Personal Growth

  • Personal Growth

    Dare to Love Yourself

    “Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.”― Aberjhani.

    I know that Self Love talk is out there and it’s a really popular mindset, most of us are still not really aware of what it means to have a practice of Self Love in our lives. I am very proud of you, if you are reading this, you have now taken the first step to create this for yourself.

    My journey

    When I started my journey of Self Love, I had no idea what this really means. I have always been overachieving in my studies and professional life, running from one certification to another, delivering high quality results at work and being involved in different kind of activities, but that didn’t bring me closer to love.

    I love to challenge myself, because I believe, that we grow through challenges, however my current challenges are very different from than it used to be. Once I have realized that endless achievements and success at a corporate job did not bring me happiness or fulfillment, I didn’t have a choice but to be tender and loving to myself. And it has been the biggest challenge since 🙂 Maybe this resonates with you?

    The journey that is waiting ahead of you if you dare to take the first step

    This is a delightful journey and once you start it, you’ll never be satisfied with anything less than real Self Love in your life, you will start to understand that the more you love yourself, the more fulfillment and joy you bring not only to yourself but to those around you and your career will become more inspiring than ever, because you will not settle for anything that is lower than you self-worth, self-care and full self-acceptance.

    The first steps

    Start by accepting unlovable parts of yourself, changing beliefs by daily affirmations and creating a harmony in your activities. Our belief system forms our life, therefore before we start doing any self-love practices, we shall look and evaluate where we do not love ourselves enough. I would invite you to spend some time and look at different areas of your life and feel for yourself, where you need self-love the most.

    How much do you value yourself in different areas of your life: career, finance, health, relationship, home, family, fun, self-development?

    Try to answer some of these questions:
    • How do you feel Monday morning? Are you happy to start a new working week?
    • What about your finance? Can you afford living in comfort?
    • Are you spending enough time for keeping your body healthy? Do you eat healthy and balanced food, do you feel energetic in the morning? Do you spend enough time to relax and fully be yourself?
    • Do you spend enough time with your beloved? Do you enjoy passionate relationships?
    • And if you are single, are your friends supportive, inspiring and positive?
    • Do you love your home? Can you rest there?
    • Are you satisfied in relationship with your children/parents/husband/wife?
    • Do you spend enough time having fun? When was the last time you had a good laugh? Do your spare time activities bring you joy, increased energy and inner satisfaction?
    • Have you ever invested in self-development? Have you looked at and assessed your beliefs? Have you ever thought that slowing down is actually speeding up? Are you in touch with your intuition? Do you listen that your inner voice is telling you when you make decisions?
    • And if you are not satisfied with some of the areas of your life, what are your next steps, so you can level up your life?
    The power of affirmations:

    The power of affirmations is one of the methods to change how we feel and reprogram our subconscious mind. Once we take a mindful look at where we do not love ourselves fully (as we did in the exercise above), we can bring our subconscious patterns into surface and change them to positive ones.

    By repeating new affirmations in our mind or loud (I’d recommend to do it alone, if you do it loud ☺), we gradually change our beliefs and start feeling what we intend to invite in our life. Once we start feeling it, we attract positive experiences in our life which match with how we feel. It is important that we open up to believing in affirmations, because only then, our core beliefs will gradually change. Some examples are listed below, but you can always create your own and try to do it for a month or two and see how it changes the way you feel:

    • “I am enough”,
    • “I accept myself fully”,
    • “I am loved and respected for who I am”,
    • “I am attractive even when I cry”,
    • “I accept anger as a part of me, I embrace and transform it fully to a passionate action”,
    • “I am perfect in my imperfections”,
    • “I forgive myself fully”.

    It is easy to love ourselves, when we are loving, happy, smiling, helpful, but how to love ourselves when our expectations fail, when we get angry, when we get sad and vulnerable? However, it is crucial to love yourself exactly at a minute of difficult situations. We shall remember that we are humans and we make mistakes, we keep getting in co-dependent relationships and situations. By accepting it, you can transform it, learn from it, grow out of it and move to better feeling space and what is that we all want: to feel good. Experiment with affirmations and see how you feel.

    Balance: find time to take a break

    There is another pattern of professional and highly achieving people, what I have seen in my life as well as in my clients’ life. We forget to create a balance between passive and active energies in us. People, who want to have great things in life and love to challenge themselves, usually stay in the active energy, which means, massive action, control, logic, planning, achieving, structuring and making strategies.

