Spirituality

Shedding my skin, answering the call

We have officially entered this last month of 2019 my dear readers. I awoke this morning with lots of words swirling around my head which for this creative soul means a poem is about to come through. I have always relied upon writing to express my feelings and emotions. In this past year I have relied heavily upon creating poems to articulate my own life’s observations and experiences. Today one word kept popping up over and over again, bones.

In the past six months, as you my dear readers know, I have had an accelerated growth period within the spiritual awakening I now find myself in. This process has allowed me to shed so many old coping habits, mindsets and behaviors that no longer serve my highest self. That’s what I’m very focused on in life, what works and what doesn’t.

I’m an empath that has incredibly fast moving energy. I absorb it like a sponge through my pores. I liken my thoughts to a spinning rolodex. When a poem is forming in my mind, I see the words written across a kind of white board as a vision. They come together quickly and don’t take much effort on my part at all. The phrase that kept repeating in my mind this morning was, make no bones about it. As usual, I googled it for the exact definition:
To Make No Bones About Something. Meaning: To say clearly what you think or feel about something, however unpleasant or awkward it may be. To make no bones about something means to say something in a way that leaves no doubt, or to have no objection to it.

This makes perfect sense to me. First of all, I am honest to a fault. Being both an empath and a Sagittarius, at times my words spill out bluntly with little or no tact to my delivery. I speak my mind and my truth as I always have. I know this is one of the traits my fiance adores the most in me. He knows when he asks me my opinion on something, he always gets the truth! I can further relate to this phrase very much while I make this shift, shedding outdated ways to deal with life like a repitle sheds it’s old skin to make way for a new one. Snakes and lizards do this to allow for growth and to remove parasites that have attached themselves to their old skin. Again, this too I can relate to. I’m always growing and evolving, getting rid of aspects within my life that have become a drain upon me. A parasite sucks the nutrients it needs to live and feeds off of its host.

Before I started this deep inner work, I can admit to allowing others to feed off of my energy. Family, friends even co-workers would become very draining for me to handle and that was detrimental to my own well being. I have always had a very high tolerance and patience for drama therefore in my past I made decisions within my relationships that were in hindsight not the best for my life long term. That was then, this is now.

Like that animal who sheds its skin in order to allow for growth and a cleansing of the blood sucking, leech like organisms, I too am ridding myself of the pests in my life by letting go. Getting down to my bare bones. Building a newer and more solid foundation for my authentic self to blossom within. My spirit deserves to breathe free and fly to where the winds of change may take me. An emotional and mental cleansing that is happening at a rapid pace to keep up with my intentions and manifestations.

Recently I had a video chat with a fellow female empath that was so inspiring and validating to my soul! She was so open and kind by complimenting me on my inner strength and powerfully realized spirit. It made me blush at first honestly because I’m new to fully accepting compliments, allowing myself to receive love. She told me to shine like the queen’s essence I embody. After we said our goodbyes, her words were still in my mind. I looked at myself in the mirror and I told myself, “Maria, this is your time to shine and if others can’t handle it or find fault in your new found confidence, tell them to put on sunglasses!”

I’m at the stage in my life where I can see the big picture clearly. Speaking of glasses, I feel like I just got a new pair! All the questions and curiosities about life that I have had up to this point are all being answered revealing my path’s purpose. I am here to listen, share, heal and inspire others who feel lost, marginalized or forgotten. I know that feeling all too well and I won’t allow anybody I come across to feel that kind of severe hopelessness and worthlessness. I have walked in those ratty, torn up shoes of despair too and I will do whatever I can to lend a hand or a smile to those in need. A disrupter in life that fights against hate and evil to shine the light of empathy and compassion for those that need it. It’s in my bones. It’s my calling and I am answering it wholeheartedly! I’m determined to make a difference and I believe love will heal this world!

