‘A door is closing as it should. As it must in order for the next door to open. Yes, there is a chance that there is a journey between the doors. Time to heal. Time to regroup. Time to shed and release the old and time to make space for the new. What will get you from one door to the next? Faith. Trust in yourself and in this process. What will keep your own light burning? Hope; even a shred is enough to get you there’ ~Anonymous
Tag: Soul
This above all: to thine own self be true.
Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature. ~Marcus Aurelius
Today I was teaching a class and mid lesson as I spoke about the importance of adhering to the agreed scope of ones job role. My intuition jumped out at me. I felt this intense but fulfilling serenity descend over me. I honestly don’t give myself enough credit for having the worlds greatest poker face!
I was teaching the students that it was important to adhere to the scope of their job role because it ensures that they meet their responsibilities, their legal obligations. It is important so they don’t commit to work beyond it. Important so that they do not end up overextending themselves, unless from their own volition which is really use of intiative.
I told them adhering to the scope of their job role cultivates deeper understanding of boundaries, theirs and those of others. How in turn that maintains respect in the workplace and replenishes and decorates the quality of their professionalism. Lastly how it teaches and safeguards the concept of true accountability because they would have a solid reference point to evaluate themselves through and from.
Example your boss gives you feed back that states you are not doing enough. When you adhere to the scope of your job role and you have conscience awareness that you did just that. You are in a good position to discern that your boss is being unfair. That he/she has expectations of you beyond your pay etc
Likewise when you know deep down that you haven’t been adhering to the scope of your job role. That you have been winging it or slacking here there. You are able to embrace your bosses assessment, take the criticism and appreciate that you are being given an opportunity to turn things around.
It was at this point my intuition highlighted how everything I was saying applied to the nurturing of our very own soul.
What if your job role in this world was to self actualise?. What if the scope of this job consisted of you meeting with out hindrance (your own or that of others) the obligations that come with self actualisation i.e standing in unconditional self love and acceptance. What if reaching a state of wholeness was your job role.
I thought about this on the way home especially the accountability part. We live in times where existential crisis is on the rise. People knowingly or unknowingly test the boundaries of others. Triggers galore, shame and guilt shackle most.
An individuals inner authority isn’t something that is tapped into as a default. Doubt or fear or a combination of both, interrupt the flow. People are not present in the now, they either have a foot in the past (grief) or a foot in the future (anxiety) distracting them from harmony that can be harnessed now.
We end up consumed by deadlines and to do lists. Consumed by meeting the needs of loved ones even at the expense of our own needs. Consumed by desires we feel are out of reach. Time to ones own self is seen as idle, time allotted to outside of ones self productive. A lot is on ones plate because they are not adhering to the scope of their job role alone.
They have over extended and over committed themselves. They have censored or abandoned themselves. In this high paced life where people march like cattle surviving not thriving. Boundaries whether violated or not, isn’t something that can be processed adequately, because to process effectively stillness/awareness is required. When you just do you can’t receive, you are on the run with 21 seconds to go.
So not only are your own boundaries crossed unnoticeably, even if you feel it, but you can not recognise how & when you are infringing on those of others, even if you feel that too. Recognition requires conscious awareness, feelings can’t be deciphered without it so they unfortunately end up a moot point.
Result of this is we end up repelling each other (respect isn’t maintained) and professionalism is what…. if not symbolic in this topic for our humaneness. Our humanness that isn’t replenished, because it isn’t on display, it isn’t benefited from so what’s there to ‘decorate’
When we adhere to the scope of our job (reaching wholeness) we have lines drawn. You know what you have to do. Even if you are lost you know acceptance of that is part of the scope of your job too. To surrender to what is instead of fixating on what could be or what isn’t. Your ‘location’ is recognised on the sat nav directing to your wholeness. Reach your destination organically through divine timing.
I think a lot of the pain we suffer especially in regards to shame or burdens we shoulder. Is because we are not, in such moments aligned with our individual roles. Focus becomes scattered when it’s insisted on making an appearance in dual and polarised situations.
You take on too much, or too little, you over extend or under commit. You can’t hold your self accountable efficiently because you have no base to spring from. You therefore either accept responsibility for what’s not yours or fail to take responsibility for what is.
