Moving Through FEAR in Four Phases

One of the promises I made to myself in my 40s is that I would not allow fears to weigh me down. Essentially, if I’m afraid of it, I need to conquer it. I remember being fairly fearless as a kid, as a teen, as a young adult. I was brave, I was courageous. I think it came from having a mother who was afraid of everything. The more she dug in her fears, the more I turned away from them. I didn’t want to live that way, I didn’t want to be afraid of life. 

But then I became a mom myself and things changed. I started to think about the dangers in the world. I started to worry about the things that were beyond my control. I started to grow fears over the things I couldn’t control as my kids went out in the world. Some of the fears were rational, like the need to keep an eye on them in public places or the worry that a toddler would choose to run at an inopportune moment, and some of the fears were irrational, like a fear of going over bridges. Either way, the focus on each fear only strengthened it, and each strengthening of the fear was a putting up of walls around me, a solidifying of a fortress meant to keep me safe but that was actually an impediment between me and life. 

That’s the thing about the walls we construct around ourselves–they actually stop us from living. This is the thing that always remained with me when observing my mom. As she sat through entire dinners rambling off every bad news story she saw, as she spent every morning Ooohing and sighing in front of the television, as she worried obsessively over the most benign scenarios, I was certain she had stifled herself, and I felt stifled by proxy.

As the decades went on, my mom’s tendency toward fear only strengthened. I saw this, and I knew I couldn’t do the same to myself. I knew I couldn’t offer the same stifled air to my children. 

So I made a promise to myself, the walls had to come down. They had been built to keep the dangers out, but had actually become a prison that kept me in. 

The first step to anything is recognition. I had to recognize that I was keeping myself small via my fears. Second, I had to label the fears, call them out by name. I wrote out a list, getting them out of my body and down on paper where I could look at them objectively. My list looked something like this:

-public speaking
-embarrassing myself
-failing
-drowning
-being myself in public
-showing my face on camera
-being uncomfortable/outside my ever-shrinking comfort zone
-anything at all that could happen to my kids
-being wrong, publicly 
-having other people succeed more than me over my biggest dreams and aspirations
-never achieving my goals and aspirations
-achieving my goals and aspirations

In looking at the list, I had to allow it to be what it was, an honest representation of my insides. I couldn’t judge it, that would be futile. I had to allow it to exist. I had to not be afraid of my list–that is, I had to be courageous enough to be honest when writing it. 

Next, one by one, I had to look at the fears as objectively as possible, to see whether or not they still needed a place in my life. I had to ask questions about them–how they served me, whether they served me, how they made me feel about my life as a whole, why they came to exist in the first place. 

That last one was really important. If I could understand the basis for each of the fears, I could then understand what was needed to release it. If each individual fear was a wall keeping me in, then the only way to see beyond the wall was to remove it, from the ceiling to the foundation, brick by brick.

In the beginning this was about challenging myself. I needed to put myself into situations I had previously avoided, just for the sake of having the experience of coming out unscathed on the other side. Enough of this, though, and a deeper understanding of fear, generally, began to develop.

Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” Fears are based on stories that we tell ourselves, stories that we choose to believe. In the work of Byron Katie, she teaches us to ask, Is it real? Is it real, or is it a story I have told myself? In this way we can question all of our thoughts, and consciously choose to keep only the ones that serve us well.

Here is an example. My son came home the other day and told me that, during recess, kids at school had called him selfish.

Upon questioning the scenario as he explained it, was this: The “in” game at recess these days is ‘wall ball,’ where a tennis ball is hit against a wall over and over and over again. My son had been asking for a tennis ball for over a week so that he could participate in the games, and we had finally, the evening before, had a chance to go out and get him a ball. He brought it with him to school that day and happily played with his very own ball at last. A few of his classmates were, as he witnessed it, intentionally throwing balls onto the school roof. All fun and games until, they realized, they no longer had a ball left to play with. So, they asked my son if they could use his. No, he replied, he was playing with it already. Not liking his response, they gave him the label ‘selfish’ which he carried home with him that day. 

Fear: My classmates think I’m selfish. They won’t want to play with me during recess anymore.

Is it true? 

That they thought it? Possibly, they did use the label. Or, maybe they were just trying to manipulate my son into giving them the ball. We can’t know for sure whether or not it is true, we have to choose the story we want to believe. 

Fear: I’m selfish because my classmates said I was. 

