love and relationships

Inspiration: The Seeds Have Been Planted

Today I am fully present to who I am in inspiration. The seeds have been planted. In fact, I have been planting them for a long time!

But the beauty in the blossom is this: if what appears before me is my mirror, then my reflection is telling me what I am doing right.

I refer to my role as a parent a lot. I do this because it is the one role in my life that heals personal wounds of my upbringing. The more I engage in relationship with my kids, the more it strengthens their soul and spirit. How do I know this? Because they tell me so. Because they ask for my time, and are completely  unafraid to tell me how much they need me. Many kids in high school and middle school do not talk openly to their parents in this manner. I have this with them.

I painted one wall in my first daughter’s with chalkboard paint. I suggested she can use it to write her favorite quotes, to display her goals, to remind her of who she is internally. I told her to use it in any way that would ‘call her forward to be who her heart says she is’.

She loved the idea.

When I was done painting, I wrote on her wall to test the chalk I bought. All I wrote was, “Mama loves you”.  At fifteen years old, I expected her to erase it given I wrote it  close to center, but she didn’t.

Instead she wrote around my script, and on that wall I was moved to tears to see the many words spoken from my voice. Quotes that are testament to who I am as her mother, and my desire for her to follow her inner calling. My words. Not words from my favorite spiritual teachers,  my very own.

And she chose many of mine because they inspire her into a future she is committed to live into. A future of service, inspiration, and speaking from inner truth.

It is one of those moments where I am in complete gratitude for my work.

Because honestly, my kids tell me I say the same things all the time. I do this because often times they don’t hear me, or they act like they don’t. Or I don’t think they value what I share.

The seeds have been planted consistently for some time now. There is no agenda for these ‘lectures’ or sayings that are received with sarcastic repetition, eye rolling and turning away. I always say things out of love, even when it seems like it’s harsh.

 They know when I have to be direct and candid; when I am right on the edge of risk in hurting their feelings. Sometimes what I say does hurt, but I follow-up my words with “I love you always”, even when we have a hard time understanding each other.

I say what I say and then I let it go, knowing that I always want them to have their own freedom to be, without  judgment when they think so differently from me.

I am moved by my words that come from their mouths, when I overhear them talking to their peers, when they make the bold attempt to stand up for someone else in the light of being shamed by others. They are strong, committed to doing the right thing, unafraid to approach conversation with vulnerability  and great truth.

I am inspiration. I am a person who wears her heart out on her sleeve despite the feedback that it doesn’t always display strength.

Really? I have children who show me who I am. For they are who I dreamed of being at their age. They met my dreams because I am a stand for them. They stand.

THEY STAND.

Now that is straight up inspiration.

Damn, I’m happy.

Say what your heart feels. Say what your heart knows be true.

Speak from your true self – even when it aches. That can mean a lot of things, and I remember wanting to be that kind of person that could do just that.

I also wanted to know HOW to adjust in speaking with different people, and in various surroundings.

That IS being powerful in our communication. To be able to speak from the heart in any environment and say what I truly felt became a my first self promise.

Say what your heart feels by knowing how you feel.

We don’t always understand our emotional state. We don’t know what seizes us and stops us from being able to share with others.

When I was in my early twenties and far less confident than I am now, I withheld what I felt  A LOT. In fact, I think I had to be one of those people who had the inner dialogue going full speed whenever it came to communication.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to communicate how I felt, it’s that I was constantly trying to figure out the different scenarios in my head and how I was going to respond. I literally spent way too much time on the ‘what if’ than actually just saying what I felt.

I remember being very interested in personal development before I was even twenty. I researched the power of communication and building self confidence; really trying to squash the false belief that what I had to say was not important.

Clearly, in my heart I knew different. In fact, my journals held an essence of someone ready to bust out at the seams! I mean, in my numerous journals and notebooks, I saw a reflection of my higher self. She was the Joy that I wanted to be. Until of course I realized I was already her, just not vocally.

My words were already there because my heart was already feeling it. And when I would take the time to read through some of my thoughts I was always so good at writing down, a mix of emotions would always come up for me.

One was of humor, laughter, and relief. I just didn’t hold back and my words were witty and  funny.

Two was I loved myself at my core. My heart has always been pure, and I was always very connected to how I truly felt.

And three, I had my words. I knew them. Finding them was not the problem, Saying them was.

So I committed to expressing something deep, something insightful to my closest friends. I also promised myself that I would not be afraid to share when I was sad, self-critical, or feeling heartache.

