My partner (Jamie) and I recently watched “Ruby Sparks” a movie all about letting go of control and the way things ‘should’ look. This is a biggie for me really, as I am a recovering control freak.
After this movie, I pondered on where I am in my life. Am I still trying to control things? What came up for me was my relationship.
You see: This is the first relationship I have ever been in where my partner doesn’t need me and I don’t need him. We live very independent lives—but together, if that makes sense.
We’re like two trees that stand proud and tall next to each other. Our branches sometimes sway in the same direction and sometimes they don’t. But, deep under the ground, our roots are interlocked. This is what happens when you date a super conscious being.
The first time Jamie said to me, ‘I love you. But, if one day you wake up and you don’t feel the same way then please honour yourself, honey, and leave. Don’t stay for me.’
‘HOLY SHIT! Did he actually just say that?’ said my mean girl.
Now, the old me would have gone ballistic at this statement. But, I thought: How freeing! and let the feeling of nonattachment wash over me.
You see: In all my past relationships, I have filled void in them and they have filled a void in me. We ‘needed’ each other so to speak. But the truth was: We were just using each other to mask the emptiness we felt within ourselves.
I am still getting used to this conscious relationship business. But don’t get me wrong! There are moments when I go into complete needy mode. Times when I expect him to show up and be perfect so as to fit into my mould, so I don’t have to see myself and sit with my own pain. But Jamie will not entertain it. He will never pine to me, rescue me, and stop me from experiencing what I need to experience. If he can see I am about to hit a road block, he will let me hit it head first, I might add, in order for me to fully experience what I needed to experience and grow. If he saves me (which is what all my other relationships have been like) he is not allowing me to evolve and expand.
So if he is not filling a void in me, and I am not filling one in him then what the heck is the point of being together? I found myself asking this question.
Well it’s simple: Because we love to be, its fun!
That’s it!
I would love to share this journey with Jamie right now.
Forever? Who freaking knows and who cares.
All I know is that I choose to hold his hand right now.
I cannot tell you how amazing this type of relationship is. There’s no neediness, just pure freedom. No checking in (which I am still getting used to) as we both travel a lot doing what we love. No trying to fix, change, or improve the other person (again, I am working on it!) Just pure freedom.
Two people playing together on each others own journey.
I don’t subscribe to the Hallmark version of Valentine’s Day that’s loaded with white fluffy teddy bears, dozens of red roses and heart shaped chocolates. I mean seriously – how inauthentic is that?! So, I decided to change the name to i-love day!
Today isn’t just about showing love (real love) to my lover, that should be everyday! i-love day is about starting a new practice of giving more love in each moment ans asking ourselves things like “How can I open my heart?” and “How can I soften and be love in every instant, in every single breath?”
I ask myself this whenever I am feeling tight, constricted, or overwhelmed.
The answer in always simple: Choose to see things with soft eyes and an open heart. It’s a practice and a choice. It really is that simple! But our ego (mean girl) likes to jump in and complicate things. That’s the ego’s job, it’s just trying to survive (more on this in another post!)
This morning, after my meditation, I asked myself: “Where in my life, today, can I give more love to my clients, family, friends, BF, work but, most importantly, to myself?”
As I sat with the question, this is what came to me:
- For my clients: Send them all a love letter to remind them how beautiful they are.
- For my family: Call each member and just listen.
- For my friends: Reach out and ask: “What can I do to help?”
- For my BF: Open my heart even more.
- For work: Focus on one thing at a time.
- For myself: Take time to sit in stillness and just be. Go for a walk in nature this afternoon. Breathe deeply. Just be.
Because I love you (my tribe), I want to give you some love too!
- Get a sneak peek at my new eBook 12 Steps to Wellness.
- Chance to win an awesome i-love pack with goodies from Loving Earth, Relauncher and Indah simply my treating yourself to a copy of my new book ’12 Steps to Wellness’ between now and Sunday midnight (EDT).
