Finding the Light

The first blog post. It seems to be the context behind all that will be written on these pages. No big deal, right?

But if that is the case, then I would hope that the crust of all I decide to fill in this blog would be summed up in this phrase- Finding Light.

In a world filled with depression, anxiety, stagnation, and resignation, my goal is to help myself and those who read my words, Find the light.

I believe that we have the power to Create Ourselves. I believe that we have the gift to create how our life will be and who we are in that life. And light has a large portion in that work. If we spend most of our days, shuffling in darkness, our level of creation is muted and most times ignored. But when we can exist in the light that surrounds us, Creation becomes as simple as breathing.

I run a Mastermind Group called Create Yourself, the Mastermind, as well as a coaching business. It is in the facilitation of these programs where I teach women how to step into the light and create the lives they want to live.

This blog will simply be a place for me to share, as one my dearest loves is writing. Writing has been apart of my life for as long as I can remember.  But somewhere between having my 2nd baby and having my 5th baby, I lost a little bit of who I was. During that time, I forgot this piece of me.

Luckily writing has found it’s way back into my life. I have found that day in and day out, words keep coming. I can sometimes sit to write and my fingers will type out words before my mind had told them what to write. I have remembered this old love of mine. I find great joy when I can bring forth words and allow them to share what is in my soul.

 

The deepest hope in my soul is to help others find the light in their lives. And from that, finding their own power in creating the lives they dream to live.

I have walked my own darkest paths of pain and depression. I have spent many days, weeks, and years running from the dark that seemed to plague my life. The miracle occurred when I chose to stop running, and I found that light actually existed with in the dark.

No matter how dark life may appear, darkness will always dissipate with the arrival of light. There is always a path to finding that light.

I hope that this blog and all that I choose to share here, may be one of those paths for you…

{Love}

Keira

Getting Out of the Dark

Hopelessness is equivalent to being stranded in a boat, in the middle of the ocean, without a destination.

Without the destination, there is no plan on how to find land. Instead, you are stuck in this sea of water. How long can you last before you run out of supplies?

How long will it be, before you end up dying in the middle of this ocean? There is no reason to paddle fast because you have no idea where you are going or if paddling fast is even worth it. This; this is hopelessness.

But if you had hope that there would be land soon, your course would become driven. Your course becomes driven to find the land that is waiting for you, past all of the water and the waves. Hope will pull you through the hot, beating sun. Hope will give you the endurance to push through the hunger and the exhaustion. Hope will do all of this because the destination you are seeking is a magnet for you. It pulls you to paddle harder, and to move forward faster. The hope brings you to your destination. There is hope that you will survive; that you will live; and that you will arrive on land once again.

Now that we can see the power of hope, how do you plant the seeds of hope within yourself? When all seems lost and unsure, how do you even find seeds of hope? How could you even imagine that land would show up after being stuck on that boat?

HOW?

The answer is Yes.

There is no HOW. It is just yes.

Yes, to hope. Yes to finding the destination that only lies within your mind. Yes to the hope that you can live without the darkness and despair in your life. Yes, to the hope that you will no longer suffer nights filled with loneliness.

Once you are a yes for hope, seeds of hope will be planted within your mind. These seeds will grow into deeply rooted trees. Trees that keep your feet planted firmly. Trees that will have roots that root you down deep under the dirt. So that when the winds of struggle come, the wind will only be for your good; strengthening your roots and giving you the space to grow taller and flourish.

Let the wind and the storms be the elements that foster your growth instead of break your roots.

You see, darkness tricks us into thinking it has won. That means, depression, anxiety, fear, sadness, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, trauma, grief, all of these clouds that loom over our heads; trick us into thinking that we have lost. That we have lost our belief in who we are, and what we are supposed to do. The heaviness of these experiences taint our vision and suck out our hope. The more you lose hope, the louder these feelings get. The louder they get, the more we believe that they have won. The belief that we are too weak to fight against them and the feelings of despair and resignation can begin to fill us.

Yet, if we can stand back a bit, and see this only for the trick that it is, we regain the power of agency in our world. The light within us that is suffocated can inhale a breath again. And hope will return. As hope returns, the noise of these overwhelming feelings can leave; turning into background music and eventually silenced.

Hope is our weapon against this lie.

