My word for 2018 – Worthiness

Hi There,

We are at the end of the year and have done a lot of reflecting lately.

Where am I doing all of this for?
Who am I really?
Why do I want to live?
What is the purpose of life?
What makes me truly happy?
And why is it becoming harder and harder to motivate myself to get out of bed in the morning.

A few weeks ago I was so excited about doing a SoulCollage® workshop, I rented a venue, made lots of publicity, prepared myself thoroughly, had booklets and flyers printed, etc. ….and no one replied and showed interest in my service. Ouch! That was the trigger to help me see, that this is the way it goes with a lot of things I put out. Projects I start die a quiet death, Tarot readings are not being requested that much (and when I do do readings, I get great feedback, so it is not my skill, I know I am good at doing readings), my art doesn’t sell well (again I think I am a good artist), blogposts I put a lot of time and effort in (such as this one, hardly receives a response) and well the list goes on. Also all these great plans I had and projects I started are now making me feel depleted and sad. So something needs to shift.

Invisible

So talking about this with people I suddenly realized that this has nothing to do with that what I am offering, it has to do with my energy of not feeling seen. I feel invisible a lot of the time. Invisible and insignificant. In groups I get skipped over often, people often really don’t see me and almost walk through me, at restaurants and bars I often get overlooked, and on and on. I am often left out and forgotten. And this is not my imagination. I have pointed this out to people when it happens. Now I have felt invisible for a big part of my life. As a child I was very much seen, but I was weird and different and therefor shunned by my peers. They pretended not to see me, they blocked my energy by imaginary spraycans and walls, they didn’t involve me or talk to me and even some of the teachers played along. I spent most of my school life outside the class room door in the school hall where the performance stage was. I have spent many hours playing on that stage, acting out fairy tales and playing with my ‘imaginary’ friends and I sort of dissolved for a long time. I spent a lot of time alone and dreaming up worlds. Later in life I experienced a lot of abuse and this made me want to be invisible again, so I could be safe. So I did a good job really. Now this is old and I thought I had healed this bullied girl. But she is still here and she wants to be seen now. Really be seen, not being shoved away with a sweet.

Square peg

But back to the now, December 2017. I am an adult woman and I still feel invisible and odd. I feel like a square peg. But most of all I feel not seen and it hurts now even more than before, because I do not agree with this. I do not feel I deserve to not be seen, but something inside me is holding on to this energy as it is still playing out in my life. And this doesn’t align with who I am today. I deserve to be seen. After years of worrying and taking care of my parents, the focus is no longer on others, but on myself, no more excuses. And that is pretty painful and very much needed. It is no longer a question of why, and how to proceed, but it is about feeling what my heart and my body actually have to say to me now, and that is a lot. I had to create space to allow my feelings to return, put my mind to rest and learn how to embrace life again.

So turn back the clock a couple of weeks, here I was on the bedroom floor, sobbing, heartbroken and sad. I cried and let all the stress wash out of me. I felt so much old pain flooding through.

I just want…
To be seen. To be heard. To be safe. To be loved. To be received. To be…

But how can others mirror this back to me when I don’t see, hear, protect or truly love myself?

Recognition

Big AHA moment! So that is why I work so hard, that is why I have such a drive to serve, that is why I keep seeking on how I can be better, improving myself by taking many courses and workshop, not taking enough time to rest, all work no play, that is why I have a hard time saying ‘no’, that is why I have a block on receiving. That is why I don’t shine. That is why I feel so depleted.
….
There is this deep sense of not feeling worthy and this is an energy many of us carry and that is why I am sharing this with you today. We do not feel good enough. We are programmed from birth not to feel good enough. Though we are perfect! Now can you feel this and really receive this?

Funny thing is as soon as I felt this pain and really saw it for what it was – someone invited me out of the blue to give a SoulCollage® workshop at her house! No renting venues or taking care of other logistics! Also many requests for readings have been coming in in the past week. The energy has shifted! This for me is such a proof of how the universe works. I always felt it worked this way. I have seen it’s magic work many times before. But this lack of worthiness was a blind spot of mine.

