What has happenned to my MOJO?

I want to blub and blub and blub! i could be so very negative and just pour forth with a multitude of non useful thoughts but do need some emotional release all come from a very self defeated part of me...and the little girl part of me that was always told how little confidence she had at school..those teachers voices are so loud and clear in my head right now...yes that wee girl is still present in this 46 year old woman!I have lost my confidence in myself and my abilities and yet i kind of know i'm o.k and can be gently confident... but I have just had it verbally fed back to me after an interview......and became aware of it as i lost momentum and started to disappear into a whirlpool.. of lostness during the interview!i am sort of grateful for the learning that will come from this but hearing it from others is hard.....Hoping some life coaching with Effy and some long awaited changes in my life will move my journey forth.....EOAJ Fire week i am soooo needing you to stoke those embers and get that energy moving!I am just finishing off my Water page and will post as soon as it is completed.Thankyou for listening universe.

...more thoughts for EOAJ Water week

FREEDOM .............. this is what comes to mind as a result of my sitting with the feelings I have.In the first instance i think i just wish to be free of all the thinking..the tense head and tiredness! hey some days are good somedays less good.However, I know it's because things have got to change...things really have got to change and they will...............


I sat last night and free wrote on my journal pages and the feelings found there way onto the pages in the form of words like...
FEAR of so many things........these could potentially could rule my life but i usually manage this feeling well nowadays.. That's o.k I recognize that and have done for many years and i'm pleased with the way i've evolved ..with a lot of work can i say.. to 'feel the fear and do it anyway'...i was well conditioned and also had a few experiences as a child and young woman that potentially reinforces my FEAR.

FRUSTRATION with my limits rather than other people's.Expressing myself verbally is potentially a real challenge in certain situations...I am surrounded by some very strong personalities and it's hard to feel as I am heard.I just have to accept and acknowledge I am responsible for being heard if i really need to be.

GRATITUDE for my life is the other big feeling.I have this life and I have a small circle of people who love me and really know me, i'm blessed to have had a child, to be a mother and to have a home and employment that earns me a living.

DESIRE to change some things in my life coupled with the FRUSTRATION of perhaps not quite being sure of how to do that....(boy i need fire ! to fuel that DESIRE but it is a feeling i've had in the past and i've made things happen... how did i get this far without that ...)

It's soo important, just as Effy says, to think of the positive personal qualities we have when completing our exercise for water week..everyone has these qualities...they're often very individual and can be the simplest unseen things ... I want to acknowledge that ever since i was a wee girl i had the amazing abilty to create and imagine stuff.....esecially to transform negativity into positivity...o.k as a grown up that ability has evolved and has been challenged but do you know it is something about me that persists! It doesn't mean i'm always happy, and some people do not understand me and they don't like it ... it does take energy and time and reflection and 'imagination' most times but it's how i want to live my life...i feel meloncholy,sad,hurt, envious and angry, but there's this warmth inside somewhere deep inside that generates 'something' that stops those difficult feelings being bigger than i am ...it is my friend and I am sooo grateful to it....I am sooo grateful to MY ABILITY TO TRANSFORM MY OWN NEGATIVITY INTO POSITIVITY....
gotta start shining.....

EOAJ Water week

I am a sitting with the 'deeper flow of emotion' right now in relation to my thoughts for water week.I revisit these feelings regularly..my eyes have watery glaze and my face and temples ache.. tired with all the thought and energy this takes... some down time is needed.I want to light a candle and relax in a lavender scented room with a snuggle blanket listening to some deeply relaxing music....i'm a little at sea and need to find myself a rope or life jacket!......... tapping into some universal love is what i need to do right now and I know there's an abundant supply out there it's just about quietening those 'fast running waters'and fitting myself with a suitable bouyancy aid ..i can see it reflecting off the waters surface i just need to 'doggy paddle' over and feel it...xxxxx

'Love is the only thing that is 'really' real'

