Akosua Dardaine Edwards's Blog, page 193

Give thanks for this shedding of the old!

"You had your life focused on something that didn’t belong to you, and a path that didn’t belong to you. You locked in on something that did not belong  to you, someone that didn’t belong to you. You didn’t let go of a yesterday that didn’t belong to you. You hung on to a rage that did belong to you, and you wouldn’t let it go. You lost track of being here.
To bring in your desired newness, you must first allow old parts of your life to fall away. These changes are to be celebrated, not feared.
Give thanks for this shedding of the old!
Embrace all of the lessons it brought, and then let it go!
Be giddy with excitement at the newness of the gifts that are now being bestowed upon you, and let their magic surprise and delight you.” Carolyn Myss

Carolyn Myss is one of my absolutely favorite teachers, simple and straight to the point, sometimes like a school principal to get the point across.  You lost track of being here.
Where are you in the moment? Are you here? Or over there somewhere? I keep reminding myself of that
Today I practiced that when I realized I was drifting and the results were so awesome. Fully present in the moment, unafraid and ready to take it all in. In the forest, with the Rosehall Development Group, a group of young people who decided that they wanted to improve their lives by staying in their community and use what they have. A village with a rain forest, rivers and waterfalls
What can we do with what we have they asked, how bloody inspiring to me!
What can we let go of to make way for the new - mainly old customs that no longer served them, how many of us are holding on to things that are expired, stale, past it, growing mold,
I can testify to that. I want what I want and I am not letting go! Let it go mate! You gotta let it go so you can grow, just breathe

Slowly gets you there

Leaps of faith happen as much in the small moments as they do in the large ones. Maxie Coy
Small steps, one drop, slowly gets you there, you eat the elephant one bite at a time,you may have heard one of these sayings at some point haven't you?We tend to want things to happen right away, we live in the microwave instant time where we now have the luxury of instant for many things however there are some things that you absolutely cannot rush no matter what you doDoes the sun rush to set?Does the moon rush to rise?Nature can teach us so much
So I got to thinking about this having landed in St. Vincent yesterday, it seems the pause button was being held down from the time I landed, or maybe the place ran in slow motion and they forgot to put the sign up at the airportAfter about an hour I said to myself, listen make a choice to ensure you maintain some level of peace! And so I was able to enjoy this beautiful place at their own pace, I mean what is the alternative?

Honor the pace sometimes especially when you have no control over it there is order in the Universe, honor the small steps you make, consistency and discipline trumps short cuts every time and the patient way is always the fastest path
Peace

I commit to me today that I will......

Are you interested, involved, invested or committed? Jonathon Sprinkles
Have you made any commitments to yourself? Look yourself in the eye and make one. Go on, try it, go look in the mirror and make a commitment to yourself, look yourself in the eye and say I commit to ___________call your name when you do it
I _________ commit to you today that I will______________
And then see what happens.
When you make a COMMITMENT to yourself your whole brain and body shifts, because there is absolutely nothing worse than letting yourself down and breaking commitments to yourself, it starts the boundary breaker of other people doing the exact same thing!When you let down yourself continuously you send out a message, a red flag to others, hey, you can do it too! When you look yourself in the eye and make a commitment and you keep it, the trust in yourself grows, you trust that you will do what you say that you will do, confidence grows, courage is activated, focused becomes a way of being, discipline also starts being a feature of your lifeJust from looking your self in the eye and making a COMMITMENT!Try it and tell me how it goescurious minds want to knowPeace


I am off to the lovely island of St Vincent and the Grenadines today look for me on the other side.....

Adventure awaits

And what's the alternative to being authentically strong, vulnerable, powerful, tender, loving, genius, courageous, bold, and devoted? Being fake strong (weak); fake vulnerable (and that is just deceptive); being fake powerful (which would make you arrogant); fake tender (nasty); fake loving (not always a terrible thing, but still...); being fake genius (that'll get you sued); fake devoted (major soul-sucking yuck for everyone involved.) Danielle La PorteToday I embark on a new project that if you asked me last week, last year, in fact any ole time I would not even have dreamt that I would be on this road. Life is so delighted to bring the unexpected and I have learnt to be delighted to receive it, which is not to say that I am not scared shitless as I walk on this path, I have decided to feel the fear and do it anyway.And what am I scared of? My ego! Yup, the ego rearing it's head wanting to "be better than", "do better than", "act better than"  to people please and of course the classic, will I complete the journey?