Again, he had to choose for himself the story he wants to believe.He could allow the label to sink in and begin to identify as selfish. Or, he could acknowledge the reality in his mind, that he had just gotten a brand new ball and didn’t want it to end up on the roof. He had to trust himself and his own intentions.

There is power in words, words matter. But there is more power in how we interpret the words, that was the lesson I shared with him that day. To which he replied, Mom, just because they called me selfish it doesn’t mean I believed them… 

So, obviously I needn’t have worried so much about my kid. 

But myself, at his age–shy, a people-pleaser, afraid of getting in trouble or of unnecessary attention–I would have carried that ‘selfish’ label around for an unhealthy amount of time. I would have become afraid of it, of being interpreted as selfish by others. I would have gone out of my way to be seen as un-selfish. 

I had, I suppose, no less fears when I was younger, I had, only, a greater resolve to enjoy my experience of life. It’s this resolve, or weakening of it, that had swung the pendulum the other way. Somewhere in the becoming of a mama bear and the exhaustion that comes with sleepless nights, and the blurring of the lines between my pre and post-mama selves, my resolve to enjoy my own life weakened. I had allowed my personal fear-based thoughts to take a position of prominence in my mind. 

The understanding of this, the acknowledgment of it, was an important part of the process. And a lengthy one. It’s an understanding that actually took years to fully form, but, once formed, made everything easier. By strengthening my resolve to enjoy the experience of my life, I could take my list of fears and intentionally cross items off, or, at the very least, allow them to hold less weight in my mind. 

Mindset, ultimately, was everything.

The next step, after recognition of and objectively analyzing the fears, was action. I felt that I could not overcome any fear without taking an action to conquer it. The action served as the proof, to me, that I could come out still standing on the other side. If, in my fears, an interaction was too terrifying to imagine, then said interaction was necessary to encounter to show myself that I could pull it off and live to tell the tale. 

Here’s an example. Several years ago I was invited to interview for a position that I was sure I could succeed at. I was told, however, that the interview would be a three hour long panel interview in two languages. Holy gawd, the introvert in me went into a drastic tailspin. There was no way I could pull that off. There was no way I could survive it. Fast forward to the practicing of my new mindset, and I once again applied for the same position. And once again, I was invited to interview. And I decided that the earth would not open and swallow me whole by going through with it. And I prepared for it, and I had the interview, and it actually, genuinely, went really well. What’s more, I realized after that I didn’t even want the position, but I was so happy for having gone through the experience because I proved to myself that I could, and that there was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

With this experience fresh, as I continued to look at my list, I came to understand that a lot of my fears were actually manifestations of a lack of confidence in myself, a lack of confidence in my own strengths and abilities. I wasn’t afraid of failing as much as I was afraid of people’s judgment of me over failing. I wasn’t afraid of being wrong as much as I was afraid of embarrassing myself for being wrong. I wasn’t afraid of the interview so much as I was afraid of not doing well in the interview. It seemed that my biggest source of fear was over other people’s opinions of me. I used strategies and tactics to protect myself and keep myself safely contained.I used labels, for example, to generate an identity for myself that excused my behaviour. Introvert, for example, was my favourite go-to for keeping myself out of uncomfortable situations.

I am an introvert, but I was using introversion as an excuse that enforced my barriers. I had to let go of how I was using the label. I have experienced some past traumas, but I had to let go of my identification with those traumas in order to move forward. I felt there were limitations on what I could and couldn’t accomplish in life, what I could and couldn’t have in life, and I had to let go of the concept of these limitations. Victim complex, martyr complex, blame game, coulds, shoulds…I had to release it all. And this, finally, is the fourth step in letting go of fears. Release. Not necessarily the fears themselves, but the feelings behind the fears–the feelings that brought them to life and the feelings that held them in place. Because fears will exist, they will always exist. But it’s the degree to which we listen to them, the degree to which we allow them to affect our enjoyment of life, the degree to which we allow them to limit us, that matters. 

My list… Well, Byron Katie reminds us that we cannot control other people’s opinions. Other people’s opinions are their business. Even if those opinions are about me, it’s not my business. Therefore, the only thing within my control is my opinion of myself. And if it’s my opinion of myself that enforces my fears, then, logically, it is an altered and improved opinion of myself that can weaken my fears as well. 

My way of working through my list, my way of ultimately releasing myself from the list, my way of freeing myself from the invisible bars that kept me in, was, in the end, just to feel better about myself.

