I Believe in You

I began this mosaic over a year ago. I wasn't happy with how it was turning out, so I stopped working on it. It sat on the corner of my art table, getting increasingly buried under sketches of other projects and supplies.
Last night, I was getting ready for bed and an image of the abandoned mirror popped in my head. In a flash, I knew exactly what it needed, a wash of acrylic paint.
Instead of proceeding with sleep, I returned to the art studio and grabbed a variety of metallic paints. I tested the various colors on a few of the tiles that I had made that weren't glued to the frame. I tried emerald, blue, teal and purple. The metallic purple was the clear winner. I grabbed a paintbrush and got started. It didn't matter that the frame was only half covered in mosaic tiles, I just had to see how it was going to look. As I wiped off the paint, I got a little teary-eyed - I loved it!
With a flash of inspiration, I was able to revive a dead project, one I thought about throwing away. It is amazing how if you give something enough time to rest, it will bloom into something more beautiful than you originally thought it could be. As I read the words "I Believe in You" the tears welled up again. I heard that little voice telling me, "Why do you ever doubt your ability to do what you were born to do? It shouldn't even be a question - ever." Just that one idea changed a lost cause into something beautiful and restored my faith in my ability to create.

Faith

     Faith is my only choice. I must have faith that everything will work out. That is the only thing that I have left to hang on to. I have let go of everything else. I have let go of the idea that anyone else is the answer to my prayers. I have let go of thinking that people will take responsibility for their lives and do the right thing. I have let go of all false expectations. By doing this, I have found peace.
     I have faith in myself and faith in God. I don't expect God to instantly fix all of my mistakes (although I am still open to that as an option) but I do have faith that I will be gently guided as to how to fix them myself. I have faith that I can change the things in my life that are no longer working, and I have faith that I will be shown how. Each day I wake up and say "thank you" because I have been given the gift of another day in which I can work on improving my life. I have faith that I am smart enough to finally learn the lessons that I have repeated way too many times. I have faith that all of those lessons happened for a reason and that there will be a positive outcome. I have reached another one of those points in my life where faith is all I have. Instead of giving up, it is now that I must increase my faith not lose it. 

Be The Spark

     I am starting with 98 cents in my checking account, several overdue bills, a sense of humor and a ton of faith.
     It sounds insane, but I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I think it is because I have finally reached the point of believing in myself. I have repeated the lessons in my life so many times, I am grateful that this time I am handling it differently. Lost is the illusion that someone will come in to fix it, or bail me out. I have decided to be happy and find joy in whatever I do because I have never encountered a problem where wallowing in self pity was the solution! I no longer want to be the person that people feel sorry for. I want to have a spark about me that shows the world that I am strong, completely capable and fully living my life.
     My path has given me the gift of observation. For awhile now, I have been observing how other people need to take responsibility for their lives and how their actions affect others. I could easily see it happening all around me, but remained blind to the lack of responsibility I was taking in my own life and how that affected those closest to me. I just didn't see it. Since the Universe works endlessly at self correction, events in my life finally snapped me awake. What I awoke to wasn't pretty. Rather than obsess over what I had done, what others had done, or the seeming injustice of it all, I decided to drop the drama and work with the Universe towards self correction.
     I know that I have to be the spark in my life. By being that spark, I will affect those around me in a positive way. Instead of criticizing or blaming others for their actions, I choose to only be responsible for my own. Each person has their own lessons to learn and their own life path to follow, I can only work on me. By being true to myself and honoring my life's purpose, I am working with the Universe instead of against it.
     I am the spark in my life and I hope that it spreads and affects others in a positive way. I can't wait to see what happens...

Darkness is just a reminder...