It is the piece that opens our eyes, awakens our hearts and ultimately saves our lives. For some, that is literal; for others it is only a metaphor. A metaphor that this hope will save them from a life of despair and loneliness. Instead, then allowing them to live the life where they are awake. Awake to the joy, awake to the love, awake to themselves.

For someone who has lost hope completely before, and then did regain hope once again; I will say that hope has saved my life. That tiny glimmer of light has kept me walking when everything inside of me wanted to stop fighting. It is the belief that things are not always as they seem. The belief that pain and breakdown are always a precursor to growth and breakthroughs is what has saved me time and time again.

It is my belief that we are not alone in these moments of darkness… That there are many around us who are also drowning in loneliness and depression. And when we choose to wake up, and then spread our light, their own experience of the pain and heaviness will lessen. We are all gifts to one another. If we can open our eyes and look out towards those around us; we will change; and the darkness will lift. If we can give value where value is needed; even when we don’t think we have much to give; many will be blessed.

I believe that life would taste and smell differently if we did this. Our days stuck inside our homes or our cubicles would be broken open. Light would be given and light would be received. No none would need to tell us to help s neighbor, or share a kind word with co-worker who appears to be struggling. Instead, value would shine forth from us. And light would create light. Love would create love. Hope would create hope.

How?

The answer I give to you is yes.

Be a yes.

A yes does not need a reason. A yes does not need proof. A yes, is a yes.

Be a yes for hope. Pray to God that He will bless you with hope. This is where I began. During those times of pain and darkness, I asked God to bless with me hope. I asked Him to send the hope down to wake up my true self. And as I did, I found myself being open to hope. I was a yes. And when I decided to be a yes, it was as if I had chosen to turn the faucet to “on”. I opened my heart, and my mind, and allowed God to pour His hope down on me. This hope washed away the fear, and the darkness. And when that happened, it was as if someone had changed the lenses on my glasses. Life appeared differently.

Hope shifts the way you view life.

C.S. Lewis says; “You can’t go back and change the beginning; but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

This is what hope does. It allows you to let go of the past and now hope and create a better future. You have the abililty to change the ending of your story. No one has their story concrete and finite. Yet this is how most of us live life. We believe our life will end up being _______ due to our current or past experiences. Hope changes our ending. We have the opportunity to seek out and create a new ending. Or even better, a new beginning to the life we are currently living.

Hope is the secret weapon that is often misjudged and forgotten about.

Socrates said; “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.”

If you want to change your life, if you want to escape the darkness that consumes your present situation, seek out Hope. Focus your energy on building new; creating the life that you want to live.

Allow the hope to direct you towards that land,just beyond the ocean in front of you. Cling to the hope and soon it will begin to show up as belief. And when you believe, your actions will bring forth new results, and new feelings.

Feelings of confidence and peace will replace the worry and fear. Darkness cannot exist within the presence of light. Therefore, the more hope, and belief you have, the lighter you will become. As the darkness slips away, the light becomes stronger.

What if we could view the low points in our lives differently? What if we could view them through a sharper lens, one that allows us to see the whole instead of the fragment?

Abraham Lincoln said; “ we can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

Could life really be altered just by how we view it? Could the hope for something better or brighter actually pull us from those low spots in our lives?

Michale Jordan was one of the most successful basketball players of all time. On NBA.com Jordan was described to “single handedly redefining the NBA superstar.”

And yet he lost more than 300 games, missed over 9000 shots at goal, and 26 times he was given the ball to take the winning shot and missed!!

He had plenty of proof to make him give up hope and disbelieve in himself and his talents. But instead he used those failures to push himself to succeed.

Look at Thomas Edison.

Edison attempted to make the light bulbs 10,000 times!! So in essence he failed 10,000 times before the light bulb was perfected. He had so many reasons to sit and wallow. He had every reason to give up and try something else. But he hung on to hope. Hope that he would figure it out, and accomplish the finished product of the light bulb. He believed he would be successful, even in times of failure and probably much frustration.

I know that many of us are not destined to become the next Michale Jordan or Thomas Edison. I also, know that the level of despair that comes from just normal life seems much more different that what these two examples experienced. And they most likely are, but the same common factor in their stories and in yours is that they had hope, and they believed. They believed in themselves and their purpose.