Not adhering to the scope of your job is the mother of all chaos. Chaos you attract to your life and chaos you bring to others.
Order can not come from disorder so when we feel imbalanced or worn down I think introspection in regards to how we step or stepped outside of ourselves is of utmost importance.
When we do this we are in a good position to pinpoint a problem from a soul space. An intention for correction is thereafter cultivated organically. You find harmony in the midst of chaos because you manage to get yourself back in lane and you also manage to see how others are in your lane. What you see you can approach, what you are blind to you cannot.
I’m only ever truly content when I adhere to the scope of my job because I feel connected with that, I flow through it. When I pause to reflect upon the why’s behind why im content even if others are not, I get to check in and reinforce my values and standards.
Adhering to the scope of your job is simply to do your part, you aid the collective in goodness when you do, it’s the only and best thing you can do because in hindsight you have control over yourself. Struggle is a domino effect when we don’t adhere to the scope of our jobs. It tastes like food with out salt. I personally feel like goldilocks looking for that right porridge. When the only way to make it just right, is if you make it yourself. You can not when you get out of your own lane. You can not when you are not adhering to the scope of your own job, and you may not yet understand, what it is because…
Our goals are not achieved if all our energy given to us to achieve the goal and self-actualization is directed towards being accepted by our surroundings and to meet their requirements ~Sunday Adelaja
Internalised Untruths
Emotional abuse has many faces, you’ll miss it most when it’s your own.
It happens quickly, what’s unfortunate is the domino effect that follows. Thoughts are a vibration so they get met with an emotion upon coming into ‘existence’. When the inner critic re affirms a negative belief you unconsciously hold to be true about yourself. The emotion that meets it, usually grief sadness, shame, guilt or unease. Is enough to paralyse a person into a state of dejection.
Had anyone else said what your own mind said to you about you. You would not remain in their company. It’s emotional abuse pure but not simple. What doesn’t make it simple is the inclination to believe it. Most people identify with their thoughts. They think it’s what they think because they thought it. This is particularly dangerous when it comes to taking the words of the inner critic without question, because those untruths that it relentlessly shares with you, originated from you.
Thoughts are recycled information from past experiences, with no real base connection to truth always. The mind throws it out most of the time just because, and sometimes because it is what it stored and acknowledged as relevant through previous experience. The intent of the mind is to provide what it has stored, so that you may calibrate it in correlation to the present issue. The mind therefore is meeting its primary function of assisting you to navigate the what is. What’s wrong isn’t what the mind does but what it is given to work with in the first place. This is why it’s said the mind can be re programmed.
The evolution of self from ego to soul space can not happen successfully without the mind being re trained. It is re trained every time you alter the way you experience what causes you harm. The mind doesn’t discriminate with the information it stores. The more you come from a heart space that resonates with what’s true, the more the mind acknowledges this phenomena and stores its ‘new’ findings. So the next time you experience something pulling you into the low vibrational state of dejection the mind will throw out what it thinks is relevant what it thinks can be calibrated to achieve results that serve your highest good. Your highest good is served when the mind works in tandem with the heart not in opposition to it. This team work has the soul at the forefront so harmony is created in the place of imbalance.
Ive seen many types of emotional abuse, but the worst I’ve ever witnessed because it had no consequence, even the bare minimum of it being seen for what it is. Is the kind of emotional abuse we subject ourselves to. The kind that comes out of our own mouths against ourselves. Even if it doesn’t reach the mouth and remains a thought in the head. There is still commitment to it. It is believed, it receives attentive, active listening and so it wounds, erodes ans ultimately destroys.
A persons Self esteem is at the mercy of what they do with their own thoughts.
The inner critic or the inner bully only has power to cause harm through ones thoughts because the abuse it spouts is already believed. The inner critic doesn’t create untruths to emotionally abuse with. It re affirms untruths that are already internalised to be true.
These untruths spoken by our own minds cause worse harm than words spouted by others.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt” Whoever originally said this was not talking about the inner bully that lives rent free in ones psyche.
Most people have a tendency to call out and usually confront a foul uttered by others. In some cases they even dissect and dismantle the untruth for what it is. This happens based on the feelings felt on account of harmful statements they are subjected to, as being the fault of the other. The logic is the other person is responsible for the negative emotions I am experiencing. ( hence the reaction the abuser receives.)
