FORGIVENESS: A PATH OF LOVE

Do we really know what it means to forgive?

Forgiveness has been a frequent visitor in my life, especially this year. I hear the messages the universe (and my higher self) send to me and continue to move further and deeper in the layers and levels of forgiveness. It first came powerfully into my conscious mind this year, when I visited Thailand and had a phenomenal and magical session with Mai, the local shaman-healer-massage woman in Haad Yuan, Koh Phangan.  Since then, forgiveness has been a practice for me throughout the year with amazing results and has brought ease and abundance. In this experience I have found two parts along the path of forgiveness, organic forgiveness and sought forgiveness.

As children most of us had parents that 'made us' apologise when we had hurt another.  It became something almost mechanical instead of genuine. I see this still with children, the difference between saying "I'm sorry" flippantly (- there it’s been said now we can get on with the business of playing) and a genuine remorse “I’m sorry” (-I feel pain for the pain I caused, and wish to make amends)  When the words are spoken without the genuine feelings the hurt party tends to hold a resentment or retaliate. However, when I have experienced and witness the second type of apology, forgiveness from the harmed party seems to flow naturally, easily and love flows smoothly.

What happens when: the genuine apology never comes? Or, when someone doesn’t know they’ve done anything to apologize for? Or, when someone apologises for something that felt good to you, leaving a feeling of rejection and/or confusion?
Sometimes the tender, innocent part of ourself is hurt and the reason for hurt becomes elusive to our mind, till resolution and peace is found in our heart. Often the story we have about what happened or why we’re upset is not the reality, but a reality, the upset tends to be much deeper and far more simple than the stories we create around our hurt.  
As we move deeper through the layers of self, what happens when one’s parents are the antagonists and there is no internal reference point for genuine forgiveness. Where one has hurt connected to the experience of love and does not, possibly cannot, consciously know of the hurt inside that is asking to be seen and loved and to forgive?  

When our base line for love is connected to hurt, life can become a confusing and negative patterns seemingly impossible to break. Especially, when forgiving one's self, often the hardest person to forgive. The solution can be simple. Having an experience of love connected to feeling good, gentle, healthy. However, creating a space to experience this may be more difficult.  On one of the last days of training in Birth Into Being, I sat up and blurted out “Oh my god! I didn’t know easy was on the menu of life!”  If we don’t know it’s available, we will never choose it.

When we seek within to forgive, sometimes we have to forgive the same person over and over. It is arrogant to believe that working on something means it’s healed or fixed forever and there is nothing more to do. I have seen and experienced countless times when I or another says “I’ve already looked at this, it’s done and healed, I don’t want to look at it again” Only to find by looking again at a relationship, a deeper healing and forgiveness happens. There does come a point when a previously hurt relationship becomes healthy, and when this happens there is no resistance to looking at the relationship.

I’m not advocating digging up and rehashing painful memories to wallow in your pain-body, AT ALL!  I am advocating taking honest stock of what you are holding in your physical and emotional bodies.  Seeing what you’re aware of, what you didn’t know you were aware of till you had a look, and what you can detect but are not aware of (through your shadow friends: resistance, fear, tiredness, resistance, etc).  It seems most of what we experience in life is a subconscious replaying of patterns, like we are hypnotised to act and react in certain ways, which lead to different types of dis-ease until such time as we are able to become aware of the unseen truths behind the stories we tell and believe.

In my estimation forgiveness is the doorway to freedom and enlightenment for yourself. Enlightenment is seen in a variety of ways by different cultures. The running theme through them all is to become more present to yourself and others by becoming more present to love consciousness (the universal essence energy that is everything) to the point where one experiences others as themselves. Enlightenment seems to literally lighten a person, they feel lighter mentally, emotionally and physically.     

“I seek my own enlightenment for the sake of others.”

—	Bodhisattva vow

To hold (whether aware or subconscious) hurt and anger in one or more of your bodies (mental, emotional and physical) is to carry a weight around with you. It’s like having a splinter, your skin will naturally over time eject the splinter and until it is out, there is an irritation or even pain that you feel until it is ejected out of the body or you pull it out with tweezers.  In this analogy the splinter is the hurt one holds onto, the tweezers are forgiveness. Forgiveness will happen naturally, and we have the choice to let our patterns run and ‘deal’ with the pain over time, till we find we’ve forgiven. Or, we can sit down and have a look under a magnifying glass and pull out  hurt with our tweezers of acceptance, compassion and forgiveness.

