Love can sometimes be exhausting, infuriating, and heartbreaking but (if you allow it to be) it is also magical, inspiring, exuberating and a whole lot of fun. Of course it is, it's a noun. It requires action. So take as many steps forward in the direction of love as possible and see what happens. You'll be amazed by what shows up in your life !
Start your day by loving and honoring yourself, first! And remember, just because you have a bad day doesn't mean U hsve a bad life. Take each experience moment by moment. When you decide you don't desire to have a particular experience again, #chooseanew. #selfloveandwellness #risingsun #sunshinegirl #lifesajourney #embraceyourprocess #embracelove #chooseloveoverfear I Love Being A GirlI'm sitting here polishing my fingernails and I had this random thought about how much I love being a girl. It actually came from looking at my nails and thinking about how amazing our bodies are.
Actually, my first thought was I love that we have fingernails. Fingernails are amazing! We get to paint them with bright pretty colors. It's a way to express our creative side, our current mood, to dress up an outfit, or to just pamper ourselves. It's such an awesome little (some would say insignificant) average everyday thing that I get to do. It's a way for me to show love and appreciation for myself. It's a way to show others that I love and appreciate myself. I just love being a girl. -Cheryl TheGirl Like many of you, I found the recent occurrences in the world I found the recent occurrences in the world very troubling. I am normally the peace and love girl but these events pierced my spirit and I allowed them to temporarily knock me off my love cloud.
I allowed myself to forget that love is THE power force in the world! I got sidetracked, derailed, lost focus. That can happen to any one of us. If you're as lucky and as blessed as I am, you have a wealth of family and friends who will remind you of your truth and of who you really are. I had one such beautiful reminder from my Spirit-Brother Derek Andre Brown! I hope to continue to stand as that for the people in my world. It is our responsibility, each and everyone of us, to keep love alive and flourishing in the world. Without it we are all lost. In the words of Lenny Kravitz, lets all stand together and... "LET LOVE RULE!" Thoughts on OnenessThis is in response to people comfortably standing on the sidelines, outside of the experience, brutilization, and extermination of Black Americans who say "We are ONE"... That is NOT OUR EXPERIENCE!!!!! And that us not where we are in society. When we are consistently shown, in no uncertain terms, that Black Lives do not matter, that they are... expendable, extinguishable, less valuable, only good for labor, sexual gratification, and mass incarceration... how can anyone say that All Lives Matter? The data does not line up and it further negates the experiences of those being brutalized and heartbroken.
This is not a conversation about separation or division. This is a conversation about honesty and being clear about what history has shown us. This is not even merely a Black issue. All POC (people of color) have endured racism oppression and brutalization. However, my Black brother's and sister's suffering is long-standing with no end in sight. Saying that we are ONE when this is not now, nor ever in history been, our experience feels less than authentic. Today I give up Today I give up worry Today, I give up worrying about things I cannot control And the stress and anguish that accompanies it Today, I give up Today I give up Today I give up trying to always do things my way Thinking I always know better than you, her, even God I give up the unmitigated arrogance of that stance Today, I give up Today I give up fear The constant battle between my mind and heart The futile struggle between internal good and evil In giving up fear I choose to remember Good trumps evil in every hand played So today, again, I give up Giving up is thought to be for losers You know, quitters never win But that depends on what you're letting go of Fear Hopelessness Worry Self Doubt Without those dogs nipping your heels You'll undoubtably feel Lighter Freer Able to embrace yourself fully Who wouldn't be willing to give up Not having that Cheryl Gunnell | January 2010 "Like Ali"Though I don’t consider myself a big boxing fan, I have always greatly admired Muhammad Ali for his courage, strength, dedication, determination and unwavering vision he had for his life. This post is my letter of thanks for all of the lessons and inspiration he has provided humanity by simply living his life unapologetically on his own terms. He declared himself the greatest, and he was. I wrote this poem as personal battle-cry to inspire myself as I faced a very challenging period in my life back in 2010. I will continue to honor the grace and beauty of Mr. Ali’s strong, fighting spirit… Like Ali Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee In me lives a fighting spirit Like Ali Standing my ground, strong and steady Primed Ready for battle My will, tested time and again Finally learned to retreat within when necessary To nurture my silent fighting spirit Grit my teeth internally But all you’ll see is my beauty I’m pretty, I’m so pretty Just like Ali I make easy work of the hard Hidden battle scars You’ll never see beyond my swift punches My fancy footwork Stick and move Bob and weave Dodging those pretty words you use to deceive me Tempting me to trust But my honesty Lands like a sucker punch to your head You hunch over the ropes, drop to the floor As I stand ready for more Then you pop up like toast But still I float like a butterfly Jab you right in the eye My sting is that of determination Picking up the scent of your frustration fuels me Body and mind It’s time for me to rise And shine And float like a butterfly Sting like a bee Bellow my battle cry I am the greatest Like Ali --Cheryl Gunnell, 1/10 I believe we go through cycles in life. Sometimes we’re in a pretty high cycle where everything is flowing naturally in a very happy, positive way. We’re feeling comfortable in our skin, enjoying life and the people we are engaged in living it with. The experiences that we are floating through are delicious and fun, and we’re feeling positive, productive and pretty unstoppable.
