Well hello lovely people. I hope you are travelling well.

The cleanse is going well. The herbs (an anti-oxidant and a digestive cleanse mixture) seem to be giving me more energy and focus. I also seem to have slimmed down a little. I have a skirt that I use as my body barometer. It is sitting more loosely and more comfortably. The “boot-camp” is going well – it is a very lovely group of women. They are family to one another, and yet I feel totally comfortable in their company. I have been setting well-being goals for myself in the area of the physical – to reach and maintain optimum weight, and to increase my general fitness. Specifically, 50kg and the ability to swim 1km and run 5km. In the area of the spiritual, I have set the goal of further deepening my daily practice using moment-to-moment awareness techniques. On an emotional level, I want to improve my relationships – specifically with my father. The overall goal is to have open and transparent relationships and to be discerning about who I allow into my circle.

My relationships are for the most part in good order. I am feeling that there is some tension between my father and I. We have not spoken for a few weeks now, since I sent him my healing network call-out. I (such over-analysis lol) am thinking from a comment my brother made that Dad has some issues with it. Well gosh and golly, even I had some issues with it, but I sent it anyway just to see what would happen. As it turns out, the call-out brought a couple of beneficial connections. I am understanding more fully from this experience that no situation is without merit, and bring gifts and opportunities along with challenges.

On the professional front I am working with clients, putting together a retreat set to run in late-March, early April, and one of my teachers is running a course during May…so the coming months are looking full indeed on the level of personal practice. With freedomsbridge I am exploring further ideas around the idea of a voluntary guild (with no dues or fees) that provides support, exchange of ideas and informal (or more formal) practice supervision.

Gratitude is so important in life. Without gratitude for the way things ARE, we lose perspective and can walk into a downward spiral where we think everything is fkd. More constructive to maintain gratitude and and a cheerful perspective on life as it unfolds.

As always, many blessings to you, have a beautiful day.

Atalanta

P.S. if you want more information or to deeply explore any issues that come up for you, please feel free to give me a call.

It is a while since my last update on my personal process. On the physical level, I am still waiting for the products for the cleanse. I am beginning to think it was all a scam to get  8 bucks out of me. If it was, well good luck to them. I have commenced a Monday morning workout and social routine that is wellbeing focused. On an emotional level, I have had an extraordinary few days. It was my daughter’s seventh birthday on Friday. I have been charting the highs and the lows of my daughter’s birth from seven years perspective. What an amazing experience. No longer buffeted by the trauma, I can see how I have grown with her. How we all have grown. For Dean, her father, has grown too. Still in the midst of a crisis in his life, yet handling it in different ways.

I give thanks for my life, its richness and the love in it. I give thanks to all the people in my life who add so greatly to it. My life is full – I love, I give service, I occasionally stir the pot up a bit for fun. Sometimes I get caught up in the thought-stream, but – always I come back to the place of joyful serenity. My life moves slowly, with the cycles. I have now completed the first cycle of motherhood. Such a wonderful, challenging experience. I am challenged to be present, pay attention, listen deeply, speak truthfully and act creatively. I am in awe of the beauty and light that is Aurora.

I have spent time with my lover, our connection growing deeper. I have had a few clients and would-be clients, and am filling up. It has been a slow and steady process the building of the practice. There have been a few errors along the way, always a learning experience.

Here is the exercise of the moment

Ask Who do you LOVE? and write a list.

It was an intense and interesting exercise to do. Once I started, I kept feeling more people to love. It has given me a sense of how vast are the connections of love. I recommend it as a useful and heart-inspiring exercise.

Much love and light

Atalanta xo

Our experiences shape us and direct our path to a certain extent, which direction you are heading depends largely on your attitude and choices.

Where have you been this week? What have you experienced?

Look in the mirror and say “I am okay. I have felt and experienced …. today and I am okay.”

Ask yourself “What can I keep doing and being because it is working for me? What can I do differently?”

Remember, all experiences and emotions are valid. They are yours and add to the sum total of who you are.

Would you like to share your experiences? Please join the freedomsbridge group on FB.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/320977464596060/

Many blessings on your day

Atalanta <3

It is also a good time to think about and set some goals for the year in the different areas of your life. One of mine is to assist my girls to become more independent. School starts in February and I intend to teach them to make their own lunches. Another is to allow my relationship to develop as it will.

Once you have some goals, put some dates on them. Some will be ongoing like the examples above, others will have a definite completion date. Then break them down into smaller “action steps” with dates. I am embarking on some advertising to grow the practice, the publication date is February, so by early to mid January I need to complete the editorial and write a couple of ads.

You may not complete all your goals if you set them, but you’ll certainly achieve more than if you don’t set any goals. Pen, paper, write.

I would love to hear what your goals are  - feel free to post them on our FB page http://www.facebook.com/freedomsbridge

Much Love to you and wishing you a wonderful and creative 2012

So what is the cure for the chaos? Coming back to awareness…We come back to being present and paying attention. Switching off the thought-stream and noticing what is going on in and around us, then responding accordingly.

As life becomes bigger, the propensity for chaos increases. The question is what level of chaos is acceptable? I like having a level of physical order in my house so I reintroduce the housework mediation – multi-tasking for self-care and care of the home.

I use the moments of silent awareness to full advantage. As I am more present and paying attention to what is real I find that time stretches. Much may be accomplished when the mind chatter is minimal. What takes half an hour when there is procrastination, projections, memories and self-talk, takes moments when done with silent awareness.

I hesitate to share this as it sounds like a sell of my spiritual practice. It isn’t. You know what works for you and if there is more chaos than you like then it’s a good bet that your personal practice has ceased to be regular. It could be the coffee on the deck at sunrise listening to the birds sing the day in. Whatever it is, do it and the rest will flow.

That is a cure.

Call me if you want to talk about it more. <3

If you go to Robert’s Authenticity website  http://www.authenticityaccelerator.com/SpeakTruthfully/ you can download his book…costs you nothing…

It is listening to intuition, observing what lies beneath the surface of a situation, listening to the desires of the heart and mind and body and honouring them as truth, calling, path, purpose. We all have this capacity – we are born with it. We forget what we always know. So to be present, pay attention and listen deeply brings me back to connection and acknowledgement of my truth.  It is something that is in the doing,not the telling.

Love

Atalanta

It can be as mundane as washing the dishes – seeing whether they are actually clean or not after being washed…or paying attention in a discussion with a loved one, and responding to what is actually being communicated rather than superimposing the distortion of the thought-stream…noticing our intentions, rather than being oblivious to them.

My education in paying attention has largely come from my children, bless them. When they were babies it was about noticing that they needed feeding, changing, cuddling. As they have grown it has been about paying attention to what they are communicating to me. When I don’t pay attention, my kids jump on it and act out accordingly. When I am paying attention, they still push the boundaries, but because I am present and paying attention, I respond to what is actually going on and not some distorted pictures in my head.

So we have to pay attention to what is going on outside, we also have to pay attention to what is happening on the inside. If you don’t notice your feelings and emotions, you become them and they rule the show, and become destructive patterns of behaviour. We get lost in them, this is when shit that hurts happens.

By being present in real time, no longer lost and determined by the monkey-mind, I am free to pay attention to what is going on around me and within me.  Silent awareness it is called, and it allows us to act from a place of authenticity, free of stories and chatter.

It is a challenge for me to put what I understand from Robert’s work into words because it is experienced from a place without words.

for more information on Robert’s work go to http://www.authenticityaccelerator.com/