Liberation – the gift of the Destroyer Archetype
How does it feel to sit in the Sisterhood Campfire Circle?
Sisterhood Circle – why do we need it?
Are the eyes in the mirror the eyes of a woman you respect?
The Goddess of Never Not Broken
Do you feel you are in a state of flux, disorientated and unsure of the future? This is a natural state and we all feel it at some time in our lives. Although it may feel uncomfortable it opens new possibilities for your future. You no longer have a well worn route, doing the same things day after day, you can do or be whatever you want.
This article helps us see the gifts of this way of being: “there is a goddess from Hindu mythology that teaches us that, in this moment, in this pile on the floor, you are more powerful than you’ve ever been.”
When you have read the article do let me know what you think. Are you riding the crocodile?
2020 Winter Solstice – what do you choose for your 2021?
We have all been through a transformational 2020. Whether your work has changed, your financial circumstances, there have been dramatic adjustments to seeing family and friends, as well as your liberties have been constrained. We live in a world with different rules to the one we were in 12 months ago. This Winter Solstice a very potent time. This blog will give you guiding question to help you release 2020 and get ready to welcome in 2021.
Journal prompts
I encourage you to grab your journal a cuppa and settle down for 20 minutes of reflection and visioning. Take a few deeper slow breaths, relax into your body and allow your awareness and answers to come from your heart rather than your head. Complete the following:
For me, the last year has been…
What I have learned is…
I am most proud of…
What good things have happened?
What have been your favourite moments?
What have been your most difficult moments?
What have you learned about yourself?
What has become more important to you?
One word to describe what you are letting of/releasing in 2020:
You may have heard that Jupiter and Saturn will be so close together that they will be seen as one bright star. This is been likened to the Star in Bethlehem. You may want to head out and look in the South West direction for this amazing spectacle. This is a time of great change for the planets. We are affected by their energies and it helps us to understand what is happening.
What does this mean? Saturn represents discipline, structure – this can be yourself and structure and discipline exerted on the masses by external forces. Jupiter is unfolding spirituality and bestower of gifts. Today be aware of these two elements in your life as you set your intentions for the coming year.
You may have also heard that we are stepping into a new age, the age of Aquarius. What does this mean? The last age was Pisces, an earth sign, Aquarius is an air sign. Things won’t feel so heavy. There will be new inspiration, working with technologies and finding new innovative solutions. Aquarius is free-spirited, progressive, original, independent, humanitarian. As Maressa Brown explains that “this period will be about learning and growth around how we as individuals contribute to and affect — for better or worse — the world around us, whether that’s a collaborative effort with colleagues or fellow environmental protection activists. It’ll be about putting in the work and reaping the benefits of trading “me” for “we.”
Journal Prompts for 2021
What is your vision for the future?
What needs to die to make space for your vision?
What is working for you?
If you knew you couldn’t fail, what do you think you’d be doing that you aren’t now?
What is important to you?
How can you be disciplined to create the life you want?
What are you known for?
What do you want to be known for?
What do you need to let go of to align with the new you?
What spiritual gifts are there for you, if you choose to elevate your frequency by stepping out of fear and allow more love into your life?
What is your word for 2020?
What is your first step towards that?
Aquarius is a future-focused sign. Get clear on your vision for your future. Transformation comes from the inside out. Give your self 20 minutes to get clear on your next year. Please share below any insights on your 2020 or what you want to create in 2021.
Happy Solstice
Sarah
Top tips for December
Moving into December 2020, this blog will support you to finish the year gracefully. We are in the dark half of the year, short days and long nights. This is a time for rest, being, surrendering. The time of year to go inward. When we didn’t have electrical lights, we had to slow with the rhythm of the seasons. This article will give you tips on how to move with more ease through the darkness.
What has the pandemic taught us?
This dark time, the end of autumn as we approach winter is a time to take stock of the year that we experienced. 2020 has been an exceptional year. We have all been in the workshop of life! It has shaken us to our core, made us review what we took for granted and reminded us to appreciate the small things in life.
Many people’s perspective has been changed by their experiences. Previously their life focused on the future and doing. They looked forward to Friday, to going away, the next holiday, they wanted it to be sunny so they could be busy outdoors. The pandemic ended our ability move around and plan with certainty. People’s focus became more about being in the moment and gratitude for what was around them. There was a depth to people’s experiences. Life became about quality, not quantity. Many realised they had been time poor and their health was suffering previously. It has been a big awakening.
Life review without judgement
We can take this quality of being that was cultivated during lockdown and relax back into it. This darkness the time to review your life without judgement. Notice where you are. How does it feel? Just sit quietly, take a slow deep breaths and exhale slowly. Allow yourself to relax. Drop your awareness down to your heart space. Do you feel you are on your path in life? Or does it feel like you are in the gravel or deep sand not going anywhere? Listen to your body, your feeling. What do you sense? Be honest with where you are.