It doesn't matter how much potential you have or how many divine opportunities are laid before you, fear can zap your energy and stamina to move. The fear of rejection, failure and success will rage in your brain the moment your potential is called upon. In moments like this you must trust yourself that you can feel bad and recover. That you can survive mistakes that might make you look stupid. How you respond to fear when it rises determines how much you can trust yourself.
Trust yourself, trust yourself to know that you can and will confront it, walk through it and thrive.And so today I remember what one of my teachers I met along my other journeys shared"I need neither to add not to subtract from my essential being, for whom God created me to be is more than enough/ I walk forward today in perfect confidence that the holiness within me created by God, is the truth of my being and the light of the Universe"



Peace

There is nothing to defend

The ego focuses on error and overlooks truth. It makes real ,every mistake it perceives, and with characteristically circular reasoning concludes that because of the mistake consistent truth must be meaningless.  ACIM
Are you focusing on the truth or on being right? Human beings love to defend their position and as we say here "not look bad in front of other people" The ego thrives on a sense of separation and protecting itself, the truth however needs no protection, the truth just is. There is nothing to defendThere is nothing to protectThere is nothing to hideWhen you are moving in truth there is absolutely nothing to defend or justify.And people will not understand if you are not reacting to certain events which to the human eyes look like provocation and bad behavior. And guess what? they don't have to understand, you know what the truth is and fueling the ego is playing into the sense of separation and according to one of my mentors, that is the only thing that we need to heal the sense of separation, which makes us act as if we are superior or even inferior.The truth is the truth, it cannot be discreditedPeace

Do not waste your failures

Do not waste your failures. (someone told me this I wrote it down but I cannot remember who did)

Life for me is extraordinary and exciting, a few years ago I believed, and no one could convince me otherwise, that I failed miserably because I lost my job and man(husband) - even though they were both sucking the life out of me, anyway I digress- so that was my perception and it fed into my behavior! But now I know for sure that everything in your life is useful, and all roads lead to God, some of us take the smooth road and some take the hard road but it all leads to the same place.

Do not waste your failures - use it as fuel to live your fullest life.
Got rejected? GREAT! You are being taught self-approval and persistence!
Got fired! Awesome! It’s a wake-up call and an opportunity to trade up to something more fulfilling!

You got broken up with! Wonderful moment to learn how to open your heart even more!

Out of money! YES! You are being taught that The Uni-verse is your supply and to not rely on just the outer world for your health, safety and protection.


Have to live at home? What a wonderful moment to stop with the social media and get back to loving!

Do not waste your failures - all things are lessons that God would have us learn.

So listen, this is not a call for you to bury your head in the sand and do nothing but as one of my friends told me this week, feel it, cuddle yourself if you must and move on.
Do not waste your failures!
And as I was contemplating this, my peeps from Kenya asked me to come to Nairobi to talk at their "Fail -Up" workshop - a workshop where lessons on how failure was part of the journey to success! How awesome is that? The Universe talks and I listen
Do not waste your failures!
Peace!!

I will be at the First Citizens Women's Workshop in October - come dong.....

Measure only from your heart and soul

What are we paying attention to? What everybody else is doing or what is the truth? Deborah Johnson
Sharing this from my girl Maxie McCoy
You have bank accounts. You have social accounts. Taps on a picture. Cash in the bank. Friends. So many friends. The crew. The digital. The status on your airline. The points on your card.
You’ve got a credit score. Letters by your name. You’ve got 140 character bios. And super sassy business cards.
Bullets on a resume. Figures in your savings. They’re the things you have. Things you’ve built. Things you’ve worked toward. But they aren’t your essence. Your being. Your magic. They aren’t you.Yet, they’re the stuff you slide into measuring yourself by. It’s how you measure up. It’s your measure – the same measure that will never be enough.
Who cares that they have that.Who cares what you do and they don’t.Who cares how fancy their pants, how skinny their thighs, how cool their travel, how stacked their likes.Your life isn’t measured in numbers or counts, dollars or options, the size of your house or the brand of your shoe.It’s not the measure that matters. It’s the measure that breeds pain and comparison and false ideals, wrong dreams and discounted pleasures.The measures that matter are the ones you can never count. The measures that matter have no tracking, no digits, and no material value.The count that matters is the bottomless belly laughs with your besties over past memories that still make you crack. 
It’s watching her walk down the aisle, remembering their love story.Raising your hands to the sky and saying sweet thanks.It’s the precious time with your family. The ones that make you wonder what you ever did to deserve them. The seconds that pass through smiles and sarcasm.Extra-long hugs with kids. Fly by kisses with lovers. Sharpie’d post-it notes on the mirror that make your tummy flutter. Day dreams. Realized dreams. Dancing in your kitchen to a tune that makes your hips swing.
Conversation with strangers – receptionists, travel agents, twitter friends. Conversations that change you. That school you. That warm you.Those are the moments. Those are the measures. The measure that says life is good. The feelings that count. The stuff that sticks. The real value. The real meaning.Measure your life with love. Of others. Of you.  Measure with joy, from deep and lasting support. Measure it in what you give. Measure in what you feel. Measure only from your heart to your soul. 
Peace

Don't be playing a baby either..

