Spiral Connect

Six blue cranes flying overhead
Two birds mating on the fence
A buck wandering in the garden two plots away

Arms outstretched
Bare feet on the wet grass
Sun on my back
Sun on my face

Waterfall sounds penetrating my ears
Pink watsonia flowers in all stages of the life cycle,
adorned with tiny droplets of morning dew,
soaking up the sun’s rays

The smell of mint as I walk through it
My Beloved in our bedroom, still sleeping
Well-being flooding this body
Ecstasy flowing through me
Wild, quiet, powerful, alive.

Giulia

Last week, I reversed my car into a ditch.

It was stuck. I could not go forward or back.

There was a horrible grinding noise under the car and it was tipping horribly to the left with one wheel off the ground.

I was the last one to leave after a hiking trip away. All the others had already left.

I was alone.

Have you ever been in a similar situation where something unexpected happens that throws you completely off your centre and you feel scared, not in control and very vulnerable?

What did you do?

How did you cope?

Back to my story….……..

When I realized what had happened, my instinctual fight, flight, freeze response kicked in. I was shaking, felt totally overcome by fear.

My breathing was shallow and fast. I felt panic stricken.

I called one of my fellow hikers who had left just before me, and luckily, they were still close by and turned around and came back to help me. Bless them – such deep gratitude for their kindness and patience.

We called the farmer and asked if he had a bakkie, as I would need to be towed out of the ditch.

He did. But he could not come straight away.

There was such a strong pull to get away from the uncomfortable feelings.

Instead, I sat on a rock and just dropped into the reality of what was in that moment.

I breathed deeply into my belly and became intimately aware of the what was happening in my body and all around me.

It was tempting to go on my phone and distract myself from the VERY uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that were coursing through my body and mind. I wanted to get away from them so badly.

But I paused and gently and lovingly invited myself to be here now.

Breathing and just meeting all the waves that were moving through me and just being with what is.

As I sat and breathed and became quiet, I could still sense the waves of fear moving through, but I was also aware of a larger space of Presence that was much deeper and wider.

I recognized this very familiar Ocean-ness of Being.

I rested back into it.

I felt soothed and calmed and nourished.

The fear was still there, but much less so.

I became deeply intimate with all that was unfolding.

The farmer came 10 minutes later, towed my car out of the ditch and all was well. No damage. I was able to drive the 170 km back home.

This is what I remember in moments when difficult stuff happens and I feel afraid and vulnerable:
• Breathe deeply and slowly in my belly. Place a hand on my heart.
• Rest back against my spine and rest back into Presence – the Ocean-ness of Being, Pure Love, God’s Being.
• In this moment, all is well. I am well, safe and taken care of.
• This is for me.
• I am not alone.
• The story in my head keeps me stuck. Feeling my feelings sets me free.
• Resisting reality leads to suffering. Acknowledging reality (this is what is happening right now) leads to possibilities and flow.

When Life happens and you get stuck in a metaphorical ditch, perhaps in remembering these things, it might help you to come unstuck more quickly and receive the gift of the experience.

Blessings and love,
Giulia
Embodiment Life Coach
www.spiralconnect.co.za

I never really wanted to be in a body.

It always felt so heavy being in a body.

I felt imprisoned and locked in and frustrated.

I loved those dreams where I could fly…………..oh such freedom and lightness!!!

I craved thinness. Not for other people. Not because I needed or wanted to look good in their eyes.

Not because the world out there told me that:
love and acceptance = being thin.

No.

I craved thinness because it felt I could be here in this world more easily, if there was physically less of me.

I craved the LIGHTNESS of being thin.

And so, I tried so hard and was a gym addict and went to war with myself in the form of bulimia.

My body and me: we fought each other for about 20 years.

During that time, so many things happened on that battle field.

Grace stepped in.

The seeker in me, desperate to find an end to this self-inflicted suffering, traversed many landscapes and teachings and healing modalities……

Ta**ra, conscious dance, yoga, breathing, metaphysics, non-duality, meditation.

Until eventually there was recognition and perceiving of the stillness and spaciousness that had always been there, but was veiled by all the struggling and seeking and suffering.

True Being.

Stillness for me, is home, resting in it, as it……….just pure Bliss.
That has been a place of abiding for a while now.
Recognizing how precious this temple body is and now living in it with such deep appreciation, love, acceptance and honouring. Perceiving its fleeting existence and beauty and power.

