My journey to emotional freedom

Like most parents, I want my daughter to have a wonderful, happy childhood and to be the best mama I can be for her. 

In my last blog I shared how becoming a mother drove me to the next level of spiritual growth and awareness.

I’ve recently discovered cultural and ancestral patterns that have been running in my family for generations. That means I’ve worked with old wounds that crawled up from my subconscious along with motherhood. Yes, I'm diving into the depths of self-healing.

I’m highly motivated to do this work because I don’t want to pass my old stories and limiting beliefs on to my daughter. I want better for her, and when I do the work everyone, both me and my family, will benefit from it greatly. 

Already before her birth, I knew what I want to teach my child about life.

• I want her to learn she’s good enough and capable of achieving whatever she decides to do in her life.

• I want her to know it’s okay to make mistakes; challenges can be overcome and embraced as important milestones of growth.

• I want her to learn how to feel her feelings so she can be her authentic self and express herself easily.

It’s important for me to show her that these skills are the greatest drivers of creating a happy and meaningful life.

It’s all what I didn’t learn until later in my adulthood when I started my own journey of growth and consciously creating the life I want to live.

I am also (almost painfully) aware my daughter will have her own life lessons she needs to learn and I cannot protect her or smooth the way for her completely, no matter how much I may want to.

But I can do my share and consciously change the conditioning that is not serving her or me.

As I have chosen to do this work, I get to learn and release these patterns in everyday life.

My first Mother’s Day was quite an emotional one.

There were expanded feelings of happiness and joy when I got to spend the day with my little family, who pampered me so sweetly.  

There were also sudden feelings of self-doubt and anxiety, that I had not been able to recognize before. 

Instead of ignoring these intense feelings, I stopped to bring awareness to them and to find out what kind of stories lie behind these feelings.

I worried whether I can ever be a good enough mama to her as I feel flawed, vulnerable, and imperfect. 

These uncomfortable feelings revealed a huge insight for me:

I realized that if I don’t let my daughter see me as I am — and able to receive her love fully — I would be abandoning her emotionally and rejecting her love.

Then I as a parent would repeat exactly what I was unconsciously taught in my childhood: love needs to be earned and if I just give, give, give and be a perfect, good girl, then I’d be lovable.

It was a huge breakthrough for me to finally find the root cause for the fear of abandonment and the lack of sense of belonging. Both these have caused me all kinds of struggle, disease, relationship issues and fears. 

It took a while for me to understand how I had not been able to, and how difficult it was for me to fully receive love.

After realizing all this and changing my limiting beliefs, stories and patterns — and the energies related to them — I soon felt lighter and confidently rooted within my own being.

Now when I bond with my little girl I feel at ease. Looking at her loving eyes doesn’t make me hesitate any more. I started feeling deeper connection not only with her but with my husband, my parents and family - and especially with myself.

Self-acceptance and the ability to receive love are the foundations of deep and intimate relationships with ourselves and others.

By being our authentic selves and showing that vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness, our kids, and we as adults can learn to accept ourselves and understand we are good enough and lovable as we are. It’s never too late to start making these changes. 

When we choose to take responsibility and do the inner work it shifts our energy, helps to heal relationships and allows us to become free to do and be our authentic selves.

And that’s powerful and something many people are craving for, because when these old stories and conditioning are changed, you can change your habits; get healthy; release physical conditioning, limiting fears and blockages that prevent you from creating a happy, fulfilling life that looks and feels like you.

When we face any kind of difficulties with others one of the greatest questions we can ask ourselves is:

How am I creating this? 

I know it's not easy to take responsibility when it feels like everyone else is creating the issues or like life is resisting your aims. It takes some courage to ask this question of yourself and be willing to recognize and face the truth behind it.

But if you dare to take the path to growth and listen carefully, you will get insightful answers and your own wisdom and guidance will help move you forward. 

Changing ourselves is the only way to affect and change others. I’ve seen this happening in my own life and my clients' lives over and over again. 

Your happiness and wellbeing depends on you. You are not your limited by how or where you grew up or what others do.

