If you’re looking for a book to assist you as you navigate the ups and downs in life while you peel away the layers of worldly expectations, this read may be for you.
Have you ever wondered about your life’s dreams and what happened to them? Have you ever had dreams for your life? This book is a wake-up call. A reminder that it is never too late to fulfill that desire burning deep down inside of you. The piece of your soul that is ready to shine and light up your life! Inside the pages of Living, Loving, & Unlearning, I’ve created an easy to follow guideline for you to do just that. As you discover the purity of your own soul, and purpose of your existence here on earth, you will begin to feel the freedom to live your life, your journey, and your truth.
To listen to my talk at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA, please click here. This will give you an inside look into Living, Loving, & Unlearning, how it came about, and how it may help you in your own healing. As an added treat, my brother, Norm Weintraub, also performs a very special song about our Dad and his impact on our lives.
To order your copy of Living, Loving, & Unlearning, please go to my website at cynthiabrennen.com.
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is often said that faith is the the opposite of fear. Both are unseen, created by our beliefs, and both have the potential to effect our lives in very different ways. My belief is that fear is afraid of faith, just as darkness fears the light. Fear cannot exist in the presence of faith, and therefore cowers in its presence. Reminding us of the strength that is realized in the letting go of illusion.
Faith is a surrender. A trust that all will be well. A knowing deep within yourself that what you focus on expands and boomerangs back to you. When you believe in yourself and trust the process of life, every step you take aligns with your desires. Even when your anxieties seep into the crevices of your mind, your recollections will remind you of how far you’ve come. Your worries of yesteryear never came to fruition, reminding you of this reality. It’s the falsehoods we tell ourselves that get us in trouble, paralyzing our momentum until we succumb to the imagined fear. What if we allowed our imagination to fly in faith and empowered our hearts to lead the way?
Many years ago, I heard an acronym for FAITH as Find Answers In The Heart. Moving into the heart of the matter where our intuition resides will open up the pathways to our universal connections, creating an opening for our desires. Will those thoughts be based on fear or faith? Be mindful of what you wish for as the mind is a powerful tool and will catapult those wishes extended from your inner self.
The final, and most important question is, do you believe it when you see it, or do you see it when you believe it? Believe in yourself and nothing will be beyond belief. It’s already created and just waiting for you to step into it. All you need is faith.
I heard this heartfelt song the other day and it got me thinking…about a lot of things. I thought of Mother Mary and her unfathomable unconditional love, bringing into focus my own mother and her human struggles burning beneath her innate love, and the strong wind of love I have for my three daughters. The holiness that lives within each one of us is often forgotten until we’re driven to the precipice of who we truly are underneath our layers of life.
One thing is for sure, Holy Mother hears your cries, particularly when it reverberates above all the lies. The untruths you tell yourself about who you are, and are not. The mother in me believes the child in you is meant to thrive. And the child in me yearns to believe all mothers carry this holiness within. Who do we cry out to when we feel our deepest pain, stripped down to our most vulnerable selves? Whether it’s literal or figurative, it’s most often the maternal nurturers in our lives. The mothers who possess the caress our hearts crave for. The angels born of this earth with the extended wings of Mother Mary. The one who reminds us of the eternal light shining within every one of us, even amongst our sorrows. It is this love that guides us to the stars in the night sky, revealing the truth of our own angel residing inside.
Click here to listen to Eric Clapton and Luciano Pavarotti sing the most beautiful song, “Holy Mother”.
Unlike the 1960’s when flower power was in full bloom, this tower of power leans into the knowing residing within each one of us. When you think of the word “success” what comes to your mind? Is it external accomplishments, internal feelings, or maybe a combination of both? One thing is for certain, all of it will lose its meaning if we are not able to tap into the flow of our internal power. That is, the comfort in being the soul you came here to be. It doesn’t involve the physical tangible things in life, the only requirement is presence.
When we were born into this world we encompassed this pure power. It was a knowingness, free from bondage, expectations, guilt, and any other pressures we learned to pile upon ourselves over time. It was free-flowing and full of love and certainty. And then, the unconditional became conditional. We learned how to navigate these expectations through our human responses in hopes of rewards and recognition. We forgot about the nature of our eternal power. The power within all of us as created in God’s eyes.
You are perfect just as you are, even with all your flaws. Especially with those as they bring you to the brink of the angst necessary for your personal growth. The most important piece is to recognize the purpose of your angst. Will you learn and grow, or will you become stuck and shrink? We all have a choice, the question is, will you allow your mind to lead.