Keep your pockets full of dreams
You know where you are and but do you know where you want to go? Keep your pockets full of dreams because life is a test of faith. What’s the most positive vision you have about your life? What does it look like? How do you ideally see yourself? There’s lots of change in the world and you may feel a need for change in your life. Now is the time to get clear on what that means. You may be choosing a new destination for your life.
New destination
Before this year we were swept along on a narrative which encouraged people to work long hours so they could buy lots of thigs and escape on holiday. What 2020 has taught many is that this way of being wasn’t fulfilling. Time to review their life has enabled their suppressed dreams to bubble o the surface. They are aligning themselves onto their path, getting out of the old rut and stepping into their Life Purpose.
She woke up one morning
In the wrong life,
With no damn idea.
Shock ruptured her soul,
Searching for something –
Nothing was there.
Shaken to her core,
Anxiety fuelled sad
Tears stung her face,
Panic ripped her heart,
Sadness stole her eyes
And truth ran through cold.
She woke up one morning
“You got yourself in this, you get yourself out!”
She focused in tight
On glimpses of light,
One day at a time
She got out of her hole.
Freedom felt close,
Energy soared.
A decision was made,
She trusted herself,
Walked straight out the door
And let her wings bring her home. Lynette Allen
What is your Life Purpose?
Now is a good time to do a life review without judgement. I encourage you to check in with yourself. What emotion are you feeling a lot of the time? If you are in a negative space, I encourage you to identify what’s knocking you off course. Are you doing the thing you love doing in life? What brings you joy and fulfilment? You’ll know what it is because even if you aren’t getting paid, you love doing it. You’ll get so absorbed and not notice the time passing.
Embrace the stillness of this time of year. Without stillness nothing new can be created. Take time to be still, go within and listen. Review the past year, learn from all your experiences. Notice how you have grown and developed through these unique times. Celebrate your successes.
What is time to let go of?
You are different, with different friends to the young girl you were many years ago. Everything changes. Trying to stay the same is unnatural. First, you must let go of the old you to make space for the new you. This is like a snake shedding it’s skin. You need to hide under a rock, while you grow and the new you forms. Embrace stillness and allow yourself to hear the wisdom. What are you becoming? In the darkness, what seeds do you need to plant in your life?
If you want support as we move into the darkness to find your path, do get in touch. Schedule a 20 minute complimentary call
Enjoy the gifts of the darkness and stillness.
Celebrating the beauty of a middle-aged woman
Its autumn in the UK and I love this time of year, the turning of the colours. Things move out of vivid colours to richer tones. A woman’s life can be linked to the seasons and I’m in the autumn of my life. I am an Autumn Queen. In this blog, I going to share my musings about nature and why women’s middle aged bodies are beautiful.
A woman’s life in seasons
As I said the seasons can be linked to the phases of a woman’s life. Spring is the girl/maiden, after her first period she moves into Summer the mother, which is a time of creation – this may be work it doesn’t have to be children. Autumn in the peri-menopause, the time of letting go of the old that no longer serves us in our lives, like the trees let go of their leaves. We bring the harvest of our experience to those we serve. Finally, there is winter, the crone, this about endings and there has to be an ending for there to be something new.
The bust of Nefertiti was found in an Egyptian tomb in 1913. This changed the west’s perception of beauty. Out went the curvy renaissance woman with her feminine body a soft tummy. Nefertiti was a new kind of beauty, slim and angular, you will be familiar with this form in photoshoots in magazines. Models are chosen to represent this idea of beauty.
Not many women’s bodies are naturally the shape that is portrayed. It’s statistically unrealistic to have a model body. Letting go of the idea that any of us need to conform to this beauty industry concept is very freeing.
Nature’s beauty
Heading out the house into nature makes me feel relaxed. There’s the grandeur and strength of the trees that have been growing many more years than I have been alive. They will outlast me. The magic and delight of seeing a beautiful flower, a colourful leaf or the stain glass colours of the sun through the leaves. Nothing is perfect but it’s all brings a sense of awe.
Looking at the autumn leaves, I marvel at the beautiful colours as the trees reclaim the chlorophyll, the reds, browns, oranges and yellows. I realised that the tree trunks of the trees all had unique shapes. None of them were perfectly straight and unblemished, the idea tree. They had been moulded by the space they lived in and they each looked beautiful to me. They are each more interesting because they are unique, their shape, ripples, sagging, knots and scar tissue.
Autumn in nature and the Autumn Queen
I realise that trees, leaves and flowers are beautiful because they aren’t perfect. In my blog Women reclaim your bodies I encouraged women to celebrate their bodies as the beautiful vessels of their experiences. We are older, wiser and our bodies show it, just like the magnificent tree trunk with its ripples, sagging and scars.
