August 30 - Transformation of knowing Self and the Divine

Sometimes we feel like we have been abandoned.  Sometimes we may feel like we have been left behind.  There is something huge in feeling loved by ancestors, or guardians, or spirit guides, or beloved goddesses, or God-male, or God-feminine.  It all depends on how we look at it.

Once, the goddess(es) were felt and sisters, in those times, felt comfort drawn from the Feminine All.  Religions displaced her with a wrathful male god. They effectively attempted to erase the birthing of the world that had to come from the feminine.  We know that things are born of the feminine, even Jesus was birthed by the feminine, so it is logical that Mother Earth was as well.  When we are shut iut from our maternal love, wise love, we can wander lost to many spiritual events and sense of care and compassion and wisdom, IMHO.  I believe we need to study, to attempt to reconnect to that divine maternal love.  I, for one, know the primal wound of mother and child 'breast closeness', and know the affects right to my bones.  It is no wonder I seek the transformative wise love of reconnecting to maternal wisdom and love at a spiritual level.

Love, sometimes, means being thrown into a fire.  It can break us forever, break us for a while, or have us rise like a phoenix from the fire of hard life down here on earth.  By connecting to the information ion the goddesses, I have come to a place of self-respect.   (Sometimes too emboldened in my rule of being respected, whether I deserve it or not, I might add.)  Connecting tomy deepest self has taken three years after my grieving, and I am not back to who I was, and may never be.  I am hoping I am to a new level of myself: A better version. 

I could have become bitter and standoffish.  I could have been full of anger and dissatisfaction.  I could have remained closed to what life might have to offer.  I am learning what is true of myself.  I am learning what is true of others.  There are so many layers of Self.  It takes courage to peel off the layers of in-authentic Self.  It takes integrity in the Present.  It means to allow oneself to be vulnerable.  To dare:  to risk;  And, to make mistakes and, therefore, try again.  It means going inside and finding your personal connection with something higher than Self/Ego.  I chose to study, research and make truth to those things I truly believed, in my very gut, rather than be spoon-fed what my spirit should believe and have faith in.  Bottom line, I had to have faith in myself.  Having the understanding of the goddesses, truly helped me.  You might have some other ways of knowing and believing and I truly wish you to seek that, as long as it sustains you, for the long climb home.

If we are suppressing our nurturing of others, if we do more for Self than others, if we project our dependence on something, someone or someplace else, we have yet to connect deeper.  IMHO.  I do not come to this ideology lightly.  I studied and got my Bachelors and many more pieces of paper that began to lead me to a wonderful career where I worked and was driven to know for myself , then taught other women and youths, and I have had it shown time and time again, that to remain static and closed means to not be healed and we will find ourselves back at the same old, same old, again and again, until we get the lesson.  I know our purpose down here on earth is to live fully, authentically, ourselves and honoring the Divine ( by whatever name you call this) and to be in a loving relationship with Self, others, and the Creator.   The Goddess image helps me understand and honor the Divine within me.  I wish this for you.

Blessed Be!

©Carol Desjarlais 8.30.18

Deadly Drama

"My life is an upward search – moving stubbornly toward the light – and you can come along with me, or I'll see you later," - E. Gilbert

Sometimes we just WANT to feel victimized, when, truly, there is no drama, and so we create drama, because we think that is normal.  I have way, been one who worked well under pressure, in the past. Not anymore.  I wear out now.  It is the unconscious drama-making that gets us into trouble.  Some of us learn to self-sabotage ourselves without being aware that we do it.  We can create problems by being in too much of a rush; by not being consciously thinking about what we are doing.  This can create bigger problems. 

Sometimes our chaos-maker is within. We allow our evil inner witch (voice) to do a great deal of negative self-talk.  The voice is one from our childhood.  It can become a dark cloud hanging over us, creating shadow on perfectly good days.  We may even interpret what others say and do in that shadow we have created and we can have a great deal of miscommunication.  God, I know these things.  We follow along under that shadow, or dark cloud, and we can end up interpreting even awesome things in negative ways that were never meant.  We truly have to keep note of our inner voice.  It belongs to the lizard brain and in keeping track, and changing that talk, we can quiet it. 