Hermit

I have lived through many ‘dark nights of the soul’ in my life and the past years were sad and insightful. I felt stuck, like a failure and tired. So tired and uninspired. I was wrestling with my emotions and my sense of worth. Old stories and old pain resurfaced. I felt trapped and in conflict with my life as it is. I felt like I had failed because I study personal growth, was coaching other people and well I should know better because of this. We often see it so clearly for others, but it is so much harder to look within. It was time for me to retreat and go inward. So I became a bit of hermit in the past year and spent a lot of time in meditation and contemplation. A lot of time just being, journaling, drawing, making SoulCollage® cards and well crying. Time to face my past and emotions. Not to let them go, but to really feel them and see them. Acknowledge them, not push them away. I want to live my truth again. MY truth and not that of another. I want to create my life as I see it.

Unrest

But what I did not see was that I had created my whole life from the need to be seen. I have lived the life of the bullied child long enough. I have carried this belief of not being good enough for far too long. Time to set her free. She may have been an outsider, she may have been different, but she was authentic and true. After being bullied in my life for so long, my deep unconscious motive had become to show that I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to. All of this hard work to be seen and to finally be good enough. And what I lived with unconsciously was a search for recognition. The need for others to see me as successful and to feel good about myself. What that created was a constant unrest in myself. Because it was never enough. It never happened fast enough and it was never good enough. It always had to be more and better. Until I could no longer handle that pressure.

Unconscious pattern

I have lived from old habits of “working hard” and motivating myself to get things done and it worked for a long time, but I lost the connection to my heart, to my passion along the way.
Unconsciously I let my past affect my present to prove that I am good enough. Now ask yourself from which unconscious pattern and programming do you live? Do you find the place you live from in your head or in your heart? We all have the gift of intuition, but we are so concerned with our thinking and need for control that we have created lives in which we feel trapped andwe are stuck in our heads.

Cesspool

The healing of ourselves is, I think, something that never stops, but certainly after years, perhaps a lifetime of unfelt emotions to be dealing with, at the beginning it feels as if you open up a cesspool. Perhaps you are afraid to really feel as we fear what may resurface and we fear we slip even further into depression and pain. But please know that the fear is worse than any of these emotions. Because they are emotions, they are not us, they are signifiers of what is not working in our lives, where we are not aligned and have blocked the path to our hearts. And yes that hurts. But know that when it hurts, it can heal. And if you do not heal your emotions, they will determine your choices and life. Our shadows, the emotions that we do not want to feel, are going to demand attention and rule our lives. This happens unconsciously. Those old pieces from our childhood now determine how we live our lives. We now compensate for what we have not felt as a child, we are looking for a life in which we can feel good about ourselves or how we think we will feel good about ourselves (because others say so – or because this way works for others – comparing).

We can heal ourselves

We have lost the connection with ourselves, with our hearts, with the ones we really are and not the ones that others want us to be or what we think is expected of us. We do not live our own lives, but we do what we think we need to do to feel good about ourselves. If we seek happiness outside of ourselves, we chase something that does not exist and we burn up. Stress sucks out all life force and eventually kills.  Then we can not make an authentic choice and we look around for confirmation and help. Then we are not really free because we have no choice. We release the power of our lives.

We can heal ourselves, psychologically, spiritually and physically, but when our self-efficacy is compromised, then we become ill. Our bodies are strong but have to give what they need and stress and negative emotions are of heavy burden on the body and we can’t compensate stress with healthy food. So then you wake up tired and you burn out at a certain moment. Now I was pretty far on the way in this scenario, but I have been able to repack myself because this is a serious health problem. It is time to heal stress and negative emotions. Not to let the emotions go, but to really feel and heal them, so they don’t take the reign over our lives.

Expectations

We live from our minds in this society. We blindly follow endless to-do lists all day long and we play a role of who we think we should be. We have all kinds of expectations about ourselves because we think that is what is expected of us to be accepted and seen. Yes, we live an idea of what we think life should look like. But what if we let that all go and ask ourselves what we want it to look like. What if no one was watching. What would you do? What do YOU want? The answers are inside of you. Not outside. This has been said and written about so many times. But do you really feel the profoundness of this statement. Do you really go inward and listen to your heart? To what you long for? Do you dare?