Worry, hate and fear together with their offshoots:anxiety, bitterness,impatience,avarice,unkindness, judgementalness and condemnation - all attack the healthy body at the cellular level. It is impossible to have a healthy body under those conditions.
Similarly, although to a somewhat lesser degree- conceit, self-indulgence,and greed lead to physical illness, or lack of well being
All illness is created first in the mind - Neale Donald Walsh


So, I haven't been able to get into the boxing ring for just over five weeks, my hand is shot! Yesterday was the first time I saw my boxing coach, a man of very little words and many riddles!
"What happened to your hand"
"I cannot fight"
"I did not ask you that"
"I injured the ligaments"
"What were you thinking?"
"I don't know"
"Try to remember so this doesn't happen again, and don't be playing a baby either"
There goes the sympathy vote!
But walking away from him I admitted to myself I was worried about other parts of my life, I was worried about having being and doing enough, about what is next, I approached that entire training run in a full state of worry and I will not be doing that again!

What a powerful thing, this mind of ours!
Neal Donald Walsh says this as well" Thoughts are very subtle, yet extremely powerful form of energy, When you say and act out a negative concept such as I am a loser, you place tremendous creative energy into motion, small wonder you come down with a cold. That would be the least of it.

Peace!

Love wishes to be known

Love wishes to be known, completely understood and shared. It has no secrets; nothing that it would keep apart and hide. It walks in sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling welcome and in sincerity so simple and so obvious it cannot be misunderstood.
Love has no darkened temples where mysteries are kept obscure and hidden from the sun. It does not seek for power, but for relationships A Course in Miracles
If we all attempt to do all our tasks with love and live from a place of love I guarantee that there will be a shift in the planet?  
If we would show up willing to share, to understand and be understood, there will be a new day dawning, we may not achieve it the way we want to but we would have at least made an attempt to love, we would have been willing.
If we were willing  to be open-eyed and calm in our approach to situations and people how much of a difference would that make?
Where there is fear, there is no love. Fear shows up in so many forms - secrets, disquiet, rage, procrastination, overeating, excuses, lashing out, substance abuse, busyness, hiding from one's responsibility and the list goes on and on and on. Love wins.. every time.
So practice showing up in love, just be willing, willingness change things.Be willing to pour love on the situation,Be willing to have your eyes open  and be  calmBe willing to practice a smiling welcomeBe willing to seek for relationships rather than dominate Be willing to just be willing

Peace

Today I will be sharing lessons on the journey on the Everywoman Radio Show 11am to 12 noon on Ebony 104.1fm
www.ebony104.1FM

You can never fool yourself

Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at is the source of fear, and you are beginning to learn that fear is not real. You are also learning that its effects can be dispelled merely by denying their reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that what has no effects does not exist. Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing has not happened. If reality is recognized by its extension, what leads to nothing could not be real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot be seen. ACIM
I give thanks in advance daily to the Universe for being courageous. I do it early in the morning because the fear comes up during the day to bite me on the butt! And usually the fear stems from people's perception of me, my choices, my life! Yep, that is a confession on the journey today!! 

And what I have noticed and learnt since I started affirming and asking to be courageous is that even though I feel the fear, especially when I believe something big is at steak, I still find a way to go through with the task, I may do it slower, I may do it in parts but I find a way and that was not something that happened before! And even if the thing that I do turns out differently, off from what I expected I still feel a sense of accomplishment because I would have learnt something and did the thing I fearedSomeone told me on Friday that I am very unassuming, as some of the things I do and say do not fit with how I look. I thought about that for a moment and responded with a smile! Who can tell what someone will say or do by how they look? Its a trap I have fallen into many times so it was a reminder to not judge. 
Brutally honest -You can fool some people some time but you can never fool yourself! You can tell yourself almost anything to excuse away your fear. You might actually believe it for a while! But, there will come a time when the excuse will not be strong enough, or big enough to camouflage your fear. Eventually what you tell yourself will begin to sound so weak, so lame, so utterly ridiculous that you will have a hard time convincing yourself or anyone else that it is true. When that time comes, don’t be defensive. Be willing to face the thing you fear! It really is a freeing feeling!Peace!