-mtg

Turning it Over to Faith

I came home one day, feeling rather forlorn and lost and insecure. To be honest, this was only one of a zillion other moments just like this, moments where I allowed myself to tumble into sadness over so many unrealized desires. 

This time, however, an analogy popped into my mind. The analogy was that life is often like taking a hike in the woods. Sometimes, during a hike, we are certain of the path that we are on. During these times, we really get to enjoy the journey. We feel the sun on our skin, we feel the air through our hair, we hear the crunch under our boots. When we feel sure of the path, we simply walk, one step at a time, without worry or concern for where we are going because the path is leading us, and we know we are on the right path. Other times, we are less certain of the path we are walking. We missed a guidepost or the map was unclear or something just doesn’t feel right. In these moments, we are unable to enjoy the hike for what it is because we feel insecure in our footing, lost and a bit confused. Rather than enjoy the experience we wait for the assurance of another guidepost or map to tell us the way. 

This is what was happening to me on this day, before the analogy. And after, once I took a moment to recognize that it’s just life, I was able to curb my feelings just a little. It wasn’t about denying my feelings, and not about changing them. But the recognition of where I was at, understanding my present circumstance, sitting in that truth, was enough to stop me from spiraling further. 

 I was okay with that, at first. I was able to continue about my evening, just acknowledging where I was at. But as I thought about my analogy further, as I thought about being lost on the path, I realized that the lost me was searching for a guidepost, some external element to help me. I realized that in my lost-ness, my mind was attempting to control my circumstance, to brainstorm ways to get un-lost. And then it hit me–the realization that I had been missing this one, very important element all along: Faith. 

We’re not always meant to know where the path is going. We’re not always meant to know where we’re heading. We’re not always meant to know more than one step ahead at a time. As long as we’re willing to move, to keep on moving, propelled by the faith that the Universe does know, we will get to the place we are meant to get to. The Universe is the creator of the maps, the one that installs the posts along the way. The Universe sends the signals to let us know when to head east and when to head west, and it is up to us to have enough faith to keep on moving, even when we don’t know where we’re going.

This is a hard one for a control freak, it’s hard to admit that it’s okay to not know where we’re going. But if the Universe could create the circumstances that would lead to my conception, and create the very cells that would grow into my very existence, and guide me through all the emotional turmoil of childhood into the adult that I am, then maybe, just maybe, it’s because the Universe has a plan for me that is better than any I am imagining for myself. And maybe, just maybe, I can give it the benefit of my faith as it’s trying its damnedest to steer me along.

-mtg
https://linktr.ee/mariagiulianidotca

It All Begins at Home

I have been writing in journals all my life. From the moment I could string words together, using different colours of crayon for each letter of each word, I kept little personal diaries of thoughts and reflections. As someone who has always leaned toward the introverted, journals are the place where my voice has always found a haven. In a journal, I am free.

@mariagiulianidotca

“You cant give from an empty cup” Giving to ourselves and taking care of our needs make us better contributors to the world at large, not worse. It’s the good kind of selfish 😀. #selfcare #selflove #writing #writingprompts #journalwithme #journal #book #selfishlove #fillyourcup #takingcareofme #selfcaremom #selfcaremomma #personaldevelopment #personalgrowth #personalgrowthjourney Intro to my journal of writing prompts available on etsy.com/ca/shop/ShopMariaGiuliani

♬ original sound – Journal Prompts for Self-Care

I have also always been fascinated by personal and spiritual development. The books on my bedside table are piled high with works by thinkers and feelers, all offering their timeless perspectives on how to go within and find alignment; books offering hope and asking for faith that when we find our personal truths, our lives will change.

The concept of self-love became important to me in my 20s, when I realized that I was lacking love in other areas of my life. The concept of self-care became necessary in my 30s, after putting so much of myself into motherhood that I forgot how to care for myself. As a mother cares for her child out of love, so must we all care for ourselves out of love. It’s the often-heard analogy—so apt that I will continue to repeat it—that we “can’t give from an empty cup.” This is at the heart and soul of why I’ve created this journal.

We are social beings. We are meant to exist within a world of others, and we gain great benefit from contributing to this world (to our society) in a positive way. When we give love, we receive love. Yet, we can’t give love unless we have love to give. We can’t give from an empty cup.