Over to you, gorgeous! What are you going to do to fill your love cup today?
TO ENTER the i-love competition:
1. Buy my new eBook 12 Steps to Wellness.
2. Jump over to Facebook and tell me what you’re going to do to fill your self-love cup up today?
Note: If you have already bought my eBook skip step 1 and head straight to Facebook to add your comment.
Please share this post with your friends and family to help spread the i-love way!
Guest post by Alina Berdichevsky
There are some fabulous ladies in my life that I haven’t seen in a while. And the truth is, I miss them.
There has been no terrible drama or falling out. It is, quite simply, just life.
Everyone is so consumed with their purpose and the busyness of work. For some, it’s a necessary 80 hour pursuit, for others, a consuming passion. A lucky few are in the throes of love or nursing babies.
And what happens is that weeks can go by without barely a connection, a hello… a random coffee or a rushed chat here and there. We rarely allow ourselves the luxury to sit, to be and to relax into the friendship as it once was. And when we do, it’s opened with the cry ‘it’s been too long!’ and we see how much we truly need each other.
Now, I understand that life today is hugely busy. Us girls have projects, meetings and deadlines – and that’s just at home!
Am I the only one to feel that acute pang of isolation from time to time – or are you feeling it too, my loves?
And more importantly, aren’t we hard-wired throughout thousands of years to be together most of the day – to laugh and sit around and chat as we weave baskets and tend to each others’ babies?
There must be a remaining cavity in our soul that craves today a similar level of connection. Although we can be hesitant to make arrangements due to looming deadlines, don’t we always feel so relieved after a good session with our dearest friends?
I’m sure men feel this too, but I think women do so deeper. Our very brain is wired for this connection.
Well I say, bring the luxury of extended girl time back in our lives.
That extra effort it takes to meet up and make a celebration of it, open our homes and mouths to some delicious food, cute drinks and heartfelt conversation. I know we do this sometimes, but I say more often!
For I know, that where I have grown most is through the honest and discerning observations of my friends.
So ladies, shall we do that dinner soon?
I mean, where would the SATC girls be without each other?
About Alina Berdichevsky
Executive coach Alina Berdichevsky began her agency, Alina B Coaching in 2003 in response to the limited self-help options available to high-performing yet successful professionals. The service evolved into offering a range of workshops and programs specifically for women, called tongue-in-cheek ‘The Art of Being Sexy’.Already a certified life coach and Master NLP Practitioner, Alina studied mysticism and Tantra to find some ancient energetic techniques that could counter-balance the pressures of modern life – and help us feel beautiful and alive again. She started her blog in 2012 and is also a published writer and consultant who has been featured in SMH.COM, B&T Magazine and appeared on Today Tonight.
Merry Christmas, beautiful souls!
May today, and every single day, bring you much love, joy, happiness, laughter, light, and peace. I hope you are surrounded by the people that you love the most and delicious healthy food. I sure am!
Thank you so much for making 2012 my most magical year yet! Writing and connecting with you all daily has been a complete joy that made me overflow with love. Each and every single one of you has made this journey absolute bliss. I can’t wait for 2013. It’s going to be HUGE!
If you can do three things over the break:
1. Do more of what you love.
2. Surround yourself with the people you love.
3. Take time for self-love.
I will be indulging in loads of self-love over the break. I hope you are, too. I am taking a break from blogging and the interwebs but will be back in January with loads of goodies. I can’t wait to share with you.
2013 is going to be massive. So, take this time to clear out all the clutter in your life and get set up. Set your intentions for who you want to be in 2013 and the magic you want to create.
