Shift your energy to what YOU can do!
Love More
We don’t need more love. We are love. Let’s love more.
Your Truth
Who YOU are can only be discovered and realized by YOU. What others may think or say is their own deal.
You make choices. You make decisions. You make mistakes. You learn lessons. You dance in bliss. You grow from pain. You express your truth. You reflect in silence.
Life is your most precious gift. The journey is yours to unwrap it.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Ravi Pinisetti
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
Be Instead of Prove
Think about your energy. Think about your time. Think about YOUR LIFE. How do you want/need to be expressing yourself? How often do you allow someone else to influence how you create and live your life?
Your reference point for your authenticity is within YOU. Your successes and failures contribute to the path you are blazing. Burn the bridges of conformity and judgment with every step you take.
Stop proving yourself. Love yourself. Trust yourself. Nurture yourself. BE YOURSELF!
all words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Nick Fewings
Questions
So busy. So distracted. So tired. So frustrated. So doubtful.
How can you see? How can you be? What should you see? Who should you be?
Where have you been? .
all words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Jon Tyson
You're Magical
Stop forgetting. Please. We all do. For so many reasons.
Our magic disappears under layers of guilt, after years of conditioning. Our magic is intimidated by our fears and harshly judged by others.
But guess what? You’re the magician who can make your magic re-appear. You can use your magic to overcome and rise above it all. Because you can make your magic do whatever you want.
You’re pure magic. Let that sink in.
words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Garidy Sanders
Your Energy Foundation
We allow the outside world to influence how we live. We all do. From situations to people, what is happening outside of us receives so much of our attention.
Speaking your truth cannot be contingent on how it may be received. Choosing who or what gets space in your life does not require permission from anyone but you. Being there for yourself in every way possible is a healthy imperative. And your dreams, are your dreams to discover, pursue, and live out.
You deserve your own attention, time, and space to create a strong, grounded, and loving foundation for yourself. It’s your energy.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Chetan Menaria
Empty Yourself
What are you holding onto?
When you empty yourself of grudges, hidden pain, unsaid words, and suppressed fears, something happens. You free yourself of emotional weight.
This requires you to be stripped down, incredibly vulnerable, and completely truthful with yourself and others. Why with others? Well, we often lose sight of who we are because we hide ourselves from others.
To be seen is to empty ourselves of all conditioning, of all “should be’s”, of all fears, of all self-doubt, of all reservations about what others may think or say or do. Relationship with ourselves is the starting point, but we need to overcome hiding that precious relationship when engaging in relationships with others.
Emptying yourself creates space for truth, healing, love, and nurturing healthy, authentic relationships.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Beata Ratusniak
Patience To Heal
Life is filled with joy and pain. And when we are joyous, we don’t want it to end. But when we are hurt, we lack patience for the healing process. We are closed off to recognizing that healing can take on many forms and be an experience of much diversity. Healing can be transformative and restorative.
The not knowing is the challenge. When? How?
Healing can be transformative in that your whole life changes AND your pain subsides. But healing can be restorative in that you gain a deeper understanding of the situation or person you feel hurt by. Your lessons help you so that you can re-engage in a healthier, more grounded way.
Pain doesn’t always lead to loss or end. Healing can reveal the pain is resulting from misunderstanding. From that lesson, healing can better equip you with compassion, empathy, patience to listen.
Healing can lead to new beginnings.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Ümit Bulut
Be Seen
Your truth is your voice.
How you express your beingness is a journey from within. Too often, we focus on being accepted rather than being authentic, real, and unfiltered.
Go all in with who you are. Your life is your playground for living out loud. Connect with your essence, nourish your soul, ground yourself in your truth, love yourself, and be grateful for being YOU.
Your life is NOT about being accepted. It’s about being seen.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Aa Novo
What Are You Telling Yourself?
Are you aware of the dialogue you spin in your head?
Are you rehashing a painful, past experience?
Are you doubting yourself?
Are you replaying somebody’s harsh judgment of you?
Are you what if’ing yourself into an oblivion?
Are you judging others?
Are you amplifying your fears and piggybacking them with anger?
Are you aware you can change all of that?
words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Henry Be
Your Worth
You know what is special about you.
Go. Reconnect. As often as you forget.
all words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Jessie Bowser
Truth Is In The Present
The traditions of living can create a false sense of what is, for you. When you adopt a tradition, you walk a path already walked. Of course, there is joy to be experienced through tradition. But it’s a feeling of familiarity, of comfort, of security. The joy is not discovered or created.
