Your authentic self may be cloaked in vulnerability, now. But upon its reveal, light will shine. You are the light.
You
Go within. Sit with yourself. Ask yourself questions. Feel your feelings. Write out your thoughts. Don’t compare yourself to others. Make peace with yourself. Forgive yourself. Allow healing. Accept your truth. Express your essence. Give yourself love.
Explore Your Expression
Fear of the unknown is not valid for not moving forward. It’s rooted in the imagined. The made up. Though fear is real and is also a very common, human experience. Be afraid, but please stop abandoning yourself.
Burn It Off
Consider it to be a realization. A rebirth. A revealing. Of your truth. Of your love. That fire is not for devouring you and causing you suffering, though pain is part of it. That fire (a decision, a conversation, an action of some kind) is there to purify you and help you release all that has been weighing you down and holding you back.
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 [10.17.2019]
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 [10.15.2019]
Moments of awareness shared with you
“Why didn’t that person respond as I had hoped?” or “Why didn’t that situation unfold as I had hoped?
Have you ever asked those questions? I do. In fact, I did this morning.
These questions place our attention on the outside of ourselves. Even when our intentions are pure and our preparation is solid, people and situations are ultimately out of our “control.” Sure we can affect both by what we bring to each, but that’s where it stops. We cannot control responses.
However, we can choose how we respond to a person’s response and or the unfolding of a situation. Ask yourself how you feel and why? Ask yourself what you could learn. And then, you can choose to ground yourself in the reality of the present moment.
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.
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
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
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
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