Today I am posting my 200th post! Wow time goes by fast. To mark the occasion, I am going to be holding an Inspirational Contest.

I want to hear about all the inspiring things that you have learnt this past year, in the year 2010. It doesn’t have to be huge, for life has a way of teaching us in the most simplest of ways.

The winner will receive a copy of Loving What Is by Byron Katie. You can post your answer in the comment section or you can email it to me at www.inspirationalforwomen.com. The deadline for submission is January 7th, 2011. 

I can’t wait to hear what has inspired you this past year!

Namaste

Photography by Melissa Holzinger

Recently there was a moment when I choose  to pause and to look up, and in doing so I turned my attention away from my own thoughts, and to my surprise what I found was that everybody else’s head was down the whole time as well.  

Namaste

I am going to be going away for a few days to celebrate the holidays with family, so I won’t have the time to post as I usually do. I will be back home next week, probably a little bit tired and very full!! I hope that you find the special connection between family and between friends, that the holidays can bring.

Namaste

The Art of Nathan Jalani Taylor

For many years I was constantly searching for and asking myself,  “What will lead me to happiness?”. Now I look at this question and intuitively see the error of my ways. I was longing for an emotion and in my narrow mind, I wanted to obtain happiness and naively keep myself in its pocket for good, once I figured out what the magic formula was on how to get there.

As I have lived life, and through experience, I have realized that no emotion remains constant. Life has a way of weaving heartbreak and joy, sorrow and love, in the fabric of everybody’s life. I have finally figured out what I was truly searching for, and that is a sense of peace within my spirit.

The magic of peace lies in our ability to weave its Divine strands through every life experience. Even when heartbroken, you still can hold peace within the center of your being. Being at peace within one’s self is not an emotion, but instead it is a state of being. This state of being radiates from the inside out. When I am at peace, even if I am angry, I will deal with this anger from a place of centeredness. It is in this place of centeredness, that I am most able to clearly find and hear the Divine. I no longer search for happiness but instead I open my heart up, to allow peace to flow into the center of my being. May you too, be open to the gift of peace the Divine has to offer.

Namaste

I just read an excerpt from a book that I am reading, Changing My Mind, that I felt compelled to share with you. The book was written by Margaret Trudeau, a former Canadian First Lady, and it is a detailed account of her struggle with Manic Depression. In one section of the book, she goes to visit her doctor because she has excruciating pain in her shoulder. The doctor gives her a thorough physical examine but he moves past investigating the possible physical causes of her pain, and explains to her that there might possibly be  a different root cause of it (What a great doctor!).

He explains to her that when an area of the body is physically injured, the mind has an innate picture of where to put the pain associated with that particular injury. If you break your arm, your mind puts the sensation of pain around that area, to inform you that physically something is not quite right. On the other hand, the mind does not have a specific outlet for unresolved and painful emotions, and because it is use to storing pain in the body, it will then find a physical outlet to try to release some of the emotional pain. For example, we will essentially experience unresolved grief as physical pain, if this grief is not healed at the emotional level. Although emotional pain can be felt as physical pain anywhere in the body, many times it finds its home in our neck and back. 

I find this all so interesting because I have suffered from lower back pain, and most recently neck pain, for a number of years. I have tried many treatments focused on the physicality of my issues, from a variety of disciplines, but none of them have actually healed the root issue. I am finally figuring it out, that I am unconsciously storing unresolved grief, stress and anxiety in my body, particularly in my back and neck. When you are young, you may only feel a few physical twinges here and there, when unresolved emotional issues have taken physical root. When you add years of unresolved issues, soon the stress on the body will build up enough, so that you can no longer ignore its messages. I am at a point where I can no longer ignore my body’s messages. 

I feel I am on my way to healing my body, by healing my heart.

Namaste

When I became a mother, not only did I give birth to another human being but I also gave birth to an emotion that I had not previously experienced, mother guilt. Somewhere between the joy of seeing my baby for the first time and tears of relief, mother guilt slid in through the open door into my now vulnerable heart. 

Even in my eleventh year of mothering, I have yet to conquer its ever prevailing presence. Sometimes its whispers are so faint that I can become fooled into thinking that, because of my experience as a mother, I have been able to tame it’s unruly manner. It just takes a day of lowered patience to give it the fuel it needs to rear its ugly head, reminding me that it was always there, all along. 

If I let it, mother guilt can become the most painful aspect of my mothering experience. It has the ability to send me to bed in tears, crying for every mistake that I have made, for everything I think that I should have done differently. If I let it, it can erase any accomplishments that I have made as a mother. This is how great its power can be. My only savings grace is that I have the Divine on my side to remind me that I am human, and if I quietly draw on the strength of the Divine, I can then become the mother I have always longed to be. 

Namaste

Listening to this song makes me feel happy and isn’t that the beauty of life, that at times it can be just that simple.

Namaste

When I was little, oh how I long to be little again, I was able to see the world as the Divine had intended me to see it. Somehow, somewhere, I lost this ability along the way. Now I must work to be, to live in the moment. It has now become something I must labour to do, instead of second nature, like it once was. But those moments when I am still enough to feel my spirit, I cry with simple gratitude. I cry because in those moments I feel the Divine’s deep love for me and because of this, I know that I am safe.

Namaste

In between that which is and that which could be, is a space filled with either hope or despair. I have felt both. Despair when what is pulls me to the reality of my life, or hope when I have fully realized the possibilities of my own inner power to create the changes I wanted to see in my life. This bridge, this thought space, is where my power lies. Am I a creator of what could be or am I defeated by what is.

My spirit feels peace in its ability to create while my ego finds its home in defeat. This tug a war, pulling me back and forth, can take its toll. This is when I choose to find comfort in knowing I am loved by the Divine, regardless of which side seems to be winning on any given day. Even if I feel defeated, I am loved. Even when I do not love myself, I am loved. In remembering this I am reminded that no matter what, I have a power greater than myself that I can call upon which will help make the tug a war not so difficult. This then helps me to become aware that I am actually on both sides of the rope.

Namaste

When the sky grows dark as night nudges its way where day once was, I am comforted by the quiet that the darkness brings. It is in these moments, I can finally hear my thoughts and the voice of my spirit. I crave these moments, and I am grateful when I am able to find the stillness my spirit seeks and craves. I have learnt that the Divine is not always found in the light, but the Divine can also be found in the still of darkness.  

Namaste