Some of the things I want to create in 2013 are:
1. Live completely and utterly from my heart.
2. Choose love over fear in every breath.
3. Travel.
4. Write books.
5. Launch my online course.
6. Connect.
7. Be inspired.
8. Love.
9. Kiss.
10. Laugh—a lot!
11. Go on a retreat.
12. Launch my new site.
Now is the time to declare what you want to create in 2013. Tell me in the comments below what it is you see manifesting in 2013.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
All my love,
Melissa
In case you haven’t been following me on facebook, twitter and instagram I just got back from New York. I am overloaded with inspiration, refreshed and ready to kick butt. The reason I travelled to New York was for Marie Forleo’s annul RHH Live conference (I will post about that later). But another awesome thing I got to experience was Gabby Bernstein group coaching – which was bloody A-MAZ-ING to say the least.
The theme of the night was forgiveness.
Here’s what I took away:
- That we have to know and understand the difference between our inner guides vs. our ego (aka mean girl), don’t get them confused or mixed up.
- You have to tap into our creativity energy field to create space for it to flow.
- Our outer hustle has to be aligned with our inner hustle.
- It’s ok to ask for guidance (this is what I am here for).
- We will always fall off but it’s important to be with gentle with ourselves when you do.
- Commit to 40 days of meditation every morning.
- We are the gurus, we are our own biggest teachers.
About forgiveness:
- Have the willingness to forgive. Repeat ‘I choose to forgive’.
- When it get’s heated with someone ask ‘What is my part? What can I learn? How can I grow’?
- Always find the love in the darkest situations.
- Forgiveness is our most powerful tool we have.
- When we forgive we are forgiving the ego.
- After your morning meditation sign the scared contact of forgiveness with yourself. Choose to forgive!
- Repeat this affirmation ‘I’m willing to release this, I’m willing to forgive’.
- If you find it hard to forgive someone write down all the things you love about that person.
- If you meet someone with love everything else melts away.
- Forgiveness is releasing our attachments.
- When things get heated let the ego have a rant, then let go of it.
- In my defensiveness my safety lies.
- Fighting back is only creating more violence.
- Be angry and open hearted at the same time.
- Forgive yourself always.
Gabby has been a huge mentor of mine for many years now because I love and resonate with her message and love the work she is doing.
What do you think of my take-aways? Do any of these resonate with you?
I finally made it!
After five long days of anticipation, facing the unknown and the uncertainty of flights after Hurricane Sandy, I finally had a flight home to Sydney. I was leaving New York City. It had been a long week with no power, no hot water, no phone, no Internet or connection to my family. Devastation, shock, and sadness loomed over the usually fast-paced city.
With my flight cancelled and changed three times, I wasn’t sure when I was getting out. But I stayed hopeful. I knew the angels would look after me. They did! I got my flight and was leaving on Friday. Thank you, angels!
One of the best things about being stuck at JFK airport for over seven hours was meeting this beautiful, elderly couple, Jan and Alan. We chatted about everything: life, kids, career, rugby, how cheap shopping in America is, Hurricane Sandy, and love. (We did have seven and a half hours to kill after all!)
After really getting to know each other and being inspired by the love these two shared, I asked Alan and Jan how long they had been married.
“Fifty years,” Jan replied.
“Wow! Fifty years!” I responded.
After picking my jaw up from the airport floor, I had this overwhelming feeling of sadness. Fifty-year marriages don’t happen as much anymore. Some of my friends got married and broke up within the year. It’s sad! I asked them what the secret to a long and happy marriage was.
Alan responded, “Patience, my love.”
Jan said, “Commitment.” She went on to explain, “Of course, we’ve had our ups and downs, happy and sad times. But, I made a commitment many years ago, not only to Alan but also to myself.”
How beautiful! I thought. We’re all so scared of the big C word nowadays that we avoid it at all cost. To our generation, commitment means ‘locked in’, ‘forever’, ‘holy shit’. Or does it? I am a recovering commitment-phobe. I hated committing to a three-year phone contract, a relationship, or even New Year’s Eve plans. I use to be so scared to commit because I thought it meant FOR-EV-ER. But that’s because I wasn’t present. I was too worried about: What if this happens?, or What if I change my mind? Then, I will look like a fool!