The Divine Paradox is this:
WHAT IS IN THE WAY, IS THE WAY

And my struggle with being in a body is what eventually led me to becoming and embodiment Life Coach.
It eventually led me to supporting people to move from living in their heads to living from the whole Being: mind, heart, belly. From Wholeness.

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN
These days however, I am going down, down, down.

Down into my belly, down into my yoni, down into the earth.

Doing little other than resting attention here and opening to how the energy wants to move and reveal and express.

Physically, in this body. Not as a concept in my mind.

Energy unfurling and unfolding, moving, healing, showing me so much.

It’s a dance.
It’s a practice (for the mind) and also, not a practice. It’s what we essentially are.

It’s a lightness of Being that sometimes feels unbearable, until it doesn’t.

And now, it is actually through coming more deeply into my body, that a lightness of being is revealed……….it’s an energetic thing, more than just the physicality of the body.

The more I become aware of, activate and experience energy in my body, the lighter I feel.

This has been a gradual unfolding for me.
And the divine paradox is this:
that coming more deeply into my body, and not leaving it, IS where the lightness has come.

So, for those of us that inhabit transcendence and moving up and out of the body so easily, my invitation to you is to inhabit imminence and move in and down, more deeply into the body. Feeling, sensing, experiencing, knowing.

And see what reveals.

This poem below (not mine) spoke to me deeply and I felt to share it.

DOWNWARD
Use the night to wash
the sunlight from your wings.
Ascending into glory
has made you stiff.
Let gravity be your prayer.
Plummet with valor.
A mother draws you down
to her umber breasts.
Mingle in the pull of that deeper love.
Cease to struggle
against what makes you heavy
and you will be weightless.
Anoint your forehead
with grass and soil.
Unpolish yourself.
Into your bright wounds rub
the tincture of darkness.
God wants to be all of you.
_____________
~from 'Savor Eternity One Moment At A Time’

From this body of Love to your body of Love (same Love),
Blessings and a deep bow,
Giulia
Embodiment Life Coach
www.spiralconnect.co.za

THE INTIMATE & INTRINSIC INTELLIGENCE
THAT IS INHERENT IN
BEING
COMES THROUGH
as
INSPIRATION AND INTUITION

Today’s post is about INTUITION.
• OPENING to RECEIVING it
• LISTENING & RECOGNIZING it
• TRUSTING it
• ACTING on it

All these words below have to do with INTUITION:
• IN-TENTION
• IN-SPIRTION
• IN-QUIRE
• IN-TIMATE
• IN-FORMATION
• IN-TELLIGENT
• IN-HERENT
• IN-TRINSIC

Notice how all of them begin with IN
INTUITION is an INNER thing. Something that is perceived and recognized INSIDE.
The more we give attention to the inside of us, the more it flows and expresses.

I LOVE THE METAPHOR OF AN INNER GARDEN
To me, our inner life feels like a sacred inner sanctuary, where we are the gate keeper, the custodian, the steward, the occupant, the visitor and the resident.

The more we spend time in this inner garden, tend to it with loving attention, BE in it, get to know it, be curious about it, the more our lives flow and unfold with ease and grace.

The more we welcome back all the lost and lonely parts of ourselves, the parts that have been hurt, abandoned, rejected, felt like they were not enough, not valuable, not seen or heard, the more we experience the wholeness inherent in this inner garden.

Intuition flows from here and from our connection to this.

NATURE AS OUR TEACHER
I observe nature. I perceive inherent Life force energy that is supremely intelligent. There is knowing. Trees stood naked a few weeks ago and now they are clothed with leaves. Patches of purple Erica paint the mountain landscape. Its smell, intoxicating.

The same Life Force that is inherently intelligent lives and moves through this body-mind called Giulia. Air moves in and out of her body. Nutrients move in and out of her body. A million chemical reactions are taking place every day without her doing anything.

So much information is being received by all these forms (trees, flowers, mountains, bodies, etc.).

So much information is being received by this body-mind called Giulia.

Teaching the body-mind how to perceive and receive this information, to discern what is mind and what is intuition, and where to focus attention.

Having a daily practice so the mind can rest and find home and stay home. Find refuge at home. Rest at home.

This is really helpful. Especially to cultivate intuition, inner knowing.
We can help the body-mind to learn how to perceive and recognize INTUITION, INNER Knowing.

