Hi! I’m Christine Thomas, personal life coach for women, a way finder for thriving through perilous and precious territory.
We live in overwhelming and often chaotic times. Many of our old paradigm strategies for navigating the so muchness of our lives aren’t that helpful anymore.
Remember the message, work smarter not harder? Old paradigm.
You are smart and you are working hard. In these times try this: go deeper. More than working smarter and harder, going deep is radical, will prompt resistance, is resistance.
What do I mean by going deeper? We’ll continue to explore this in my ongoing series, for now, here’s a trusty starting example of diving deep.
When the world is pushing too hard on you, when you’re spinning and feeling overwhelmed and not sure how you’re going to get through all of this, when you’ve been working hard or don’t even know where to focus your hard work, give yourself just a few minutes to stop.
Just stop. Take a breath. Just breathe.
Don’t worry. I promise this won’t take long. And there’s no special breathing technique to learn.
If you can, simply notice your breathing. That’s all. Just notice your breathing. And no worries at all if even lightly focusing on your breath doesn’t work for you. It’s all ok. If you want more air, then allow your brilliant body to do what it wants and expand your breath.
In this pause moment, imagine someone you love. Just imagine a loved one. Anyone. You likely have more than one person you love. Your loved ones might be furry and four legged.
For now, focus on who you love. Feel that love. More than thinking about it, allow yourself to really feel your love for them, singular or plural.
Hold them in your heart, maybe in your mind’s eye. Feel the love you have for them.
It’s not about perfect love or perfect people. It’s about you, darling, feeling your love for this person, or these beings.
If your thoughts turn to worries or wishes or needs for them, bring your awareness back to the love you feel for them, love that is the foundation, the core, the deep center of you and them.
Keep breathing. Give your heart room to feel even more love. There is plenty of time and space for you to love, to feel deeply your love, to be the love that you are.
Keep holding in your imagination, your knowing, your body-mind, your heart – keep feeling the love you have for your peeps, your family and friends and circle sisters.
You can expand your awareness, if you want to, to notice what you love that is not human or animal. It could be Divine, or intangible like principles, or you may feel your love of art or music. You might connect with the love you have for simple things like your sweet home, or your morning coffee, or sunsets, or cool breezes on a hot day, or your mom’s healing soup, or your creative projects, or dancing in the moonlight…
It could be your love for what can’t even be put into words or named.
Use whatever sense you can to remind you of who and what you love, to remind you of your love.
This love you feel, this love you know, this is you. You are loving, lovable, love itself. Be the love light that you are, beautiful wise woman.
This isn’t about effort or shoulds or perfections or work. It’s not confusing. You love. You love people and beings and more. Your love can slide into deep appreciation, into gratitude, into wonder or awe, into inner knowing. This is your truth. Because nobody else is the boss of your love.
You don’t have to stay here long. Let your love expand your heart and your breath a bit more, if you like.
Be the love light that you are, right now, in the muck of it all.
From this place that is your love, your truth, you’ll know the next good for-now step for you to take as you navigate a chaotic world. Just like you trust your love, you can trust your inner knowing, your heart’s wisdom.
The Inca elders of the Q’Ero people from Peru say that every day we need to sweep away with the broom of our hearts whatever prevents clarity.
I know that complex situations require a great deal of us. Yes, I know you can’t live on love alone. Sometimes overwhelming conditions are due to all of the people and principles we love. Because we are multifaceted complex beings ourselves.
Often though, sensations of being overwhelmed are entangle with feelings of anxiety or anger or fear or despair and the like. And just as often reconnecting ourselves with the truth of our love helps us use the broom of our hearts to sweep away these obstacles to our clarity.
How’s your breathing now?
See through the lens of your love light as you turn your attention back to the demands of the day. What does your heart want you to remember? What might your heart want you to forget, at least for now? Notice what might be available to you when you’re steeped in your felt knowing of love.
You can rely on your love and your deep knowing.
Allow your love light to illuminate the chaos and reflect back to you all the love coming your way.
Going deeper means resourcing ourselves from what is most meaningful to us. It means re-membering and re-claiming who we really are, beyond limiting beliefs and illusions, beyond chaos and overwhelm. There’s more to this exploration, of course, but love-able, loving ones, I’ll say bye for now.
Stay tuned for more nuggets of practical feminism and practical magic to support you in your thriving. Or contact me. Christine@hawkview.net.