I see the tree as magnificent. I wondered, is my body as an Autumn Queen magnificent? Only I, decide whether the answer is yes or no. I choose the lens of beauty – is it renaissance or Nefertiti or something else? When I look in the mirror, I choose whether to judge the reflection or not and by what standards. I want my body to flourish. I want to take pleasure in being me. I choose to love my body and l know am magnificent, curves, scars and all.
When you look in the mirror… what do you see?
Do you see your magnificence?
Are you proud of who you are?
Every woman should know she is beautiful. I want you to know in your bones you are beautiful. If you are struggling to move your mindset and allow this truth in, join my powerful free workshop: Love Who You Are. You can also work with me one to one as your Embodiment Coach, where we can get to the core of your particular situation and weed out destructive beliefs from your past. Free yourself to be magnificent!
How to look beautiful naturally everyday
Can you look beautiful? When you look at yourself in a mirror are you happy with what you see? When you look at yourself are you very judgmental? Are you as judgmental with other people as you are yourself? This article will enable you to unpick your thought process and help you to look beautiful naturally every day.
As a teenager I didn’t think I was pretty. Now aged 49, when I look back at photos of myself, I don’t think my view was accurate. I see a beautiful girl. In my 20s and 30s I didn’t like having my photo taken or looking at myself in the mirror. Is this sounding familiar? Do you also avoid looking at yourself in the mirror? How can you look at yourself and be happy with what you see? Let’s journey together and see what we can find to solve this problem. If you are happier with how you look, you will feel happier inside.
What does beautiul mean?
Let’s start with beauty. What do you think is beautiful? You need to understand your idea of beauty is to be able to achieve it. If you don’t, there’s no target, you’re firing all over the place hoping to hit something. Let’s be clear, we are talking about natural beauty, not huge fake eyelashes and thick make up that doesn’t allow your skin to breathe. That’s not natural beauty, it’s fake.
What does beauty look like to you? Can women your age look beautiful? Can women older than you look beautiful? If you answered no to either of these questions, where did you get this view? Was it from magazines and marketing images full of pubescent models? Our society reveres youth and those are the images we see everywhere. Have you been programmed to think that young equates with beautiful without you realising it?
Do you have friends your age that are naturally beautiful women? What is it about them? Are they confident and fun? Do they shine from the inside out? When they laugh do you see their laughter-lines in their face? Does this make them beautiful?
I think older women are beautiful. For a start, we should be celebrate getting to our beautiful older age. We all know of men and women that haven’t lived as long as us. I see beauty in the lines of an older woman’s face, she is wearing her wisdom. But it’s her eyes that sparkle with mischief and fun that give her face beauty. No make up can give you that – it is vibrant and untamed.
How can I be beautiful?
How do I get that natural beauty you ask? That vibrancy comes from inside. Look at yourself in the mirror and noticing all the parts of you that you like. What do you see that is beautiful? Are your eyes beautiful? Do you like the shape of your face, your lips, the colour of your skin? I bet you can list lots of things you aren’t happy with about your appearance. My challenges to you is to find 3 things you like about your face and features, then find another one and another and another…
If you don’t you will be repeating my mistake. I thought I wasn’t beautiful as a teenage, in my 20s and 30s but I look back at old photos of me and a I see a beautiful woman that was unhappy with herself which made her sad. It was a waste of my life. I had bought into cultural stories about how I needed to look subconsciously, and this was making me feel inadequate. It was destroying my self-esteem.
In my 40s I realised that a load of utter crap was going round in my head which made me miserable. I decided to end its hold over me. It was journey in which I reclaimed being beautiful me. You too can do this too if you want.
We started looking at your views about beauty. I hope you have widened your definition of beauty. You will have identified radiant women of your age and older. What do you like about their faces? Do you also have this quality? You are looking for more positive things you like about yourself. It’s time to be loving and compassionate with yourself.
Shine your beauty
When you love yourself, the confidence flows from the inside out. You are more relaxed, life is more fun and you smile more. It’s time to look in the mirror and look yourself in the eyes and say “hey beautiful, you’re looking gorgeous today”. I do this after I get out the shower in the morning. This may seem very un-British, but who cares? You feel great, you are cheering yourself on in life. Give it a go! It might feel award at first, a bit false, but go for it until you really mean it. Love the woman looking back at you. Thank your gorgeous body for being your container in this life. You will look in the mirror, look yourself in the eyes with love and know you look naturally beautiful.
Let me know how you felt about your appearance in the different phases of your life. Email me about how working with the mirror goes via info@explorediscover.me If you need more support in this personal journey reach to me via email or a 20 minute complimentary chat: https://explorediscover.me/free-online-coaching/