We need to ask ourselves if we act in aggressive ways rather than assertive ways.  How do we come across to others?  Has anyone said to you that you sound angry when you did not think you were?  It can cause conflict where conflict was not intended.  I am guilty of this.  I get stressed and I get more adamant-sounding.  Yes, it causes unnecessary drama.

Do we see things as worse than they are and do not realize that we create what others think is drama?  Do you have more negative thinking and outlook than you do positive?  I work hard not be a whiner, or to share too much of my negativity.  Grief taught me some good lessons.

Type A personalities can be tough.  We do too much in too short a time.  We get so busy that we can snap at one more request.  We can get irritable if things are not in order (our order), or if things do not go the way we thought they should.  Lord, catch me in the moment the computer goes awry and I am concentrating on a thousand different things and one more just cannot be added.  I can break out in a sweat if my house is messy, or I have a disorderly area haunting me.  Stress is my nemesis.  I reach 'cup all full' really quickly because I always have lists of things and things to do in my head.  Lord help me if I get behind on that invisible list.

Chronic rescuers are another type who can create drama in their lives so they can "fix" people, places and things.  They are also ones who believe they are victims of some kind, forever.  We feel like people, places, and things can save them, when, in reality, we know that we can only save ourselves.

Then there are the Bully personalities that try to force change on others.  They are emotional sap suckers.  They find weaknesses in others so that they can judge them and it, somehow, sickly, makes them feel better about themselves.  They are toxic and can drain a positive person immensely.  They live the rule:  Hurt people hurt people". You can only expect the same old, same old, from them and you must weight things closely so that you can either walk beside them, cheering for them as they change, or you can walk away. 

Within the Bully personality, there can be passive aggressive bullies, who will slam you every chance they get, yet call you friend.  They criticize, blame, and attempt to control.  We can allow it ( the victim role), or we cannot allow it.  Just say "NO!"

Somehow, we need to tame our Inner child (a stomp foot, or weep and wail thing, it is).  I seek those areas in my life.  I know they are there.  I have to be mature and curb the negatives.  Let us all try to fill our soul with dignity and grace.  Let us be kind, compassionate, serving, and give out positive energy in a world full of negative energy.  I need it, you need it, and the world needs it. Let us love ourselves so lovely that we absolutely know we are all enough and we refuse drama of any kind; of our own making, or others.

©Carol Desjarlais 8.29.17

MyStory - Adding Month by Month

MY-STORY

This is going to be an interesting few months of challenges.  I have started a 17 x 12 "book using Mixed Media.  I am calling it "My-Story".  I want to leave it as legacy.  It is like an art journal, but focused on things that interest and are about the Inner Me.  It includes pages of zodiacs, moons, animal symbolism, empowering pages, and when I get the main things done, I will be sharing an art journaling page per week.  As well, there will be other artist activities such as:  I will show you how to make your own empowerment deck of cards so you can draw and focus on one of the empowerment cards.  I will show you how to carve your own stamps out of fun foam to go along with your-story.  I will focus on a section for each week and a new technique.  It will be mixed media so anything goes.  So collect your goodies that you think you might add.  Decide on a color scheme or thematic scheme you hope to choose for YOUR-STORY. 

MyStory- Months

At the back of the book, I have saved two pages each to dedicate to each month.  It is here that I express things that I need to watch for, things that are important in that month for me, etc. 

I began June, but the house got flooded so it is really incomplete, but no worries, you should leave blank space for adding to at a later time.  June has a tip-out.  I used some stickers, put my calendar on the page with my personal symbols used on that calendar.  I put in astrological information and put both things to watch out for as well as positive things.  It helped me know what to work on that month.  You can do your pages in any way you please.  It is good to just get it down for reference.    I used one of my stamps I made from craft foam.  

