Mud to mountains 2 – Fake it until you make it!

Hello gorgeous;

We’ve all heard the adage “Fake it until you make it”.  

This advice can help us to get to the place that we want to be – or cause an emotional trainwreck if we aren’t being honest about where we currently are at the same time.  

Does this sound like a bit of a contradiction? 🤔

In simple terms, we are creatures of habit.  Our brains are vast fields of neurological pathways, and these pathways are the tracks for our physiological, emotional and psychological patterns, conscious and subconscious.  

The route we take to go to work each day is a pathway.  The apple oatmeal and black coffee that we enjoy for breakfast each morning.  The way we respond to our partner, parents or friends when we are joyful and excited – or feeling criticized and devalued.  Our habits of industriousness or sloth.  Our temperament, routines and rituals, tendency to isolate or our extroverted qualities, the way we value others – or ourselves.  

All of these and every other thing we do and think are pathways through the dense field that is our mind and brain matter.  

This is good news because it means when it comes to pulling ourselves out of the mud to begin the trek to the top of the mountain – that place of expansive views, joy, connection and the deliberate creation of our best possible life – it is, more than anything, just an action that we continue practicing until it becomes a habit.  

In the same way that we learn and improve when we practice the piano, painting, a new profession or study habit, picking ourselves up out of the mud to move on to something better after a period of grief, depression, anger or inertia is essentially the same mental action as picking up that paintbrush, textbook or laptop to prune old programs and replace them with new habits and neurological subroutines.  

It might feel uncomfortable, difficult or challenging to begin, but once we practice envisioning a new reality for ourselves – or maybe a new identity would be more appropriate – and we begin to act upon what it is that we wish to see and become, eventually, that vision becomes our new way of being – our new reality.

Imagine • Practice • Do • Become

So what is it, ultimately, that you would like your life to look like in six months?  A year?  Three years?  Five years?  

How would you like to see your personal reality unfold? What would your close relationships look like?

Where would you like to live?  Do you see yourself in a villa by the ocean, living in an urban setting – or maybe a tiny cabin in the woods?

What would you see yourself doing for a living – what do you think or feel that your purpose is?  

What would your income be?

What would you imagine your daily habits being?  Do you go to the gym or run each morning, do you meditate, or sleep in until 10?

How will you change your life?  Whatever you can envision, you can achieve.✨😎

Let me give you an example from a friend/client of mine:

“Rebecca” grew up in a dysfunctional home.  She was taught that her value was in what she did rather than who she was and it was best if she was “seen and not heard”.  

So of course, Rebecca grew up to behave in ways that reflected this value system.  

She neglected her own well being.  She put all of her energy into caring for others.  She withdrew when there was conflict or when she was emotionally uncomfortable.  

She topically believed she had successful relationships, all the while avoiding real intimacy.  

Eventually Rebecca found herself depressed.  She assumed it was just the “pressures of life” and took antidepressants – but while it seemed like she wasn’t really depressed and unable to function anymore, she still didn’t feel emotionally connected to her life. 😓

In fact, she didn’t feel very emotionally connected to anything other than a growing sense of desperation and anger, emotions that she desperately tried to suppress.  

Can you relate to Rebecca’s story so far?  

Eventually, Rebecca began to see a counselor 🥰 who helped her look at childhood patterns that were causing huge blocks in her ability to experience joy, to value herself, to adapt and evolve – and how those patterns were reflected in her current relationships. 

She spent some time grieving for the many years she had neglected to care for the physical and emotional needs and wellness of herself and her inner child as a result of those patterns.  

She learned to reset her vibrational field to allow good to come to her rather than repelling her wishes and dreams due to her subset programs of scarcity and lack of value.

She discovered that she had to learn to self-care and nurture her personal growth, set healthy boundaries with others, and began to prune some of the toxic people who couldn’t accept her boundaries, growth and the radical responsibility for the shaping of her personal reality.  This was a process that was deeply painful but also deeply cathartic.  

Fast forward three years.  Rebecca is living the life that she hadn’t realized she was missing.  She has a truly successful relationship with a partner who enjoys healthy dialogue and honest communication.  This honesty also means intimacy and she understands what real vulnerability and intimacy means.  

She has taken up several hobbies that had interested her in childhood and although she reports that it is sometimes frustrating to not be “better” than she is, she loves the process of learning and slowly gaining skill.  

She had quit her corporate job a couple of years back,  and now works largely from home contracting her skills to large companies.  She loves the freedom this gives her.

She also makes it a point to spend time with friends and family each week to recreate and build personal relationships.  

In short, she has radically turned her life around.  

Rebecca still has occasional days when she feels a little blue.  But knowing that feeling connected, happy and deliberately creating her life is just so much better, she gives herself some grace and space to deeply feel on those days, but also keeps envisioning an ever-expanding future – and joyfully continues to expand into that future.

And you know what?  Rebecca’s blue days will become less and less the more she practices bliss, curating and cultivating the life of her dreams, healthy communication and community with others and most importantly, loving herself into wholeness.   How cool is that?

If Rebecca’s story resonates with you, I’d love to hear your story, too.  How do you lift yourself from the mud after those days that you need to give yourself a little more grace and space to feel deeply and acknowledge those past parts of yourself that might still feel a little broken?  

What habits do you practice that keep your vision clear and ever-expanding and your vibrational field humming at a frequency that allows good to come to you – rather than repelling it with hidden subconscious programs?  

Drop me a comment below!⬇️☺️

And just in case you needed to be reminded today, you are amazing.  You are valuable.   You are a magnificent creation and capable of achieving anything you can dream of, and babe, you are so very loved.🥰

Healing, hugs and much love;

  • Terah💖

Love Thyself; Love the World. Heal Thyself, Heal the World

Listen, babe.  This world is absolutely glorious and worthy of our love and devotion even though it is a little broken.  