Until our personal cups are filled, we may feel resentment, contempt, fear, and lack. It is once our personal cups are filled that we can turn the tides outward. Love begets love, so as our cups begin to flow over, it’s the overflow that we share with the world. As long as our cup remains full, the overflow will keep on flowing.

So, it all begins at home. The first step to being a service-minded contributor in society is to make sure we have love to share. That is our job. Our cup, our responsibility. It stands, therefore, that loving ourselves first is not a selfish act, but a necessary one.

*The above is an excerpt from my interactive journal “My Self-Love Story“
https://linktr.ee/mariagiulianidotca

Put on Your Big Girl Pants: On Self-Acceptance

I was sitting here in the mood to write something, but uncertain as to what exactly I should write. I especially want to write something good, something motivating and inspirational, bur I’m feeling a little of that imposter syndrome on that front. A lot of bloggers offer very polished posts, and I find that intimidating because I am not a polished person.

When I was seven, I was a flower girl in a wedding. There were two of us flower girls, the same age, walking side by side down the aisle. When I look at photos from that day, me in my little white dress and little white tiara walking down a white-carpeted aisle carrying a little white basket, the difference between myself and the girl beside me is striking. She has a perfect smile on her face. She is holding her basket up before her just so. Every strand of her hair is in place and her dress is sitting on her body in the way that the child models of that gown would have worn them in the bridal magazines.

The image of myself, standing beside her, depicts pretty much the opposite of everything above. I look as though I was wrangled to the church entrance football-style. My dress is askew and my hair out of place. The tiara is tilted to the side and my basket is hanging carelessly at my side. Another inch and it would have been scraping the floor. While one of us flower girls represented poise and elegance, the other was a walking disaster. That’s me, I was the walking disaster. Even as a seven year old, I walked around looking like a hot mess, and this isn’t something that has improved over time. And whether we’re talking about my physical appearance or my online persona, I’ve come to accept that what you’re going to get is a lot of grit and not a lot of polish. I’m just a gritty girl. What’s that expression? A tiger cannot change its stripes. There’s no amount of polish in the world that can effectively change my stripes.

This has me thinking a lot about self-acceptance because, let’s face it, us over 35 women were mostly bred to believe we should all be walking around like my shiny counterpart. When you know that you are not that shiny image, it can make a person feel like a disappointment. I have a distinct memory of my child self looking at that wedding photo and feeling like I was a disappointment. I don’t know whether I felt like a disappointment to the happy couple, to my parents, or to myself, but I remember that feeling clearly. What’s more, when I look into the eyes of my seven year old self in that photograph, that little girl felt different, right there in that moment, standing there in her uncomfortable white shoes. She knew she was not the same. She felt like a disappointment because of it.

Being different is not something little girls are praised for. Being different causes other people to be squeamish, and so they ask you to please stop being different so that they can stop being squeamish. And as little girls, we do that, because all little girls just want to feel accepted by their family and by their peers.

But when little girls turn into big girls and this feeling persists, it becomes a serious problem. They become at constant odds with themselves, and it creates an inner environment that is constantly in chaos.

Adult me knows that I’m not quite your average Joanne. I know I’m a little quirky, that I have some idiosyncrasies that might make other people scratch their heads. I don’t know how to talk, for one thing. Verbal communication gets a little dicey with me. I am not a fun party guest and the most fun I ever have is when I’m at home, alone with my journals and books. And I also have this thing where if I’m talking with someone and they tell me something, and then I hear them telling a different person a different version of events, I correct them. Like, I can’t stand it when people skew the details of their story based on who they are talking to. I don’t know why–but I can’t stop myself from calling them out on it. Adult me believes there is more to life than all things practical. Adult me is pretty darn woo woo, complete with crystals and pendulum and metaphysical beliefs. Adult me still eats Nutella with a spoon. 

Adult me wants to fully accept myself with all my various idiosyncracies. Adult me wants me to tell the world, Hey World, this is me. Take it or leave it but you may as well take it. Adult me actually does like who I am, and wants me to take off all my armour and just let myself hang loose.

But then there’s little girl me, standing there in that white dress, worried that she’s a disappointment and craving acceptance despite her differences.

And so I find myself, literally in this moment as I sit here writing this, trying to understand how to bridge the gap between Little Me and Big Me. How to actually be me, without any of the needs and worries. How to find it within myself to do what appears to be the hardest thing in all the world do: Be me. Be my own version of me. Be the me that God put me on this Earth to be.