RECOGNIZING INTUITION
Sometimes is also feels like INSPIRATION
It’s subtle, just appears, not needing mental faculties to appear, because it comes NOT from the mind. AND can be so easily drowned out by mind.

To cultivate INTUITION:
• Have an INTENTION and an INQUIRY - in other words ASK! Ask the universe for help with what you want to know or are curious about. Ask a question. State your intention.
• Set your intention and/ or ask for wisdom, truth, insight, clear seeing around this thing in your life that you are interested in, or grappling with.

• TRUSTING this inner knowing when it lands.

• TAKING ACTION with what is received.

• Staying CURIOUS to what unfolds remembering that there is no right or wrong. There is just an action and a consequence and a noticing of it.

MY STORY
IF I did not hear and recognize my inner knowing, my INTUITION, trust it and then act upon it:
• I would never have left home as a single person and gone against my traditional Italian conservative upbringing that said: ‘you only leave home to get married’

• I would never have deeply disappointed my father and family and moved from Jo’burg to Cape Town

• I would never have married a man that did not tick many of the boxes that the world (including my family) had created around ‘a good husband’

• I would never have said no to the security of a job and said ‘yes’ to the retrenchment package and leaped into ‘life after the corporate world’ and become self employed

• I would never have met all the teachers that came across my path and made learning from them, the most important thing in my life, no matter what, even when I was labelled as a retreat addict

• I would never have become an Embodiment Life Coach and recognized that beyond and beneath all the learning and tools and methods, my intuition was the thing that mattered most when meeting a client heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul

• I would never have travelled to California, China and India and spent many months in these places

• And this list goes on and on and on………………..

It was listening to this inner knowing, let’s call it Intuition, trusting it and taking action, that set me on journeys and having experiences that were aligned with true Nature, with Being.

MY MESSAGE TODAY
Inner Knowing is already here. Inside of you. Inside of us all.

Open your eyes and ears and mind to perceive it and catch it and recognize it.

Orientate your mind towards it.

Trust it and act on it.

Then it flows more and more strongly and loudly, like a waterfall after the rains come.

HOW CAN I TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY MIND AND MY INTUITION?
Many of my clients ask me this question and it’s a useful one.

A while back, my car was making a strange sound.

It had been there for a while, but it was getting worse.

I decided to go past the car mechanic after work – but I decided to go to a new guy whom many people raved about, instead of the old guy who had worked on my car over the past few years.

I will use this story to discern the difference between mental activity and intuition.

Mental activity - some qualities to notice:

• The energy of mental stuff feels loud, busy and fast, jumpy, more frenetic and the energy is literally in my head space

• Reasoning and mental dialogue happening in my head

• This and that. To and fro. Here and there. In an out - that kind of energy

• It wants to GRAB your attention. And is very invested in you hearing it

• Sticky and has lots of hooks

• Very attached to outcome

Intuition -some qualities to notice:
• It just arrives. It just appears

• Subtle and more quiet

• Knowing. Clear.

• Simple & uncluttered

• Instant

• Clear and not ‘sticky’

• Perceive it deeper and lower in my body

• It does not have a ‘grab your attention’ energy – it just appears and points to something that may be useful for you to know and perceive. But whether you do or don’t, it’s ok.

• No attachment to outcome

‘Strange noise in my car. Fear. Should really do something about it. Maybe go to new mechanic. People have spoken highly of him? Maybe go back to old mechanic? Oh my gosh! What if it is something serious? How much will it cost? What will I do without my car……..‘(can you feel the energy of mental activity?)

When I finish work, I get into my car and this is what I hear:

‘Go to old mechanic’ (can you feel the energy of Intuition?).
It’s simple, uncluttered, clear and just lands. It’s just there. It’s a knowing.

BEING IS KNOWING
From the perspective of the truth of BEING, that which I AM, intuition itself becomes irrelevant.

BEING is KNOWING. There is no inner knowing. Just knowing.

Recognizing all of this and it penetrating the body-mind so deeply, soaking into and saturating the body-mind so deeply, so that Intuition becomes as natural as just Being mySelf.

There is just Life moving.

There is just Love moving.

There is just Consciousness revealing.

All the same thing.

Words are forever inadequate.

They only point to it.

May you open more deeply to your inner knowing and learn to perceive it, trust it, act on it and experience the flow and wonderment that comes when we live as, and from, this deep inner knowing.