Which all begins with being a yes to hope.

Start here. Start small. Seek hope.

The more you seek hope, the more it will show up. And soon enough, belief will be following shortly behind. Strengthening your roots and building out your trunk.

You have greatness within you. You have light within you. The more you lean into hope and allow it to pour over you, the stronger you will be. The happier you will find yourself, and the destination that is waiting for you will pull you towards it.

Remember, light creates light. Love creates more love. And hope blasts out more hope.

surrender fear. face christ

Surrender.

This is a powerful word. It is the ultimate form of releasing something.

One definition of surrender is: to give up completely.

But, to put surrender next to the word FEAR creates an emotional gut reaction for me and probably for most of you.

Fear is something that we are innately given. It is given to us to protect us in harmful and dangerous experiences.

Fear shows up when our brain yells at us to flee a situation.

For example, this summer I spent a few weeks in the mountains with my 5 children. We went out for a hike one day into a heavily wooded area. We had never hiked there and we were so excited to adventure into this new area.

This forest was filled with aspen trees, which happen to be my favorite. As we hiked, we got deeper and deeper into the trees, much further than I had anticipated. Our minds were filled with awe and beauty as we played in the fallen leaves, climbed broken down trees and played with our newest pet horny toad that my 8 year old had caught. We decided to stop and rest on a 30 foot fallen aspen tree. As we sat there, I had a weird feeling that we were being watched. Soon afterwards I felt the earth shake a little beneath me while a deep rumble sound rolled through the air.

I tried to ignore the immediate fear that struck my heart. But when it happened a second time and my 12 year old looked at me in absolute terror, and I knew that my mind was not making this up.

There was a bear hiding behind one of the bushes.

Fear hit me at a level that I cannot explain. It gave me an adrenaline that pushed me to Super Woman strength. I grabbed my two year old son and we ran as fast as we could. My 5 children, me and the horny toad that was clutched between my two year old’s tiny hands ran for our lives.

The fear was louder than I have ever felt as thoughts ran through my head wondering how I could ever protect all 5 kids, all by myself.

Terror had hit.

But after running for what felt like a mile, we made it back to our van without ever seeing the bear face to face. Everyone was safe.

This is fear.

This is why fear was given to us.

The sole purpose of fear, is to protect us in moments of danger or harm.

So why is it that most of us have fear in so many other situations? We have fear in our jobs, in our relationships, our dreams etc.

Fear rules most of our days, and we don’t even recognize it. It becomes so familiar that we are not aware of its presence in our lives.

For me, fear has dictated most of my life.

I worshiped fear.

You may be asking yourself, who worships fear?

But when you think about the word {worship} in MY personal dictionary worship means: anything I put all of my time, thoughts and actions to.

That is how I had lived my whole life around fear. It had controlled my daily life for as long as I could remember. Every moment of my day, every thought that rolled through my mind and almost everything I did went through the filter of fear.

I honestly believed that if I feared enough, then I would be prepared for anything. I believed the lie that fear breathes, and that lie is that fear would protect me.

This lie and illusion was broken when I actually started to face my fears.

With each fear I faced, I felt the shackles that had chained me down my whole life, were finally unbound.

And I learned that even our Biggest fears can be lightened through Christ.

When that TRUTH became real, then what was left to fear?

Nothing.

If Christ can heal all, then why spend our whole lives running and hiding from our fears?

Why worship at the altar of fear only to realize that once again it has not protected you and has only left you more broken?

I believe that fear can be likened to the disease Leprosy.

Leprosy can be in your system for 2–5 years before you start to see the symptoms. Sometimes it can even go unnoticed for up to 20 years! But, when the symptoms begin to surface, this disease has already weakened many of the nerves and some of the organs in the body.

This is how fear works inside of us on an emotional level.

When we let fear rule our thoughts and actions, we don’t see the result of its damaging effects right away. But, years later we will see how it has eaten away at every aspect of who we are. We will begin to see that fear had taken root within us and had spread its filth and rot into the corners of our lives. Just as leprosy eats away at the skin, nerves and organs of the body, decaying the body slowly and then as a whole. Fear eats away at the life we are meant to live, leaving behind it the scraps of dreams and hopes that were never fully seen or realized.

So what do we do now? Now that we have fully become aware of the toxicity and destruction of fear?