What I learned in my sharing was the immediate lift I felt in my body, and the understanding I felt from my friends. They felt it too.

That was truly one of my first promises to myself that has brought me to where I am now. To this day I hold true to this personal rule, and it has served me well.

So say what your heart feels.

Namaste.

The power of apology is the saving grace of many relationships, at least in my personal experience. Yet apology is not easy for a lot of people.

I know this well. When I was a kid, my father never said he was sorry. In his law of life, apology meant admitting that a person has done something wrong. He made no mistakes, and he made it clear that I made many.

Or so I believed, for a long time.

But now I know the truth. The truth of the power of apology. It is one of the ways we express our love for another.

This is the apology we must learn to express if we want to show love.

It’s interesting to think for a moment just what saying “I’m sorry” even signifies to a person.

What early memory do we hold that tells us what this means?

It is significant if you want to give this a chance to sink in…because the power of apology is so strong. It is so strong that it can wipe away words that have caused deep wounds. It can break down walls that have hardened over the years, and reveal a side of humanness that we have so wanted to know was there.

Time passed, seemingly wasted, yet all forgiven.

It’s hard to remember what the fight was all about.

I know that my memories are clear only for the purpose of my message. “I’m sorry” is an offer of love. My father said these words to me one day.

I accepted the words the moment I heard them. It was a turning point of my life.

So I can only wonder what the power of apology does for the person who delivers, for my guess is it is more difficult to be on the other side of this equation.

As a mother, I try to teach my children to say “I am sorry” when they understand an apology is at hand. What happens is that I notice an urgent need to excuse oneself and blame their action on another, creating a reason outside of their own action to right things.

But there is no power in blaming someone else for our actions. There is no power in being a victim, and for hiding behind an apology that would heal them. 

But children teach us who we are too, don’t they? And if we re-frame any situation in a way they can see the impact of the apology, it is not that hard to say. They understand and can apologize with sincerity.

The power of apology is similar to the impact of saying “I love you”, because it is just another way to express our love when it is needed.

Because…we also know that love is not easy, but it is what we long to have.

Apologies are not easy either, but our hearts long to learn how to say the words without fear.

I am a mother: the strongest love there is.

With February being  my focus on sharing what love means to me, I know that other mothers agree.

I can’t even give you my experience in one article, or find the words that can capture what my heart feels. What I know to be true is this: the love that I have as a mother is one experience I would never trade for anything else perfect.

Other mothers will tell you there is so much about parenting that brings us to question everything we do or say. It can easily be the sole experience that makes us wonder if we are doing anything right.

We can be successful at our jobs, or be supermodels, but when we question our ability to make the right decisions or say the right things to our kids, we all  measure the same. It is the biggest job we will ever have in our lifetime.

But it is the strongest love there is.

There is no person in my life that holds so much of my heart than my children. There is not one child that I have in the three that I have given birth to – that mean more than the others.

I remember when I was pregnant with my first son, my daughter was barely three years old. I remember crying when I thought that bringing another life into our family could possibly lessen the love she and I have built for each other.

Then my son was born, and my heart grew. There was more room in my heart than I knew.

When I became pregnant with my second son, my daughter was seven and a half. My first son was almost five. And again I wept with the false belief that I couldn’t possibly have enough of me to mother a third one without compromising myself. Somehow I thought I would lose myself completely.

Then my second son was born, and my heart grew. There was more room in my heart than I knew.

Wow. This is the beauty of loving another human being as a parent. So different from loving a life partner most people dream of and pray for. Honestly, I can’t even compare. They are vastly different, but I am present to the joy that I experience having been chosen to mother these children. Yes, there was more room in my heart that I knew.

I don’t want anyone to think that my life has been so easy, or that my parenting skills are so outstanding that my life puts others in envy of me. No, not at all. But I choose to take my role seriously, so my joyful experience as a parent is simply a representation of where my focus has been.

I have one shot in doing this the best way I can, and so far, I see I am doing well.

I am the mother who would jump in front of a bus to save my child who carelessly ran into a busy intersection. I am a mother who would risk her life in any situation to protect her child.

I am a mother who knows when to give a lot and when to stand back and let them figure it out on their own.

I am a mother who remembers the many memories of not having a great amount of love growing up, in a home where the expression of love showed weakness and vulnerability.

I am the mother who chooses to love with her whole heart and to give and give and give a whole lot.