But I realise, now, that in those moments when you ‘fall down’ or ‘look like a fool’ miracles occur. A Course In Miracles says, “miracles occur in those moments of uncertainty.” Those are the moments when we choose love over fear, where we pick ourselves up and try again.
If we play it safe all the time, don’t take risks or fully commit wholeheartedly, we aren’t living. We aren’t present. We are ‘playing it safe’. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t come here to ‘play it safe’! I came here to live a big, colourful, vibrant, kick-ass life.
So, I ask you this, gorgeous: Where in your life are you playing it safe, not taking risks, and not fully living?
We have only one life, beautiful! One chance to paint whatever our heart desires on our very own blank canvas.
So, what are you going to paint? What does this look like for you? Who is in your life? What are you doing? What do you look like? Where are you living? Who surrounds you?
Every morning, at the end of my meditation, I state what I want to create in my life. Right now, I want to publicly declare my commitments to you. Publicly writing or saying things out loud helps hold you accountable.
So here goes!
- Today I fully commit to living my life to the fullest in every single moment.
- To take big risks that scare the bejesus out of me.
- To love with my whole heart.
- To honour my mind, body, and spirit.
- And to trust always in the process of life.
Now over to you, beautiful. Write your commitments to yourself in the comments below so we can all hold each other accountable. This is a safe place and I would love to hear from you. What do you want to commit to?
Self-love is the love of oneself.
As noted in Wikipedia: “In 1956 psychologist and social philosopher Erich Fromm proposed that loving oneself is different from being arrogant, conceited or egocentric. He proposed that loving oneself means caring about oneself, taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself (e.g., being realistic and honest about one’s strengths and weaknesses). He proposed, further, that in order to be able to truly love another person, a person needs first to love oneself in this way.”
I believe that self-love is at the core of every choice and action we make.
How much self-love we have is demonstrated in our choices and actions. If 10 were the maximum on the self-love scale, mine used to be around the 3 mark. Life was a struggle and so was looking in the mirror. I hated what I saw. I loathed it! Every single day was a battle. Now, I am overflowing with self-love. I come first! I make sure my-self-love is overflowing so that I can give to others. I have my dream job: Helping people fall back in love with themselves. I couldn’t be happier. If I am not overflowing with self-love, how am I meant to give to anyone else?
Like factoring in an hour every morning to move my body in a loving way, I also factor in self-love ‘me time’ every single day.
Here is what I do to make sure my self-love is going off the self-love scale.
- I meditate, journal, do angle cards, and write in my gratitude journal as soon as I wake up.
- I fuel my body with only loving, organic, nourishing food and clean water.
- I quit eating sugar.
- I dry body brush.
- I take an afternoon nature walk.
- I move my body in a loving way.
- I sip on cups of organic herbal tea.
- I turn off my computer at 6 p.m.
- I get into bed at 9:30 p.m. to read and meditate.
- I stop in the middle of the day to ponder, reconnect, and check in with myself.
I love giving you the chance to up the ante on self-love. So, I am giving away one pack of Self-love cards + a bottle of self-love alchemical oil from Sacred Self.
To enter:
+ Subscribe to my newsletter here.
+ Like PTW on Facebook.
+ Tell me in the comments below what self-love means to you.
+ Like and share this post on Facebook and tag me in it.
Good luck and let’s start working that self-love muscle.
I am baaaaaaaaack! As I mentioned last week, for the past five days, I have been on the most amazing, eye-opening, holy crap, OH EM GEE, oneness retreat in the Hunter Valley. As I sit here writing to you, I know this might sound cliché but I feel like a totally different person. I feel lighter, calmer, more blissful and at peace—not because I was pampered and plucked for the past week. (Actually, quite the opposite!) I have shredded some baggage, let go of old stories, and have come to an even deeper place of self love and self acceptance.
There were no facials, massages, manies or pedies. (It’s not that kind of retreat!) Instead, there was more raw, deep, open, and honest connection and conversation with others and myself. I now feel a deeper depth of knowing who I truly am.
Trying to sum up the past week in words has been difficult, the feeling is deeper than any words could describe. But I will give it a go!