We are given the opportunity to surrender it.

If we can allow ourselves to

-stop numbing

-stop running

-face our fears

With Christ as our companion, we will cross through the fears that we dread so much.

I imagine an altar in front of me, and that Christ is on the other side. I imagine that as I kneel at the altar, I surrender my fear over to Christ and face Him.

To face Christ is a powerful statement.

Bold and fearless.

To face Him is an act of complete faith. Faith that no matter what happens, no matter what tragedy or pain you may find yourself in, He can heal you.

Unlike the lies and unfulfilled promises that fear feeds us, Christ heals.

He doesn’t say that He will protect us from pain or heartache. But He does promise to comfort us and to heal us when the wounds and the pain hit.

Christ says in the New Testament:

Matthew 11:28–30

28 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Our burdens will be heavy. Our fears will drown us if we let them. But that is the key phrase here:

IF WE LET THEM.

Believe it or not, we get to choose how we react to our fears. We can accept them and be taken deep down the rabbit hole of darkness and despair that fear leads you on.

Or we can surrender our fear and face Christ.

As I have chosen to live a life that is bigger than the fear that has entangled my days, I have found that faith and hope are my greatest tools. I have found that even though I am nobody special, and I am only one tiny grain of sand in a world filled with endless amounts of sand; Christ knows me.

I know this, because when I have been in my darkest times, He has healed my deepest wounds. His light saved me from the depths of depression and fear.

And if He knows me- a normal mom, without some extravagant title, than I would suppose-

He knows all of us.

He is just waiting for us to surrender our fear and face Him.

Opposition

Opposition 

Why do we have opposition? 

Have you ever chased after a dream or tried to pull yourself out of  dark hole only to be hit with opposition? 

Have you felt like you are swallowed up in a pit of darkness? 

Have you sat in the dark, wondering where the light is? 

Have you ever felt like the ceiling was caving in and you were being flattened by opposition? 

Why do we have these hurdles that seem to stop us in our tracks? Why does opposition show up when we finally decide that we want to grow? 

To answer these questions I want you to imagine the steps it takes to grow a flower. 

First, you take the seed and you push it deep down with in the dirt. If that seed isn’t completely covered and pushed down into the dirt, it will not be able to grow. So, it is very important that you push the seed deep within the dirt. And then you water this seed and allow the light from the sun to shine down and nourish that seed. 

And then the  miracle happens. That tiny seed pushes itself up through the heaviness of that dirt. It breaks through the darkness and the layers of dirt and sprouts into a new life, the life of a flower. 

It is the opposition that allows for that seed to split open and grow. 

As it is with us. The opposition allows for us to split open and become something new. With out it, we can not become all that we are meant to be. 

But if that seed is not nourished by the sun or watered, it can not grow. 

These are equivalent to the action steps for us. The only way that we can push up through the opposition is by taking action! Action is the nourishing step in our growth. It is what allows us to grow upward and move quickly through the opposition. 

So when life gets dark and heavy, and when the opposition comes and you just want to shut down, remember that you are just like the seed. Push through it, take action and reach for the light that is beyond the dirt and…BLOOM.

 

{love}

Keira

Asking and Receiving

Prayer.

It is the most sacred form of asking. It is the vehicle in which our own personal pleas reach upwards to God. Prayer is the space of communion and contemplation. There are all sorts of prayers. Some are filled with praise and gratitude. While most prayers are filled with asking, and pleading. 

As humans we tend to be pretty self sufficient and can sometimes forget the first type of prayer and instead find ourselves only in the asking form when life gets hard.  Which is fine. And that is the type of prayer I am writing about today. I have a deep passion and believe in the praise form of prayer. But that will be for another day and another post. 

Today I want to focus on the asking and pleading we do in our prayers. I know that there are many times when I have prayed for “x” and when I got “y” I was upset or confused. I like to think that I know exactly what I need and all God needs to do is listen and deliver. Because of course MY plan is the best plan! LOL

It is always nice to be reminded that God is truly a God. And most importantly, His plans are always filled with light and wisdom. 

I was reminded of this today.

First of all, I am usually very healthy. I almost never get sick and my body is able and allows me to run after my 5 kiddos all day. 