It is no surprise I receive much in return. And that my heart is so full, that my memories as a child of not having what I give now is exactly just that, a memory.

The strongest love there is – is the love I have as I parent. It is so strong that it forgives all that seemed absent before. How strong is that? So strong. The strongest love there is.

Love isn’t easy. Let truth be told. It’s not to dim the power of love and relationships, it’s knowing that commitment comes from loving someone with complete truth.

Love isn’t easy because it is so big, so vast, so encompassing, that in its power, it is also delicate. See, the heart is the center, and this is where love starts. Love lives everywhere, but the heart gives and receives love.

So it’s no surprise that love, in its most delicate form of all forms and all sizes, requires so much attention.

How many kinds of love are there in the world? In the universe? In the galaxy? Countless. Nameless.

But the love I speak of is the love that most people long to have and experience in truest form – at least once in our lifetime.

I am lucky, I guess. I have been in love more than once. I am luckier even, that I have children born from the love that I’ve had.

Having loved more than one person in my life has taught me many things about myself, but what I am most grateful for, is having grown into the person I am now. For being the parent that I am to the young people God chose me to mother.

Love is so beautiful it’s not an experience you can perfectly capture through words or image, although there are many pieces of literature and artwork that move people to a beautiful state of emotion.

At the same level of this beauty we meet the complexity of love. Love through change, love in battle, love in anger, love in hurt. Love still exists in situations where we don’t always understand how it endures.

Because love isn’t easy.

We can love people who are good to us, and love those who strike us with their hand or their words.

We can love people who betray us, who cheat us, who take from us, who stop telling us the truth.

We can love people who stop loving us back, who leave us. We don’t know why we can’t stop loving them as quickly as they do. Because love isn’t easy.

So maybe it’s the love we remember that is no longer there, and we hope it will return. Maybe we’ll forget the pain in between.

Maybe we have little love for ourselves and we cannot bear to be alone, and we learn to live with only a fraction of what we want or deserve.

Maybe we justify. Maybe this, maybe that.

But the heart knows. The heart knows what it wants, what it asks for, what it needs.

what does your heart say?

And we know that it knows, but sometimes we don’t listen. We must stop and listen to the ask in our heart.

You know when the love you have is the love you still want.

You know when what you have before you has turned away from love, it simply is not love anymore.

We know when we turn away from speaking from our heart, from asking for what we need.

We know when we must be the one to sit down and say, “I am sorry, please forgive me”. We know when our heart still longs for the other person, and if we are truly willing to say, “I forgive you.”

See, love isn’t easy. Love is all things. All things beautiful and all things not so beautiful.

We choose the love we have as much as we choose the forgiveness we offer.

It is on the other side of uneasy love – the ebb and flow of this experience we all long to have at least once in our life – that we find ourselves. We are not easy beings either.

Love isn’t easy, but beautiful, yes. And so are we.

 

In love and relationships, setting boundaries from the start may seem like a conversation that would dampen any romance in the air.

But honestly, if you have been through enough experience that didn’t turn out the way you hoped, the boundary discussion needs to happen, and the sooner the better.

When I was younger I lived in the daydream that love could outshine all my other worry. I believed that love was so good, there was no doubt in my mind, my man would display only complete honor and loyalty at all times.

Many years later, let’s just say I learned this was not reality and I had to figure out how to be clear about what was and wasn’t okay.

I can’t share enough about this topic.

Boundaries are about self respect, and honoring personal values.

What is your level of self respect? What do you want in your relationship? What is and isn’t okay?

It wasn’t long after my first breakdown in relationship that I had to be able to set my boundaries and rules if I wanted to be happy.

I knew that a great guy with beautiful eyes and witty personality was not enough to make a great relationship. It’s not just about the quality of someone’s character, it’s really if there was a person who was going to fit well with what I wanted and what I was able to give in a relationship.

In relationship standards, we all have different needs. The most important piece is just knowing what is important to us. When we’re young, we figure out what we really like and what we are not willing to put up with.

The  hardest thing for a lot of people is being able to tell others what our rules are once we know what they are.

The first time I planned on having a boundary discussion with someone whom I had spent a few dates with, I was already in major ‘like’ with him. We held hands and kissed the last time we spent time together and I was already on guard with him.

When I brought up wanting to be real straight with him, he could tell I wasn’t trying to corner him into a heavy relationship. I just wanted him to know that I wasn’t playing any games and that I didn’t want to waste his time either.

