Akosua Dardaine Edwards's Blog, page 45

Are You Willing?

 Opening ourselves to willingness may feel like we are surrendering or abandoning all that we believed. But at the same time it is an act of power and courage because it is a conscious choice we make about how to apply our personal will. Being willing is to be in a state of willing something into creation. It is at once allowing ourselves to be while also choosing to direct our energy in a focused way. It is being and doing from a place of openness, where we can work with the universe rather than resist it. It is an open hand rather than one that is clenched into a fist. When we make a step toward willingness, we open ourselves to truth, possibility, and the movement of the wise universe in and through our lives. Daily OM

One of the greatest lessons I have learnt on the Journey thus far is "be willing" At the onset of being told to be willing...again, I resisted it. I could not wrap my head around why people were going on about how important it was for me to be "willing".

Growing up, I was told on many occasions " you are so unwilling", that message stuck with me, I internalized it. I believed that being unwilling was not doing what someone in authority asked of me. I believed that being unwilling was  not doing what I did not want to do,  standing firm on what I was against. A level of resistance.

I now embrace what willingness is. 

Willingness is the ability to keep an open mind in the face of a new and different situation. Willingness is not about giving up, it's about surrendering- surrender requires trust.

Willingness is the openness to do a new thing and give up "my way" as the only way.

Willingness is not the same as readiness. Willingness may be the stage before being ready. I can be willing and still not ready. That  same willingness will carry us into readiness.

Being willing demonstrates a level of vulnerability - heading into the unknown with zero certainty, the rewards however, are so worth it.

Are you willing?

Peace

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My Top 21 Lessons for 2021

 Funny how simple it is to settle into discontentment. So much so that there is a sense of security in sorrow and frustration. You unwittingly become Stockholm to dysfunction. It’s not what you like; it’s what you know.  Stacey Herrera

As we approach the end of this cycle called a year, self reflection of the lessons learnt become a priority for me. Allow me to share the top 21 lessons that I learnt. Please drop a comment to share yours.

This too shall pass.We are all connected, despite where we live, what we believe.Always show up in love, rather than in fear, it makes a difference.Have boundaries - use them!No. Sometimes it is all you must say in response.Yes. Sometimes Yes is all it takes.Everyone is going through their own internal battles.Some people need to be loved from afar.There are times you need to and must mind your own businessYou cannot save others, nor can you do their work for them.You do not need to share your opinion on every single thing.Feelings not felt or expressed in a healthy way attach on to parts of your body.Forgive....yourself...firstForgive others.Rest is part of the Journey.I control nothing but my response, my thoughts and my choices.Life will do whatever is required to get your attention.Love shows up in so many different ways.Life is simple, we complicate it.You have to do the inner work.Where ever I stand is holy ground.Peace
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Your healing will change the world around you.

 Your healing will change the world around you. Valencia

Your healing is your responsibility. It may sound harsh, hear me out though. Your ability to respond to situations that are in your life, some perhaps out of your control, is with you.

How do you respond to situations, challenges and difficult situations says where you are in both your growing and healing.

Life is very consistent in reflecting back to us where we are, where we must grow, heal, forgive, move, change, shift, love, forgive, get courage. It is up to us to pay attention to the signs. What happens when we don't? life will keep showing us over and over again. The moment we look to blame or give up our power to the external, we find ourselves right back in the cycle.

Pay attention to your life, to the signs and signals that life continues to give you.

Pay attention to your responses. are you blaming, externalizing, looking for scapegoats, rationales, justification and excuses.

Pay attention if you are not or never feel at peace and want to prove, be right and perfect all the time.

Your healing will change the world around you because you would have changed.

Peace

Akosua

The Journey Continues

 

Hard pill to swallow : a lot of us practice emotional avoidance & call it a positive mindset . Marcos Alvarado

Feel all of your feelings, do not be afraid of them, they are guides, they are here to reflect to you where you are in life. Feel them, deal with them, then you heal.

Avoiding your feelings manifests itself in not just poor health, in poor relationships - all relationships.

December is a month to focus on feeling, dealing and healing.

Peace

Akosua

The universe is our mirror

 The universe is our mirror and until our patterns and issues get healed we will continue to run into ourselves everywhere we go. We attract relationships with certain individuals so they can show us areas in our own life that need to be healed through their actions and behaviors - Sabrina Reber

Look around you, look at your life, look at your friends, look at it all. 

What do you see? 

Life is designed in such a way that it mirrors back to us how we live, and what we have recreated. Yes it sounds strange, simple and some may say weird. Bear with me though. 

I am slowly learning about what I would call the Mirror concept. The Mirror is a reflection of what is. When we recognize and accept what is, we can move forward from a place of knowing.

What is real, what is true, what needs to be looked at more closely, what needs to be cleaned up.