HIGHLIGHTS + WHAT I LEARNED
Spending a whole day in silence and a half-day in complete stillness, I realised from these two exercise was that we unnecessarily speak and fidget to avoid feeling. It was extremely confronting at first to see how much I was avoiding, resisting, and not wanting to go there. But, after being in that space with nowhere to run and hide, I began see that space (that I fill with fluff) as what I have been craving.
Starting each day with 1.5 hour deep mediation was pure bliss. Again, I see it is stillness and space that I have been craving. Stillness and space are two things I often deny myself. Often I use the excuses: ‘too busy’ and ‘not enough time’. After this retreat, I see how I have been craving and needing it. It’s so important!
Another beautiful moment was being blindfolded in nature. We were paired off. One person was blindfolded and the other was just there for support. This exercise made me realise that we are always supported and guided. The universe has our back, always. We just have to trust and let go.
Sitting in the oneness circle and listening to other people, I saw clearly that we all have stories. But, the stories are the illusion. The stories are what keep us in our suffering. In the moment, I made a choice. I let go.
There were so many beautiful moments, massive realisations and “Ah ha!” moments over the past week, but these unforgettable moments also need a mention. Live music under the stars + morning yoga + running in nature + organic food galore + sitting by the fire every night + raw cacao bliss balls + drumming and singing night + dress up party (being Alice for the night) + basking in the sunshine every day + ovvio teas + dance off’s + the oneness concert + the love tunnel + oneness circles.
Now over to you, gorgeous!
What massive realisations or “Ah ha!” moments have you had lately?
Guess what?
Today I am off to the Hunter Valley to indulge in five days of oneness. I am going to be deepening my connection with myself, feeling oneness, practicing present, developing intuition, cracking open my heart even more, and working out where I am playing games with myself. You see, I want to be the most authentic version of me. That means pulling back all the masks I wear and being REAL and valuable. It means confronting all my fears. It’s sometimes scary but so exciting. I love this stuff! This is what I live for.
The Oneness Life Retreat is a beloved celebration where people truly connect in a heartfelt way. Through authentically connecting to the heart space, people allow themselves to experience the One moving through the many.
This year’s spring Oneness Life Retreat is special. It falls in the powerful, transformational year of 2012, which is all about bringing power back to the people. I see so many people who look outward for a guru or teacher, someone to tell them what to do and how to be. You need to realise that you have all the power! You are your biggest guru. No one else really knows what is right for you. I love this post! It’s about being your own guru.
Over the five days, we will fully experience oneness, presence and flow, and witness miraculous shifts.
I am so beyond excited! I can’t wait to share with you all my insights when I get back.
Until then, gorgeous, how are you going to deepen your connection with yourself to let your true, authentic self shine even brighter? Share with us in the comments below and don’t forget to sign up for the 100%self-love e-course to really deepen your connection with yourself.
Abundance – overflowing fullness: abundance of the heart.
Every morning at the end of my meditation or journaling session, I set my intentions for the day.
I repeat: “I choose to create an abundant life overflowing with laughter and love.”
What do you want to create, gorgeous?
What intentions do you set every morning?
The words you speak first thing in the morning set the tone and mood for your entire day.
Like going to the gym, the more you flex and workout your gratitude muscle the more you will have to be grateful for.
Here are Six Ways to Create an Abundant Life:
1. Get serious about gratitude.
2. Use mantras and affirmations.
3. Speak perfect words.
4. Choose LOVE over fear.
5. Be the change you want to see in the world.
6. Work your self-love muscle.
To help you get really serious about living an abundant life, I want to give away to one lucky winner, this beautiful Gratitude Journal from the Happi Empire.
Here’s how to enter:
+ Tell me in the comments below 3 things you are grateful for.
+ Sign up for my newsletter. The winner will be announced in my Weekly Wellness Newsletter this Friday.
+ Share this post with all your social media outlets.
Ready, set GO!