     It appears that I have allowed my life to spiral into a big mess. I thought after the last time, I would keep a clear vision of my life and which direction I was headed. Somewhere in the day to day survival of it all, I fell asleep.
     Last weekend I woke up to see the total shit bath that I had been sitting in for the last year. I became angry, tried to blame others, but mostly I was really pissed off at myself. In my need to control the uncontrollable, I started cleaning my house. As I cleaned the caked on layer of lint from underneath the dryer, I began repeating a mantra in my head. "I am cleaning up my house and my life." It felt good and I kept going until all of the neglected areas of my house sparkled.
     Later in the day, I carved out time to work on my art because it was the only sane thing I could manage to do. I wanted to make a mosaic. I thought if I could take some tiny pieces and make something pretty I would feel better. If I could do that through art, then maybe there was some shred of hope that I could do that with the fragments of my life and make something out of it.
     As I worked, I realized that everything had shattered again, but it had to in order for me to wake up. I began thinking of how grateful I am for my life. I created "Darkness is just a reminder to shine brighter" to help me remember I can't avoid the dark times in life. They just keep coming until you turn on the light. Life tests everyone and you can either be swallowed up by it or you can see it for what it really is - just an opportunity to change what isn't working in your life.
     This time, I am going to handle it differently. My usual pattern is to throw a pity party, invite all my friends and get one of them to feel sorry for me enough to help me out of my self-created mess. I can't do that this time. First off, I know that I must do something differently to get different results, and secondly, I have hosted this pity party so many times that my friends have all stopped attending.
     This time I am going to embrace it, recognize it for what it is, and come through it shining. I want to,  actually I must, do it all on my own. I want to see what I'm made of. Plus, it would be unfair of me to even ask anyone to help clean up my mess. Having been through this before, I also know that my well meaning friends would just tell me what to do, what they think is right for me. This time I need to find out what is right for me. I need to clean up my own mess.   Once again I have been given the opportunity to shine brighter and take responsibility for my choices and actions, knowing that I can take all of the fragments of my shattered life and piece it back together.
Find this and other mosaics at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/raecrowstudio

Masks

Have you ever been around someone who has such a strong presence that you find yourself really drawn to them, but also want to run away from them? They remain fully present in the moment and are able to see all people so clearly that you begin to see yourself with more clarity just by being with them. I have been blessed with such a person entering my life. At first it was extremely uncomfortable to be around and I had many failed attempts at avoiding it. I came to realize that I was just avoiding myself. I learned to embrace the energy and dig deeper into my reactions. I am so grateful that I did. By muddling through it, I am returning to the core of who I really am.

I have not completed this journey, I have a long way to go. I have so many masks that I have allowed people to place on me, and some I’ve placed on myself. I’m ready to be fully true to myself and by doing so, I hope to inspire other people to do the same. I am growing and healing towards happiness, letting go of the pain of repeatedly letting myself down. I am working on healing the holes left by the cleansing of my false self. I am in the process of letting go of people pleasing, letting go of trying, pushing and forcing to make things happen. There is a natural order to all things and I am gently stepping into that. I’m moving out of trying and into being. I have the strength to let my beauty shine through just for me, not for the need to please or impress other people. When I think of how many times I have made a complete and total ass of myself by trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be, I am a little sickened by it. As I reflect on my behavior further, I am finding it quite hilarious. By trying to fit in, trying to be accepted, trying to fake my strength to impress other people, I actually was denying myself true strength. I also denied myself true acceptance and unconditional love. I am nearing a point of self-acceptance and as I get closer, the opinions of other people matter less.

By dropping all of the masks, I am allowing my true strength and beauty to come through. I am still adjusting to my new skin, but it feels great to just be myself. As uncomfortable as this process has been, it is still my wish for everyone out there to have someone come into their life that will trigger all of their unhealed parts in order for their masks to come off. Maybe that person is already in your life, you are just not recognizing it. It took me awhile to see it too. I learned to embrace the discomfort and wake up to what my reactions were trying to tell me. By doing so, I have begun to pay attention to my reactions to people, recognize the triggers, and work towards healing myself.

It is a great feeling to finally like myself, to not worry about living up to other people’s expectations of what or who I should be. There is great freedom in letting go of wondering what the bitter hearts think of who I am or what I am doing in my life.