Current Lessons Of Life Condensed

♥ Awareness is the first step ♥ 

♥ Breath ♥ 

♥ Clarity ♥ 

♥ Action ♥ 

♥ All in the Flow of Co-Creation ♥

 

“When a coincidence and synchronicity collide, two apparently unbound events happen at the same time in the same place -what is known as a serendipity happens, what is otherwise described by the uninitiated as 'luck'.

To become initiated you must be capable of engineering synchronicities and coincidences or at least prompt or nurture

them. Whoever has the greatest possibility of processing their past, present and future to support exercise of as free a will as possible will typically be coordinating events across space, time and consciousness and slowly facilitating their gravitation towards one another into synchronicities, coincidences, serendipity and an inevitable, chosen, destiny." ~Jazz Rasool

“Courage, the original definition of courage when it first came into the English language- it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart…

This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee — and that’s really hard, a

nd I can tell you as a parent, that’s excruciatingly difficult — to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering, ‘Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?’ just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, ‘I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive.’”

~ Quote by Brene Brown, speaking about The Power of Vulnerability at TED

 "The more conscious I become the more work I am required to do." ~Avi Esther Shekinah

Hard lesson, but useful and humbling.

If life is getting easier you are not growing but simply getting comfortable. Challenge and Stretch always accompanies growth. If you are growing then your Past and Present will Support you more and more, challenging you less and less while your future will Challenge you more and more Stretching and Expanding your potential. If your future is getting easier or your past is getting harder..you're going the wrong way! ~Jazz Rasool

There is so much going on at the moment. I'm remaking my website, hosting a number of events, organizing, clearing out and cleaning up my house, launching a new promotion, seeing clients, reconnecting to friends and making new ones as well as letting go of connections that no longer serve (and for that allowing the space for grieving and rejoicing) AND that's just some of what I'm doing. 

There's also the being part of it all.... Being more present with my kids, showing up, on time with and for them. Making mediation a DAILY practice and allowing exercise to be part of that DAILY practice. When I have a daily practice I find my emotions are easy to allow to move through and I am joyful and in peace consistently... and this requires practice and diligence and well the development of mastery. Mastery over myself. 

Awareness is the first step. Breath carries me through to clarity and love. From clarity and love I can take actions that activate joy and love even more in myself and others, which brings abundance and the feeling of thriving. Often this coincides and synchronises with something and someone and I know I am co-creating with the universe. 

Till I have the space to write and share more... I love you all.... In my own way. 

Upon my Return

OMG! (yes OM My Goddess)!

It has been so long since I last wrote on my computer, to all you amazing wonderful people who have read and will read my words of self discovery and transparency of who I am. As I look back over the entries, both here and in my paper journals I clearly see the theme of romance and my longing for men....ultimately for my father.  After my long adventures in Thailand and California, I feel a shift from my focus being on, ‘in love with some man’ to ‘being happy and whole in myself and the work I offer in this world’. The axis of my world is shifting and there is no going back.

How I would like to tell you of my journeys and every time I sit to write something new has happened, so I am just writing and will interweave the tales of my travels here and as I continue to write to you all.

My marriage officially ended on Beltane, May 1st 2012 which synchronised with the day I began assisting my teacher, Elena Tonetti-Vladimerova as she trained a new group of apprentices. The experience of assisting was magical. I played with being totally me, totally transparent, and full of the loving joy that bursts and flows and trickles out of me. I played with the questions of “how big is too big?”  “If show all of me big and small, will I still be accepted and loved?” “can I let go of wanting my father to show up for me and accept everything as it has been and is?”

Along my journey I experienced answers to these questions and found new questions. The most amazing experience answer happened once I returned home. The answer to a question I last asked in December. In a flood of despair and tears I blurted out to God(dess) “I just want to be happy, how do I do that?” Genuinely happy, from the inside, not the mask of joy. Here is the answer I received in through my journey.

Since I returned back to the UK June 6th, Venus transit, all my attachments have been challenged. My attachments to: living with my children, my right to care for my children, having a physical home to live in, money coming in, and knowing what to do or how to fix these perceived losses. The first thing I did was cry, I mean sob for 2 ½ hours while I danced on the 5 rhythms dance floor, in Chalk Farm. I felt like something inside me was dying. I moved the emotions in my body and let them go, let them leave. Then I grew clear that this really fucking bugged me (as I had been bitten quite badly at night where I was sleeping) and I didn’t like it, I simply accepted this. Joy returned to my heart and I centred myself in peace. I allowed the universe to guide me through my friends, to a good place to stay while I allow something more permanent to manifest.