But lately I have been struggling in this area. I had that horrible ear infection for 10 days and now my planter fasciitis in my feet has returned with a vengeance. I wake up in the morning and have to crawl for the first 10 minutes because I can not bend my right foot at all. I attribute this pain to my 15 years of dancing in bare feet,  and it’s just finally catching up to me now. 

Anyways, I was talking with my Uncle who said dry needling healed his plantar fasciitis. I was so excited to hear there was a solution, but then I was very overwhelmed when I realized it was going to cost me at least $750 for all the treatments. And $750 is beyond what I can afford at this time and moment in my life, for my feet! Plus, the other drawback was that the office I would be driving to get this dry needling done at is an hour drive from my house. Which means that this experience would be an intense process. 

But, I  finally knew the solution to my foot pain and I was ready to start. 

I found myself pleading with God. I was pleading that He would show me how to earn that money. I knew He could present a plan, and so I prayed and prayed with hope that I would find a way to earn the $750 for the treatments. This was my “x”. I thought I knew the best answer and I now needed God to provide. 

I woke up in so much pain the next morning and I found myself kneeling down and pleading for Him to show me what I needed to do. I went downstairs and was talking to Dan about this situation. He reminded me that my cousin was a PT therapist, and suggested that I should text him. My initial reaction was to ignore his idea since I already had a plan of action set. But, a quiet thought passed through my mind that I needed to be open to any idea that came my way regarding my foot situation. And so, I sent a message to my cousin and didn’t think about it for the rest of the day. Later that evening, I got a message from my cousin replying that he was certified in dry needling for plantar fasciitis!!! And then the miracles of receiving opened up. When I asked him what his cost was, he offered to do the therapy for trade for the products Dan makes! I was crying by this point. I had so much gratitude for my cousin and his generosity but also at the miraculous works of God. 

God had answered my prayers. But instead of giving me the “x” I was asking for, he gave me “y” which turned out to be so much better! 

My cousin lives 2 min from my home, he was willing to trade services and I was going to be receiving the help I needed for my feet!! 

If I had been so focused on getting the $750 for the treatments; I would’ve missed the miracle of receiving God’s answer for me. And His answer was so much better in every way!

I am certain that if I could live my life with out expectations, of HOW life should go, I would be happier. And most of all, I would be able to receive from God, FULLY. There is an ease that comes from having complete trust in God’s answers and His plan. 

Today I was reminded of this simple truth. 

So when you ask, remember to open yourself up to receive what ever it is that God has for you…

HOPE…the healing agent

{hope}

It’s a word I know well. It’s a word I thought I understood. It’s a word that has deep meaning in my life; or so I thought.

Until this week, I thought I knew the power of hope. But, I had no idea the absolute power it actually has on our lives.

This week has been filled with frustration, fear and a whole lot of anxiety. I had lost hope with out realizing it. And a life with out hope is surely left to fear and darkness.

The ear saga continues to prove to be one filled with learning and growth, as most of our trials are. Before this week, I had never felt gratitude for my ears or my ability to hear. That is changed forever in me.

After having had hearing loss for 5 days and a building pressure in my head, I took myself to the urgent care. This something I never do, but I was hopeful it would provide the relief I was seeking. I started the antibiotics and felt a hope for relief.

But when relief didn’t come, and as the pressure in my head continued to build, I started to loose hope and sink into fear. I quickly made an appointment with my myopractor, who has always been able to heal any of my muscular and skeletal ailments. But when that proved to fail as well, I found myself sinking lower and lower. Why wasn’t anything working?

By now it had been 3 more days and I found that I had hit a level of insanity as the pressure in my head had reached an all time high, and my hearing had completely gone away in my right ear. The fear that this might not ever be fixed had erased any signs of hope. And I realized that a life with out hope equals insanity. I started to hyperventilate at the thought of this being my way of life. And I was devastated.

How could I ever be a mother to 5 kids if I couldn’t hear and I couldn’t handle their daily noises? How could I live with this pressure in my head? I remembered a chiropractor I used to go to and I  called and I miraculously got his last appointment of the day. I used to work for him 13 years ago and so I have a sense of comfort around him; but I didn’t expect to break like I did in his office.