It created a relationship based on respect. He really listened to me. It didn’t require some long and deep conversation. I simply told him that he didn’t have any competition and that I needed to know I was held in the same level of respect.

I have great relationships in my life, I must say. But setting boundaries in love relationships are probably the most important because our hearts matter.

What feels right to any one person is what’s right, period. We can’t be asking for too much or too little because there is another person looking for the balance of what we are so willing to give.

Yes, I believe in true love, soul mates, and ‘the one’ too.

Oh, love. So sweet.

In new relationships, the burning question ‘Do you say I love you first?’ always sparks a lively discussion. 

The short answer is it really has to do with the personal rules we hold when dating.

Some people tell me that their rules come from how much they heard “I love you” as a child with their parents or their immediate family. This either means we follow the footsteps of what we know or we choose to do it differently.

I grew up with a father who often expressed that saying “I love you” diminished the meaning of it. I think there were a few years that went by where I never even heard him tell me that he loved me. Since I was raised in such a strict household I never questioned his lectures or opinion. When I did, I was criticized for being disrespectful and ‘out of  line’.

At a very young age, I knew that I would grow up into an adult who said ‘I love you’ often. I was also sure that hearing I love you every day would always warm my heart.

I was right.

So here I am writing about this interesting topic because although I shower my relationships with healthy doses of assurance and praise, my personal rule has always been to wait to say “I love you” in a love relationship.

I happen to fall in love fast, too.

I have been in three serious relationships, and I have never spoken it first even when I wanted to.

Mind you, there is no right or wrong about this dating or relationship rule. It is more about what feels right for you, what feels like the right moment to express these words that shift a relationship into something bigger, and always exciting.

I can say that I was certain the other person was falling in love with me at the same rate I was falling for him, but the admission of love was a delicate dance for me. My father had me question any chance that a man would fall in love with me and want to express any love for me verbally. It wasn’t until I experienced love for myself that I realized that my dad’s rules were about his own experiences, not mine.

There is a part of me that was always aware that men don’t wear their hearts out on their sleeve, and that falling in love didn’t seem to happen to men as much as it happened to women. Why? I am sure my opinion is not a valid answer, I only share what I feel.

What I have experienced is that men want to be as expressive as women are, mainly because the expression of love always deepens the relationship and makes both people happy.

Do you say “I love you” first?

Does it matter who does?

If you can say “I love you”, you can say anything to the one that you love. You can express all feelings in your heart, share all thoughts that you have if you desire to have the relationship where expression allows you to have the most open and fulfilling experience of love.

I remember being single, sitting before a blank page, and wanting to be very specific about my list that would ask for love.

Not just any love to appear, but an intimate, mature, and very happy love.

I wasn’t trying to brainstorm, I wanted to be specific. I wanted to be clear about what was an absolute must have and what was an absolute “no”. I was serious about my list, this comprehensive list of my desire to manifest true and real love into my life.

At the time I was in my mid twenties and I can’t say I was consciously aware of what it took to manifest. I just wanted to comprise a list that I could see with my own eyes. A list that would remind me of what my true desires really were. I made sure this list was visible every day. It lay on my bedside table, and I always felt good about the person I wanted to share my life with.

That was some time ago and the person I was then is  not that different from who I am now. My understanding of how to manifest has grown and I share about it because it has worked for me in all areas of my life.

When we ask for love, not getting what we ask for from the Universe can be due to sending a message that isn’t clear.

I call these blocks, a very common term when working with energy and communicating with the Universe or Spirit.

Even though we can be very successful in manifesting our desires in many areas of our life, the heart is always the most delicate matter. Love is the area that uncovers our soul, our true self. When our feelings are compromised in our love relationships, we do what we can to protect ourselves from another ‘hit’.

I say this because these ‘patterns’ show up when we are faced with personal fears. We don’t  consciously choose these patterns. We often learn them from the environment we grow up in, and the karma we are born into.

Whatever your personal philosophy, manifesting love is about being clear when we ask for love. 

We may think we are very clear but often times we are not.

That is why some of us notice we pick the same kind of relationship over and over again. If we don’t resolve or clear the blocks that keep us from falling into patterns that don’t serve us, we won’t experience what we truly want.

The Universe doesn’t have eyes and doesn’t hear language, rather the Universe feels our energy. When we feel we deserve the love we ask for, it is only a matter of Divine timing before it appears before us.

If we hold onto feelings of resentment, blame, and self criticism, we attract the energies that hold the same elements.  A new person may appear before you with the qualities you indeed asked for, but they may also hold the elements you didn’t ask for, simply because you have not released them.