Then there are other times where our cycle is pretty darn low. Contrary to the Midas touch, it seems like everything we get our hands on turns to shit! Bills are piling up. Every phone call we receive seems to be from a creditor with their hand out. Our shin and toes seem to be magnets for the night stand and dresser as we rise to begin our day, and low and behold the crappy experiences seems to take on the feel of runaway freight train. Before we know it we’re past deadline on work projects and our boss is giving us the stink-eye. Then we leave work at the end of the day to find our car blocked in by an abandon construction truck. This is why it’s important to leave breadcrumbs for ourselves during the positive times. There are many schools of thoughts when it comes to journaling and here’s my two cents on it. Journaling is an excellent tool for manifesting and transforming our lives. It’s a great way to purge all of the gooey sludge that gets lodged in the miniscule crevices of our minds, preventing us from seeing anything beautiful and positive because we’ve become completely bogged down by the frustrating or heartbreaking experiences our Negative-Nelly man-behind-the-curtain mind tricks us into focusing on. Before we know it we find ourselves believing this is the natural forgone conclusion of our lives. Since our thoughts precede our actions if we begin to spiral in this direction the law of attraction will suck in more and more experiences that clog our drain, which will become our predominant feeling and thus the cycle goes. Ever notice when you’re feeling super high-on-life nothing can get you down and the happier you are the more happy news, people and experiences that seem to just pop up like toast throughout your day? This is the law of attraction at work. It is activated by our focus. The trick is to understand what we are actually focused on. Take money for instance. A lot of us (self included) have a strong desire to have more money in our experience. Whether it’s the desire to be wealthy or just to feel comfortable and secure, money is a thought on the minds of many of us these days. Knowing about the law of attraction many of us set out to create it but don’t seem to see it showing up in our lives as quickly as we’d like it to. True to its form there are two sides, figuratively and literally, to consider when we’re looking to attracting more of it into our lives. Just like a coin there’s what we want (our desire) which is like the front side (or head) of the coin with the back side (or tail) of it representing what we’d least desire. Seems like everyone calls heads at the coin toss which represents our desired outcome but there’s a flip side. Often times we think we’re focused on what we want but what we’re really thinking about is what we don’t have. And the more we focus on something with passion and emotion the quicker we pull it in to our experience. I’ve seen this show up in my life over and over again, both on the desirable side and in its less than desirable form. It’s a pretty tricky concept to work with which is why I recommend we leave ourselves reminders of our journey. When we’re in a happy, up cycle we need to journal about it in great detail. Writing down what we’re doing that we are enjoying and how we created getting there not only helps us in our efforts to maintain a happy, joy-filled existence it also will prove to be an invaluable tool in our arsenal. Likewise, it’s important to journal about the down-cycles. I don’t have to tell you to write about the bad stuff because human nature tends to want us to focus on what’s wrong, bad or not working but as I advise you to write down these things I have a BIG STIPULATION… “JTFM.” “Just the facts Ma’am/Man,” should be your mantra when you are engaging in this process. Avoid delving too deeply into the story and drama of it all. Keep it simple and just record the important (relevant) facts. Do not infuse this type of journaling with a lot of emotion because whatever you pour your heart into flies right back at you at warp speed. Become an objective observer as you journal about the negative experiences you’ve had. Record the events as they occurred and the actions leading up to them. Leave emotion and judgment out of the equation so you do not inadvertently draw in the undesirable. Remember, we are the creators of our occurring world. We manifest things in our lives every day. The process is as natural to us as breathing. It comes so easily to us in fact that we have placed it on autopilot. Like air, it is everywhere we are yet invisible to our human eyes. This is why the breadcrumbs we leave ourselves through recording our experiences important. It serves as a gentle reminder of where we’ve been and what we’ve created in our lives. For the things we wish not to experience we have a road map for recognizing and avoiding the roadblocks and pitfalls, and for the things we most desire we have our individually crafted treasure maps that will lead us back to our beautiful pot of gold. Being in a positive energy vibration is not something that "just happens", it requires work and focus. With all of the negative energy generated by the