The mind may be a terrible thing to waste but the mindfulness of the soul overpowers any thought your mind can create. Trust this insight and your life will have more peaceful moments than your thoughts can imagine. No more monkey mind where you lay in bed at night thinking of a thousand different things you don’t control, but through all the jumping thoughts in your head it’s controlling you! Wouldn’t it be such a relief to finally release your hold on these musings? There comes a time when you must realize they are boulders holding you down, and you’re meant to fly, not sink.
I’ve learned to think of my mind as a separate entity from my soul. Unlearning this tethering hasn’t been easy, and I still struggle with it at times, but the more I practice this observation the easier it becomes. When that monkey gets into my head I allow the thought to pass through me and reel myself back to the center of my soul, where my home resides. I’ll often repeat my favorite angel prayer over and over until I feel a calmness deep within. It is then that I become the power flow~er, flowing through this passage called life with the ease and joy that is meant for me, and for you.
Your soul’s path leads to many vibrational matches as you navigate this earthly journey. The only requirement is acceptance of what is when it shows up in your life. I’m laughing inside right now because here I am attempting to write about the path of least resistance and I’m feeling so frustrated because I keep getting interrupted by outside influences. The more I try to control the situation the more stuck I feel in my writing. Now isn’t that ironic? Okay, take a breath and just write. Write whatever comes and stop resisting! Maybe I wasn’t meant to write about the depths of resistance today but rather about how we fight what is. We kick and scream and want it to go a certain way, and the universe just chuckles, shakes its mighty light, and waits.
When we try to force something does it feel jagged and disconnected, or does it flow naturally? My experience has been not only jagged but rocky as the Grand Canyon. Another interruption and I’m learning to go with the flow. Not really, in this moment I’m feeling pretty darn frustrated. I know it’s a lesson. How may I release and center myself? A few breaths and gathering the quiet once again.
I was thinking about the resistance path the other day as I came across this beautiful flower (above) easing itself through a wrought iron fence, blooming in all its glory. No fear or frustration that the fence would block its growth, or its beauty. Just an easy flowing graceful arrival. My guess is even if it had a bit of a struggle reaching its full bloom it redirected itself toward the light and trusted the magic that would unfold. And it did. Just as nature always does. It doesn’t question the whys and the hows, it just continues on its natural course. It innately knows the path of least resistance is the most free-flowing feeling in existence. It allows, and experiences, and releases, over and over again. It doesn’t hold on and mull over every encounter, instead, it gives thanks with gratitude in its being and moves on.
It is then that every experience, every encounter, and yes, every interruption we have in our lives climbs the Grand Canyon and reaches the nirvana of our dreams. Breathing it in with a knowing that each fork in the road, and every detour, had meaning behind it all. All we need to do is walk through the iron fence and recognize the beauty of our being.
“When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.” ~ Tao Te Ching
Sitting in the quiet may be a daunting task for some, but when practiced the world opens up to the inner seeds of your consciousness. Every thought, every emotion, and every extension toward Source creates the sunflower yearning to grow inside your soul. The most interesting part of sitting in silence is noticing where your thoughts take you, for it is energy that we extend is energy we receive.
We are what we seek. If we seek light, love, kindness, positivity, then that is likely what will surround our environment. That’s not to say that difficulty and darkness doesn’t creep into our lives, but it does speak to the question of how you deal with the darkness. Do you recognize it, wrestle with it, and push it into the space where it belongs, or do you gather it in and allow it to create fear in your heart? There is no right or wrong answer, we all have a shadow side, and we all learn from that side of ourselves. Where you are on your journey of life will likely answer that question for you. Are you still exploring and learning from your shadow or have you learned, and unlearned, and released its hold?
Funny how life twists and turns in so many directions. Just when you think you have it all figured out, another lesson presents itself. Especially when the most difficult lessons hit us, we must ask ourselves, what is the meaning behind this one? What am I meant to learn, and how am I to handle this situation so that I may water the seedling growing inside of me? That’s when surrendering into the silence brings you back to oneness with the universe.
When we trust the surrendering side of ourselves unexpected miracles begin to evolve. I find it so very interesting that it’s in the release that we find that anchoring center of our being. Through practice, over time, this trust becomes a knowing. With patience, time dissipates the fear and reveals the love beneath it all. With every breath and conscious thought you breathe life into the wilting flower that trusted you all along. All it asks is for you to trust yourself enough to move through the process and bring your being into the synthesis of the sunflower.