    There is nothing wrong with that, but we must have times when we are passive, even, and especially in terms of achieving goals in our career, we must learn to let go. We all have great intuition and I could not emphasize more how important it is to listen to that inner need to have a break and ask ourselves if we are in alignment with our true desires, if we are fully expressing our feelings, needs and emotions. Do we allow ourselves just be and let go of control not only in our yoga and meditation class, but also in our personal and professional life and allow as good or even better results to come? Or do we wait imbalances in our body to force us to take a break? Choice is always ours.

    Let your journey start now!

    There it is! Enjoy loving yourselves – you deserve this in your life. You deserve the best! You deserve to live a life that’s truly fulfilling! The next time you are about to make any kind of decision, ask yourself: “What would a person who loves herself/himself do in this situation?” and you will always get an intuitive answer. Dare to Love Yourself. Dare to choose.

  • Personal Growth

    The Power of Allowing

    Most of us, who are on the path of personal growth, must be aware of Law of Attraction. A little reminder, if you have not be introduced to the concept: “The law of attraction is the attractive, magnetic power of the Universe that draws similar energies together. It manifests through the power of creation, everywhere and in many ways. Even the law of gravity is part of the law of attraction. This law attracts thoughts, ideas, people, situations and circumstances.” Remez Sasson.

    One of the most difficult aspects to fully understanding and living by the Law of Attraction is the art of allowing and surrendering. We have been taught that in order to achieve, we must strive, me must push, we must act, we must be competitive and we must be the best. It takes YEARS to shift this beliefs and patterns around it and to believe that the opposite is true. I am not stating here, that we shall just relax and wait things to come to us. We need a clear intention, vision, purpose, we do need to take inspired intuitive actions, which lead us to our vision and goals, BUT if we do not learn to relax and allow, be ready to receive, feel worthy to enjoy things that we desire, then none of our dreams can come true.

    It is not easy to release and surrender, when you really want something. Again I do not state here that we shall relax and say “I don’t care, whatever comes, I am fine”. In this case, you might get something that you really do not want. I rather suggest to set a desire, intention, purpose (why you want it), feel gratitude for what you already have in your life (always good to see the situation around the world and if you have a computer, time and Internet connection to read this article, your situation should not be not so bad) and start feeling that what you want or something better is on the way. When your actions feels inspired, take the actions, but don’t push.

    And then..rest and forget it. You did all what you could. Go an enjoy a cup of tea/coffee, take a long walk or something what really makes your heart sing. And see miracles coming on your way..Maybe not exactly what you expected, but even better 🙂 Trust.

     

  • Personal Growth

    Beyond Judgement

    Have you met people who judge so fast and strongly believe that it is an absolute truth? Do you recognize yourself to judge people and believe that you are right and they are wrong? Have you tried to see the situation from another person’s point of view? How bad do you judge yourself?

    Judgement involves an opinion regarding the relative value or worth of what is being observed. Judgement basically comes from our minds, while shutting down our hearts. Judgement indicate an opinionated, subjective value. As Carl Jung said, “we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth.” It is important to remember that we are limited in our understanding of another person’s life by our own range of experience, beliefs and values.

    When we judge others, we usually make them wrong and if they do not feel wrong, it gives a sense of irritation as somebody chooses something that is not to our own preference. It is all about games of mind. In each of the judgmental statements, the speaker is assuming to know something about something s/he does not truly know anything about, but the statement, indeed, sounds very opinionated. He/she also usually place himself/herself in a superior position, where compassion and understanding is not felt. How shall we act in these situations, so other people beliefs do not affect us in a long run?

    If you are irritated by somebody who judges you or your work via their lensis, even you feel it is not true, but very likely your mind will be running some false programming, that maybe this judgement can be more true than yours? Stop here and look within. If it still triggers you as Carl Jung said, “everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves“, it might be an opportunity for growth. Maybe it is a message for you to stand up for you truth, stop judging yourself, open up more compassion towards people who create life in the jungles of mind or maybe to learn to walk away from certain people and give up the fight?

    Sometimes we meet people who simply do not know how else to relate to us than through judgment. Image that when you are judged by someone, there are three people in a room, you, the person who judges you and the imaginary person, who is being judged. Can you leave them both and walk away? This awareness that other people are trapped in their judgement can free us and help us to find openness and compassion towards them. Remember, that people who judge others, judge themselves the most.