When the abuser is yourself however, this process is halted by shame. The untruth is internalised not challenged or confronted or even projected.
The battle within will always be the hardest battle one faces. It is no easy feat by any measure, but it is worth the turmoil if in the process you discover the root of the untruths you’ve internalised. Healing begins as the falsehood that keeps a wound alive dissolves and it dissolves as you begin to look at what you believe and why.
I find looking at the voice of the inner bully/critic as a teacher pointing out a untruth helps greatly. It may have come to re affirm an untruth but through awareness of what it is and what it does, you are in a position to receive, being receptive is a position of power because it connects you back to your only true sense of control, self control. You can choose how to receive the inner critics effort to harm. By re defining its presence as a teacher that came to expose an untruth you have internalised as true.
Seeing the voice of the inner bully as clues to untruths you’ve internalised to be true. Can help with growth and healing. When you are present you are in your soul space and your soul isn’t affected by the voice of the inner bully as the soul is motivated towards wholeness because it is created whole.
What came to cause harm can be transmuted into what helps if you precieve what is, from a soul space. If you observe you can feel and when you feel you receive soul perception.
“Actions are powerful, but it’s important to acknowledge so are the emotions. Emotional abuse can be the most painful thing a person can endure. Because it’s abuse of your soul & mind” ~ La Tasha Braxton
It’s abuse of your soul because the untruths of the inner critic attempts to shackle and erase your souls potential by insisiting on the reality that entraps it. It’s abuse of the mind because it halts it from its original pure function of being of assistance to the soul. Its natural to have a tendency to check what’s outside of us, but not what’s within. Emotional abuse has many faces, don’t miss it when it’s your own.
Crestfallen or Equanimous
The relationship you have with yourself is the one you will have with others. People enter your life as confirmation of how you are with yourself inside. They compliment both your light and dark nature. They reflect both your conscious and unconscious activity. It’s important to pay attention to those who come to highlight the latter. They are there through divine wisdom as an opportunity for you to integrate parts of yourself. It’s important to pay attention to the negative experiences you have because ignoring it only exacerbates the intensity of the lesson when it returns for its next stint, and return it will…
On a human level we are all the same. Susceptible to dislike for discomfort, unease or pain. Its these emotions that require our attention through awareness and diligence in focus. Yet we meet them with dejection and eventually remove ourselves from experiencing them all together.
It’s this supression of emotions that lead to never ending loops and cycles that reflect and bring the same problems back. The subconscious mind obeys us when we say we don’t want to deal with this or that. It takes this or that and files it somewhere. There is no shredding or deletion just files stacked in a room named the unconscious. Files that require opening because in the midst of the unconscious lies ones authentic self.
Emotions when experienced and allowed to flow lead to feelings that unravel the messages our souls want us to receive. Messages that carry information regarding our true self.
Often we find intuition asking us to take a closer look at the things that upset us, captivate us negatively and catapult us away from the present moment. Intuition being the the seat of the soul, directs motivated towards our wholeness. Without listening to it, and further suppressing our feelings we remain stuck in the very situations that bring about the emotions we will, to shove away and not experience.
Life is strange but predictable like that, until you learn the lesson the circumstances surrounding it will continue to come back. However much the people, the actual situation, date, or even year may change.
Standing in ones power is best observed every time you exercise the awareness that the buck starts and ends with you.
Why is this happening? Serves us best when followed by what is it trying to show me? What it shows is what it’s teaching.
I’ve always wondered about those two questions. Even if my initial reaction was to get lost in the story, I found myself returning to those two valleys. Sometimes I didn’t get the answers I needed in order to receive the lesson. But it was sufficient that I asked those questions. Sometimes asking those questions was the lesson. In any case wondering about the right things eventually leads you to the paths where Allah provides the answers.
These type of journeys don’t require suffering as a passenger. Suffering happens when you resist what is, when you exit the present moment.
The next time you feel discomfort, unease or pain, pause for the cause that is the emergence of your true self. Pause and allow yourself to experience those emotions fully, because through the experience they transform themselves and when they transform you receive guidance.
