I've been away from this place (Gaia.com) and for a moment I felt as if I had fallen back into old habits, old ways of thinking, but I realise now, there is no going back. I have thought that before, you can't go backwards in growth but I truly realise it now.

I've left the father of my children, it was an awakening experience and I realised many things about myself. I'm one of those mothers who put other people first, I put him first and I never even let myself think about what I wanted, what was best for me. I didn't feel free to as I was more concerned about hurting him than choosing what it is I wanted. I was in denial and didn't realise, simply because I wouldn't even let myself go there. The thought of hurting him was too devastating so I continued to tell myself that I was happy. I supressed down so much hurt from the past, as someone who practices self awareness I was fully aware of the fact that I held onto the past hurt from him because I felt that if I let it go it would be like saying, "It's okay that happened". I desperetely wanted him to know the hurt I felt, not just in words, but to physically feel it and knowing he didn't even understand it in words meant I couldn't let it go. Well, I wouldn't.

Things were said that let me feel as if it was okay to finally ask myself what it is I want. The conclusion as already stated was that I wanted to walk away. I was in a lot of denial, ignoring the things that hurt me and supressing back down the past but we all know here that supressing does no good and only comes forth later.

Don't get me wrong, I am not one for giving up, My phisophy in life is "Change it, Fix it or Move on" I tried, I tried so very hard. I tried acceptance, I tried to accept someone treating me badly because I so desperetely wanted it to work but at the end of the day the question comes up, what is it that I need for my life to work best, for things to move forward, for me to be my best self and it was time to let him go.

I'm happy that our relationship happened, it was six and a half years of my life, and that is quite huge for me as I am only 22. We have two children. I have never known independance until now and I am loving it.

To be free to do what I want, when I want, how I want. To make decisions of my own and not because I don't like to share decisions but because I never even got to be part of them. I had to wait a lot, and wait patiently I did, only to be dissapointed as it felt as if I had to wait forever. Wait for this bill to be paid, what for him to finish this, wait for the kids to be old enough, wait until we move.. always one thing after another. Now it's time for me, time for me to bloom and I am a firm believer that when Mum is blooming, I am being the best mum I can be, leading by example and being able to give my whole self, show my whole self. Show how to care for yourself, live for yourself while still caring for others. Show how to do things for yourself while still doing it for others.

My strength through this has surprised others and I must say I am quite shocked myself. I am not a puddle on the floor as I imagined myself to be. I've managed to stay centred, knowing things will be fine and even great. And this is why I realise, you can never go back, you can never "ungrow". I look forward, not back. I plan instead of sook and I'm always grateful for my life.

There's a funny song I heard quite a while back called "I must be Emo", mocking the stereo type of Emo's and having a tease at how they are apparently "emotional". There's a line when he is talking, and he mockingly says, "My life is a black abyss..". Whenever I'm feeling down I recognise it in myself, recognise my ego and I sarcastically think "My life is a black abyss" And have a laugh at myself. Even living in a room at a friends house with my two children, I just can't whinge, I always have too much to be grateful for. Whinging will get me no where other than into a depressive state and why would I want that!?

Hurrah! I am going to start writing too.. not even sure what exactly yet but I'll get there =) I love brainstorming ;)

Staying positive and visualising my goals. I like to read inspirational quotes to [ut myself in a positive state of mind. I try to stay focussed on what is happening and what I'm doing in this moment without focussing too much on only the end result. I love it when I have found motivation and am working on keeping myself going even when motivation lacks.

The feeling of oneness and presence with all.

My whole journey started with seeing and reading The Secret. In the beginning I believed in The Law of Attraction as if it were some magical occurrence. "The Universe gives if you focus your mind on something" After reading some blog posts from Bill Harris and listening to some audio interviews with Bill Harris and others from the Secret I woke up out of my dream to realize I cant just think about something and it will be on my doorstep tomorrow.

My path changed and I became more focused on learning about spiritual growth, I was practicing awareness and had many breakthroughs. I read Echkart Tolle, I read about developmental stages of people from baby stages to enlightenment and a whole lot of other small pieces I found online.

I had grasped early on that your thoughts create your actions which in turn create your reality but I hadn't completely grasped it until just now.