EOAJ Air Week

This weeks art journalling feels as if it has really 'got things moving' for me.I now have a copy of Deborah Lipps,The Way of Four...it's a revelation! going that bit deeper into to understanding the elements and how they relate to my personality and some of the issues in my life is pretty breath taking.The week has been one of serendipitous happennings... in relation to my journey with the elements this was exploring the fifth Chakra (throat Chakra) which i've still to finish an art journalling page on...It was a powerful realisation that this chakra is of major significance to me and my attention to balancing it a really important part of my journey.I made an error with my heat gun in my art journalling that resulted in the and the 'breathe' page and 'throat Chakra' page becoming stuck together...result was i had a deep space in the nasal passage of the drawing in my first page and what i call an 'exploding chakra' on the next page!! ..sounds a little off beat i know but thats how i saw it! and i perceived it with a little magical thinking as usual(the 'harmless Cazzy' sort of magical thinking)and it affirmed where i was at with this journey. I then found myself with a copy 'Spell book' by Deborah Lipp as well as the one we are using to explore the elements...that seemed to have significance as well and real food for thought.Exploring my elemental balance it was no surprise to me, and probably everyone who knows me, that my strongest element is 'water' followed by a small and even score of'earth' and 'air' with a weakness in 'fire'.
Pheww what a week of mindful thought and contemplation quite exhausting emotionally but stimulating to my enquiring mind.


Love to you Effy more gratitude vibing your wayxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Tao of Motherhood

Two of my favourites from Vimala Mclure's Tao of Motherhood

Oneness

Tao is the oneness of all things.
You and your child come from One and journey toward One.
You are essentially the same.
Right mothering springs from this knowledge: the One in either responds to the One in both.
The bond is oneness, and cannot be broken.
When doubt and uncertainty arise,return to this simple truth.
Be in oneness, and the illusion of separateness dies.
Be still and allow unity to be revealed


Detachment
Like the eternal Tao, a wise mothergives birth but does not possess.
She meets the child’s needs yet requires no gratitude.
Observe how great masters raise up their dearest disciples.
Observe how nature raises up the plants and animals.
Great teachers take no credit for their students’ growth,
yet they will go to any length to teach them what they need to know.
Nature requires no praise, yet it provides for the needsof earth’s inhabitants.
Mother is the reflective principle,the balancing agent for the child.
Like a guru, she allows the child to make mistakes and loves the child without condition.
Like nature, she allows consequences to unfoldand balance to be restored when it is lost.
She intervenes only when the right use of power is required.

TEOAJ Earth Week 1

Mmmm I like the feel of the earth under my feet and the colours of nature....and as I lay on the ground listening to some drumming at a local family festival ...feeling the sun on my face and the deep cool earth beneath my back I felt a gorgeous desire to simply melt into the earth ...my initial thoughts in respect of these feelings and the clustering from orientation week made me think of the statements 'I am the ground', 'I am at one with the earth' .However, with deeper reflection on the relationship I have had with my body I had to be honest with myself and acknowledge that my relationship with my body has not always been a positive one.

As an adolescent I didn't treat my body well or with respect.I also strived throughout early womanhood to control it, mould it and use it in extreme ways, even the exercise I did was harsh, and almost punitive.Later on in womanhood throughout my childbearing years I felt immense loss and disappointment with my body, as I felt it failed me a number of times.However, when motherhood eventually came a 'new relationship' dawned, not immediately as it took time. I learnt more about myself ..I explored self nurturing and started to heal the parts of me I needed to in order to be a 'whole person'. The drawing I made as part of this page is symbolic of this and I felt compelled to use it for TEOAJ. This image of the african lady cradling a baby has always aroused a lot of emotion in me and alongside a poem called 'Oneness' from the Tao of motherhood by Vimala Mclure I had used it in a previous project of personal growth.I feel that now I have a sort of comfortable ease and desire to nurture my body and be gentle with it I choose Yoga and a walk over running and gymn work..if I do physically exert myself I make sure I'm fed and watered and rested!...in times of stress it is still all so easy for me to become 'disconnected' from my body.Disconnecting and not hearing what my body needs is such a weakness of mine, my enthusiasm , passion ,focus on a goal seems to release an obsessive trait that 'drives me' but also knocks me out of balance so easily and I need grounding! I think the curly roots in my page represent how important that grounding and securing myself to the earth is. A recent episode of poor health has reminded me I must listen to my body' ... look after 'her' put her needs first sometimes... 'she' must be 'sea worthy' and able to 'weather the storms of life'....she is my vessel the vessel in which my spirit resides and from which my life force flows..... and so 'My body is my vessel' .....my very precious vessel.