Crestfallen is the result when you think life is what happens to you. Equanimity is the result when you believe it happens for you.
Deadlock
When you reach an impasse during your growth. It’s easy to scatter your focus by thinking there is some lack blocking your progress. The deadlock is space, its there to weild that scattered focus back to the present moment, where your soul is carrying your substance. The clarity found in that present moment is what ego attempts to deter you from through a siege on your focus.
The goal is to make you avoid feeling your feelings. It came through a spiritual back door because it knows you are committed to your growth and value that integrity remains ensconced in your conscience. The impasse therefore occurs because the ego entered through a ‘spiritual’ back door.
On the one hand you are aware of your heart and intuition telling you to stand still. But on the other there is a strangehold in your energy that doesn’t seem or feel like ego, but is enough to disrupt, you don’t know how to stand still. Confusion penetrates the space where clarity could enter.
Ever ask yourself “what do you mean sit with my damn feelings?” lol it made me think about the shame induced statement “she’s in her feelings” most of us grew up around.
Thats just it lmaoo you need to go in your feelings to feel them. Sitting with your feelings means that. The shame induced statement carried (probably made by someone’s ego and used by ours unconsciously at some point or another ) carries the solution.
When the ego enters through a back door it’s trying to survive through mimicking your soul. So to navigate the space of deadlock where progress is halted. You have centre back your focus so you use feelings to explore feelings.
Emotions and feelings aren’t the same thing, emotions are sensations when thoughts occur during an experience. They are physical reactions to your thoughts. Feelings extend beyond the body because it’s a state of conciousness where perceiving occurs. Therefore you can use your feelings to precieve What’s behind your emotions subhanallah.
This is why when you skip past sitting with your emotions you go straight into addictive behaviours. Meaning your go to reactions when your ego perceives a threat from an experience. It’s this Impulsive or addictive behaviour ego cultivated and stamped safe most of ones life, that people regret or feel “dirty” about later. That “dirty” or shame like feeling is also carrying guidance to show you that you a) aren’t aligned with your highest self from a soul space and therefore b) you are moving or have moved away from what supports your highest good & self.
When you skip your emotions you go straight into the behaviour that acts out addictions. Emotions that are sat with are emotions that are experienced because they have been observed & explored. How do you experence it? By not by passing (resisting) how it feels inside your body. I normally do that when I make comments like “wow ok!” In that moment there is something that either hurt, shocked or surprised me uncomfortably. That’s the emotion, it’s waves through my body is what i need to drop into. Doing that is what leads my true feelings to come through to produce perception from a centred place which ultimately bring guidance. You may slip into your thoughts at some point so it’s important to not beat yourself up, you just drop back in and start again.
Emotions that are experienced are emotions that heal because they have been accepted and so they have organically been allowed to flow unconditionally and transform themselves.
Its during this process that your feelings release the guidance it carries for you. The healing occurs because the thoughts the mind throws out due to an experience dictate vibrations. That vibration is an emotion, when you pause you are sitting with that emotion. You are aware it and the thought that dictated its vibration are not you. At this point your in a soul space you are witnessing this and exploration becomes in depth the moment you observe and wonder how this emotion feels in your body the emotion thus is consciously being explored by your feelings.
Emotions are a part of your feelings but not your feelings in and of it self. Power of Perception & definition has been handed to your feelings not thoughts. So healing occurs. The emotion loses its grip because you’ve let it flow and in doing so experienced it.
Allah placed iman/faith in the emotional body and not psyche for this reason. Through feelings he guides.
“For each one are successive [angels] before and behind him who protect him by the decree of Allah . Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves..” (Quran 13:11)
The angels by his decree protect you as support for your soul, because shaytan through wiswaas supports your ego.
Indeed Allah will not change the condition of person who skipped the very process he would have done it in.
To sit with your emotions is to surrender, doing that reduces and removes resistance, in the absence of resistance you connect with presence to your feelings. That’s how it directs and positions you to be receptive towards his guidance.
Allah is so merciful for how he makes things go full circle alhamdulilaah.