Giulia
Embodiment Life Coach
www.spiralconnect.co.za

AWARENESS IS A BIG YES TO EVERYTHING.

But I have noticed over the years that often, my first response to life, is a contraction, a NO.

Especially when it has to do with people coming into my space – energetically and physically.

Especially when it has to do with certain requests from people or when unexpected, unplanned events occur.

Especially when it has to do with not wanting what is happening.

What happens in your system when Life happens and it’s not what you want or wanted?

How do you feel a YES in your body and how does a NO feel in your body?

What do you notice in different situations, with different people? Is there a YES arising in you or a NO? How does it feel on the inside?

And sometimes there’s an inner struggle, where your head says YES, but your body says NO, or vice versa.

MY INNER ‘NO’
My inner NO is a pre-cognitive, knee-jerk reaction that feels deeply unconscious and is now becoming more conscious.

I notice how it cuts me off from Life and possibilities and from Love.
I feel that NO is a self-protective , self-preservation mechanism that I needed at some point in my early life, but that now feels out of alignment with Life.

Of course, learning to say NO is really important as well.

A NO that speaks into clear boundaries and honouring myself and being true to myself and knowing deeply what is OK and not OK.

That NO is good and needed and something which many of us had to learn through deep suffering, me included.

But, when my NO comes from a YES, it is and feels so different to when my NO comes from a NO.

“ AWARENESS IS A BIG YES TO EVERYTHING.
The mind says NO.
You don’t have to change the mind’s No into a mind’s YES.
Standing as the presence of awareness that it is already effortlessly open without resistance to all experience.
Be that openness and you will never experience a moment of unhappiness.
All unhappiness is resistance to experience (I don’t like what is present, I want what is not present). “ Rupert Spira

Rupert’s words above really resonate with me as I become more and more aware of the natural YES of Life to all Life, to all phenomena rising and falling, coming and going.

I recognize this YES as the teaching of many great ones
who say that accepting what IS,
is the end of suffering and
that resisting what IS,
is the root of all suffering.

So, the moment I recognize that knee-jerk no, I pause and take a deep belly breath and rest back in the natural YES of now.

I can still choose to respond with a NO, but my NO is now coming from the YES of presence that is always open and here and spacious and welcoming of everything.

When my NO comes from an initial NO, it feels sticky and clouded by lots of ‘stuff’ and leaves an energetic residue and a charge in my system.

When my NO comes from that initial YES, it feels clear and not sticky and aligned with truth.

EXAMPLES OF MY YES AND NO
Examples are so helpful and so here is one from my life

There was a possibility of a friend coming to stay over for a night or two.

I noticed the instant NO inside my body-mind and responded to her whatsapp message from that energetic NO.

After sending the message, I was aware of a sticky residue of energy – a tinge of guilt, a lot of mental activity and story-making about what just happened. No peace.

I paused and breathed and rested back into the innate YES of Presence. What then revealed was a heart response that was open and warm AND that also felt honouring of my needs. I sent another message from that inner space and it felt good. There was peace.

Then, a few days later, my beloved and I were on our late afternoon walk and bumped into a friend on the path and chatted for a bit.

My husband shared something with this person that I had heard twice before.

I noticed a NO rise up.

I paused and breathed deep in my belly.

I rested back into a larger field of Awareness and Presence and looked up at the mountains and the patterns in the muddy pools in which I stood with my wellies after the rain. A deep YES was just here, like clouds parting and revealing the sun that was always there behind the clouds.

I felt the YES ooze through my body-mind. Peace. Spaciousness. Joy and wonder at the beauty all around me.

And then, this morning, my husband made a request and, without skipping a beat, without a thought intervening, a YES was just there.

No story, no thinking, no resistance. I did not have to choose a YES, it was just there.

In the action that followed, there was ease, spaciousness and an uncluttered sense of ok-ness with this moment. Peace.

And so……..I see how for the body-mind, it is a practice of noticing and becoming more and more aware of the “big YES to everything that Awareness IS”.

It feels like a worthwhile practice. A breaking through a very thick and old veil that has been around for lifetimes, but that I was not aware of, only experienced the result of.

Again and again, it comes back to just resting in awareness, in loving presence, in God’s Being, as that.

Because there…… here…… is a natural inherent YES. Nothing to do. No choice to make. It’s already been made.