Your life is your creation and in the same way you have created it so far, you can make changes and redesign it consciously. You only need to make the choice and get started.

Much love, Jenni

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RELATED BLOG: Are you repeating your parent's mistakes or your old family patterns?

Know Yourself Beyond the Thoughts

Last week I was in Greece at the Know Thyself retreat with Eckhart Tolle.

He is warm, compassionate and surprisingly funny. He is a weird and extremely wise human being, and yes, he still has an ego.

I didn’t really know what to expect from the retreat but my intention was to deepen my consciousness.

I have never taken fewer notes in a retreat or seminar than I did on this retreat. I have always taken a lot of notes but this time I wanted to stop focusing on my notes, over-achieving, and instead focus on being, breathing and allowing it soak in.

It was part of the practice and it worked well.

I got a great reminder of why I started doing the work I’m doing today. It all started from the present, through my own, not that gentle experience, of awakening.

With all acceptance of and detachment from my past, I have to say it could have been a lot easier if I hadn’t resisted the change so much but listened to my inner voice.

It’s very common for people to say life or universe, higher powers, god, however you call it, doesn’t want me to do or have this.

Or they think the universe needs them to go through something the hard way.

It’s not true, the limitless, abundant universe wants all the best for you.

Each and every moment we create our reality; the manifestations are based on our choices: from thoughts and feelings to reality.

Most people are just not conscious about it. They don’t want to stop to see it, as their unhappy repetitive stories keep them stuck in their minds and resisting their goodness.

I can relate.

For years I was waiting for the “sign” and the right time and in the meantime I kept suffering. I didn’t see there were signs all around me. It was roaring in my ears while I kept myself struggling.

I lived in denial without the ability to face the challenges and the feelings I felt, trying to shut down the calling and my desires to become a creator. It all made me feel that I was living a trapped life.

I learned that becoming aware of your thoughts and you can then recognize the mind patterns.

For me, spirituality means and is one important part of us, it’s part of humanness. It’s not a religion, nothing that someone has or hasn’t, it’s awareness about the essence of the self. It’s a key to happiness and contentment.

Once you become aware of the awareness, presence and the conditioned self, you become free.

It’s the learned old beliefs and emotional concepts that keep people in the cycle of self-sabotage.

To have a life you love, you have to create it consciously.

Getting over obstacles and challenges, that will never go away completely, becomes a lot easier when there is self-awareness and non-judgemental unconditional acceptance.

Acceptance (and forgiveness) is the key to releasing and changing anything. Accepting our situation, ourselves, and others are the keys leading to consciousness and sense of self - being you requires no time at all.

At any moment peace can be found in the presence, connecting with it by breathing and sense of self.

The more open we are to receiving, the easier it is to make good choices and put in the conscious effort that will open up more possibilities for us.

The answers and creative solutions can be found from stillness, behind the distracted mind.

Learn to listen.

Practice being present and learn the habits of becoming aware and connecting with the self. Life is not satisfying if the spaciousness is missing.

My biggest takeaway from the retreat was the “hurry slowly” practice that became part of my days.

I’ve been balancing between the high-intensity energy, creative bursts, that have kept me in the doing mode, thinking about the next thing in the future, and the total being mode when nothing happens.

Hurry slowly means that I consciously connect with the presence, checking my thoughts and feelings and the space behind it. I want to balance the yin-yang, push-pull feeling and bring more being and doing together.

How to do it?  

Set the timer and stop for a couple of minutes every hour to check in and do nothing, think nothing and just breathe.

Breathing, which is automatic and a gift itself, connects with the consciousness, our higher selves and the body.

You breathe is always with you. That’s the way to create more time too. There’s no time in presence. Or there’s as much time as you need.

We don’t have to be totally zen or aim to attain complete thoughtlessness or egolessness. Our mind also protects us, keeps us safe.

We don’t need to meditate hours daily, sacrifice our sleep, or over-achieve the spiritual practices, or do years of soul-searching.