Change can only come from within, so no matter how many self-help books I read, nothing will change until I decide that it will. So how do I decide to change? How do I decide to be the same self in public that I will always be in private? How do I let myself be fully me?

I’ve actually thought a lot about this topic at various points in my adulthood, and what I’ve concluded is that, with any desired change, one cannot simply flip a switch in their brain and create that change automatically. The flip of the switch is the moment we acknowledge that change is needed, the decision that a change is required. That is our lightbulb moment. But once that switch gets flipped, the real effort begins. That change, once illuminated, once it’s been decided that it is necessary, will require conscious focus and attention in order to be brought to life. It requires practice and willpower. If one really want to make a change, one can’t just decide it and then sit back and wait for it to happen. We need mental and emotional flex, consistent strengthening of those two muscles, in the direction that we want to go. 

In order for me to break that habit of hiding myself, the habit that Little Me is still holding onto, Big Me will need to willfully practice four specific things: Acceptance, Audacity, Confidence and Courage. AACC. See that? It’s easy to remember.

Acceptance encompasses many things. You need to accept where you are currently at, and accept where you want to go. You need to accept all the various events and emotions from your past that brought you to where you are, and accept that you now need to let those go. You also need to accept in advance that you may receive judgment or criticism, that the reaction from others may make for a bumpy ride. You need to accept it, and stick with the decision to keep going. Acceptance is me acknowledging that I’m unpolished, and being okay with it.

Audacity is one of my favourite words. Audacity doesn’t just mean being bold, it means being bold with intention. It means being willing to take a risk–in this case, being willing to put all your money on black and bet on yourself. Audacity is when your back is straight and your head is high and you speak from a place of complete inner truth, come what may. Audacity is when you stop people-pleasing and establish boundaries and allow yourself to step into the light that is your most natural self. Audacity is me being my most truthful, unpolished self and not giving a crap what other people think.

Confidence is believing in your version of yourself so much that you genuinely feel good when in that state. Confidence is feeling so good that when you say you don’t give a crap about other people’s opinions, it’s because you genuinely don’t give a crap. You feel so good and so free and so comfortable in your own skin that you have no choice but to feel confident. When you’re in your most truthful state, confidence is a given. It is a natural by-product of alignment. Confidence is me admitting to people, Hey, so, I’m really socially awkward and this situation is making me more awkward than usual.

Courage is not not giving a crap about what other people think. Despite the best of our intentions and the firmness of our resolve, there will always be times when fear will penetrate through. It could be fear of judgment, fear of failure, or fear of alienation. It could be fear of anything at all, but it will happen, because we’re human and this is simply what it is to be human. Courage is keeping going, despite the fears. Courage is keeping going, through the insecurity and need for validation and wavering confidence. Courage is keeping your eye on the prize that is yourself and keeping your money on black even if you’re less certain of how the dice will roll. Courage is when you choose faith over circumstance. Courage is me writing this blog post and admitting that I struggle with living as my most Me self, and holding myself accountable to my resolve to keep going, to keep strengthening this muscle.

When it comes to self-acceptance, I realize that it is much less about putting on a big show and announcing to the world my intentions. I don’t think I need to go around waving a flag and getting people’s attention (funny words from someone writing about it, but I’m talking about my everyday). What I do need to do, each and every day, is make the choice to take off my flower girl dress and put on my big girl pants. My big girl pants are woven with acceptance, audacity, confidence and courage. They are kind of like a superhero cape, except they are very comfortable. They don’t hang on me the way they might hang on someone else’s body, but when I put them on, I am acknowledging the power and privilege that I possess–the power in and the privilege to be the very same self that God made me to be. 

-mtg
https://linktr.ee/mariagiulianidotca

Stepping Out of a Shame Story

This is why journaling matters.

Yesterday, I had the epiphany that I can’t come out of my shame story until I absolutely start to OWN it, like nobody’s business. When I fully encapsulate my shame as my truth, that is when the shame will slip away.

I think most people have a shame story, right? Something that follows them from childhood, a situation that leads our child selves to perceive it as an indication of our lack of worth (not worthy of love, not worthy of attention, not worthy of affection, etc etc). As with many, my own original story was something that was entirely out of my control. I had zero say over the situation itself. And yet, the story is entirely mine, therefore what I do have a lot of control over is how it ends. My reaction, my change in perception, these are entirely up to me. If I want to step out of the shame story, it’s here that I must grab hold of the reins. 