Being an apple shape means my weight goes to my tummy first leaving me to feel out of proportion and only worse after 2 kids. My struggle became acceptance which would come and go until I finally thought 'instead of using all this time and energy to accept myself why don't I just do something about it?' So my plan became to exercise and eat well, while my main aim was to be fit and healthy (the opposite to what I was) I started out only exercising when I wanted to as to not train myself to hate exercise and to mindfully eat, realizing the difference between when my mind wanted to eat and when my body wanted to eat. Becoming aware of my eating habits I came to so many realizations. I always ate too much, my meals were too big. Because I wasn't paying attention when I ate I would eat until I was bloated or until I finished my plate. Once I was mindfully eating I realized that my portion sizes didn't need to be as big as they were! I also noticed how I unconsciously ate so much junk! I was eating way too much and it was all bad food. 

A strange thing happened when I started to exercise, because I didn't force myself to I started to enjoy it. 4-6 weeks later I was eating very healthily, eating healthy snacks even and if I did indulge it was usually something small because I realized if I mindfully eat a chocolate biscuit then I'll only want one. Through mindful eating I also made better choices because they felt better than being on a junk food high then feeling sluggish most of the time.

 

I thought I had broken my old habits and was on the path of health and fitness forever. However, negative thoughts started to creep in. In the beginning I was very surprised by the fact I could see physical results in a matter of 3 weeks but after 5 weeks I was getting impatient. The scales weren't moving and I was starting to wonder if I was losing weight (even though I could see it in the beginning) As I looked in the mirror, I wasn't happy, I could no longer see the results and could only see what I didn't want.

I had been exercising everyday having 1 day off a week, usually just when I felt I wanted to. After my negative thoughts crept in I took a day off, then another... and another... and another. I even became unconscious to it all at one point and binge ate. The next day I met up with a friend who I hadn't seen in 6 weeks and she was surprised at my progress “Wow, you've been working hard! And you've done it in 6 weeks!” Feeling good again, I exercised first thing the next morning.

 

I finally then realized how my thoughts and feelings create my actions to create my reality. I felt bad about my health, fitness and physical body and it became a self fulfilling prophecy, I ate bad and didn't exercise through thinking about what I didn't want. Then I focussed on what I did want which was positive and had fast, positive results and many realizations. My thoughts then went back to being negative and my exercise came to a halt and so did my good eating habits.

 

Just goes to show how important awareness is because you can't self sabotage if you're aware of your thoughts and feelings causing it. Part of this realization came from reading Bill Harris' Blog http://www.centerpointe.com/blog Specifically the last 3 posts.

Thankyou for reading all the way through, I know it's long!

Belinda

I feel free when I realise just how much choice I have, how much freedom I have. Being a stay at home mum I can pretty much do what I want, when I want. Even though I live within a society where there are laws and guidelines I realise it is still my choice whether I obey those laws or not. I feel free feeling the abundance of choice I have in life.

I have been practicing moving into the present moment by first feeling my breathing and my inner body, I have been getting better at it and it brings me a wonderful feeling of inner peace. I also like to listen to Relaxation by Enya or practice meditation. I love to practice presence with my children and outdoors too.

I'm sitting at the door and I can hear the beautiful sound of wind in the trees, aahh one of my favourite things to hear. The feel of the breeze is perfect as I am a little warm so the subtle air is cooling me. I can smell the freshness of the air and it is nice to look out and see a tall tree being moved by the breeze in the darkness of the night. What a nice, peaceful night it is.

I went to a disastrous party on Friday night. It was for 3 of my friends birthdays, who all invited their own friends. On arrival I couldn't see anyone I knew but soon spotted one of the birthday people, with a hug hello she led me inside to see some other friends. It was nice to see people I hadn't seen in a long time, see my usual friends who I always enjoy seeing and meet some new people. I also learnt of a friends pregnancy which is exciting!

Another of the birthday people, a good friend of mine had stopped being friends with one of his female friends and made it clear that if she came and started anything, he would leave. So when she came, he made an effort to say hello and give her a hug only for him to be snobbed by her. Then later a friend of his complimented a girl on her dress, "I like your dress! I'm a designer..." Touching the fabric only for her boyfriend to walk over and have a go, "That's my girlfriend!..." Obviously in his pain body, trying to prove his masculinity, only to get a reply of, "Umm I like guys..." So still being in his pain body and obviously feeling a fool he said "Well you better f* off then" because as we all know that made him look better lol.