    Expressing your own truth/opinion will always come in an open and compassionate manner. We can always choose to be more loving, like Mother Teresa said, “if you judge people, you have no time to love them.” On the other hand, how could you transform your judgement about others and yourself to a more compassionate, open minded and peaceful attitude? Giving a second or two to feel (not to think) what is really required in a certain situation? What does really serve to overall good of all in the situation? Instead of making you right and him/her wrong and putting the world of others to fit in your lenses, could you give space for yourself that maybe both worlds are equally good and you might not know everything? Give a slight opportunity of openness to yourself – what if you are wrong, because your judgement depends on cliches of beliefs you have learnt through your lifetime?

  • Personal Growth

    Leaving Old Roles

    Many people are trying hard but are not finding the power to live life in integrity —being busy is a modern addiction. A question we can begin to ask ourselves: Am I on the path that is restoring my heart, or am I disconnected from that truly makes me alive?

    I believe, we were created for love and curiosity and adventure every day of our lives. But so many of us aren’t living as we were intended to. Do we value ourselves for being who we are or for achievements and our status? Can we find peace within of feeling “enough”?

    Some of us run for professional achievements, knowledge, status or spiritual explorations, but forgetting to really take care of ourselves. What about finding the peace within for who you are? As all is in you, once you come to full self-acceptance, self-love and self-recognition, healthier relationships, parnerships and professional possibilities will come your way from the place of allowing.

  • Personal Growth

    Transforming Anger

    The meaning of anger is that you wanted something, but you could not get it. Something or somebody comes as a block or an obstacle, so you cannot receive it. Anger is the energy of fire. It means your energy was directed to get something and then something happened and the flow of directed fairy energy was blocked.
    Then this blocked energy becomes a frustration, anger, agression towards the person who “blocked” you from receiving your desire, situation, circumstances and/or poor You, who was not able to achieve your goal or went for a goal which is impossible to achieve or which “you should not have chosen at all” at the first place. Or you can get even more angry that you got angry. Because being angry is “bad”. It is not necessary true, but these are the beliefs which are running under the energy of anger and agression.

    How to transform your anger?

    1. Dig into the roots of anger and release subconscious beliefs and patterns. What are you particurlarly angry about? What are hidden beliefs and fears there? Anger always hides emotion of saddness of not getting something.
    2. Change patterns, so you set intentions for life, you wish and you vision your future, but you are not so badly attached to the end goal. You are open in how your end goals will show themselves. Then, your desire will have a more subtle and gentle way of manifesting and even when you see blocks in achieving your desires, you are flexible to change your ways. Like the flowing river. Then you set a goal, set intention on a goal or something better, that will keep your energy openned.
    3. We are humans and anger is a part of human life. Even you clarified the roots of incoming anger and become more flexible in your life, it’s not possible to avoid human emotions. Often when we start spiritual practices and learn how “bad” is to be angry, we start judging it and neglecting it through intelectual analysis. However, anger can be transformed only through feeling it and releasing it. It cannot be transformed by analysing about it or pretending that you don’t have it. Anger can be transformed into compassionate power, passion and creativity.

    Breathing exercises where you feel your anger while inhaling and release it through calm through exhaling can be helpful in any situation.

  • Personal Growth

    Creativity

    Creativity is a quality. No matter what you do: developing a new IT solution, managing a project, cleaning, walking, networking, creating a monthly report – do it creatively and mindfully. It will bring you joy and change a perspective to you daily life.

    Not all of us are born artists or dancers, but it is a very limited idea of being creative. Being creative, being joyful is your own responsibility, society, your friends, family are not responsible for that.

    Do not seek some immediate confirmation of your creativity, society is full of standards, criteria of judgement and creativity cannot be judged. Therefore, you need to be free and courageous in order to be creative.

  • Personal Growth

    Courage

    Acting on your inner desires takes courage. If we look at people who seem to be align with their passions in life, no matter if it is a successful owner of business, a housewife or a dancer, we will see that they needed to act from courage to get and stay there.

    Courage for actions is not fearless, it is rather going ahead in spite of fears, putting them aside and moving forward.

    Going for what you want makes you alive even it is difficult. It is unfamiliar, uncomfortable, but it will give you strength and a stable ground. If you do not repress your inner passions, you will be able to accept the challenge, enjoy, confront and encounter life and connect with your inner power. Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainty.

  • Personal Growth

    Freedom

    Freedom through expression. Expression simply means that you are more natural. Being natural is happiness and fulfilment itself, no matter what you do in your daily life, it does not depend on profession or relationships.

    Society usually creates an image, which you believe you should fulfill in order to function in it. But it also creates a repression. Repressed energy manifests through stagnancy, addictions, obsessions, aggression and other destructive emotions and behaviors, which is painful for society and individual.

    There is no growth, no freedom in suppression. To be free means to be free from conditioning, rules and beliefs outside you.