Wishing you an expansive YES to all of life, even when a NO follows.
Giulia
Embodiment Life Coach
www.spiralconnect.co.za

This feeling – it was always there….
In my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s,
when I walked many hiking trails in the
Drakensberg , Mpumalanga, Namibia:
Amatola, Magoebaskloof, Tsitsikamma,
Otter, Whale trail, Fish River……..
It was always there……. this feeling.

When I did vision quests in the Cederberg
and cried so much when they came to an end
and I had to return to my city life,
it was there also.
Perceiving it then as a deep loss,
as a melancholic nostalgia.
So painful.
I just wanted to stay in this feeling forever.

This feeling that always comes
when I am in wild places in nature,
amongst mountains and rivers
and trees and wide open skies.
No sign of civilization anywhere.
Timeless places.
That’s where I have felt this feeling the strongest…………..

And now, knowing it not as a feeling,
but as myself, God’s being, I AM Presence, Awareness.

Now to know it as this Love
that is the only truth of Reality.
Now to be it, as I fold the laundry and cut carrots.

It has always been, always IS.
In Nature and wild places
where the mental veils
were the thinnest.
Now, veils falling away.
Clear seeing,
Perceiving truth.
Home in this vast expansive nameless Being,
so much space,
so much love,
the deepest, deepest wellbeing.
Everything here now.
The eternal now.
Only this.
Only this.

Giulia

I am a child dancing in the meadow.
Horses and people around,
blue skies and sunshine here.

A child alive and in wonderment
of so much space to play in,
so many dancing friends in
rocks and stones
and wood and purple flowers.

Who would have known
I could have so much fun
with these nature nymphs?

This child, so carefree and full of joy,
so expansive and energized,
so in love with Life and God.
This child, that I love so much.
This child, that is the gateway
to innocence and purity of Presence.

This child, who was once sad
and abandoned and forgotten,
who was once so alone
and afraid and overwhelmed.
This child, who was once
so empty and hungry and unsatisfied,
now……….home again,
loved, cherished, whole
delighted and delightful,
overflowing with the love
whose arms she now knows.

Giulia

MY 4 R’s of MANIFESTATION

• RECOGNIZE YOUR LONGING
• RADIATE A CLEAR INTENTION & FEEL IT
• RELAX AND RELEASE
• RESPOND TO PROMPTS FROM LIFE

Manifestation has become a common buzz word these days.

So much out there that has come into my awareness about how to manifest what you desire.

On a recent walk in an indigenous forest a few months ago, I was overcome with a deep longing that left me weeping as I walked in this forest.

And in those moments, something was revealed to me that I clothed in words during that walk, and that I have come to call my 4 R’s of Manifestation.

When I look back over my life and all the decisions and choices I have made, the voice of my soul, that often speaks through longing, is what I followed and still follow. And it was always aligned with these 4R’s, which only came into my awareness much later.

AN EXAMPLE FROM MY OWN LIFE

Examples are always so helpful and so I share a very simple one here from my own experience, for the purpose of clarity and understanding and simplicity.
I know that things are simple (from the perspective of Life loving itself), and at the same time, not simple (from the perspective of mind).
But nevertheless, I will share this example.

• I RECOGNIZED a deep longing in my heart and being. The longing was to do the whale trail again. I had done it about 20 years ago, and I longed to do it again and to enjoy the wonderment of that piece of paradise AND I also wanted to do it the slack packing way.
o The longing felt like a visceral ache in my chest and a kind of hollow-fullness in my belly.

• I created a clear intention married with feelings evoked by the intention and RADIATING this intention out from my being into the Universe.
o My intention: “I enjoy slack-packing the magnificent whale trail with my beloved and other kindred spirits.” (note: intention written in present tense).
o I sat with this intention and allowed it to evoke the feelings and sensations that came up: a joy, expansive feeling in my chest, a smile radiating on my face, a child-like delight in my belly, and the feeling of a bubbling river running through me, and a feeling of deep gratitude in my heart.

• I RELEASED the intention, let it go, and RELAXED back into my life, into the day-to-day precious living of this precious life.
o No attachment to the outcome and to when and how this would come to pass.
o Trusting Life’s (Love, I AM, God’s Being) wisdom and intelligence and flow.

• One early morning, I saw a WhatsApp message, offering a space to two people on the whale trail.
Something in me jumped for joy.
I RESPONDED and replied YES! Saying that my hubby and I would love to join the group hiking the trail.