preponderance of fearful, scarcity, hopeless, angry and desperate thoughts we encounter on the daily it is of extreme importance that we remain conscious and vigilant in our practice of choice. We must choose to focus our minds on happy, empowering thoughts. We must choose to recognize when we are spinning round and round in thought patterns that are pain-centered and making us feel icky and depressed in order to maintain the ability to shift our focus onto thoughts that lift our vibration and bring us closer to joy. It is important to remain mindful that we are all vibrating energy fields that draw to us people and experiences that are in vibrational alignment with the energy we are emanating (the old like attracts like rule). For this reason it is important to vigorously guard our minds from spiraling into low-energy thought patterns. Choice is all around us though often times we do not see the decisions we make as being within our control. We tend to go about life on auto pilot, feeling like we are at the mercy of our particular social, economical or ethnic circumstance and that we have no say in the matter, but that is not the case. Consider for instance the start of your day. Have you ever awakened and within moments of rising uttered the words, “This is going to be a great day”? Ever notice that you generally go on to have a pretty decent day? It has a nice, mellow flow to it. You might even receive some unexpected good news. How about the opposite? You wake up, spring out of bed, stub your toe as you’re making your way pass the dresser to the bathroom and passionately declare, “Damn-it, well I guess I know what today’s gonna be like?” Ever notice what shows up? You arrive at work to find someone has parked in your favorite spot. You end up doing three times the work you normally do because a couple of people called in sick. Your boss is in an inexplicably irritable mood and you can’t seem to do anything that pleases her. The correlation in both situations is born of our declaration. As a spiritual person I believe we are all created in the image and likeness of God, imbued with command over our world that manifests in our speaking. The words we utter are informed by the thoughts we consistently think. If we look closely we will see the evidence of this sprinkled throughout our lives. It is for this reason we must be conscious of the conversations we choose to engage in. I encourage you to consider the impact engaging in mindless, negative talk has on you and those around you. Make a commitment to yourself to honor your health and wellness by doing the things that lift your spirit and elevates your energy. Surround yourself with like-minded people and make a pact to discontinue disempowering conversation patterns. If you really want to make a radical difference with yourself, go public with your practice. Make a request from friends and family to “dump the junk.” Invite the people in your life engage in more uplifting discourse rather than dredging down the worn out road of gossip, blame, put-downs, and belittlement patterns common to low-vibe lanes. Positive energy vibrates at a higher level and operates in the fast lane, the lane where life takes on a natural steady flow. Of course we can’t control what others choose to say or how they choose conduct their lives and we may inadvertently find ourselves immersed in an icky-feeling conversation. When this happens there are a myriad of ways we may choose to create a shift for ourselves. We may casually attempt to re-direct the conversation which can often be affective but when the other parties have no interest in vibing-up we must not only be willing to remove ourselves from such discussions, we must be unapologetic about our choice to do so. Please do not collapse your unapologetic commitment about creating a joyful life for yourself with being ungracious.
It is possible to practice continually raising your vibration while being respectful in your exit but you must also be okay with the fact that when you take actions to create a desired shift in your life such as this, some people who are not use your newly established boundaries might exhibit signs of resistance. Remember, we all have our individual issues and it’s important not to take on other people’s stuff as your own. This may initially make some of your friends and family uncomfortable but many of them may put their toe in the water and test it out. Some will decide they’d like to go for a swim and happily dive in. On the flip side, there will be others who are desperately afraid of the water and will not want to take part in your pool party. This is what I like to refer to as creating in the face of no agreement. These things are all part of the journey when you're actively engaged in the process of creating and building the life you love. You only have room for happy, positive people and experiences. Life is too short to choose to settle for anything less. Happy trails as you continue to Vibe-UP! #thewellself #loveyourselfmore #vibeup #selfloveandwellness #giveyourselfpermissiontofollowyourbliss #putyourselffirst #notesfrommyintuitiveself #followyourbliss #happylovejoy #lovenowlovealways |