Being a Flower

4:00 am is a special time for me. For the past few months, I have been waking up in the 4:00 hour, refreshed and ready to start my day. I have heard that the early morning hours are the best time for spirit communication. God has been calling me consistently in the 4:00 hour. Sometimes it is 4:13, sometimes 4:08 or 4:18, this morning it was 4:48. It is consistently one of those exact times. The accuracy of the wake up call leads me to believe in the significance of it. Instead of going back to sleep, I have learned to use this time to quietly welcome my day.

This morning I grabbed my journal and went out on the back patio to enjoy my tea. It was barely light enough to see what I was writing in my journal. The morning was warm, quiet and peaceful. As the sun came up, I began to admire the wonderful colors of the flowers in my garden. This morning they seemed more vibrant and alive. The plants were so vivid, like they were somehow more than 3-dimensional.

I had been writing about my transition from stressful living to peaceful living. It occurred to me that now I am living more like a flower. Flowers don't stress themselves out with questions like "Where should I grow? What if no one waters me? What if my color isn't bright enough, or I'm not the right shade? What if I'm not beautiful enough? What if the other flowers bloom before I do? How will I live up to their example?" They just grow because that is what they are supposed to do. They are all beautiful. Some are larger than others and some are brighter, but they don't seem to mind. They know they are all beautiful and necessary. When they are mixed together, it creates an amazing bouquet.

I realized that they don't try to be better than the other flowers. They don't compete with each other, they aren't jealous of each other, they don't talk about each other behind their backs and they don't gossip. They don't look at another flower and say "Wow, look at that one, I wish I was more like her." They just accept themselves just the way they are and do what they are supposed to do. Maybe that is why they all bloom effortlessly and are so beautiful.

I've decided to follow that example with my circle of women friends. Remembering to be in the natural flow of life. I suppose a person who lives that way would be called a flow-er, someone who goes with the flow. Funny that flower is spelled the same way but I'd never made the connection before now. Imagine what a beautiful bouquet we will make if we all learn to live like flowers.

Healing My Life Without Getting Out of Bed

I have always been the sort of woman that runs herself ragged trying to get things done, always busy, always doing, pushing, making, trying. My to-do lists are longer than most novels, and if I get something scratched off the list, I just add more. It occurred to me that I was getting my sense of value from the length of my to-do list. While it's great that I am so motivated, it sucks that I am too tired to enjoy my accomplishments.

I was not where I wanted to be in life and with all of the work I had been doing, I should have seen better results. Maybe I was just trying too hard. What I was doing was not working, so I stopped. I needed a restful place to heal my weary body and life. I purchased a really great bed that I absolutely love! I added a super comfy mattress that promotes healthy, restful sleep. (Both of these items can be found at Haiku Designs.) My personal favorite is the Raku bed and the natural latex mattress. I added a silk comforter and a Yokohama floor lamp (also from haiku designs.) I found a vibrant duvet cover at Crate and Barrel.

I created my perfect retreat and added tools that are helping me transform my life. The first thing, an absolute necessity as far as I'm concerned, is You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. Since my attention span is a tad on the deficient side, I also needed some meditation tools to help me stay focused during meditation. I grew tired of spending hours meditating, only to discover the only thing I managed to do was think of 27 more ways to rearrange the living room. The CD's that work best for me are by Kelly Howell. The writer/artist in me needed some creative space so I added my collection of books by SARK, a journal and some brightly colored pens and pencils. Who better to heal with than the queen of fun, joy, and of course, naps!

I love spending time in my retreat. If I notice myself getting tired or irritable, I immediately go lie down and do a meditation. Within 40 minutes, I am refreshed, inspired and feel great. I love that I am discovering how to relax on purpose. I am nourishing my body, mind and spirit.

I found out that I was avoiding rest because I thought I was being lazy, or if I got too much sleep it was because I was depressed. If I slept in, it was because I was in denial and using sleep as a way to avoid my life. My perspective shifted. I now view resting as a way to rejuvenate my spirit, nurture myself and heal. My time spent in solitude and quiet is very productive. I gain fresh perspective and am able to take clear, inspired action instead of running around like a crazy woman without a map. I am finally able to get out of bed for things that are worth getting out of bed for.