There are No Life Lessons

By calling the negative experiences in our lives 'life lessons', it helps us to explain why something bad would be happening to us. While these 'negative' experiences can help us to learn something about ourselves, about life, and how to handle situations, they aren't handed to us by an unseen force as a so-called lesson. 

If the negative situation continues to happen, we keep thinking that 'oh, I haven't learned anything yet. The Universe is still teaching me a lesson.' That's not it at all. We are given the free will to choose our experiences, and it is all dependent on the energy we are resonating in our thoughts and emotions.

If you continue to relive the same experience and wonder why, it's because you are still not addressing that garbage emotion that still brings the same situation into your life. You are essentially not being deliberate, and are falling into the trap of the old way of being. Even though you are 'thinking' that you want a 'new way of being', if your emotions aren't matching that, then you aren't changing anything.

If there is a lesson to be learned in experiencing repetitive situations, it is this: Be more discerning about how you are feeling and thinking.

PS: Go beyond yourself! Soul Love Warrior workbook and website coming soon! 

Why We Need to Awaken the Love Within

I have spoken before about feeling the love within us and why it's so important to open our hearts not only to ourselves but to others. Love really does change things when you can give and receive it freely.

When we block ourselves from love, it can affect every aspect of our lives, which includes experiencing true happiness. But, where does true happiness begin? It begins within. It can never be found externally....well, not on a permanent basis. See previous blog on how happiness is an inside job.

Awakening the love within doesn't just affect our lives but also the lives around us; it affects those beings that need help as well.

So the story goes, if we felt the true love inside of us for ourselves, we wouldn't intentionally hurt another.

Everyday, we see lack of compassion for another being. For example, Cecil the Lion was brutally killed earlier this week due to lack of compassion for another living being. But, the world is not going to hell in a hand basket. There is way more love out there than hate. If we truly opened our eyes, we would see that love is everywhere. 

But, how do you awaken the love within?

• Move beyond the ego and into the heart where love resides. 
• Love yourself because you can't effectively love another unless you love yourself completely. When you feel the love for yourself and recognize your own divinity, you will begin to recognize it in other beings, as well. 

Stay in love, dear friends!

P.S. Check out Prairie Girl Press on Spreadshirt where $1.00 of every product sold will go to help the charity for that quarter. This quarterly's charity is Worldanimalprotection.org. World Animal Protection helps to provide programs to protect beautiful animals like Cecil the lion. 

Intimacy and Trust

We humans are a funny and fickle bunch. We are sent here to love and be loved but we would prefer to hold back our love for fear of being hurt. We would prefer to resist something amazing from coming into our lives because we fear that we may experience the same pain from the past.

We hold ourselves back because the thought of the potential pain is too much to handle. Who wants to be blindsided? It hurts like a son-of-a-birch-tree when you are blindsided. You feel unprotected and naked. Why would we want to expose our beautiful heart to something that could potentially hurt it?

Then, there is the flip side to all of that--it's something that our heart knows to be true: It's to love and to be loved. To love despite what is happening.

That is where intimacy comes in. Intimacy with your partner is about trust. It's about opening up to the flow of life, and it is the most beautiful way to share your heart. Intimacy is about that special connection between two people that brings you closer together. 

Well being, trust and intimacy are all part of the same package. We all tend to hold our heart energy close to us, holding it tightly so no one can take it away again, as if it were something to steal. We don't want to be the fool, especially when we give so much of ourselves.

To love another person, to be fully open to another, this is when our heart's energy expands. When it expands, we can open up to the full potential of our loving selves.

The ultimate in life is to share love. Do not pass up the chance to love. 

Are You Letting Love In?

We cannot move through this life unscathed. At one point or another, we will be hurt by a lover that we trusted, which can leave us leery about trying at love again. It can drive us to do things that will keep our hearts hidden, protected, and buried somewhere where no one can find it.

Many would argue what love actually is: Emotion, feeling, a state of mind, a state of being, an action, or, as Allanah Myles sings, 'love is what you want it to be'.  

Here is my take on it: Love, unconditional love, is seeing the other person for who they really are—as pure love themselves, and loving that person because they are already love. There is no ego involved. There is no 'you scratch my back and I scratch yours.' It's an energy exchange that easily flows between two people.

The only time that it doesn't flow easily is when there is resistance by one or both parties. Typically this means that the heart is still being protected and hidden.

Eckhart Tolle says, "What is commonly called "falling in love" is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever." 

Dear Lovely Souls, Loving another requires unlocking the door to your heart so love can flow in. How beautiful it is to be able to experience what it's like to love and be loved. Life is meant to be lived with love. Don't squander it.


PS:
Find love of self, inside and out. Attend Michelle Ponto's Women's Wellness Retreat July 16-19, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. Click here for details. 

Reveal Your Heart

"What you are willing to show your partner first, that is where your worth lies." This is a quote by my good friend, Melissa. We had been talking about love and self worth, observing that what we are willing to reveal to another person first is where our self worth lies.

When we feel we are lacking in the worth department, we will reveal to others things that hold very little value; superficial things that really don't show others our true magnificence. We believe that our worth and desirability will be validated if we can show others how worthy we are through our income, our sexual prowess, our education, our over achievement... and the list goes on. While these things have some use to a degree, they aren't what make us worthy or valid.

We've all been hurt and we've all been rejected. It's part of life and it has nothing to do with our worth or who we are. Rejection and hurt is all ego. The ego is consistently looking for someone to validate it because that's what gives it more momentum; that's what keeps ego alive. The ego likes to jump on the couch and yell, "Look at me. Look at me."

When we reveal our heart, when we aren't afraid to open it up so others can see what's inside, that is when our light truly shines. Don't be afraid to love. Don't be afraid to open up your heart and send love out to the world. You must love yourself so deeply that you will not be able to experience the intense pain from rejection or hurt. If the pain of a break up were to happen, the grief would be minuscule.

Let your love flow like an ocean to your own heart; it will overflow and swell to the point where it has no where else to go but out into the Universe. Try this for 30 days. Be mindful about your feelings and consistently send love to your beautiful heart. Then, don't be afraid to reveal that beauty to the world.

Stay true to yourself and own your magnificence!

Want to learn more about loving yourself inside and out? Check out the women's wellness weekend in Arizona July 16-19, 2015. We would love to see you there!