Akosua Dardaine Edwards's Blog, page 144

Life Goes in Cycles

Life goes in cycles. There is a time to do something, and then there is a time to move on - Louise Hay

When the time comes for us to move on, the Universe will make us so uncomfortable , it will make us wake up, it will give us signs and signals whether we pay attention or not.
Look at nature, there are seasons, there are times for rain, time for sun, time for the poui flowers, time for the sun to shine, and the moon to be full.
Human love sameness and control, especially when there are unhealed wounds or stuff backed up that was not healthily released
so we want sameness, we want to know what time this happens, what time that happens, we want to hold on for dear life, we want the cycle to last forever
Newsflash - it really doesn't work that way
Everything is fleeting
Everything is for a time,
Everything is for a season
Know when it is your time to start, when it is your time to move on, it is your time for a change
It really will be okay in the end
Peace

Publications
www.akosuadardaineedwards.com/publica...


TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH1K7...

Love is Freedom

  Love is freedom. To look for it by placing yourself in bondage is to separate yourself from it .ACIM

How many times do we place ourselves in bondage in the name of love?
The first time I read that I was in the" bathroom temple" I call it that because many of my life changes and ideas happen either the shower or on the throne, for some reason. I started crying. I literally put the book down and wept. Such a simple but profound line
To look for love by placing yourself in bondage is to separate from it!
I decided right there and then that I had to make some wholesale changes. 
Placing myself in bondage in the name of love was over, no more, caput! I made a conscious decision to ask myself is this freedom or is this bondage
Sometimes I slip, I find myself in situations where I place myself in bondage, then I get still and ask myself the question: Are You placing yourself in bondage in the name of Love?
Placing myself in disrespectful situations
Lying and betraying my own self
Placing myself with people who lie to not just me but themselves
Placing myself in jobs I detest
Placing myself in a people pleasing situation
Placing myself in bondage in the name of love is not love
Love is freedom. it lifts you, it encourages you, it makes you tell the truth,it allows you to release and as you release, so you are released

You see the world you value

Peace

Publications: www.akosuadardaineedwards.com

TED TALK: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH1K7...

Truth Telling

If you aren’t secure enough in your own truth, then you might need to tear others down. If you aren’t secure enough in your own truth, you might need to go around to all your other friends and sully the image of those you feel threatened by. If you aren’t secure enough in your own truth, you might choose to be silent while the sullying happens. If you aren’t the one doing the active hurting, it might be easy to tell yourself that you aren’t involved. But you are - Life After Tampons


Watch your words, and your actions. They tell a story 
They are also guides as to where you are on the journey
Are you complaining often? Watch that- before it turns into bitterness and resentment
Complaining is praying to the devil according to the late great Bob Marley
Are you whining and blaming?  Watch that - before it turns into giving away your power
We can misuse and abuse our power, our innate power to live and thrive
Be mindful of how you are using it

When I find myself complaining more than usual I know I am giving up my power and my responsibility to make the required changes, I am outsourcing my own happiness
Now some times it is a fact that things are shitty and could be better, and it is quite normal and understandable to tell others about it, How you say it and the intention makes the difference
One can express, for example, that the food is cold or the service is not very awesome without being an A-hole or turn it into some kind of personal drama
What is the intention, what are the words used, and the actions behind it?
Once I see I am heading down that road I know- take a time out, this ain't about them!

How do you tell your truth?
Peace

Publications: www.akosuadardaineedwards.com/publica...

TED TALK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH1K7...

Drop Down and Feel

Drop down into your body and feel. Stacey Hererra

My brother Kyle Jones is a boss at breaking down this, I really wanted to share this:

During childhood, anytime verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse takes place, feelings are too painful to manage. - Being an adaptive species, you learned ways to not feel emotions and abandon the emotional body. 
This emotional abandonment includes:
• taking focus from your body to your head — leading to thinking rather than feeling
• constant looking for love and approval — because of feeling unloved and unworthy inside 
• getting depressed when experiencing loneliness, heartbreak or helplessness — rather than connecting to your feelings
 • striving to become an overachiever to feel better about pain - Acts of emotional abandonment work genius on the surface; but deep inside you suffer depression, anxiety, shame and aloneness.

