Creative Hearth

Aug. 2nd, 2010
Day 1 @ 12:45

Aug.3rd, 2010 
Day 2 @ 12:45

Aug. 4th, 2010
Day 3 @ 12:45

Aug. 5th, 2010
Day 4 @ 12:45

Aug. 6th, 2010
Day 5 @ 12:45

I keep on forgetting to post on Monday a project share for Friday's. I will try to get better at this in the next few months. But for now as a substitute I will share what my projects have been. Last week I talked about feeling lost and where my direction was. This week the clues are starting to add up and I am starting to feel like I may have found the path I am desiring to follow. These transitions will slowly reveal themselves in the coming months and I look forward to sharing  them with you all. As I have been finding my way back to my core and to my next chapter in life I have been thinking about what I believe in, yet I find I don't practice all the time. I am a huge fan of being me and keeping it real. Not caring or thinking about what others think of me. I don't need to fit into a specific category. I do what I like and what provides me with pleasure and enjoyment. I have my own style, my own tastes, and my own comforts. These are some of my beliefs. How about you?

I missed a lot of blogging this week. I feel like I have been in a place of trying to find myself. After I had Ayden it took me about a year before I started to feel like a person again. Now that Quinn is 13 months I am finding myself struggling with where I go from here, as if I am standing at a crossroad and I don't know which way to go. A wise woman told me recently that I am on a magical mystery tour picking up clues along my way, and that I also need to remember that as I find these clues I am currently in a place where I need to be, which is being a Mother.  Sometimes I forget that this is a full time job, and that I chose to be home with my children and raise them alone. This job is a lot of work and a ton of selflessness. So...I have been trying to listen to one of my very intuitive guides and be here in the moment... cherishing the time I have with my children, giving myself a big praise for all the hard work I do 24 hours a day, and allowing every clue I find to bring me to my next phase in my journey on this world. 

My fear that I faced this week were bees. I am one of those people you see who runs around in circles flailing arms and screaming like a lunatic. Apparently it is very funny to see, but not for me. I have been stung 4 times in my life and although I know I will survive and it is only a short term pain I am terribly afraid. I believe it is the invasiveness and uncontrollable feeling I have when they connect to the skin and inject their stinger. So...I decided that I needed to face this fear now since I have a house that has a front and back yard with many pollenated trees and plants. Currently we have an abundance of bees that swarm around our entrance door.  My approach to facing my fear was to change my thinking and find a way to relate to the bees. As in my experience that I described on venting Monday this past week, I used my voice to defend myself by screaming like a crazy maniac to get a strange man out of my car, as well bee's have their stingers to protect themselves from harm. It is only when we are attacked that we need to use our defenses and so if I am not threatening the bee  I should be clear from getting stung. And so I took this approach and faced my fear standing and then sitting on my front porch for a while as the bees swarmed around me buzzing and landing in areas that were uncomfortably close to my body. I admit there were times I flinched or closed my eyes. But, I did it. I don't know if I will do this again, but I feel a lot more confident to be around a bee without the need to run. What fear did you face this week??

Dog the Bounty Hunter at Barnes and Noble. 

To everything-turn-turn-turn

There is a season- turn-turn turn

and a time for every purpose under heaven

a time to be born...

This exercise really put things in perspective for me and gave me a bit of reality testing...the ability to distinguish internal distortion from accurate representation of outside events. 

I noticed I had a lot of negatives words in the 'I feel' section while dealing with my day to day overwhelming feelings that just bog me down when I get no breaks. Yet, on the 'I am' side I had a lot of positives words. The 'I feel' section is not what defines me it is the 'I am' words that are my self and being. This is what I know as me and that makes me feel blessed and grateful. If I look at the dark side of everything rather then the light side I will become like a Darth Vader human being. But, if I can retrain my thoughts into positive ones, my brain will reorganize itself and my thoughts. I quickly shift and notice how the negative feelings I once had are now replaced by positive ones. This seems so simple and it is, but the challenging part is actually doing it. 

It is truly amazing how difficult it is to just be for even just a minute. I have found in my meditation practice the mind wanders so quickly and so easily. It is a practice. One that takes many many years, maybe even a lifetime. I utilize techniques I have acquired from my studies and experiences that seem to help me like focusing on sounds, smells, a specific word that I keep replaying over and over in my mind or out loud. 

I actually found that it was imperative I practice just being this week. My practice was actually not just being with myself but with my 10 month old son. Quinn was recently diagnosed with low tone, and will be starting early intervention soon with physical therapy. I have already been provided with many exercises I need to do with him regularly to strengthen his muscles. This requires a lot of time and my attention. I need to put all of my daily chores and distractions aside to BE with Quinn. And so we layed there on our bellies together , listened to music, and felt the sun beaming in on us through the windows. I relished in the moment. Took it all in. Realizing I never get this time back. I am here now, and it was beautiful. I noticed things I have never observed before. I took in seeing my little dog just being, also laying on her belly curled up in her pillow. And everything around me became a beautiful light. It was all so radiant and filled with so much life and love. 

Above is the mandala I created after the meditation on finding a safe and comforting place. An image of water came to my mind while I was meditating and so I began by filling in my mandala with blue colors. Slowly my image developed into a flower or plant shape surrounded by these blue colors. I chose to use pastels again for my project. I have been very drawn to using this material lately. What images did you create in your mind and on your mandala?