Flow
“When you get out of the driver’s seat, you find that life can drive itself, that actually life has always been driving itself. When you get out of the driver’s seat, it can drive itself so much easier—it can flow in ways you never imagined. Life becomes almost magical. The illusion of the “me” is no longer in the way. Life begins to flow, and you never know where it will take you”
~Adyashanti
Grace & Gratitude
There is something about seeing the manifestation of something, that was once the source of a reoccuring doubt and anguish with many faces. There is something about this happening that has left me feeling deep awe and gratitude alhamdulilaah.
I realise as I looked on intuition pointing out “there is the fruit of your hope”
Hope feeling like a tangible thing waving at me. There it was in the moment, asserting its presence amongst this manifested thing, so that I’ll remember…
Remember the nights I cried as my ego told me so many lies. Remember the strains I felt as vulnerability led me into surrender. Remember the subtle ways Allah guided, so that I’ll be of those who are given hope as fuel, lest my heart was ripped asunder.
There is something about seeing such a blessing when you least expect it, that spurs you to go on. Something about Sky not being the limit that replenishes your hope.
Confidence increases when you realise all you have to ever do, all that is ever required of you, is to love your self unconditionally. The rest is Allah’s plan, weaved by his mighty, just and merciful hand. A plan that is for YOU not against you.
The things you doubted you would see you will inshallah, and in ways you never thought you would. Trust in him for the timing is also part of the gift You can only connect the dots when you look back.
Allah’s grace has a purpose that is to free you so that you be grateful. A gift from him that assists you in obtaining another gift (gratitude). The latter strangely is a gift that increases the possibility of you receiving even more gifts when you embody it. He is truly al ghani rich & free from all needs.
Remain steadfast in your hope and faith. Especially when at cross roads that come up against it. Choose through unconditional self love not fear, the former is a weapon wielded by your soul preserving wholeness. The latter is a soldier doing egos bidding, so you remain a hostage.
Self Mastery
“(by) the self and what proportioned it and inspired it with depravity or piety. He who purifies it has succeeded, he who covers it up has failed.” (Quran 91:7-10)
Self mastery is the path that leads to purification from ego (false self) influence. A path that leads to fulfilment (which is the real success) because through it you self actualise and live comfortably from a soul space that accommodates your natural disposition, your flow and harmony.
Self mastery assists purification because it’s a path that directs you to get to know and confront, then integrate back with love and understanding, the instrinsic dark parts of your nature. Your nature that you subconsciously separated from and disowned so that life can be comfortable for others. The purification occurs, when you learn to get out of your own way & you can only get out of it when you see how you are in it, in the first place. I am not team no negativity, I am…why does this negativity exist? (Ego influence, blind spots etc) I care to know because I care to grow, to mature and ultimately understand myself.
For me piety in the above verse connects to what inspires me towards living through my soul space. Without being conscious of Allah when what feels like dark feelings arise, I wouldn’t receive guidance through his grace that illuminates things in ways I could receive, explore and discover. Instead I would be engulfed with emotions that seem coated with shame or guilt. The ego uses these feelings to deface your soul, it block its emergence because it spells its annihilation. It co opts the feelings to re assert itself and inadvertently with success of having done so, you yourself insist on the realities that your inner being/soul remains trapped in. A world concocted for your false self.
When these emotions of shame and guilt are covered up via resistance and not felt all the way through, through commitment to self, you don’t get to receive the guidance they carried. The messages they arised to share, and so it will come again another day, event, person, situation paving way for the lesson to be received.
You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. ~Leonardo da Vinci
(Example) Imagine shackling your firmness because society deemed it unacceptable and showered instead praise on your empathetic nature.
What if you are both? Empathetic and firm
To establish justice for your soul you must first trust it. Self trust is what fuels you to push through despite any turmoil you experience or resistance you face when you show up as all of YOU.
One of the greatest things I could discover is the level of equanimity that comes with the provision guarded by my soul. Ive seen leaks of it in the past sure, in fact perhaps enough to not so long ago contemplate about it.
Why is the level of my equanimity a great thing for me to discover?
Because although I knew I had it through soul leaks what I’ve discovered now is the self trust block that kept me at bay from accessing it fully. I didn’t know there were levels to this ish within me.
When something isn’t accessed fully, then you’ve only been made privy to certain levels of it.