 These feelings exist because disconnection with your emotional guidance system. Your emotions are information wanting you to tune in and stop abandoning yourself. - 

By stopping abandoning emotions, you become open to the greater reality. You go beyond the human into being. Emotional clarity dominates your experience rather than emotional slavery. -

 How To Tune In For Emotional Clarity: 
1. Understand: Emotional clarity is supreme feeling - taking responsibly for every thought and emotion presented in the moment. 

2. Establish the intention to learn from your emotions rather than intending avoiding them. The intent to learn brings compassion, strength, and healing. On the contrary, avoiding emotions brings inner conflict, unloving behavior, and emotional dependency on others. 

3. When an emotional disturbance takes place, stop what you are doing. It doesn't matter if you are at work, in class, partying or on a plane - stop and connect to what's taking place in your body. Ask: "What information are my feelings communicating right now?" Don't look for a direct answer when you ask this question - but more of an intuitive hunch, then connect, feel and heal. - 

No Love is Wasted

The things that can’t be taken from you: faith, hope, love. And that’s when fear disappears. (Down at Rock Bottom)   no love is wasted.   - Glennon Doyle Mellon

Chatting with a friend yesterday, we  have know each other for just over a year. My friend asked me how was I doing today? I responded  that I was raising the vibes and making the best out the good out here on this good  Earth,
my friend thought was a a strange response"Isn't that a strange response for someone who's life is always perfect?"
"Perfect?, where did you get that idea?"
My friend rattled off that I seemed to have in my possession all the things that make life perfect
"Things you say?"
"yes"
"All external and perception my dear"
I heard clothes, car, and other material possessions

Perfection to me is not about the things I own, it really is about how I show up every day in the world, and how I feel about myself so I can pass on all those good feelings and make a positive contribution to this place
I have my challenges, every single day, and I take all of them as lessons on the journey, some days I wish for no lessons LOL
My doubts, My fears but I am not wearing it on my sleeve and what does it say about you as well, that only the things you see deem my life perfect? Are only things important to you?

I thought about this for a while, in between the place where am I being real or not? I came to the conclusion that people see the world how they want to see it from their lens. I keep in mind who I am and why I am here, always growing, always learning, always sharing, always real
That is my idea of perfection
Not the things that I own
Peace

Pain is a Guide

Most people are living an unempowered life. When they get angry they shout. When they feel hurt, they withdraw emotionally. When they don’t want to experience the pain of feeling rejected or not having the world the way they want it to be, they work harder or have sex or take a drink and all of that is a loss of power. You lose power when you are controlled by external circumstances.  Gary Zukav
Every time you face the pain, you decrease it's power, every time you leave the cookie (yes the chocolate chip cookie) you give it less power, every time you don't make that call, send that text to the partner who you know you are settling to be with for whatever reason, he/she is married, disrespectful, dishonest, stunting your growth and so on, you gain some more authentic powerAuthentic power according to Gary Zukav is the alignment of your soul with your personality. You experience your soul each time you sense yourself as more than a mind and body, your life as meaningful, or you feel that you have gifts to give and you long to give them.Pain is a guide. Listen to it, run from it and you will meet it up again either in a different person, a different form. We as human's like comfort, we resist pain, and run to things to stop or mask it, sit with it, talk to it, invite it in and get the lessons. It won't kill you.Painful emotions show you what prevents you from creating harmony, cooperation, sharing and reverence for life.Don't run from itAccording to Gary Zukav "This is how to avoid re-creating painful situations: Take the time to discover your real intention before you act. If it is to change someone or the world so that you will feel safe or better about yourself, don't act on it, because it is an intention of fear and can create only painful consequences."Peace

What Thoughts Do I Dwell In?

What thoughts do I dwell in? I have endless possibilities in which to wander and wonder in life. Caroline Myss

The post below is from Caroline Myss's Wid-Bit series,it touched and resonated with me on a deep level and so I wanted to share it today......

I could spend time in inspirational thoughts, letting myself get swept into the lightness of a psalm, “God’s blessings are everywhere”. I could embrace the deep truth that, “I have everything I need.” I may not have all that I want but how much do I want? 
And why do I want things? I’m not sure I’ve reflected upon that question long and hard.