A true life

So it is actually quite simple. There are so many techniques and strategies, but why not just go straight to the source? How about instead of constantly striving for external validation you just wake up each morning and ask yourself this: What do you need to feel seen? There is a deep knowing that if I start to focus my energy more on actual love and connection and belonging that my life will be significantly more fulfilling and that my work will take care of itself. Things will fall apart and you will be brought back home. I truly believe all of us have the answers and wisdom we’ll ever need inside of us. I believe every offset and ‘mess up’ is necessary to know who we are. I think identity crisis’ are crucial to living a true life.

Worthiness

I made a list of what I want to experience in 2018, why I want these experiences and how I think to obtain them. Now I wont ‘bore’ you with the list, but I do want to share my word for 2018, a word that is underneath all I wish to create and that worth is Worthiness.

This is a vibration that plants a seed of deservedness and will allow you to express yourself with passion.  We need to allow ourselves to experience this and step out of the illusion of unworthiness.
We are held and loved by all that is. Release all the ideas of separation and rest in pure beingness and bring forth that energy from within. We are worthy of everything we desire.

No one can set your level of worthiness except you. – Bryant mcGill

I Am the One Who…

I decided to make a SoulCollage® card for Worthiness and this is what was created.

I am the one who….looks expectantly at the world, who is innocent, who is sweet, who shows some cracks, who is drying up, who has rough edges, who bathes in the sunlight, who blossoms, who opens up, who grows moss-life, who has new beginnings.

What do you have to give me? Hope, innocence, love and purity.

What do you need from me? Love and seeing past the cracks and rough edges. To see who I truly am.

Is there anything else you would like to tell me today?

You are perfect, cracks and all. You will blossom. Look at the world through innocent and new eyes and play. Because you are worthy sweetie!

Live fully

Now last year’s word was Live . To live fully. Now I feel this wasn’t fully succesful as there was way too much hard working and not enough playing and time to just be and listen to what I want, what I really really want. As I wrote above, I broke down and really started to feel and listen and I realized that all my hard work and good intentions in my work and in my life are not flowing and I am not receiving back that what I put in energy-wise, because deep down I don’t feel I deserve it. This deep rooted belief that I am not good enough, stops me from living fully. And that has to stop. Because an ever stronger growing part of me is calling bullshit, I am so worth it! I deserve to live a full and wonderful life. I deserve to be loved and succesful.

And I feel a deep yearning for more social contact. I have turned into a hermit and I needed this stage to recover, reflect and rekindle my energy. But I feel I am ready to venture out into the world and play the game of life! I deserve joy and to enjoy the gifts I receive! Hard work I love it, but it needs to be balanced!

I want to feel…

I want to feel passionate about life and feel more energized spiritually mentally, emotionally physically and socially and above all to feel WORTHY. I want to have fun, connect deeper to myself and live. Less have to’s and more experiencing from the flow of life. Less planning and doing, more living and feeling. I need to make space in order for the new to blossom and grow. Quiet my monkey mind and trust life will flow me in the right direction. My heart and higher Self will guide me. My ego needs to let itself be held lovingly.

I am better than the life I have settled for!

I release all that does not serve me anymore and step into pure awareness, beingness, and expression.

Instead of pushing, pausing.
Instead of just giving, receiving.
Instead of controlling, surrendering.

Things do not have to be as hard as we make them to be and I don’t think things to take as long as they tend to. Life can be a lot better a lot more quickly if we just sit with what we’re running from: that we feel like there’s no true place for us here.

So I am writing to you today to ask you to take a moment to pause. To put your hand on your heart and ask yourself how you’re feeling.

Whatever feeling it is, feel it.

Ask it what it needs.

Listen.

It can change your life.

For you to be seen. And loved. And heard.

For you to be held.

In joy. In sorrow. In ideas. In love.

Happy New Year

Happy New YOU!