So I went on a journaling rampage to try and connect the dots in my mind–mostly, I was trying to figure out the ‘how,’ how to actually start owning my story–and I realized that it doesn’t have to be a big deal. I can just be truthful, without blowing it out of proportion or blowing up the world or it affecting anyone else. I can just put on my big girl pants and be my honest self. But, I also realized that the way to do this properly was with compassion for myself, because there might be some missteps along the way and I can either fall back into the shame story, or I can compassionately help myself back up.

I’m new to this practice, but this is an example of how I used compassion to pull myself out of my shame story today:

@mariagiulianidotca

I think most people have a shame story, right? Something that follows from childhood. Most times the situation itself is entirely beyond our control, but how we handle that shame story is within our control. #journaling #writing #therapeuticwriting #writingtherapy #journalwriting #selflovejourney #selflove #shame #shamestory #selfhealing #biggirlpants

♬ original sound – Journal Prompts for Self-Care

This morning I scratched my car. Now, this is the type of scenario that would normally throw me into a shame spiral, and it kind of did. The old feelings of shame over having made a mistake, feeling bad about myself, feeling like a victim to an unfortunate situation, it all came up. Normally, this type of shame spiral would see me hole myself up for the entire day, isolating myself and finding ways to self-soothe. But this morning, I caught myself in the act and I realized what I was doing. I made the decision–the conscious decision–to change my story. I sat in my car and I said out loud everything that I needed to hear: It was an accident, no one was hurt, it’s only paint, it happens all the time, mistakes happen, everything is ok, it’s all ok… And I did feel better, I did change my perspective. 

And while I don’t think this is easy work, it is the work that needs doing. I kind of think this car situation was a perfectly timed scenario, brought in to teach me this lesson and give me the opportunity to practice self-compassion. Hopefully I can keep it going without the need for any more scratches on the car… 

-mtg
https://linktr.ee/mariagiulianidotca

Random Thought: Finding Yourself is and Inside Job

When I was in my 20s, I felt like I needed to go away [to escape] in order to “find myself.” I didn’t believe I could do it while surrounded by the same people, the same routines. I had a whole plan, a specific destination in mind—the place where, after some years spent in an emotional wasteland, I would finally be found.

Certainly, big adventures are fun, and certainly they can present a person with unexpected challenges, challenges that force a person to show themselves what they’re made of. And, certainly, such finding-myself expeditions have also been widely romanticized. Who hasn’t been swept away by heart-opening Hollywood films set in the Italian countryside or high up on a faraway mountaintop? These stories are built to inspire a person to dream.

To be clear, I am not against adventure in any way, I am a lover of new experiences, but there’s nothing like motherhood to force a person to “find themselves” in new and rather stationary ways. That is to say, we can’t always pick up and leave whenever we want to. And, actually, I’ve come to believe it’s better that we can’t.

You see, finding yourself is an inside job, and will always only be an inside job. Sometimes, separation from the norm does help. And sometimes, separation simply isn’t possible. But either way, the possibility of finding oneself remains the same.

Think about it. What does “finding yourself” mean, anyway? The act of finding yourself means only to understand yourself deeply, at the very core of who you are. It means to finally hear the calling of the soul, to reconnect with the self that is and has always been within. When you find yourself, it means that you remember who you are.

I’ve known people who have travelled across the globe and came not one step closer to this remembering, and I’ve known people who haven’t been farther than 10 square kilometres from home in years and years, and are deeply connected with their inner source. It tells me that personal readiness matters more than physical distance when it comes to matters of the heart and soul.

So, travel if you want to travel, escape if you feel the urge to escape. But don’t travel to find yourself. Don’t have that as your goal.

(And if you feel down because you’re not in a position to travel, but still want to find yourself, take heart! You’re in the perfect place.)

The golden key to the door to your soul is this: Love. Love yourself. Love all the tiny aspects of your life that are possible to love. Love the desire you hold within you to know yourself more.

Remain open in your daily life, remain aware of your thoughts and feelings and the direction they move you. Remain focused on your desires. Finding yourself can happen each and every day in little tiny ways, ways that eventually add up to a tangible shift. Trust me, you don’t need to go further than your own backyard, your own bathtub, your own meditation pillow and your own mind in order to find yourself. It’s free and available, 24/7. Finding yourself is (only and ever) an inside job.

***This is an excerpt from my interactive journal of writing prompts and reflections. Printable PDF can be found on Payhip or Etsy.