He walked in the room and I found myself sobbing. Deep sobs. One that only someone who has lost all hope and who had surrender to fear could cry. I begged him to help me. To help me find my sanity again. I had hit my all time low. I even had the thought that I really believed this must have been what Van Gogh had experienced and had made him go insane enough to cut off his ear! 😂

But my sweet, kind chiropractor let me cry and he adjusted my face as tears continued to spill down my cheeks. When I left his office, the pressure in my head had started to decrease and a tiny seedling of hope began to sprout. One that made me believe that maybe, this would heal.

The next morning I woke up determined to find help. I sent a prayer up to God that I would miraculously get an appointment with an ENT.  I prayed it would be the right ENT who could really help me. And so I called, and I called. One ENT office after the other, and they were all full. Until I finally found one, who happened to be 10 minutes from where my mom lived.

Miracle one of the day.

I dropped my son off to be babysat by my mom and I found that my hope was building. Once I sat with the ENT the miracles kept coming. She told me that I had a severe ear infection and a ton of fluid behind my inner ear, but that all could be healed. I wanted to hug her and bring her cookies!!

Not only was my hope growing, but now my faith was starting to come back.

And now I see that our hope and our faith are our greatest weapons against the darkness life provides.

As I started my heavy antibiotics and steroids that night, I went to sleep with a deeper hope and faith than I have felt in a while. And when I woke up to having 40% more hearing in my right ear and the fluid completely gone, I almost jumped for joy!

I had a skip in my step all day. Gratitude filled my being and poured over me. I found myself getting on the ground and wrestling with my kids. I played the fruit game and shot water guns with them in the pool for hours.

Life had a sweeter taste.

And the most amazing part of this lesson? I wasn’t happy because I was fully healed. I still felt like I was hearing through a cave and I didn’t have my full hearing back.

But I was happy because of HOPE.

Hope was the healing agent here. Hope is what renewed my energy and joy. Hope brought forth the overwhelming sense of gratitude and restored my faith.

I have never before felt the healing power of Hope until this week. And I have never before felt the destructive influence that hopelessness can bring.

If you find that you have been swallowed up in hopelessness and that the darkness and fear have taken root with in you, I encourage you to seek out to God to find your seed of hope. Because once that is planted, your illusion of life can shift and change.

Hope can create a new illusion. One that is filled with faith and peace…

{love}

keira

The Refiner’s Fire

I finally dragged my butt down to urgent care the other night for my ear pain. 

I was caught off guard when the Dr asked me, “So, what are you currently doing to take away the  pain?”

Maybe I was caught off guard because I didn’t think there were many options to choose from. Either Ibprophen or aspirin, right? Or maybe because I’m not accustomed to going to the Dr. 

Either way, his question has been ringing in my ears all week. 

The question has so much more loaded inside of it. And I have asked myself all week:

“What am I doing to take away my pain -{emotional pain}?

Of course I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with. Knowing doesn’t make the doing much easier. I know my numbing agents very well. 

Dr. Pepper. 

Excessive use of sugar 

Good old TV

These are my standard numbing agents. 

I’ve told myself for so long, “they aren’t THAT bad! I know a lot more numbing agents that are WAY worse!!”

But it’s not WHAT I use to numb, it’s the {act} of NUMBING that I want to address. 

So, I am asking YOU, 

{What are you doing to take away your pain? }

Ugg. That’s not a nice question…

You may think? Pain? What pain? I don’t have any pain? 

Maybe you don’t. 

But I do know that most of us have pain. 

I know I have spent my whole life running from my pain. 

I have distracted myself in any way possible. I have numbed myself with sugar and caffeine. 

Anything to help keep the pain at bay, and to pretend like it wasn’t there. 

Until the day came, when there was no more running. There were no more numbing agents. 

And I got to choose. 

I chose to finally stop running. 

Stop numbing. 

And walk through the pain. 

I watched this documentary once about a culture  that believes if you run through a raging fire, you will be cleansed and spiritually “saved.”

I’m not apart of that belief system. I don’t necessarily believe we have to physically run through a fire to be cleansed. 

But I do believe there is an emotional fire we must finally choose to walk through. 

Our own {refiner’s fire.}

We get the opportunity to walk through this fire when we decided to stop running. 

And it is only by going through THIS fire, that we can fully become who we want to be. This is the only way to feel the freedom and self expression we all hope to experience. 