Truth is ever available in each moment. When you let go of the past and unlearn your conditioning, truth is revealed. Your truth is rather than was. Lack of awareness welcomes tradition. Mindfulness is a relationship with truth.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Samuel Silitoga
How You Frame It
Your inner dialogue greatly influences your mood, your behavior, and your outlook about life.
If you are forever re-running something painful from your past in your head, don’t be surprised when the emotions associated with that experience are what you feel. If you doubt yourself or harshly judge yourself, don’t be surprised when you feel “less than.” If you are always giving into fear and telling yourself, “I just couldn’t do that.” don’t be surprised when you don’t make progress.
If you are going through a challenge, how you think and talk about it, matters. A lot! How you frame it is how your whole being responds to it. If you refer to your life (experiences) in a negative and/or defeating way, you will attract more negativity and defeat and feel negative and defeated.
It’s not magic. It’s not being naive. It’s not ignoring the work. It’s all about taking a healthy approach to your life in every moment. Everything you could ever feel or give begins within YOU.
If you’re hurting, acknowledge the hurt, and tell yourself you are healing. If you’re lost, acknowledge being lost, and tell yourself you’re learning. Of course, reinforcing this healthy mindset with healthy behaviors in healthy environments will also help.
words on image: Michael Barat / image: Pixabay
Comfort Is Quicksand
Think about those mornings when every inch of your bed just hugs you? The sheets and blankets have created the perfect temperature, that you almost feel one with them. Your pillow is a soft cloud for your heavy mind.
What else is going here? That’s right. Your comfort is holding you back from beginning your day. Exercising. Meditating. Eating a heathy breakfast. Spending some meaningful time with someone - or even with yourself.
Comfort denies new experience. Comfort ignores creativity. Comfort stunts growth. Comfort delays learning. Comfort teams up with fear to stop you from: exploring, going further, looking more intently, being curious and courageous, and yes, they stop you from living divinely and loving deeply.
Comfort is best experienced as a flowing reminder that you are living. However, it can also be a stagnant stop.
words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Lisa Fotios
Your Inner Badass
Inside each of us is a badass. Our inner badass lives authentically. Loves boldly. Speaks confidently.
To our inner badass, fear is something to overcome. Pain is the teacher and healing is the lesson. Vulnerability is an opportunity for growth. Our inner badass will only express our truth.
What stops our inner badass? We do. We quiet it. We hide it. We ignore it. We deny it. We doubt it.
No more. Give way to your inner badass.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Mabel Amber
Your Truth Is Enough
No need to figure out life. Your life is your gift. Your truth is the unfolding of it.
Along the way, you will doubt your truth. You will hide your truth. Hell, you’ll even be told your truth is not enough. They are obstacles. You may trip and fall. Get up. It’s your truth.
Your truth is beautiful because it’s your truth. It’s what makes your life, authentic. The highs and lows, the flow and the falls.
Your truth is yours. All of it. The knee-buckling obstacles as well as the awe inspiring beautiful scenery.
words: Michael Barata / image: MaLeK DriDi
Heal From Within
We hurt. We endure painful experiences. We mourn. We resent. We express anger. We cry. We lament. We self-doubt. We feel exploited. We fear.
Through all of those experiences, we can also heal. It may look and feel unattainable, but healing is the mindful, heartfelt, and soulful experience we can choose. That journey will be unique to YOU.
Healing is an inner experience...and ever available to you. .
words on image: Michael Barata / image PhotoMIX Ltd
Self-Love To Heal
We yearn for what was. We fear what hasn’t happened. And we tend to loop inner dialogues based on both.
If you’re hurting, then hurt. But also give yourself an opportunity to heal. When you relive what has hurt you in the past, you ignore what can heal you in the present. Your hurt will only last as long as you give it energy. The clear message is that you do have something or someone in your life to be grateful for. Yes you do. Remind yourself, as often as you want/need.
Accept the hurt and accept the healing. I know we can’t control every thought that pops into our minds, BUT we CAN consciously decide what to do after a thought. This is true for every moment of your life. Therefore, the beauty is you can choose healthy, healing thinking and behavior whenever you want, such as: gratitude journaling, positive self-messaging, therapy/counseling, meditation, yoga, exercise, walk, travel, a forgotten hobby, a warm bath, reading, etc. I’ve deiced to do 20 pushups whenever I consciously engage in a hurtful thought or behavior. Bonus: my pecs desperately needed the attention,
I know the ache can be debilitating which can also cloud all of your senses. In these states, we also doubt the possibility and bliss of love. So, we give even more space to the hurt and build a wall to love. Your healing can be so restorative. The journey to healing can present lessons and gifts you never could have imagined.
But first, you need to commit to self-love. To heal, you must love yourself.
words: Michael Barata / image: Designecologist