We often feel stuck or trapped by our current circumstances. So much so, we don’t see options or opportunities. Sometimes, nothing feels like a preference or ideal. However, making choices creates movement, creates new circumstances, creates change.
Love Fear
The research is out. Fear stops us in our tracks. I suggest, rather than avoiding your fear or fighting your fear, you try loving it. Welcome your fear into your life. To love is to act.
Self-Love
Giving of yourself to prove yourself. Compromising yourself to keep the peace. Settling because of fear, guilt, shame. Hiding your truth to not be rejected. Telling others you’re fine when you’re not. Creating a narrative about life being about surviving not thriving, scarcity not abundance, sacrifice not self-love.
Patience With Pain
This may seem counterintuitive. When we hurt, we just want it to end. This is not a suggestion for simplicity or easiness. Pain is a natural experience of life just as love is. Sit with it, but no need to be stuck in it. Lean into it, learn from it, and then leave it. Allow yourself to feel it. Allow yourself to mourn. Allow yourself to heal. Pain becomes what you make it. It can become an excruciating lesson or it can become debilitating suffering. The choice is always yours.
Don’t ask yourself, “How long will this pain last?” but instead, gently ask yourself, “What do I need in this moment to heal?”
One Mirror
We see each other.
The Lounge Podcast Ep. 1 - Are You Ready?
Tune in for my first episode on my newly launched podcast, The Lounge!!!!
In this episode, I chat about being “ready”, how our brains like to overprotect us, and changing your mindset from, “What will happen?” to “What can I learn?”
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.24.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
You don’t heal by denying how you feel. You don’t heal by pretending you don’t feel what you feel. You don’t heal by forcing yourself to feel one way or another.
You heal by facing your hurt. By sitting with your pain. By grieving. By doing the work to honor what has happened and how you feel. By taking healthy steps in times of anguish and frustration. By accepting the ups, downs, and swirls of hurt. By reaching out and going within. By crying. Screaming. Sleeping. Breathing. Reflecting, Meditating or praying. Going to counseling, therapy, coaching. By doing whatever is necessary for you to engage, feel, and walk through the hurt. No timeline. Be patient.
You can feel and heal.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.20.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
While we enjoy the majesty of this life, we will also experience pain. We all will. There is no avoiding it. In fact, a life spent trying to avoid pain leads to suffering.
Pain happens, whether unexpected (loss of a loved one, natural disaster, etc.) or as a result of our own doing (ruminating in resentment, allowing fear to influence our choices, etc.). The lesson is no matter the source of pain, it’s how (or if) we decide to face it that will shape us. Choosing not to embrace pain will lead to suffering. Facing pain in unhealthy ways (through numbing = drugs, sleep, pretending, etc.) will also lead to suffering. And it is suffering that gives pain power to manipulate you into believing you cannot heal.
Pain is another experience we must move through. Don’t get wrapped up in the pace of it. Do notice if you are stagnating.
Give action to pain. Ask for help (friend, family, counseling, etc.) Meditate. Pray. Journal. Engage in healthy activities (exercise, reading, walking, etc.). Other forms of action include: expressing your truth, acceptance, forgiveness, love.
Move through your pain so you can heal in love.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.17.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
There is no blueprint for me.
There is no blueprint for you.
There is only acceptance of our truths.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.14.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
Maybe it’s not work. Maybe it’s not grueling. Maybe it’s not exhausting.
Maybe….it’s necessary.
When you consider making change in your life, do you cast a negative shadow on the experience? Like, before you even take a step? Think about how you characterize what you need to do or what you are trying to achieve. The more you paint it in a negative light, the more mental blocks you create to get in the way. As if you needed any more excuses.
When you reflect on areas of your life that you believe to be unhealthy or in need of a healthy dose of change, it is helpful to think and speak about the change in a grounding and benefiting way. Ask for the effort and energy needed to move forward. Allow lessons along the way. Be patient with yourself. Say, “Thank you.” for the opportunity.
You affect the process of change by your attitude about change. See it as necessary and welcome it as part of your growth.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.12.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
I’ve spent a great deal of my life trying to play the “expected or acceptable role.” Though I can blame how I thought others wanted to see me, I ultimately chose how to express myself. This resulted in me being unsure of the life I wanted or how to deal with the life I had.
This conflicted feeling had been present in the mundane every day living as well as in the deeper experiences.
What I’m discovering is as I let go of my own made up stories of “what they want from me” and instead ground myself in “this is who I am,” I feel peace. I feel gratitude. Like, where have I been my entire life?!?!