Not knowing it at the time, but I have intuitively followed this process over the years in all these Life situations:

• When I moved from Joburg to Cape Town
• When I met my beloved
• When we moved from Cape Town to our plot in the countryside
• When I studied to practice as a Life Coach
• When I started a sisterhood in this community where I live
• When I joined a hiking club that led to so many glorious adventures
• When I met the teachers in my life that have been the catalyst for so much change, healing, transformation and awakening over the past thirty years

SO, HERE ARE MY 4R’s OF MANIFESTATION

• RECOGNIZE YOUR LONGING

Our deep longings that can sometime feel like a deep ache in our hearts………………. like a long-forgotten memory or friend that appears again…………. almost a kind of melancholy that is both so sweet and exquisite AND painful and sad at the same time. Like something we had and then lost, and now realize how precious it was and is.
o Listen to your deep heart longings.
o What do you deeply, deeply long for?
o So deep, that it almost feels like an ache in your heart.
o Recognize these longings. Take note. Write them down. They have information for you. The feelings they conjure are intelligent. Take note.

• RADIATE A CLEAR INTENTION & FEEL IT

o In your longing are the seeds of what you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY desire.
o Create a short sentence that captures the essence of the longing and write it in the present, as if it has already happened.
o This phrase is soaked with gratitude and with all the feelings that come when you imagine yourself already living your desire, as if it has already happened.
o The feelings are really important. Feel them viscerally, in your body, in felt sensations inside your body……………openness and expansion in your chest, excitement (tinged with fear perhaps) in your belly, a sense of satiation that feels so deep and meets the need at its core and root.
o When the feelings are alive in you and you can feeling their energy, then radiate this intention and feelings out into the Universe. See these energies (that is what everything is) radiating from your heart and belly out into the Universe.

• RELAX & RELEASE

o Release and Let go of this intention now.
o Have No attachment to the outcome.
o You are now clear on the WHAT (this is in your intention statement).
o The HOW and WHEN are not up to you.
o Relax and live your life, staying present to each moment. Live awake and aware and present. Enjoy your life, drenched in the absolute trust of Life and the knowing that all is well, that all is in your favour and that all is exactly as it should be.

• RESPOND TO THE PROMPTS FROM LIFE

o When you live in this moment, aware and present, you will be available to NOTICE and recognize the prompts and nudges that life sends you in response to your intention.
o The biggest clue? How these prompts make you feel on the inside.
o There is a quickening on the inside. A frisson of excitement that makes you pay attention, that makes your hairs on your body stand up, that takes your breath away.
o Sometimes these clues are subtle (you could easily miss them and the mind could so easily brush them aside), and sometimes they are strong (and the mind can still brush them aside, because the mind is afraid).

Even where I live now………..it started as a longing in my heart………………a deep longing for peace, surrounded by nature, silence, the songs of nature playing in my ears……….and four years ago, we arrived here.

This poem (author unknown) echoes the longing that was in my heart for many, many moons ago……………..

Time has softened my edges,
Whispered wisdom in my ear.
Now, my back porch is a sanctuary,
Where breeze-kissed moments are treasured.
Bird songs become sweet symphonies,
And stillness, a cherished friend.
In this gentle haven of contentment,
I've found life's truest riches.

Ultimately, there are no choices and there is no one manifesting anything.

There are no 4R’s of Manifestation, from the perspective of Life (Presence, God’s Being, Awareness, Love, I AM, etc. etc.).

There is only Love clothed in experiences, thoughts, feelings and sensations.

But from the perspective of the body-mind, it is useful to have maps and paradigms to work with, until they are no longer needed, because Life never needs a map. It just IS. Magnificent, Intelligent, and Vast.

With love,
Giulia
Embodiment Life Coach
www.spiralconnetc.co.za

WHEN IS BEING SELFISH, NOT BEING SELFISH ?

A client asked me this week:

“Is it ok for me to remove myself from people who I feel are negative?
When I am with them, my energy comes down. Is that selfish of me? “

When is being selfish a hedonistic egoic and self-centred thing, and when is being selfish the most selfless thing we can do?

How do we discern and know?

Have you ever been accused of being selfish? And then felt guilty and bad about it?

Do you sometimes give and help others, but feel drained and empty on the inside?