For that matter, we are all a little broken, but still absolutely glorious and worthy of love.  

We’ve all got our past traumas and shiznit that we have to deal with – and we really do need to acknowledge those parts of ourselves that are broken so we can come up with a plan to heal. 

Sometimes the way we work through that brokenness; that shiznit is like Grace.  Like beauty.  Like kindness to ourselves and others.  On those days, our broken shards come together with seams of gold.  We use our history to create a greater, more compassionate future and a world that is poignantly beautiful.  

I love the Japanese concept of Kintsugi – repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum – to create something even more beautiful.  We can relate this to the process of working through our brokenness to create greater beauty and meaning in our lives.

Other times dealing with our past looks like a train wreck.  We just can’t seem to get those pieces together.  We deal, and we deal, and we deal some more, and it doesn’t feel like we’ve made any forward progress at all.  

On the days that we feel the most broken, it is important to create an environment of love and grace for yourself.  To acknowledge that there is still beauty to be found – in ourselves and in the world. 

Here are a few steps to keep us moving in the direction of healing and wholeness:  

– 

  • Acknowledge your hurt – get to the root of your trauma.  Talk to yourself.  Ask where you need extra love, grace and healing.  Allow any emotion that comes up to flow naturally through you.  Be with those feelings for a bit.  Then move on.  
  • Learn to love yourself.  Take time for self-care. What makes you feel good?  Hot baths?  Exercise?  Good, nourishing food?  Time with loved ones or pets?  Art?  Whatever makes you feel happy, follow that bliss.  
  •  Stop judging yourself and others.  What we judge in another is something we dislike in ourselves.  
  • Set healthy boundaries.  Remove toxic situations and people – with love, of course. 
  • Reprogram.  Give yourself daily affirmations.  Repeat until you feel the truth of your worth and beauty, then repeat some more.  Listen to guided meditations.  I start each day with a session of positive affirmations embedded with Solfeggio Frequencies; specific auditory frequencies that help our minds and bodies to resonate at a similar vibration.  I really enjoy Jason Stephenson’s YouTube videos. Here’s a link to one to try:  https://youtu.be/GnWlERK0UJci I recommend listening with good headphones.  I keep a pair next to my bed and slip them on first thing upon waking to listen. 
  • Count your blessings.  Start a gratitude practice, listing at least 5 things you are grateful for each morning and evening.  See the beauty in everything.  Stop giving negative bullsh#t your attention, whether in the media, in your family/friend group or in your mind.  Elevate your consciousness.
  • Move your body.  Even just 15 minutes of exercise each day will increase your vitality and well being significantly.  
  •  Nourish yourself.  Feed your body food and drink that make you look and feel your best.  You deserve to feel fabulous in your own skin.
  • Find meaning and purpose.  What makes you excited?  What brings you joy?  How can you serve others  in a way that feels amazing?  

This list translates individually, collectively, and of the world itself.   We can’t ignore the damage we have done to our planet and the other species that share this beautiful earth.  We must acknowledge the harm we have created, then shift our focus to solutions for a better, more whole future.  The world, like us, is a little broken but still glorious.  Also like us, it is broken because of what we humans have done.  But we can not only repair the damage but make this world a paradise – if we choose to.  I don’t know about you, but living in heaven on earth – in our own bodies and minds and in our environment – sounds pretty amazing to me. 🥰

I hope today, beloved, you see the world in all its tainted glory and love it in spite of it’s damage.  That you also see yourself, whole or broken, as a beautiful creation and love every aspect yourself.  Every cell, every fiber.  You are worthy of your own love.  And if you aren’t quite there yet, know this – I see you.  I value you.  And I love you💖

  • Terah

Nosce te ipsum – Know Thyself

The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. Get to know yourself – who you truly are; what makes youyou and become comfortable in that being-ness. There are a thousand ways to gain an understanding of who you are, from self-speed dating (“Hi, Me, nice to meet you. Name ten things that make you happy”) to traveling to someplace fabulous for a ten-day retreat intended to sink deeper into the Self. Whatever means you have at your disposal to begin a relationship – a love relationship – with yourself, there is no better time than the present to do just that.

The key word here is Love. It is vital not just to know who you are, but to love who you are. All too often we love our kids, our partners, our families, and even our neighbors and communities better than we love ourselves. We nurture those around us but neglect our own needs. We snuggle and provide physical love but neglect to meet our own basic needs for nurturing and support. We prepare meals based upon what our families will enjoy but lose touch with what our own bodies are craving for optimal health – and wonder why we find ourselves in front of the refrigerator at 2 am with a pint of ice cream or a tub of cold spaghetti, crying into our Haagen Daz with no idea of where the tears are coming from, or we eat out of resentment because our families never learned to care for and nurture us in the same we do for them.

But how can those around us learn if we don’t teach them? We teach others through our own actions, and the soul is a garden that requires care-full cultivation and love. What is your soul mirroring into your external reality? If you find yourself feeling depleted and disconnected right now, take some time to nurture the soul and care for your self. Slow down, get quiet, and listen. What do you need today? Whether it is green smoothies and exercise or Haagen-Daz and a hot bath, give yourself some love, care, and grace, and don’t forget the gratitude. You are an amazing being! Care for yourself as you would a precious, loved child. Gaze at yourself in the mirror and marvel at those things that make you uniquely, beautifully you. Feed your body and spirit with what it needs – and watch your inner garden blossom. You deserve it. Much love, beautiful!

-Terah