[I’d like to be clear about my beliefs on manifesting. It is both me manifesting and allowing what I experience and others who come forward with the mutual benefit of what is being created between us. I take responsibility for my part and send gratitude for their part and love both of us. perceived good and bad alike. Ultimately the universe is always listening and providing what we ask for. The clearer the channel and question, the clearer the response.]

So in this physical space of ‘not having’ what I previously believed I needed, I am genuinely happy. I have stayed happy and centred and shared my joy with everybody.. freely. So Happiness isn’t about having something, even as dear as being home with my children. It’s a feeling that is inside, just like peace and it’s always there regardless of anything outside of self. What I am even more clear about is, I like and enjoy living with my kids and being supported with them. I like and enjoy supporting others, especially children! I like and enjoy having a stable home and comfortable bed. I like and enjoy having lots of money!
There is enough of everything.

By letting go of the things I identified myself with, I feel free to fully express me. To live transparently and in integrity with my set of values, while respecting and honouring those around me. This was fully made real when I crashed my car. In a single moment I found myself spun around in the middle of a cross roads, shaken and in shock and completely safe, unharmed. The front of my car was completely smashed. The guy in the big Land Rover (which seemed unharmed) was concerned and very kind, we even hugged before parting. He helped me out of my car and his friend then happened to show up and helped my car out of the middle of the cross roads. I am aware of how two men in big Land Roving trucks helped me, and how receptive of their help I was. I sat in the grass on the side of the country lane and felt the ground under me, touching the soil with my hands. I pulled at the tall grass and cursed and released the anger that arose. Tears streamed out of my eyes and I stayed totally present with the shock I felt, as I exchanged information with the person who I ran into, then accepted a ride with the friend, to my friends a short distance away.

That evening was beautiful and I was taken care of by my friend and her husband. They kept beautiful company and I was graciously received. It was wonderful to just be as I was, and be transparent and vulnerable and speak honestly. To listen to them and respond clearly. I am abundantly grateful to them for their kindness and for the friends I have, new ones and old ones alike. I feel truly blessed and am letting go more and more of the idea, I have to do it alone. I am growing more comfortable with knowing I can ask for help when I need it, and be available to receiving it. I am settling into the community I have around me (here and globally), and finding my place.

here comes a song....•♪♫• Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold. A circle’s round it has no end, and that’s how long I will be your friend.•♪♫•

I stayed at theirs over night, in the morning, I called the insurance company to be told there is nothing they can do about it. The woman on the phone apologized for 2 minutes straight, even when I said “It’s not your fault, it’s the insurance company, they’re just evil. I hope you have a really nice day.” All she could say was “I’m sorry”. I guess I needed to hear that a couple hundred times. My friend and I drove out to my car, left broken on the side of the road. I pushed the parts that hung on the ground up, and drove my car back home.... slowly. I felt shame rise up as I drove then the hurried desire to just be where I was going as I turned the last corner to the village I live in. How I saw patterns run within me. The presence, attention and love I gave to myself moved the emotions and shifted the patterns out, and patience grew.

That evening at sunset I sat in the garden and ‘I want to die’ came out in my thoughts. I gave it my loving attention and asked myself “Do you want to die?” I asked all the parts of me and heard ‘no’ from my body, ‘no’ from my heart, ‘I want to go home’ from my spirit. So I said “Go home, then” Cool energy flooded my heart and flowed down my arms. “That’s it!” an epiphany and a whole stream of images from my life passed before my inner eye. “I choose to be Alive, and Fully Thrive.” hot energy moved up from the earth through my feet up my legs as cool energy flowed down my scalp moving in spirals up and down my body culminating in my heart and out my arms. My body vibrated and glowed. “I choose to be Alive, and Fully Thrive.” Deep breaths as I settled into the intensity.  I had never really 100% in alignment made that choice. Now I have.

In this experience I let go of my car, the scrap man is coming around to pick it up and will give me £150 to take care of my car. I let go of the part of me that wanted to die, and moved in love and life.

This is only part of all that has happened since my return, the story continues with even more magic and shifting free....... more to follow soon <3

Unknown knowing of love

I guess I needed the finish line of the absolute ending of my marriage to finally be able to honestly look at what is under the anger, the hurt, the sadness. Over the last year when I sat in peace and reflected on my marriage I felt acceptance with the coming finality of divorce.