Mental health, Spirituality

Choosing love while I remain true to myself

It’s been an amazing six months of personal growth and accomplishments dear readers. I recently posted a poem of mine on my IG profile under the handle @emotionalmusings (I have reposted it here) that revealed a personal truth. I have purposely held myself back from success for the past 40 years. Why you may be wondering? For fear of failure, for fear of not being good enough and finally because I didn’t believe in myself. It has been a long and winding road for me. One that required lots of twists, turns and quiet self reflection. Ultimately it took losing everything, my sanity, my personal safety and my home for me to discover that in the end love for myself is the only superpower that I needed. Something that was inside me all along, I just wasn’t accessing it!

If someone had told me that being involved in an extremely difficult domestic violence relationship eight years ago would be one of the catalysts for my evolution, I would of never believed them. Getting punched in the face is quite jarring yet it showed me over time that I wasn’t as worthless as I believed myself to be. There are no magic pills, absolute directives or a master plan to figure out one’s purpose here on the journey. I’m among one of the people in life who had to learn these important things the hard way. Perhaps you can relate. Please put your own story in the comments below!

Perhaps it’s my hard headed Calabrese roots, my fierce independent nature or my insatiable curiosity for why things are the way they are that has led me down a more difficult path than most. A dear friend of mine recently stated to me that I always seem to have so much on my plate. That is definitely true. Juggling lots of “life balls” is all that I know and something I have had loads of practice with since I was quite young.

I follow my heart always and air on my emotional side most often over my intellectual understanding of any given situation. One may say I through caution to the wind. I pride myself on leading with my human foot when faced with adversity or confrontation. I love that about myself and the more I choose to follow my heart, the more confident and content I become. It has taken years to gain this inner peace and now that I have discovered it I desire more of it!

The self loathing, self doubt, feelings of inferiority, and uselessness seem light years away now. I have survived some dark years. I firmly believe that without those years I wouldn’t have found my path of enlightenment. I give thanks for that time, I don’t regret it. Important life lessons and poor life choices resulted in some truly brighter days.

I write and post a lot about the need for more of us to show empathy to one another. In my opinion we must become love warriors against hate and evil doers. It’s those people among us that are crying out, in a more negative way, for love and acceptance. Humanity’s fate is under attack. It’s ugly and it evokes fear. I feel it is the root cause for people to in turn act in an ugly way towards each other. Bottom line…..ugliness, fear and hate needs to be challenged. The only recipe for change is love. Love is the only answer my friends.

Love hard, whole heartedly and often. Hate is easy. It takes more courage and faith to choose love over hate. In a real and genuine way, I challenge you to try a little more love in your life. Especially with complete strangers. A bit more empathy will open your heart to more understanding of not only that stranger but for yourself.

Trust me. I am living proof. I have survived, now I am striving. This is what winning looks like😁

current events, Spirituality

Planting seeds of empathy and love

I’m not a “green thumb” by any definition despite the fact that my mother is a wonderful gardner. She and my father loved spending weekends in our lush backyard pruning, planting and cleaning our grounds at the house I grew up in. In this post I want to focus on a different kind of planting and that is in cultivating a more loving society.

In light of the extreme terrorist attack recently at Christchurch in New Zealand, I myself am searching for an answer as to why such violence exists in the world. For centuries we humans have fought over, waged wars even over the concept of beliefs. I recently read an article in The Washington Post, “In the United States, right-wing violence is on the rise” published on November 25, 2018 that discussed the rise of violence from right-wing white supremacists.

Over the past decade, attackers motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist, according to a Washington Post analysis of data on global terrorism.

This violence has been on a steady rise since President Obama but has surged while Trump has been in office. I don’t want this post to become too politically charged however the facts are the facts. People in power do have a lot of influence over our society.

Intellectually I understand that I can only control and manifest change within myself. As an energy reader, healer and communicator, I firmly believe in the laws of attraction. What you put out into this world always comes back to you. Therefore, I choose to love no matter what. Good, bad or indifferent….the one answer is always rooted in love.