Random Thoughts: Keep Your Business to Yourself

In the beginning, during a period of change, it is best to keep your business to yourself.

Often, we share our desire to change (and our ideas on how to create change) with the world—or at least, our friends and family who know us most.

Sometimes we do this for the sake of accountability, to demonstrate or prove that we desire a change.

Likely, as we share, we are also hoping to prove that we are worthy of change. We share because we have a lack mentality, and in doing so we are seeking approval or validation or plain ol’ attention. We share because we want others to fill our cup.

The thing is, the moment we open ourselves up in that way, we risk failure right out of the gate. Truthfully, most people don’t want us to change, and they don’t like witnessing our change. They might try to convince us to remain the same or to influence the direction of our change. They may offer us advice, and we may feel obligated to accept it.

We also open ourselves up to comparison (by others and to others). Comparison leads to fears of failure and rejection. It hinders our creative juices and blocks our growth.

The best thing to do when you are inspired to create positive change in your life (to change an aspect of your personality or to bring a vision to life or to generate more abundance for yourself) is to make like a caterpillar entering a cocoon, safe and hidden from view as the changes unfold. Invite professional guidance if needed, but keep the changes away from social media, family, and friends.

Then, when you get to the point that you are so comfortable with how your inspiration has developed, so sure of what you have invited into your life, so trusting of your idea or vision that no one and nothing can sway you from owning it, it is only then that you emerge from the cocoon, ready to unfold in newness and beauty.

***This is an excerpt from my interactive journal of writing prompts and reflections. Printable PDF can be found on Payhip or Etsy.

Random Thought: Look Your Feelings in the Face

Anyone with an interest in the Law of Attraction understands the relevance of positivity. Yet too often we forget that positivity must be genuinely felt if it’s to provide any value at all. We may be able to trick ourselves, but we can’t trick the Universe.

There is a rainbow of emotions that exists, and as with colours, some are warm, and some are cold. White light disperses into a rainbow via a prism. As humans we are prisms, and the spectrum of emotions disperse through us. To deny any is to deny the brilliance of the human experience.

As with everything, it comes down to choice. We can choose to ignore less pleasant emotions or situations. We can choose to only focus on these less pleasing emotions or situations. Or we can choose to acknowledge these as they arise, to validate their existence with honesty, and then to make a conscious choice to place our attention elsewhere.

The first is based on ignoring reality and forcing positivity, it is akin to hiding under a rock that’s been painted with a smiley face. The second is a choice that holds us in a low vibrational state, like being ankle deep in a pile of muck and making the choice to sit rather than get out. The third option is a choice we make with our heads high and our eyes open. We acknowledge what is less pleasing, we allow it to exist, we maybe even walk around in the muck for a while. Then, we make the choice to look for dry land, to walk around the rock rather than hide behind it. We allow all the colours of the rainbow to exist but choose to focus on the white light on the other side of the prism.

The white light is the source of love. The white light is the feel-good place. It is genuinely positive. And when you make a choice to feel for the white light, the feel-good feelings are authentically felt.

***This is an excerpt from my interactive journal of writing prompts and reflections. Printable PDF can be found on Payhip or Etsy.

Journal Entry…

@mariagiulianidotca

Because a journal is a girl’s best friend. #selfcare #therapeuticwriting #selfawareness #selflove #writing #journalwriting #journalwritingforhealing #journalling #deardiary #positiveaffirmations

♬ original sound – mariagiulianidotca

July 9th

I was here on vacation a year ago—in this very chair—reading books on how to change my life and really beginning my journey of focusing on my thoughts and how to change them. A year later I can see both how I have progressed, and how the process has been a slow one for me. It is challenging to make permanent changes to the way a person thinks, I’ve just become so used to thinking in a certain way. But I focus on the notable changes because I do see them, they do exist. A year later, they are tangible. My insides have shifted, and the more they shift toward me behaving as a new me; the more I want to grow, the more I am helped and guided in this process. So yes, a whole year has gone by but, it’s only time—and in that year, the shifts I have gone through are more than I can count. It may be that I will be sitting in this exact same chair a year from now, still in this process but, I know that I will not be the same person. Any shift will be a good shift, every shift makes me a new me. But I am already a better mother, a better artist, a better human than I was a year ago. I am kinder to myself. And that is what this process is about, that’s why I do the work. To be more aligned, to be more myself, to be a better human. To be love.