Now, I sit in peace and reflection and I see how in the last year of separation I felt more supported by my husband than I did in our marriage. I am so grateful to be who I am, right now and he is a part of my journey. I keep thinking, if I had felt this freedom and support with our children in our marriage, would I not have felt so passionate about getting out? Feeling trapped and unsupported in being who I am and the loss of my passion for life, killed me inside. I felt resentful and that lead to rejection and the loss of intimate passion between us. We worked so hard on our marriage. I worked so hard to support him, to see him succeed. When I tried to do the same for myself, I felt undermined. I suppose in the end I just wanted to know beyond it all that he really loved me and what I found was empty words. I could see and feel the love he held, but I didn't see it in his actions and honestly after a life of being let down by the men in my life; it's the actions that I experience as more real than any words.

It seemed while married I couldn't make friends. I tried and it just didn't work which was strange for me as I've always been a person to make friends easily. I kept choosing him, over the new people I'd meet... until I didn't. Until I chose something different. It wasn't as simple as another man I chose to stay friends with, it was the inspiration I felt from the friendship, from the love. I chose the person I felt inside me that woke up and wanted to stay, wanted to grow. The person who felt crushed under the weight of our marriage. The surreal part in this portion of the story is this beloved friend's words didn't meet his actions either. He would not say he loved me, he would even reject me with his words. Yet his actions always showed me that he cared and loved me. His words would push me away and his actions would draw me in. I experienced him showing up for me when I needed him, and he continues to do so in our friendship.

In this whole part of the story, I now understand what I wish in a romantic relationship. For me, it is having a dear friend who's actions and words are congruent in their love and support of one other AND having an intimate, sexual and passionate relationship. It's this combination that is the stuff romance is made of. It's what inspires a man to play with the woman he loves, because seeing her face light up and watching her fill up with love makes his being soar. Knowing he must protect her by loving her with all of his resources; this is how I love and what I wish to see in the mirror of my beloved.

Over the weekend I lead a workshop that I magnificently held and I experienced the beginning mastery of a healing art. If I could have myself, the person I am, and my marriage I would. If I could have shed all the stuff that kept me from seeing and being the person I am, while married, I would have. However, it turned out that I couldn't and now the dead line is approaching and it seems like it's over. I wish to be consistent and not cause any further heartache or confusion so I write here to see if I can become completely clear about my choice. I don't know if I'm just afraid of not being married any more; of it being completely over.

I would like my words and actions to grow trust and communication between me and my almost-ex-husband. However, I think to myself, “It's too late, it's all too ruined now” and then I think “It's not over till it's over. It's not the end till it's the end.” I never wished to hurt him in any way, and I am deeply sorry that my actions did cause hurt. I can and am letting go of the guilt and shame that hurting him created in me, it does not serve any of us to carry this in my heart and body. I know what ever happens, I will grow from this experience and be even better for it now I have the ability to thrive, no matter what. I don't know if we could make it work. If what either of us wants is to be together in a marriage. I can see he loves me, and I love him and I sit here and I wonder is that enough.

Is love enough for a marriage to survive?

Do our visions of the future match up? Do our values align? It always felt like a constant compromise instead of a willing collaboration. Could that change? Or is what I'd like to do with my life and how I'd like to live it not compatible with what he'd like to do with his life and how he'd like to live it?

What I know: I love him. I love him and will always love him, nothing will change that. I care for him deeply and am grateful everyday that he came into my life and asked me to marry him. I have no idea what the future holds and I'm excited and curious to experience it unfold. I'm afraid to totally let go of his hand and I have to let go. Our separation and divorce is sad and life changing and freeing. A part of me loves the story that starts like ours and is salvaged just when all seems lost....... and I'm a sucker for a good 'romance' story.

See, I don't know if that's what all the parts of my being really want, because I don't know if he could really man up with me. I need a strong man by my side who can really be a man and love me like a man loves a woman. I know I push hard because that's how I know it's steady to walk there, that's how I know I can open up and let go.