My suggestion is simple. What do you truly want? What does your heart desire? Write it, read it. Say it aloud. Say it with conviction. Say yes to the Universe, and state that you forgive yourself for where you have been. Once you can no longer judge yourself for your past, then the present is ready to be lived.

Namaste.

The Love We Show became my topic today because of  William Shakespeare: ”They do not love that do not show their love”.

I posted this on my February Newsletter today.

This is the love month anyway, right?

See, I happen to be very affectionate and loving. I am one of those people that say “I love you” often. I hug my children daily, and I truly honor the love I have in my life as though we may part at any time.

But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, sometimes there were many moments I barely kept hold of the fine, thin string that tied us as a single unit. We are still in tact. We have mended the string time and time again. It has never been perfect.

Although not the most inspiring message of love coming from me, the huge romantic and believer of love – I do always speak the truth of my own experience. Love is so very strong, so very, very strong. And I am so grateful that I believe as much as I do, because it’s when I get past all the feelings of giving up and heading out, I arrive at a very peaceful place.

There was one thing I had held back on even after having been in relationships before that were full, loving, and joyful. When things get rough, I always held back a piece of me that needed to be saved from being the complete wreck I was sure would put me in some relationship recovery program.

I somehow decided that I wasn’t going to show what I still needed from love. I somehow had a conversation in my head and thought I was okay enough to withhold these feelings of “Actually, I still love you even though we don’t talk anymore… I feel you don’t see me anymore, sitting here, needing you more than ever because I just do…”

I know my patterns and sometimes when these thoughts go on and on, I believe that I have actually told him these needs and he hasn’t responded and I get to be mad, and resentful, and hurt. The whole status of our relationship is his fault and no one will ever love me the way I love them. Ever.

Well, so not true, of course.

And it wasn’t until I made a vow to come forward with a voice that spoke from a very vulnerable heart willing to be crushed to pieces. I figured I could at least write about it and someone would know what I am talking about. Other people always understand.

The love we show shows up in return though. It simply goes both ways. When I withhold, I am not going to get much in return. When I share, I receive what I express. I receive what I ask  for.

Love is never easy. It is not meant to be, because anything we put effort into shapes us into something better, stronger, wiser, and so on. It is always an improvement. It is not only with romantic love that this is true, it is in all the love we have for others.

The love we show is a mirror of what is coming. The love we have is an expression of who we are. The love we seek is there for us to have if we indeed ask for it, and welcome it, too.

There is a person in my life that has shown me the truth of what love reveals.

There are others in my life who show me who I am and how much of my heart is in my words, my actions, my being. I am moved by seeing who I am through their eyes, not knowing first that it was me. As if it was another person who was so selfless, brave, forgiving, and nearly unbelievable. Surely people don’t love like this.

But now I know I do.

We are a part of all that we do, the people who surround us, the people who choose us to be with every day.

We are molded by our thoughts and our words, so what comes through our speech is a reflection of what is inside of us. Whether it is the truth or a lie, there is either transparency or effort to conceal who we are.

Love is our center. And love pulls us through life. Even when we think we don’t need it or want it, we lose when we deny ourselves what our center calls for. I have been one to resist, and I am grateful I lose when I try.

Love reveals the strength of forgiveness, how forgiveness removes all the wrongs we have made.  When we love people who hurt us and we forgive them with sincerity, we allow our hearts to grow without fear. We love more and more, so that we hurt less and less.

As a mother I know that my love for my children reveal a side of me that holds no bounds. That sharing with them my own experiences makes them feel understood. I may not hold all the answers but the beauty is trusting they will experience life as their own. Letting them know that making their own mistakes paves a great path, and that in our mistakes we gather the lessons that shape us.

Love reveals a greatness we all hold, and if we just let our hearts speak out loud and move into action, we live the many dreams we see when we sleep.

Love is our center, we are pulled in and out of love but we are not meant to with hold or not experience it. We ache when we know we want love, and it is true we ache when we have love. So loving the one you want and wanting the love you have is an act that we must learn to pay attention to.

With love in the center of our heart, we can choose to speak with love. We can choose to act with kindness, we can choose to forgive even the harshest words spoken.

There is a person in my life who has shown me the truth of what love reveals. He is the person who shows me who I am, what I want, what I need, and everything else much less beautiful. He chooses every day – to love me anyway. He loves me this way, because I am this way.

Happy Anniversary to us.