There comes a time in our lives when many of us begin to question the meaning of the skin we’re in. In a literal sense, our skin reveals our story through scars, wrinkles, aging spots, and tales told through our colorful tattoos. All earned and expressed from our emotions baring underneath. But what if all those experiences were only scratching the surface of our existence. What if we’ve only tapped into an infinitesimal amount of our vibrational force as it connects to nature and all living things. What if, we are on the verge of realizing that through this connectedness with Source, the natural nature of healing and living is at our radiant finger tips.
I discovered Zach Bush a couple of years ago as I was searching for healing modalities that aligned with my holistic practice. He is such a kind, wise, and brilliant healer, I realized it would be selfish of me to keep him to myself. So here you go, click here to take a listen and breathe in the essence of what we all have the ability to create under the skin and bones of our soul song.
Why is it we fear emotional discomfort so much? Is it we’re afraid we’ll never recover from that uncomfortable feeling? In reality, emotions are fleeting and free flowing, if we allow them to run their course. Just like anything in life, emotions move like the ocean. Sometimes calm, sometimes rolling, and sometimes tumultuous. It’s when we freeze in fear of the feeling that we become stuck in the muck. What if, every time we felt this discomfort we allowed ourselves to become the observer of that emotion? We simply step back, take a breath, and recognize its presence. We can then encourage it to move on through us like a wave, recognizing its fluidity and seeing it for what it truly is. An illusion created by our minds.
If our minds are powerful enough to create turmoil then it clearly has the ability to create peace. With each tear felt, and every grip of the heart, we encompass the wherewithal to move our emotions to a place of serenity. I chose the photo above for that exact reason. Although she reveals the sadness she feels, expressed through a tiny tear streaming down her cheek, she is surrounded with the images of soft bunnies, beautiful bluebells, and tender butterflies, bringing her solace. We all hold the power to bring this peace into our being. We simply need to recall our soul’s path and all it entails. Some of our experiences wouldn’t be considered enjoyable by any means, but they are certainly required for our internal growth. While we roll inside of that dark tunnel we must remember light always shines in the distance. And then it becomes brighter and brighter as we glide into the knowingness of our spirit.
Our souls know what is needed for our spiritual growth. It knows how long to sit in grief, how long to contemplate taking action, or not, and how long to wait before looking for the light again. It is always wise to sit with those feelings and listen for the answers. Your intuition will guide you and comfort you where the discomfort lies. Trust this ability you have within yourself and follow the path you came here to live. All the bumps and bruises will illuminate the meaning behind your fears, and open the gateway to your Light. Trust it. follow it. Be it.
Love because it raises everyone’s vibration around you. Love because it brings abundance into your life. Love because it makes you feel good from your head down to your toes. Love just because.
Love because it can’t help but bring a smile to your face and everyone you come in contact with. Love because it’s hard for someone to feel anger when in the presence of love. Love because people need love. Love because it’s hard to hate with love in the room. Love because you like feeling warm. Love just because.
Love because the world needs more love. Love because darkness can’t survive in the light. Love because your Light won’t have it any other way. Love because the devil in me needs your Light. Love because my hand touching yours pulls you out of the depths of despair. Love because there is no other way to thrive in this world. Love just because.
Love because the spirit in you remembers the reason you are here. Love because your purpose is to love. Love because walking your journey here on earth began with love. Love because it is the only way to truly enjoy life. Love because it frees you from the shackles of your mind and allows you to live in the present. Love because what you extend out always bounces back. Love because it reminds you to love yourself just as you are. Love just because.
Love because the angel in me sees the angel in you. I love you just because.
There are times when we feel challenged saying one simple word. That word can set a precedence for not only honoring yourself but for others to understand your boundaries which you set so naturally. If you’re not practiced in saying NO when the opportunity arises it may feel uncomfortable for you. You may stammer, make something up to excuse yourself, or feel caught off guard and just say yes when you want to say no. Many people feel guilt and obligation, completely forgetting their own self worth. When we say yes when we mean no, many emotions surface. You may feel resentful, disappointed in yourself, angry, sad, or frustrated. Then you go to the event and you wish you could go back in time and re-do.
There is a resolution to this exhausting scenario. When someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, take a breath, close your eyes, and pay attention to how this feels for you. Does it feel like it aligns with what your soul desires? If not, and you know your answer immediately, give your response. If you feel like you need more time, let the person know you’ll get back to them. Most importantly, honor yourself. The more you express your feelings guilt-free, the more others will expect this from you and respect your reply.
This cute funny clip not only made me belly laugh when I saw it, it prompted me to write this post. Even when it feels as though someone is pointing a gun at you, remember it is only an illusion that is waiting to be broken. Click here for a quick little chuckle and always remember to be true to YOU.
Cynthia Brennen, LMSW 