thing.  The more experiences we have, the more our truths become clearer.  I will admit when I am wrong.  I will apologize, even if I did not have to. 

I am a promise-keeper.  If I say I will do something, I will.  I have learned, as well, to be careful with what I promise to do.  I am a really transparent person.  I spent my whole career, looking at the WHY of things, rather than the what.  I have to keep in mind that I have to consider the certainty of truth of things.  I have, and continue to have, the awareness of what I am going to say is necessary to be said.  And, I really try to make sure that what I have to say is kind, purposeful, and authentic.  Lesson learned:  no need to defend self, one’s truths, one soul-speak.  How it is received, is received as such.  I no longer just accept that people are honest, authentic, compassionate.  Sometimes, they are not.

©Carol Desjarlais 09.07.26

 

We Live Rich Lives

 

 

Confucius once said “We all have two lives, the second one starts when you realise you only have one”. 

We own things we do not usually think of when we are asked what we own.  Our lives are rich, are poor, are light, are dark.  You cannot imagine my story.  I cannot imagine yours.  My history is not ever just like yours.  Yes, there are similarities, but the hues and tones and sounds and feels are uniquely mine.  Wisps of joy and sadness's, tenacities and traumas, are mine; yours are yours.  I cannot judge your life story.  You cannot judge mine, because we can never know. You think you know me.  I think I know you.  But we cannot imagine.  My life story is enough for two lifetimes. 

I know that our history’s are full of chapters after chapters.  We were born, we were children., we were teens, we were adults, we were empty-nesters, we were/are crones.  We changed.  We showed great weaknesses and strengths.  Sometimes we have felt that we have lived enough.  We have lacked wisdom; we have gained wisdom.  We have reinvented ourselves over and over, due to circumstances, incidents, losses, gains.  This is not all one straight line.  How many times have we had to change?  How often do we given free rein to life and simply trusted it? 

It is a given that we are not stagnant beings.  It is also a given, that we will transform, again and again.  We are called to step out of our usual way of being, again and again.  We obtain, from all our experiences, newer experiences, newer perspectives, newer ways of being. 

In our stories, we have things we are passionate about.  Things we want, things we need, and things we truly cannot live without.  In our environment, we are nurtured by things we are interested in and our interests change, as well.  We deepen our sense of Self.  Our culture deepens, changes.  Our identity within culture changes. 

We have myriads of relationships and kinds of relationships.  When we are met with new people, they change us.  We learn how to deepen relationships.  We learn what relationships do not fit our soul.  We learn what relationships are important to us.  The landscape of our soul changes minute by minute, depending who, what, how, when we have our life enriched by others.  Mostly, we learn more about ourselves through our relationships. 

We never stop learning.  Our intelligence grows are life offers us new people, landscapes, things to learn about. We gather new skills.  We are reborn, again and again, through things we learn about.  We are all lifelong learners. 

We do not disintegrate our past Self; we add to it.  We are a product of our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual experiences.  Our physical attributes change with age.  We accept or we obsess about such changes. Our intellect changes.  Our emotional changes are huge.  We are, as it says, a person seeing glass half empty or half full.  The half-full people experience the best and most changes.  This moment we are one person; the next moment we are changed.  How many moments have we had in our lives?  We are all in the process of becoming.   

As I age, I can go back and review my life.  I have time for such.  I am whittling down all the areas of my life.  I am choosing what is best for me right now.  I have not lost anything.  I have made conscious decisions and choices that make my story brilliant, vibrant, and worth being here for.  How about you?

©Carol Desjarlais 03.07.26