This post is an excerpt from my new journal. For the past few months I’ve been working on this little project, and it’s one that I care a lot about. It’s a journal… cause I’m a journal girl… but it’s more than a journal, too. It’s interactive, it’s writing prompts, it’s story time, it’s a place to hold the things that inspire you most. It’s a little eclectic, but that’s what I like about it.
While the print version is not quite ready, I have a PDF version up and raring to go. For the curious, I do have a small Preview available to view here: https://payhip.com/b/KRd4t
Also available on Etsy.

How Some Ancient Wisdom on Feelings is Helping Me Now

This might sound crazy but I only recently discovered, as a forty-something woman, that it’s better to recognize, pay attention to, and acknowledge the feelings within you, rather than hide from them or try to outrun them. I probably already knew this in theory, but I certainly didn’t know this in practice. 

It’s funny to me, because I’m a mom, and always naming feelings for my kids so they can have a feeling vocabulary. It’s funny, because I studied psychology in university, then art therapy, where I learned to understand the power and necessity of emotion-speak for personal betterment. I fully believed this for other people. I just didn’t apply it to myself. 

I first came across this idea as a developed concept while reading a book by David R. Hawkins. Paraphrasing, Hawkins says that when something bubbles up to the surface, look at it rather than push it back down, ask it questions, be inquisitive about it–stick with it, until it dissolves on its own. Ever since learning this concept or technique, it is suddenly everywhere I look. I started seeing it written out while scrolling inspirational messages on Instagram. In a podcast interview between Elizabeth Gilbert and Brené Brown (recorded in 2015 but only listened to for the first time last week), Brown quoted, “Hold your shadow in front of you. It can only take you down from behind.” I later heard author and life coach Martha Beck doing a podcast on the same topic. She linked it back to the Buddha and ancient Chinese teachings. And I could be wrong, but if it’s ancient, it must be worth paying attention to. 

So I have experimented, and I have tried (and am trying) to apply this technique in my own life. To illustrate, here’s an example.

As a writer and generally artsy character, one of my biggest weaknesses is the vulnerability I feel when I put myself and my work out there in the world. It’s easy for my confidence to falter when my work is made public. I had one of these moments recently, one of these I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-and-I-totally-suck moments. Normally, I feel a well of dark emotion open up within me, and then I get stubborn, then force myself to think positively, and finally I push the negative feelings away. This is what we’re supposed to do, right? Except, this tactic hasn’t been working for me. I don’t know if it ever works for anyone.

Stubbornness can take us places, but not in a fight against ourselves. False positivity can take us places, but not when it stops us from recognizing truth. Pushing away negative self talk can be a good thing, but only once you’ve dealt with the underlying thoughts causing it to begin with. See what I mean? Any mechanism I use to get me through is only a short-term fix to a long-term problem. Unless, that is, I make the choice to go down the rabbit hole and shake hands with whatever is down there waiting for me. 

For this particular vulnerability of mine, what was down there waiting for me was the feeling that I have to prove myself. Once I saw that, and I mean really saw it, it was easier to also see the futility in it; the ridiculousness of it. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, least of all myself. My only responsibility to myself is to keep making art, if art is what inspires me.

I don’t write this as someone who has cured myself, but as someone who has, at least, found a really powerful tonic. 

Back when I was an art therapy student in university, I had an idea for a picture book to assist me when working with kids. It used colours to help talk about feelings, a way of easily labeling whatever was bubbling up inside. I wrote a story called Wonderful, Colourful, Magnificent, about a little girl whose confidence over a painting she made was wavering when faced with the opinions of others (I don’t know where I got this idea, it just came to me…entirely random…). I never did anything with that story, though. At least, until now. Almost twenty years later, learning all this stuff I’m learning from really smart people, it hit me that it was finally time to turn this story into reality. I figured, the sooner in life we learn to acknowledge the existence of our feelings, and in the moment we have them, the sooner we can legitimately release the bad ones–no pushing, no running, no forcing involved. This is my small way of giving back to the lesson at hand.

In her book Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes, “When we name an emotion or experience, it doesn’t give that emotion or experience more power, it gives us more power.” Using my example above, by choosing to look the need-to-prove-something feeling in the eye (rather than close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and sing lalalalalalalalala), it then decided to put on it’s cap, grab it’s walking stick and calmly stroll away. It was waiting for me to do that all along. Lord knows, so was I.