When you connect with your core power and channel it with clear intent, you make your world better. Unconditional love is love in its purest form, it is the connection that bonds mother and child, the strength that braves suffering, compassion in action, an act of forgiveness, the bond of two hearts in unity, and it the magnetic force that calls people of different nations, classes, cultures and spiritual belief systems to connect in a united vision or movement, and true love is the force that dissolves fear in its radiance; love is the greatest power on Earth, and it is your greatest power. The question is, do you want to connect with it, develop it and discover just what you can do with it? Connecting with Your Love: To connect with love is to move intentionally towards focusing on the values of your heart: acceptance, compassion, kindness, appreciation, gratitude, forgiveness, positive intention and motivation, and choosing to live them. It is when we embrace these heart-centred values and accept who we are and how we are, what has been, is and may be, when we place ourselves in the shoes of another to consider how their world might be, with genuine care and concern, when we consider ourselves and others, when we reflect on what we appreciate and few grateful for, when we offer a random act of kindness, and when we make choices that are with positive intention and heart-felt motivation, this is when you feel the full magnificence of your love. Growing Your Love: Assess: To grow your love is to reflect on how well you are currently living these values, and where there are growth areas that would value your attention. Reflection Moment: Can you give three examples of recently living with acceptance, compassion, kindness, appreciation, gratitude, forgiveness, positive intention and motivation? Grow: to grow your love is to cultivate mindfulness, so that you may better observe the content of your mind and recognise when the thoughts, voices, beliefs, and perceptions are operating from love, or not, and to then be able to mindfully select the thoughts, beliefs, affirmation, intentions and voices you want to listen to, and give power to. Reflection moment: If there is one internal thought, attitude, belief about yourself, another, your situation or your reality that you would value letting go and replacing with a love-based mindset, what would this be and what does the new mindset sound like? Tame Fear: One of the biggest inhibitors or obstacles to love, is fear, and while love is stronger, in the presence of fear, love becomes like the chained circus elephant; for years she has been chained to her prison lead, and now the binding is weak and with just a tug of her leg strength she would break free. But she has been living in chains for so long that she has forgotten her strength. To unleash your power, you need to be reminded that you have it, to want to claim your strength and your freedom, and to then believe in your ability to break free and claim your power and your true human nature. Reflection moment: When you consider a fear voice that stands in the way of self-care, living your full potential, that inhibits your happiness, joy and fulfilment or sharing your love in the world, what does this fear voice tell you? How do you believe true love would want to respond to this? How would you like to respond to this? Self-Regulate: When you have the ability to respond to your world of feelings and emotions with love, you feel more confident within, and you feel more confident in your relationships with others, because you are able to with them, as they are, in acceptance, because you are able to respond to the feelings and emotions that arise, with love. It is when feelings and emotions are regulated with loving kindness, which may look like journaling, talking it out, dancing, singing, painting, running or throwing feathers fiercely – expression that does no harm to the self or others, or any furniture! – then there is space for compassion, kindness and forgiveness to emerge in our discourses with ourselves and each other. Imagine living with acceptance, compassion, kindness, appreciation, gratitude, forgiveness, positive intention and motivation, because your have the ability to master your mind and respond to your world of thoughts, feelings and emotions with love, and so you feel the love, others feel your love, and you grow the love in your world. And this is just on a day to day basis. Now, imagine if you capture this ability, focus it with positive intention and motivation, and decide to channel your love out into the world, in a way that feels exciting, meaningful and fulfilling for you, imagine how you would feel, what you could do and how you might live. I’ll leave that with you to allow your emergent possibility to rise. If you would like to explore this further, or you would benefit from partnering with someone who is on this path and experienced in facilitating this process in others, you are invited to have a conversation about how we may work together. antonia@antoniabehan.com
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Single working parents are able to be strong, resilient, multitask and play multiple roles, often at the same time, and still have time to bake a birthday cake, and do all of this well, on most days, and I consider myself part of this group description. But, the truth is, I am tired, things slip, memory recall is somewhat challenged, and don't get me started on emotional reactivity!
I decided to intentionally slow down, because calmness and presence are important values for me and my boys. Intentionally slowing down means moving into the present, taking deeper breaths, and having just one item in mind at a time. On the day I slowed down, I re-prioritised some tasks and let the lesser ones go, I moved slower physically and mentally, and let go of the constant manifestation of mess to my every clean action (thank you boys). What happened since then has been quite remarkable...
Slowing down is improving my quality of life and Intend to embrace it fully.
I am a single mother by choice, and have given birth to two beautiful boys; non-identical twins, separated by 22 months on ice. Yes, I choose to have invitro-fertilisation on my own and become a single mother, and I made this choice because it became the most important choice to my life. My eldest is almost two and my second son is 13 weeks old. I can say that as strong as I am, this is hard, and sometimes I struggle. One of the peace-making exercises I have found - and have to keep finding, because with baby-brain fog and the whirlwind lifestyle of a single working mother having two children under two, I forget many things, often, – is letting go of ‘I want’. When one of the babies wants me for his ‘bo’ (bottle) some attention, or to be cuddled to sleep, and I just want to clean the pasta sauce that he so expressively sprayed on the carpet, put the washing on, hang the washing out, do some work, or just make a cup of tea, my ‘I want’ creates stress, because I feel unable to get what I want, because my babies need me. When I take a breath and tell myself to ‘Let go of I want’ I am able to move into the present, to be with my babies, supporting their needs, nothing else, and with the choice to be present with them, I am reminded of a greater deeper truth; my choice to be a mother, a loving mother and with all this means, and this comes before instant gratification. My choice to be there for them is what I want more, and reminding myself of my own truth calms the inner storm. The choice to let go and sacrifice our wants is the choice of an empowered parent, it is a choice of love and it breeds peace. I am not suggesting we give ourselves up for our children, I am offering that we give ourselves up in moments, for our children, so that we can live our deeper heart-centred truths, and in doing so, move into a little more love. When both babies want me at the same time; when one is crying because he wants my milk and the other is in the bath demanding attention, and I physically cannot play with the ducks while breast feeding safely, I am met with a whole new level of surrender: ‘I want’ to be a good mother and ‘I want’ to give both boys all my love and attention when they want it, and I often feel guilty when I don’t, because I can’t. Here it is; I cannot do what I want and my ego doesn’t like it! When I surrender ‘I want’, take a breath, and look at my children, I am able to see that my reality is that I have a choice to make. I picked up my 13-week-old to feed him and distracted my almost two-year old by holding up a towel with my free hand and playing ‘boo’, until his laughter led him to forget about the darling ducks. I choose to move forward on the path to peace, rather than reacting from not getting what ‘I want’; I choose heart-centred mindfulness over ego-centred reactivity, and I moved one step forward on the path to love. On reflection, I realise I’m being a good mother; I’m not giving the boys what they want in the moment and I am surrendering my momentary wants, because allowing ego to rule is not healthy; rather to tame it, and guide it to living in love, in alignment with the heart, is the choice I want to make, try to make, and am learning to get better at making. I realise at this stage that I am not going to be teaching my boys how-to live-in love, but that we are going to be learning together. |
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