How do we disappoint another in order to be true to ourselves?

How do we discern which relationships and activities we want to invest our time and energy in, and which ones we don’t?

BEING SELFISH IS A SIN!!
I was brought up Roman Catholic and I have vivid memories of sitting in church and being told that being selfish was a sin and that we should be selfless and help others.

And so, deep in my psyche, was the belief that being selfish is bad and I am bad when I am being selfish.

As a result, in my early adult life, I did a lot of work for the church and various charities and although on some level, I felt good about it, on a deeper level, I felt drained and still empty on the inside and eventually, I stopped, because I was so consumed by an eating disorder and depression at that time, that I had nothing left to give to anyone else.

I knew nothing then of self-care and self- love.

I knew nothing then of turning towards the vulnerable one on the inside that was so needing my love and care and loving presence and attention, that was so needing to be seen and heard and validated.

I knew nothing of that.

SO, WHAT DOES SELFLESS SELFISHNESS LOOK LIKE?
On my journey of healing and bringing into conscious all these unconscious patterns and beliefs and habits, it became very clear to me that self- care, coming from love, was a good thing.

I learned that when I am in touch with my own needs and my own energy flow and can find healthy ways to meet those needs, then I know how to take care of myself, ask for what I need, say yes, when it feels like a yes on the inside and say no when it feels like a no on the inside, without needing to make excuses or tell ‘white lies’.

It may not always be received well by others, and I learned how to be with that and respond to that.

The more that I experienced love on the inside, the less I needed it from the world and from people and things and activities.

The more I experienced wholeness from within, the less I needed to betray my own heart and knowing in order to feel whole.

For me, self-care is knowing myself, who I truly am, and living from that, responding from that, and tending to this one here in human form.

From the perspective of love, this BEING human is a precious and rare thing, and there is great value in tending to this body-mind. If that is perceived as selfish, then so be it.

SHOULD & HAVE TO & NEED TO & MUST
When any action I do is qualified by a ‘should’, ‘have to’, ‘must’, ‘need to’, I pause and take a few breaths and look at what is really going on.

An action from such a place will have a ‘wobble’ and will be distorted and have sticky hooks on it.

So, when you ask yourself the question:
‘When is being selfish, not being selfish?’,
here are some points of reflection that may be helpful:

• PAUSE a moment, just take a few breaths as you sense and feel the discomfort inside of feeling unsure, doubting, not knowing, conflict on the inside.
• Bring your attention inside of you, maybe close your eyes, and place a hand on your heart or belly.
• Breathe deeply and give some space to the energies of emotions that are moving in your body. RELAX back into your spine, relax your jaw and shoulders, relax your belly.
• Ask yourself: what do I really need in this moment? Give yourself time to get clear about this
• Listen to what comes up and trust yourself and your deep knowing
• Then find ways to give to yourself what you really need.

Wisdom and right action require that we take some time to pause and slow down and reflect on what is going on, with a wise and compassionate heart.

It requires that we go deeper than the surface.

It requires that I choose authenticity over efficiency.

It requires that we are comfortable with not knowing.

It requires that we be curious and honest about our intention.

It requires that we are ok with people not liking us and perhaps judging or criticizing us and that their response does not determine our worth or value or significance.

When we keep returning to the love that we already are, and make choices from this place, this place aligned with truth, respect, kindness (for self and others), then labels ‘selfish’ or ‘selfless’ fall away.

There is only just what IS.

There is only just Life moving now, in this moment.

And there is an open spaciousness and peace on the inside.

When self-care has the fragrance of love, kindness, respect, tenderness, intimacy and loving attention, this is good.

SO.....IS IT OK TO BE SELFISH?
So, in answering my client’s question, I feel that it is absolutely ok for us to choose to not be with people who we feel are negative and where our energy feels depleted when we are with them.

It’s ok for us to put ourselves first, check in with what we need, say no when we feel it’s a no, and yes, when we feel it’s a yes.

It’s ok for us to give ourselves permission to take space, to rest, to do less, to be seen as imperfect and selfish, if it means that we are loving ourselves and tending to our own hearts and bodies and minds with the utmost care and tender love.

From that place, we are more able to show up for others authentically and honestly, aligned with our innermost being and more able to deal with others’ reaction to our seemingly ‘selfish’ choice.

With deep love,
Giulia
Embodiment Life Coach
www.spiralconnect.co.za