After I wrote this, I listened. I listened to my breath, my heart, the wind and weather. I decided to take my children out for dinner. To have fun with them, enjoy ourselves and I listened. As I listened, they listened. I just allowed myself to be where I was and stay open. I wondered at it all. My best friend called and we spoke, I relayed to her my steadiness with all that is going on within me and whatever happens I feel accepting and at peace with the outcome. Still I wondered. At the end of the meal the manager gave me a discount coupon and asked if he would see us again. He said I could bring my partner and when I made a comment indicating I don't have a partner he said I could eat with him. Then as we were walking out the door a lover called. The manager followed us to the door, and said goodbye. As I got my children in the car I looked up and saw the moon, Venus and Jupiter all aligned. My intuition, my heart and my mind, all aligned. An understanding that it's all alright and everything is as it aught to be passed through me. Still in the face of not knowing, I feel calm and in my ease.

New Me Year

As the new lunar year approaches, Monday 23 January 2012, I am reflecting on the last year of my life, my marriage, separation, and the lovers I have chosen. I see the patterns, understand the reasons why I chose what I have. In my marriage I was stuck, I needed to be stuck. Before I may have moved fast, very fast and hard yet I was trapped like an animal in a cage. So through the slow, frustrating movement I experienced in my marriage, the compression of all that was keeping me trapped created a bomb of sorts. I reached a point where I had to do something, I had to break out of the cage I was stuck in. What I found was love. I fell 'in love' and this love ignited the constraints around me, burning a hole for me to pass through. I began to experience pleasure like I hadn't known in a very long time and equal amounts of pain.

I began to heal the scars around my sexuality and this opened up my whole life to being who I am, and finding the work I deeply feel I am on this earth to do. I love this man still, even if we're not meant to be together in a sexual loving partnership. This is also true about my ex-husband.

At the beginning of this calendar year I had a sexual experience and while making love my whole body became the cosmos. When I looked into my lover's eyes, light poured out of them and his whole body was bathed in light. I closed my eyes again and I was the vastness of all mater. My hands held the gravity of a black hole at the centre of my being and he and I spiralled around this power. I could have gone further into this experience, and yet I needed to stop. To integrate the experience. My orgasms surpassed my body and brought me up high into this experience. I think about attachment and non-attachment as I digest this experience I had with a man I am not attached to. I love him, but I do not wish to be in a partnership with him. The experience was healing, opening, ecstatic and I am grateful for it.

If it weren't for the birth into being work and moving through such darkness inside me, I don't know that I could have expanded my physical pleasure in such a huge way. As I integrate and reflect, I think about August 2011 the last time I had sex before training in the Birth into Being work. Where I felt my lovers energy surge through me as I surrendered to him. When I was trying so hard not to be in love with this man, to keep it casual because I knew that's what he wanted, how my heart hurt and soared at the same time. Now, with so much cleared, sex is very different. The emotional pain is gone. My skin has more sensations. There were moments where I could feel every pleasure cell on my skin. The only thing I can compare it to is being on the drug ecstasy, from what I remember of it in my youth. It's better though, no hang-over and complete clarity and the ability to use the experience to grow and create what I'd like in my life.

I have more clients in one month than I had in 4 months last year. My children and I are so much more harmonious at home and they have become more gentle and listen better. My son is growing and the healthiest he's been in a while. I am still aware of patterns I'd like to shift, and they feel smaller and easier. There is just less drama. It's funny, before the Birth into Being work I was afraid if I really changed I would loose myself. The amazing thing is I feel more myself than I ever have before. I'm still me, just a better version of me and I look forward to everything I am creating this year. 

I see myself in sessions; holding the space and powerfully intuitive and empathic. Watching amazing people come out of their cages and experience who they really are. I have moments of thinking “Wow, this is me.” and the love I feel for myself grows deeper. The deeper I love myself, the deeper I love others outside myself. Even those I don't really know and especially those I do know. It seems more and more clear to me, that I don't need to be with anyone to love them. I don't need to have a relationship with them. Even when I don't wish to be around someone, it doesn't mean I've stopped loving them. It's the opposite. I love them more because choosing to be apart is better for me and them. The same is true for those who I've grown closer to, I love them more because being in each other's company is what is better for me and them.

My biggest attachment are my children. It's hard to let them go, to be their own persons. Especially at such young ages. To allow them the space they need to be who they are, not who I think they should be. To trust them on their own paths. To really experience the fact , they came through me and are not mine.



For more information about the birth into being work please look at: http://www.birthintobeing.com/events-a-workshops   

Information about an upcoming birth into being workshop in Hackney, London can be found here:
http://peacefulbirthuk.blogspot.com/2012/01/birth-into-being.html?spref=bl
and
http://sacredpleasures.co.uk/birthintobeing/