For July, I used the insert from a birthday card (a pop-out birthday cake) in the center of my two pages.  Again, I added a calendar with personal symbols.  I found some magazine bits I could cut out to add to my page.  This is the month of my birthday so I put some of my characteristics, according to my birth date, on the page.  

For August, Lamas celebrations, I used some of my older art journal pieces for these two pages.  The calendar lists some good days, which I needed to focus on this year, and then I put in some challenges for me for the month.  As well, I added some empowerment ideas.

For September, that I am currently working on, I painted a woman on the one page and then added curvy strips of August colored strips radiating across to the other page.  Again, a calendar, this time typed.  This is the season of Mabon, a season to be reminded of "letting go".  This is what I will be working on in September.  I will be adding more things as I move into the month.  I will know what THE PLAN is, for my cancer diagnoses, and what kind it is, on the 28th.  

Each month will continue on and when I get the months of this year done, I will do an additional art journal of MyStory to add as an addendum book. This one book will be outgrown and I want to keep going and(not do daily pages) but do important dates as I go along.  This book will be passed down to my granddaughter, as will the further books that I do.

Be sure to leave space to add-in.  Enjoy yourself doing this.  It is empowering.  It gives you a voice that will carry on to whom may find it, or to someone you pass it on too.  It will be your authentic voice telling your story rather than other people doing so.

Enjoy!

©Carol Desjarlais

Attitude Attracts Attitude

Look life down here is hard.  We should not make it harder for ourselves.  Choices!  We are all where we are because of our choices.  There is no sense blaming others or other things. We chose!  We walk the journey we chose.  Our attitude towards self, left, others, reflects what we believe; deeply, embedded, belief.  We forget that we might have some bad habits to do with our attitude.  What we believe of ourselves, we attract.

So many of us, in the past, accepted less than we deserved because we did not believe we deserved better.  We did!  But our attitude of being 'less than enough" had us settle for less.  When we did not have a physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually abuser in our lives, we turned inwards and we became our own internal batterer. 

We tell ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, that we are not enough, that we are self-centered, and that we are in need of being 'too right.  We tell ourselves we are too assertive/not assertive enough.  We are fat/ugly.  We are guilty of something no one knows about.  We are just plain not good enough.  Our soul listens and weeps.  Our ego loves it.  (That Evil Inner Witch).  And then, we operate from that belief.  We draw others to us that believe what energy we send out.  Oh, yes, we will draw those who will speak the same to us, treat us as if we were, and the cycle goes on and on.

At some point, we have to learn o attract the right things.  We change our attitude about Self.   We stop the internal abuse.  We face the crisis of identity we had set for ourselves.  We accept that hard times come to everyone.  We accept that we can learn the lessons that Crises brings us.  We stop feeling sorry for ourselves.  We sort out our major issues and or story we have been telling ourselves.  We no longer think we need outside rescuing.  We rescue ourselves.  We do not see Life as offering us catastrophes and begin to see them as challenges.  We refuse to attract more catastrophes in our life and begin to work on challenges without denial of blaming others, o other situations as to why the challenges come.  We stop feeling like martyrs and stand in the light of self-empowerment.  We come to realize we are responsible for our own lives and that attitude is the ALL of it.  We stop running way and learn to find peace and comfort for what it is.  We realize that feeing happy is an internal thing, and ego will keep you from feeling it, if we allow it to continue growing and growling within.  We open us our hearts so that authentic love can get in, so that peace can flood within, so that we radiate love and peace outwardly.

Only if we choose to acknowledge that we are perfectly imperfect and allow ourselves to be that, can we ever draw goodness and hope and belief in good things.  Only then can we balance the Medicine Wheel of our life.  Only then will we draw people to us that are growing healthy in physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual ways.  We are enough we must tell ourselves.  We have enough.  We give out enough.  It is all in the attitude.

©Carol Desjarlais 8.27.18