I also recognize living my truth needs conscious decision making from me. Yes, my life deserves my time, space, and attention.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.9.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
It is something special when you are seen and heard. I felt that way this morning. A friend of mine shared some very kind words with me about how I affect a particular aspect of his life. See, we both play music together and he expressed how my drumming is opening him up to new ways of how he plays bass.
Why this is so special is because I’ve been playing drums for almost 25 years and I’ve been in a couple different bands. Each has been a unique experience and each has helped me grow as a musician. However, during my short stint with this current band, I’ve let go of my fear of feeling inadequate. It’s freed me to explore and to have fun.
I’ve mindfully been expressing my creative side and it has shown in my playing, my feeling, and in gratitude from others. It is really special to be seen and herd for who you really are.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.8.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
I am discovering what it means to feel all the feelings. Today, was non-stop with emotions. They took me all over the place. I found myself thinking not, “Why am I feeling this?” but instead, “What can I learn from this?”
This is big time progress for me. Rather than racing, full steam into the emotion, I felt it, named it, and asked what the lesson may be? I became more accepting of my choices in life - good, bad, happy, sad, doesn't matter. They are mine and mine to learn from.
I felt like I truly honored my whole being today.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.7.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
We wish people happiness all the time. But happiness, success, and yes, love, cannot exist without truth.
For people to genuinely experience happiness or success or love, they need to be living a truthful life. I don’t mean in the sense of being a Saint and never telling a white lie, but rather, living your truth. Being authentically who you were born to be.
Let that sink in.
If you are hiding your essence, whatever you experience will feel incomplete. Why? Because you will be denying yourself the ultimate experience in this life…being YOU.
Daily Moment of Awareness [10.2.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
I was reminded today of something I’ve been sitting with in my times of refection. I don’t believe we need courage to live our truth. I believe we need acceptance. We need to FIRST accept our truth. Love our truth. Once you do that, living your truth will begin to feel like breathing. It will feel natural.
Because your truth is your nature.
Our truth is in us. Always. It’s that thing we hide. It’s that thing we deny. It doesn’t take courage to do that. It’s simply a conscious choice. Therefore, you can make a conscious choice to live your truth too. Out loud.
Stop with the pep talks about living your truth and just be it.
Daily Moment of Awareness [9.30.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
Meditation is an experience which gives the individual the opportunity to see oneself. Unfiltered. Non-judged. Without fear.
This does not mean it is without intense emotion, but it is emotion grounded in how you see yourself. This is powerful. Many of us chip away (sometimes strip away) our authenticity in order to be accepted, to be loved, or we do it to be invisible. We then begin to see ourselves as others want to see us.
My meditative practice has been about eight years in the making. Where I am at is leaps and bounds from where I began. But what I realized today is, when I meditate I am seeing and feeling my authentic self. It’s liberating. It’s inspiring.
I’m also reminded I have work to do, but I’m not embarrassed by it. I am accepting of it. I am accepting of me.
I Am Love
[I Am mini-series #3]
I am love. You are love.
Maybe you have been told you are something other than love. Maybe you have felt less than love. Maybe you are afraid to express your love. Maybe your love has been ignored.
Guess what?
None of that matters.
You are LOVE.
Fear Is Not A Validation
People hear what you say. People see what you do. But people do not experience your life experiences as you do.
Furthermore, we often dial down or even hide our truth. The deep, core experience dancing in our souls and warming our hearts. For as real as it feels to us, we still try to make sense of it. We question it and doubt it. There are so many reasons why we do this and it all points back to fear.
How much do you reveal in your moment to moment?
We tell people what we think they will accept. We show people what we think they will accept. We surrender to fear. We tell ourselves we have difficult choices to make, but what that really mean is we have tradeoffs to make. The tradeoff is our authenticity for someone else's acceptance. Why? Because we allow fear to be a validation for how we choose to live.
Fear is NOT a validation.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Jez Timms
When Fear Knocks
What if you looked at your fears as opportunities? What if your opportunities are your fears in disguise?
Before you jump to the scariness associated with fears, try thinking about them differently. Imagine opportunity whispering to you through your fears. An opportunity is not without unknowns and yet, it feels different because there is a perceived benefit. A fear feels debilitating because the perceived experience is seen as discomfort, pain, or failure.
Pursuing an opportunity reveals more about it. Moving though fear reveals more about YOU.
all words: Michael Barata / image: Ricardo Retez
I Am Strong
[I Am mini-series #2]
Have you forgotten about your strength? Your ability to overcome? To persevere? To move through the fear? To heal?
Your strength has helped you countless times. This power resides within you, for you, whenever you need it.
Honor your strength with gratitude
all words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: NordWood Themes