 I wonder what I would discover about myself. I could wander into the rare air of truth – that life is but a very brief journey. 
Do I invest this precious gift of my life regretting my past or treating each day as a new surprise? 
Anything can happen. I could dwell in faith: I am blessed.
 Many times, I am not sure what that means but how much do I need to have to realize my blessings? 
Maybe I was protected today from my own foolishness or saved from an accident? I often wander into thoughts that diminish my energy. I wonder what will happen if. If what? 
And then I make things up. I imagine a dark world taking over my life but the truth is I do not live in that dark world. 
Why do I then imagine that I might? Those are only dark thoughts and fears. I do not have to wander into those treacherous thought forms that become inner reptiles.

They create an imagined world. I could just as easily choose to dwell in thoughts that radiate tranquility, hope, and blessings. 
“Lord, you have given me the ability – the power – to create the inner space in which I dwell. My mind seems to prefer the fearful side of life, full of despair and wounds. 
But my soul craves the light. Light, blessings, faith, hope are the natural dwelling place of the soul. No wonder we seem to constantly struggle with ourselves. 
I recognize that it’s easier to get to the world in which my mind dwells. 
I can touch that world. I can hear it and smell its fragrances. It’s fears often do not seem imagined. But I have also experienced the power my soul has to quiet those fears in a second; to reduce the problems of my physical life to nothing more than a temporary breeze. 
That is Your grace flooding into my soul. 
That is the power that can evaporate an illness and resurrect a meaningless life. 
Grant me the grace to find my way back to my soul again and again. 

Peace

Acceptance

We all need to challenge things we've previously accepted. It's not always about jumping in, leaning in, doing more, hustling harder. But instead, retreating, stepping back, taking a break can give us the most clarity. Maxie

Have you ever been in a situation where no matter how hard you pushed, tried, worked, marketed, made vision boards, affirm and hustled it wasn't happening in the way you had it all mapped out?That's been me over the last few weeks.I have learnt that when you have done all that, the next step is to surrenderSurrender is about believing that it will turn out as it should after all the work has been done, all the prayers have been said and be willing to embrace that what you want may look different to what will happenbecauseacceptancefaithself belief
Peace

What Do You Thing You Absolutely Need and Why?

That’s what crisis does. It comes into your life, and you have to watch everything you thought you needed fall away.   Glennon Doyle Mellon



I have a very interesting relationship with the word "need" I have read and listened to a number of views about "need" and at times confuses me because I believe that many of the things that I think I need I really really don't. I want them. And then there is a part of me that thinks about how we as humans are not meant to do this gift of life alone. So here I am in the middle of needs and wants and the feelings associated with them
So this is how I have rationalized it thus far

I ask myself, if I believe that I cannot live without a person or thing that I wasn't born with, then it has gone past a need that is an addiction- take back the responsibility for your life
Always comes down to the simple solution

I thought I needed quite a few things and they all fell away in a tide, here I am still standing, I didn't die- sometimes I thought I would, but that was just a feeling in response to my own ignorance and shame, It actually cleared space for me to live a totally different life, one with less hanging on to "things I need"
It also allowed me to know that I will always get what I need when I need it
But the chocolate, oh the chocolate, that's the biggest struggle!

Ask yourself- what do you believe you need or cannot do without and why?
Share your lessons

Peace

 TED TALK:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH1K7...

Publications: www.akosuadardaineedwards.com/publica...

Cut and Clear

  So much of a person’s results in life are determined by his or her perceptions about themselves and the world around them. Unless you have mastered life and all your possibilities, there’s an excellent chance some of your long-held perceptions are wrong Jerry Gilles

Everyday I get a reminder about letting go of perceptions and attachments
Attachments in this case, can be people, places, and ways of doing things that no longer serve the growth, development and peaceful consciousness that I aim to have and the person that I want to be or even the person that I am

I ask myself: Does this serve my life in a positive way? How would my life be different if I let go of this?

And if I remain unconscious my life has a way of showing me that attention is required
Things start happening which once I ignore blows up in my face!

Have a mental inventory

What are some of the things that I am holding on to that I do not use- in my house, in my apartment, in my life, where I live, the people around me, my job
Make a list
What have you not used in a year in your closet?
What people are in your life that are negative and condescending?
And decide

Make way for the new,
Cut and Clear
Peace