I don’t believe we can ever establish justice for our soul, at the most it’s a journey of self love we embark on with the intention to. At the least its an intention that stagnates and doesn’t come into fruition because we didnt do the work required to self actualise.
Committing to mastering the self is therefore put simply committing to establishing justice for your soul.
Its about committing to not just over coming a fear by going through it or simply transmuting things you feel/experience. But rather getting to know that part of you that met that fear and that part of you that felt what’s in your highest good so chose to transcend the past and transmute the fears into love. It’s about merging these parts that are your inner child and the adult you.
Trying to over come or rushing to transmute is to take a short cut based on established collective understanding of what’s good for you. Or simply just what’s good.
It separates you from self trust because your personal way understood by your soul, is contradicted by a well trodden path that’s vouched for. By societal frameworks concocted through values and principles you didn’t even get to have any input on.
Aligning with self trust would therefore often pit you against what’s conventional. Although that has never been an issue for me (I always felt pride in being unconventional in my own way especially when reflected back to me by my mirror soul) what’s important to know is, total alignment with self trust requires immense patience and courage.
Patience to accept what is, to trust yourself to stand in your truth even if it threatens your false self created by ego and how it’s percieved by the world that welcomes it. Courage to pause when you witness the threat trying to hijack the space where you intended to show up with your truth. Courage that uses the pause to reflect and proceeds to face the fear head on.
If you confront what agonises or attempts to intimidate then you are courageous.
Patience and courage thus are key players in maintaining self trust which maintaining your sense of self. Without them you wouldn’t trust yourself to walk with hope or faith cultivated in you by Allah. In order to provide his help and mercy for you on this path. Faith in trusting things unfold according to divine will is paramount. Through divine will you are never erased but on the contrary considered and protected.
One of the biggest reasons people struggle with self trust, is due to second guessing themselves in case they get or do something or someone wrong.
This is a struggle because often people who care for the above were denied the experience of normalcy in making a mistake.
Self mastery is the result of an evolution, that takes one from navigating through the clutches of ego to reaching a place of living directed by ones soul.
A place that requires a shift in the care that results through lack of self trust. To care that is now aligned with self trust.
This is a major pillar of ones soul structure, the shift of care now aligned with self trust means you navigate through unconditional self love.
You unconditionally maintain love for yourself even if a decision you made turned out to be wrong or worse ended up doing another wrong.
I think it was my separation from that, that had me attract into my life people that would reflect this very issue back to me.
Some of the greatest lessons we learn, bear the greatest rewards not just because the pain behind it might have been great. But because of the blessing sealed in the reward.
The gift of self trust is worth turmoil. There is also something poetic about getting it back through the same thing that “took” it.
Self mastery is the key that opens a gate Allah provided as grace. For all those committed to knowing their true essence come what may. It is a gate that upon opening not only leads to your natural disposition, but it ensures you know what you have accessed contains your full potential.
Self mastery is therefore not only necessary, but thee path itself, if self actualisation is the goal. Only through the path of self mastery can you find, recognise and be able to use your potential in ways that fulfil you and others. That is what it means to have self actualised.
You live and manifest in peace through self mastery. The world begins to reflect back to you what assists your wholeness not what confirms the egos narrative. Because you no longer tread paths that deter you from love of self but rather walk paths that align with self love. So even if in some situations the world reflects back to you some form of ignorance.
It’s Qalaa salama!
This world isn’t free from ignorance after all, that’s only in paradise. So Allah will always check one set of people by means of another. It’s how he maintains vibrational balance in this world.
Mastering yourself doesn’t mean you manage to get to categorically avoid BS. It just means you do not become entangled with or engulfed by its effect.
Through thorough familiarity with your mental and emotional strengths. You acquire discipline that conquers your nafs.
“Self-mastery is the challenge of transforming yourself from own worst enemy into your greatest ally.” ~ Wes Fesler
When you are your greatest ally you make decisions stamped through self trust that support what’s in your highest good. You journey towards fulfilment by acknowledging your truths.
When the energies in a present moment are really intense, in connecting the dots as you look back you will understand why.
Intense energies are paving way for immense blessings. Trust your soul that trusts the process, not the ego that feels victimised by it.
Synergetically Yours 