I believe our God, however one may choose to define it, intended our purpose here on Earth is to show and practice love with our fellow man. This involves active tolerance and acceptance in the face of adversity and misunderstanding. We don’t have to agree with everybody but we should allow for the differences that exist among each other. I believe if somebody believes in God and then acts in a completely contradictory way, that person has some reckoning to do. God is love. Period.

When my boys were little I used to tell them that they didn’t have to like or be friends with everybody but they must love everybody. It requires courage to love, a vulnerability to allow ourselves to feel for another. Discovering and nurturing our connections is what life is all about. Celebrating what we can relate to and have in common with one another is far more beneficial than what divides us and makes us different. Differences should be celebrated and accepted because uniqueness is what makes each of us an individual. We are a stronger force together than when we are divided into smaller groups.

Today and everyday, I choose to plant the seeds of love, tolerance and acceptance. I choose to stand up and chastise wrongdoings and hate filled violence. Each one of us has to search our souls and decide what we believe is right and what is wrong.

Inclusivity and acceptance must be in the forefront for the future of our society to survive. It is not us vs. them. There is no “invasion ” of any country by immigrants. Rising violence is driving huge numbers of people from their homes to seek asylum in a different place. What if that was your relative or friend? Would you be so quick to chastise that person?

I encourage you dear reader to be a seed planter of love and empathy. Strike up a conversation with a stranger. We must keep the lines of communication open in order to learn from one another. Evolve or die. Learn and grow or wither away. Let’s destroy ignorance by growing more love. The urgency is now and can’t be put off until tomorrow.

Mental health, Spirituality

Keeping love alive

Does anybody have a “love hangover” today, the day after Valentine’s Day? I must admit to feeling some aftershocks from being shown so much love yesterday. From the moment I opened my eyes until the moments before I closed them, love was surrounding me and encompassing me in its warmth and glory. Yesterday was a magical day for giving and receiving love from my friends, family and even my customers at the store. Of course my fiance stepped up his game too by making me feel special, very appreciated and of course loved yesterday as we celebrated Valentine’s Day together. All in all I had awesome day!

I know I have written this before in previous blog posts but I must emphasize it again here. My mission in life is to always spread love and kindness to all I encounter along this journey called life. Especially those who need it the most, the downtrodden, forgotten amongst our society. Those who are homeless are a good example of this. I observe those folks getting treated and judged so poorly on a daily basis, it breaks my heart.

I have a confession to make here. About two years ago, my fiance and I found ourselves without a secure living situation. We were homeless for about three months while we lived in our car. We showered at our local YMCA, ate at food pantries and sometimes slept overnight on the beach. It wasn’t easy and the only positive part of it is that at least we were together. I can’t imagine having to bear that time alone on the streets by myself. Some days were better than others. Some days I was so terribly sad and depressed not knowing where we were going to end up and how we were going to rise out of the terrible spot we felt stuck in. Our cell service was cut off too so we became experts at finding and utilizing free WiFi in order to stay in touch with our loved ones.

I have seen life from different angles and perspectives. My experiences have shaped me into the woman I am today. I take nothing for granted and try to be as grateful for everything I have today as I possibly can be on a daily basis. Anything can happen at anytime that can shift one’s world, turning everything upside down. Believe me dear readers, I am living proof of it!

I like to tell others when describing my life that I have lived a few different lives during my lifetime so far these 41 years. My family owned a car dealership while I was growing up and we enjoyed an upper middle class lifestyle. Then while I was married, my ex-husband was a hardworking blue collar type of guy who usually worked more than one job which afforded me the ability to be a stay at home mother for ten years while my boys were little. Then I went through my divorce and found myself working three jobs to try and survive. As I began having nervous breakdowns that required me to be hospitalized so many times I found myself homeless for the 1st time. I couldn’t afford my rental house because I had lost all of my jobs one by one so I was offered a friend’s couch to sleep on. That experience was extremely humbling, complicated and difficult.

It took me years to rebuild my life after going through so much loss. I have a keen awareness of how much grief and loss can affect a person’s outlook in life. I was basically just trying to survive everyday, I was definitely not thriving. It has taken years of intensive treatment, therapy, healing and rivers of tears to get me to where I am today.