The mirror is a powerful tool. It provides you with the opportunity to take full responsibility for what is reflected back at you.

Responsibility = The ability to respond to a situation.

How do you respond when life is reflecting to you?

Do you embrace, hide, deny, get curious?

The response is key, the ability to response is telling.

Life loves us so much, we will continue to get the signs, the nudges. Pay attention!

The mirrors are always for us to learn, grow, heal and evolve. When we fight it, play victim, deny and ignore, we miss the lesson and the blessing.

Peace 

Akosua

Tend to Your Wounds

 a sacred connection is on the other side of shame. weed out your garden, tend to your wounds— honor yourself - Malanda 

The moment you find yourself externalizing, blaming others for what is happening in your life and not holding yourself accountable, you give away your power. Human beings love being right and being in control. I can relate - I mean, who wants to look dumb? so when we are not in tuned with taking personal responsibility and accountability we blame others, when we forget who we are, we blame others, when we are in fear we blame others.

Seems an easy fix then right? Taking responsibility and accountability means tending to your wounds, it means remembering who we are, it involves acting from a place of love rather than fear. The challenge with tending to your wounds is that it takes a tremendous amount of courage, surrender and stillness.

Many of us are simply not ready or willing to do surrender. The result of this being the continuation of the cycle of  blame and fear.

The shift starts with a sense of willingness  Just being willing to do a new thing!

Simple, isn't it?

Peace

Love Yourself Through it All

Journey in Grace - Lalah Delia






I have learnt that people we disagree  with or people who "trip us off" are our biggest teachers.What do they teach you?
1. Patience2. Empathy3. To leave ego out of the equation4. The power of a pause5. The consequences of one's actions6. How much more growing is required7. How much growth has taken place8. How self aware you are9. What habits require changing.10. To love yourself through it all - Most importantly!
Peace

Feelings are beautiful information.

 

Feelings are beautiful information. Every feeling—when observed through the heart—helps us become more conscious (it’s the heart that expands consciousness, not the other way around). Feelings are a global positioning system for the soul. Danielle La Porte

One of my favorite songs is by Chaka Khan and its called "Do You Love What You Feel?" 

When I hear the song, I think about the lessons I learnt about how I can use my feelings as a guide, a compass of sorts rather than ignore them or constantly live in them.

Feelings provide us with valuable information - as Danielle says beautiful information. That information serves us very well when we can accept that there is some value in it.

For a very long time I dismissed, ignored and denied my feelings. If I was happy I thought, hmm this may be too good to be true, so let me save some. If I was annoyed, upset, angry I would convince myself that those feelings were destructive and would not serve me well

So there I was stuck in this no man's land because I was afraid to feel the feelings, to acknowledge the guides and to pay attention to the guidance.

Until the proverbial shit hit the fan. I then had to pay attention. The lesson was to feel the feelings, use the guides, pay attention and have the courage to take the guidance.

There is value in every feeling that passes through us, it really is about how we respond to the feelings. Balance in everything. 

This too shall pass in everything.

Courage in everything.

Even in feeling our feelings

Peace 

Acceptance and Letting Go lays a foundation for Trust

 After you truly surrender, everything you could ever want just seems to show up. Wayne Dyer

Have you ever found yourself looking for an item you lost? You retrace your steps, you clean the entire house - or turn it upside down, with the aim to finding it. You sit, you ponder, you sweat all with the aim of finding this item and nothing!

And just as you decide to stop because you have accepted that it is gone, it appears! This is a reminder to me that there are times when acceptance and letting go is part of finding and receiving.

I have been testing this acceptance and letting go technique as I go through daily life. This has translated to do all that you can minus worry and fret and let it go, wait with patience and go on with your daily life knowing that whatever happens you can and will deal with it.

Excessive worry and making up stories adds anxiety to the process and prolongs it. Acceptance and letting go lays a foundation for trust and flexibility. It takes practice, it takes courage. It takes an open mind

It takes willingness.

Peace 

Taking a Pause

 Your Journey is Going to be Different than Others DJ Loaf

Confessions on the Journey.  I have been missing deadlines and commitments on the Journey and the blog has been part of this. Truthfully, it has not been part of my make up to miss deadlines and commitments for many years. I kept commitments to myself to help and support building self trust and self value

What I have learnt is building self trust and self value supports in trusting others.

What I have also learnt is when I feel that I have let myself down, guilt and shame sets in, which can easily lead to a cycle of neglecting the commitments I have set for myself.

From this place I am learning to feel all of my feelings, and in doing that I may have to take a pause, take a rest returning from that space with a renewed mindset, ready to go again.

It can be tempting and sometimes easy to get caught up in the cycle of guilt, of not feeling your feelings, of slipping into victim consciousness and externalizing. What is important is taking a pause, feeling the feelings, forgiving yourself and remembering who you are.

Journeying to Surrender involves taking a pause!

Peace