So my friend, who is also gay then wanted to leave with his friends, in total there were 3 gay, 1 bi and their female friend who I think was straight. A friend and I decided to leave with them as the party was dull, the music was bad and there were too many bogans to count.

After leaving, the conversations began about "gay haters" and they went on for a very long time. It went onto arguments between my friend and members of his family, to my friend and I trying to help him better understand what his family members were saying. They were saying "You have to get over it..You have to accept it" He was refusing to accept the fact that people hate gays, that people bash gays and that he can't walk down the street holding his bf's hand. While his family was making the point that anyone can be bashed on the street and everyone can be victimized, to him it just wasn't the same, "You wouldn't understand, you're not gay" I tried to explain to him that acceptance comes from gratitude, and how do you be grateful for people that bag on you? By viewing it as a growing experience. That night, I learnt of his stubbornness and his desire to be the victim.

Over the last few days I have learnt a lot from the situation either something new or just learning something more in depth. One thing that was interesting is that it seems he doesn't accept himself, he was talking about how his family doesn't want him to talk about things to do with his sexuality all the time, from their stand point they don't need to hear it ALL the time, from his standpoint he feels like they aren't accepting him for who he is. From my stand point, I could see just how much they love, accept and care about him. He would also point out situations that weren't necessarily because he was gay but he would take it as someone being uncomfortable with him being gay or even someone being discriminating.

One example is that he would be sitting at a family get together with a group of guys, talking about trucks and things he wasn't interested in, when he would talk about something interesting to him like netball they wouldn't want to talk about that and he thinks it's because he's gay. I'm accepting of gays... and I can tell you now, I hate talking about both trucks and netball! It has nothing to do with who you are or what you do, those subjects just don't interest me. It seems he is so paranoid about people discriminating against him that he subconsciously looks for it and finds it. It was a pure example of the fact that a part of how we see the world is all about our perceptions and judgements. Now, he may add to the argument that they would say "netabll is a girls sport" but that is only part of their own insecurity and their need to prove themselves and their apparent masculinity.

Another thing I noticed is we were all talking about equality and how we wish everyone treated everyone else the same. Funny, because at the same time they were hating on the guys from the party, specifically the bf of the girl and hating on "gay haters". You can't demand equality in this world if you aren't treating everyone equally yourself. One thing we were talking about too is how there is a change happening, it's happening slowly but it is happening and part of that is the acceptance of gays. I wish I thought to say this then but have only thought of it it today that you can accept yourself and feel the equality of all beings on this planet without the need of everyone else accepting you and treating you as equal. I did already know that but now have realised it more deeply.

The situation at the party wasn't even a situation of gay haters, it was a guy who thought anothet guy was hitting on his gf and then said "Well you better f* off then because he felt like an idiot and didn't want to back down as that would make him look weak. It would have been the same if it was a straight guy who had a gf and wasn't interested in her.

So yes, it was bitter sweet as life can be, bitter situation but I did learn a lot, I just wish my friend could take our advice. Oh well, I'm sure he will get there one day, then we can all say "I told you so" lol just kidding.

Absolutely. I think suffering pushes us to learn and grow and is essential for our growth. Why have animals evolved? Because they had to overcome an obstacle or problem but as the evolution process was happening they would have gone through a great deal of suffering. Just as we are evolving now, it is our suffering that pushes us to go beyond ego and let go of our identification with it. If we were all happy as Larry as the saying goes, we wouldn't push ourselves, we wouldn't pursue anything and we wouldn't find growing experiences.

Suffering also helps us to be grateful for the good things. There can't be good without bad for one defines the other. If everything was "good" then it would just be, as there would be no bad, its opposite, to define it as good.

...But then there is pain and there are tough times and it is up to you how you deal with it. It's great if you can find a growing experience in it as opposed to being negative and adding unnecessary emotional suffering to it.

So go out and be grateful for the tough times as they help you to become stronger and greater and they also help you be grateful for the great things in life. :D

I love the song "Relaxation" by Enya, it always relaxes me and I sometimes use it for meditation :), imagining myself sitting in the clouds watching angels play and sing the song. XD