It’s tricky because the fear of facing our pain is the enormous giant we try to hide from. It is filled with anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. These are our strongest opponents. They will always destroy us and our dreams.

Unless…

We stop running and stand boldly in who we are. All the parts inside of us. The parts WE hide from, the parts we hide from others, but mostly our pain. 

For most people, the fear of going to the dentist OUTWEIGHS the actually fear that occurs {AT} the dentist. 

Same principle applies here. 

The fear of addressing what has wounded us, the pain that has been heavy on our shoulders is far greater and much more of a burden than actually turning and facing it.

The best part is, we don’t have to go through our refiner’s fire alone. 

One thing I am certain of, is that Christ is not only in the light of our lives, but He is there in our darkest of times. We just don’t usually think to look for Him in the darkness. 

He is the path to healing. He always has and always will be. 

I know that numbing is easier. 

I think I actually prefer it until I experience the joy and freedom that can only come from feeling and not running. 

We get 

One. Life. 

Be bold and LIVE it. 

{love}

Keira

Finding Your “Spiritual Sense”

I’ve had a clogged ear for about 5 days now. My hearing out of my right ear is very limited. It is annoying. It is frustrating. And I feel like I’m in a fog. I don’t feel like I am up to par with my normal chores and activities. I just want to sit down and close my eyes, and wait for this to pass. 

As I was thinking about this situation today, I became very aware as to how important each one of our senses are. And when one of them isn’t functioning at full capacity, there is a fog- like experience that we have to deal with. 

As Dan and I have been reading “Think and Grow Rich,” the author talks about your {spiritual sense.} This is the ability to be in tune with God and hearing Him through our inspiration. 

I thought about how much this correlates with my clogged ear today. 

When that “spiritual sense” isn’t fully working, we get the feeling of being “stuck” or in a fog. I know that when this sense is shut down in me, I shut down. I don’t want to move forward, I want to just lay down and wait for life to pass over me. 

Take a minute to check in with your senses. I’m sure if your eyes weren’t working, you would be at the optometrist immediately. If you ears aren’t working, (like mine) you would find a solution.

So, if your spiritual sense of hearing and listening to God is turned off, or maybe you have never learned to activate it, then turn to the ultimate Healer and ask Him yourself. He will always teach us and guide us when we are seeking Him. 

I always remember that God is no respecter of persons. {Meaning} He will talk to anyone, and guide anyone, no matter WHO you are! 

But He does respect our agency. Which means, WE have to call out to Him. We have to make the choice to reach out to Him.

Maybe you haven’t done this in a while. 

Maybe you never have. 

Start today. Start using your spiritual sense. Allow yourself to know and experience the Grace, that He has to offer us…

{love}

Keira

Freedom

“You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.”

-Richard Bach

As you may have noticed by the quotes on my website, I am a big fan of the author Richard Bach. I have read his book, “Illusions” more times that I can remember. I recently finished “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”, for the 3rd time.

I love his thoughts and his words. They resonate deeply with me.

And when I read this quote today, it woke up a fire inside of me.

This is my new anthem.

It feels as if I came into this world ready to do this. Ready to stand in my  greatness and be my true self.

But, then I felt the pain and trauma of this world, and my true self went to sit on the back burner as I became someone else. I became whomever I needed to be to survive in this world.

And then one day, I took a step back and wondered where I had gone. And I wondered how I had become trapped. I had become trapped in the illusions that I had created.

Freedom seemed like a fairytale. It began to feel farther and farther away as I lived out a life that no longer feel like my own.

I believe I am not alone in this experience. I also believe that feeling alone is one of the greatest traps we find ourselves in.

We begin to chase happiness through any means possible. We get the new house, we loose the 15 pounds, we buy a new shirt, etc. But once those things have been attained, we find ourselves no happier than we were before. We start to think that happiness is no easier to catch than a passing cloud.

But, it is when we finally decide to be our true selves; when we reach out to God to show us WHO that really is, we will find our happiness. As we connect with in ourselves, we will be able to connect to those we love.

Connection is the key that leads to the happiness we seek. 

In a world that is crumbling in dis-connection it makes sense that we are all searching for it.

But imagine what life would be like if you could:

“…have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing could stand in your way.”

Happiness and connection would lie just on the other side of that door.

You just get to open it.

 

{love}

Keira