There is not one day that goes by that I don’t pause, allow myself some quiet time to sit and reflect on my past. I whisper Thank you God for keeping me going forward, pushing me even a millimeter more when I wanted to give up. For allowing some wonderful people to come into my life and inspire me to want to do better. For guiding me through the darkness until I could see just a small speck of light. For keeping my faith, hope and belief alive enough so I never quit. There were a few times I did consider ending it all. I thought those who loved me would be better off without the burden of worrying about me, the pain of the disappointment I felt I had become.

Yes dear readers, I have expierienced some very dark days. I have also had the pleasure of feeling some truly amazing moments too. I am grateful for all of it. Without the dark one cannot appreciate the light. Hold on tight to those you love and tell them how you feel. Don’t judge others for there but the grace of God go any of us. Be kind always and act as if God himself is always watching you (because he is) In the end life is short. Love is all that matters. Spread it generously to all everyday and keep love ALIVE💖

Spirituality

Here to heal

Last evening I had an ephiany and I woke up determined to write this post about it. I came to the conclusion years ago of what my purpose is in this life. It’s extremely important, vital really to understand your purpose in this world. In the midst of my struggles, woes and wanting to give up I searched my soul asking God for an answer. It was then that I realized I am here to heal others. Last evening I turned to my fiance and said simply HTH baby, HTH.

For may years I felt being an empath,caring so much for others to the point where I hurt, was a curse. I wasn’t ready to receive my purpose and view it as a gift. I resisted and dug my heels into not accepting this fact. All that did was bring me further pain and suffering. It was then that I realized I had an important choice to make. I could keep kicking myself down into a deeper hole of despair or I could accept and embrace my role. Since making the conscious choice to do the latter, I have never felt more liberated. Set free from my old and useless patterns of thinking, I reimerged into a much more grateful woman. I know and understand God’s plan for me and that is to be a conduit of love so that others may find peace within their own struggles. I am now able to see that I posses certain keen insights and skills that others along my journey here seek out. Strangers tell me their life stories in the grocery store. Afterwards, almost every single person admits to not knowing why they have shared their feelings with a total stranger. I reassure their insecurity by admitting to being an empath. I always thank them for being vulnerable and sharing with me. Something I once tried so hard to avoid has turned into a beautiful experience for both of us.

Most who know me will say I’m an extremely outgoing person who loves to talk. My coworkers joke and tell me I could talk to the wall and be happy! Thankfully for me it’s part of my job to engage with customers and it’s the part of my job I value the most. Despite my propensity for chattiness, I am also a great listener. Many of my friends have told me so over the years that I am so easy to talk to. I’m grateful to be that shoulder to lean on, the confidant and a person someone else can trust.

I take my role very seriously and I understand how special it is. It’s not always easy to just listen and not give advice. That is NOT my purpose. When somebody seeks me out it is because they need to get something off their chest without looking for answers. I can’t fix their problem but I can be someone who shows compassion and understanding. I see too little of this in our world today which is why I feel humbled and honored to fulfill that need for someone. I like to say I am like a vault with others inner thoughts. I take it all in yet it never comes back out. Retaining other people’s trust is very important to me because it’s so crucial for them.

Since my revelation, I make it a daily goal to show kindness. Being able to make someone smile is hugely rewarding for me. It’s a priceless gift that can change somebody’s day for the better. We never know where others are coming from or what has gone on in their lives. I believe we must view each person we encounter as our own brother or sister because that is what God intended. I genuinely care for others in a non judgemental way until that person gives me a reason not to. If more people could adopt this habit what a more empathetic world this would be!! It starts with loving yourself and understanding that we are all connected. We all hurt the same.

I composed the following poem “Baby steps”to describe the time in my life when I doubted myself, viewed my gift as a curse and my decision to turn that all around. It is a choice my dear readers. I hope this post provokes that idea in you today. Give a bit more, show more love and embrace your true gifts. Peace✌