Little things matter, you don’t need time to find the best version of yourself. It’s already there: you are here.

Connect behind the cacophony, and enjoy the yourself. You deserve goodness and happiness, now.

Becoming free from ourselves requires conscious awareness:

Learn to recognize your thoughts and feelings to let go of the past with unconditional acceptance.

Elevate your thinking, rise above the obvious.

Ask questions, don’t believe the old stories you tell yourself.

Get support.

When you are willing to change and are ready to heal, it will happen. What you want wants you.  

How can you deepen your consciousness? How could you listen to yourself better?

I’d love to hear from you! Ask questions, or comment below what habits or changes have worked for you!

Much love, Jenni

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Create More time and Minimize Distractions with these 4 steps

If you are like me, it's hard for you to keep your hands off your phone when you get a message or when a new notification pops up.

I used to struggle with how easily I could slip down the social media rabbit hole. It would happen many times a day when I was just "quickly checking on something." And suddenly time went by.

It made me feel lousy that I was wasting so much time, plus I felt I didn’t have any control over myself! I was constantly late and behind schedule and that meant my days got longer as I tried to fit everything in. I was always wondering, where does all the time go?

When I tracked what was causing the distractions and how much time I was wasting online every day, I decided it was vital to set clear boundaries for myself (my mind actually), so I could keep my focus and get things done efficiently - and feel good about myself in the process.

It requires true willpower to stay away from the phone when it’s the alarm clock; social and business network; entertainment system; library; assistant; and office. And that really is what our mobile device represents to us nowadays.

It's difficult to resist because we are talking about something that is extremely addictive.

Mobile phones, email, and social media wire our brains in ways it's not accustomed to being wired.

We have started to believe that we need to be contactable and available at all times. Our brain has got so distracted and disturbed that we don’t actually know how to be present without doing anything but enjoying ourselves and paying attention to the life we are living.

I believe we are talking about a bigger problem than we yet even realize.

Many believe they are the only one suffering with certain issues, and that everyone else lives happy stress-free lives. That’s a social media bubble and it’s not true.  

It's so easy to grab your phone first in the morning. Then, before even waking up properly; without setting up the day; or even saying good morning to yourself or to anyone else, your rat race has started and your day is already being driven by the demands of your phone.

It will ruin your day if you open up a message that immediately activates your stress hormones.

This could be an email that you need to react to right away; something bad you see in the news; maybe you find out there’s a huge catastrophe at work; or you discover your ex has met someone new.

Whatever it is, it can immediately cause angst. Negative thoughts and emotions then quickly run out of your control and your day starts in the wrong mood!

All the wonderful communication possibilities mobile devices offer can make you feel like you can’t lead your life, or never even have enough time to live your days, peacefully.

This can be changed. You can either give your power away or choose to respect yourself; your priorities; the connection with your loved ones; and your well-being, by setting clear boundaries.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Switch off all unnecessary notifications and put your phone on silent when you need to focus. Leave your phone in another room if its presence haunts you on your desk.

2. Create a morning routine and start your day by being present, focusing on your breathing for a while or with a short meditation.

3. Create clarity around your schedule and set intentions for your days.

4. Take breaks and recharge yourself, so your brain is not exhausted continuously. Do nothing for a couple of minutes in between all the “doing”.

The benefits are clear:

• When there are no constant beeps and pop-ups, there won't be any temptation to react and respond to those notifications. You, therefore, won't be sucked into your inbox or into a social media hole for hours.  

• You are more mindful of what happens and how you feel, and can then react and respond to events mindfully.

• You will have more energy, clarity, and time.

• Switching off your notifications is a fast and straightforward way to increase your productivity and your ability to stay calm and focused: you will feel happier as you are mastering your schedule and creating a better day for yourself - which is what we all want!

How valuable would that be for you?

Leave a comment letting me know how you manage distractions or what is causing problems for you. Ask questions! What rules have you set around your phone and internet usage and how well are those rules working for you?

To help you create successful, intentional days, you can download the printable daily page of my Clarity Planner.  

Love, Jenni