Tabula Rasa: cleansing, centering and integrating

ta·bu·la ra·sa
ˈtäbyo͝olə ˈräsə,ˈräzə/
noun
  1. an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals; a clean slate.
    “the team did not have complete freedom and a tabula rasa from which to work”
    • the human mind, especially at birth, viewed as having no innate ideas.

     

Sometimes, in order to stand in our power, we have to wipe the slate clean. We have to start over, and have the courage to let go of what needs releasing.

There is a beautiful dual current that shows up during this time of year. One one side we have the celebration, the joy, the giving and receiving. On the other we have the dying, the darkness, and the emotional struggle that often also arises. This beautiful duality is a powerful teacher. It gives us contrast that creates growth, and it offers us possibility.

Wiping the slate clean takes work. It’s a process. Not everything gets wiped away with ease. The hardest part is starting, making the commitment to show up to whatever process of cleansing works best for you. This is a great time of the year to open, to engage, to begin. What’s holding you back from stepping into your power? What’s creating stagnation in your current experience? What do you need to do in this moment to begin healing?

Cleansing can take many forms. Sometimes we have to start with our physical spaces. De-cluttering our lives of unnecessary “things”, donating them to those in need, examining our attachments are all important. Sometimes it means taking the broom the the floors, putting hands in dishwater, organizing a workspace.

We may feel the call to cleanse the body. Taking a warm bath. Moving the body through dance, yoga, going for a walk–building body heat and sweat. It may mean changing out diets to be more nutritious.

We may feel the need to cleanse the inner temple. Meditating, engaging in energy healing, breathing deeply, and journaling are ways to bring balance and awareness to the inner space.

The missing piece of the puzzle is integration. Once we begin the process of cleansing mind, body, and spirit energy begins to move. How you integrate into life after the cleansing phase is just as important as the process of cleansing. Being at center, is being fully integrated.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into cleansing processes. We’ll also discuss how to integrate after the changes. The path of full integration is not an easy one, but it is necessary.

Take time to feel where you are in your body. Take a moment to bring awareness to your inner and outer spaces. Breathe deeply. Know that you are loved.

Radio Show, Leaning Into Joy, and Loving the Flow

Tonight at 9pm, we’ll be re-launching our online BlogTalk Radio show, “Soul Empowerment Radio”!  We took a bit of a hiatus for travel, getting out into the world, and diving a bit into the soul journey. I’m excited to be on air again. Technology often gets a pretty bad rap, but if we can use this platform to connect, to deepen our connection to the journey, and to offer healing to the world then it’s a good thing!  My hope is to go LIVE Monday – Friday at 9pm EST. Each episode will start with a discussion and soul centered dialog followed by a guided meditation. I’ll also be opening up the lines for FREE on air mini-readings and healing sessions.  We are also working on inviting on guests, doing book reviews, and opening to community in whatever way we can!

Here is a link to join in tonight! Soul Empowerment Radio

Leaning Into Joy

joyIt’s been an incredible few months. Weather changes have bombarded our coasts, upheaval seems to be a constant trend in our media, and life for many has become heavy. It’s okay to feel whatever it is that you are feeling. You are human. It’s okay to feel the pain and the weight of the world. Taking steps toward joy can be difficult in times of global or personal upheaval. Joy is often elusive when we feel the weight of life on our shoulders, but we have to remember that taking steps toward joy gives us a chance to feel freedom, even in our chaos.

Joy isn’t meant to be used as an escape from what we are experiencing. We don’t want to use joy as a mechanism of suppression. Joy gives us access to perspective, balance, and understanding. When we over identify with our suffering, we do so at the risk of excluding other areas of life. Sometimes we have to make leaning into joy a conscious act. Here are a few steps to lean into joy when you might be experiencing upheaval:

  1. Find time to laugh. Laughter really is the best medicine.
  2. Take time to express gratitude. Now, this is different from just writing down the things you’re grateful for (which is also a powerful practice). Expressing gratitude through action allows us to participate in sharing joy. A few ways to express gratitude are: saying thank you to those that serve you in a restaurant, offering to do the daily chores, helping others in need, being in service to those around you in whatever ways feels best.
  3. Journaling. Journaling allows us to detox the mind. Creating a pressure valve for our minds allows us to have a bit more space in our life for joy.
  4. Do something silly. Color in a coloring book, play with play dough, paint, run through the sprinklers, have fun!
  5. Eat delicious food.
  6. Listen to poetry
  7. Talk a walk outside and experience nature (not just on your screen saver).

Loving the Flow

Finding balance in life allows us to move a bit deeper into the flow. It helps us to be in the experience of life, it allows us to feel this moment a bit more deeply. Life is going to come with its up and downs, it may even take you sideways, and that’s okay. It’s part of the flow. Joy is part of the flow. Love is part of the flow. Even if things feel heavy right now, know that you are moving, just as the breath is moving through your lungs. Live deeply, love deeply, be present.

Beautiful Disasters and Learning to Trust

Woke up with some thought this morning, reflections from some dreams that I’ve been having… so, this may come off a bit tangential, but that’s just me.  When I write here, I often just let my fingers walk the keyboard, take what feels good… let every thing else rest on the shelf:

Sometimes life is a series of beautiful disasters.  It changes quickly, and in the process it changes us.  We adapt, or we try to.  We get to put our spiritual tools to the test, and we question the fabric of our reality.  We often start asking the “why” questions.  Why me?  Why now?  etc..  Sometimes the answers are not as simple as we’d like them to be, and sometimes they are so simple, that we miss the subtle nudges.  Trust is not an easy thing to engage.  It requires a level of surrender that many of us fear.  A letting go, a deep release from the inside out.  God FNNGWIIGYTY1GRZ.MEDIUMsometimes has a way of stepping in and challenging our reality.  Illness, upheaval, poverty, loss, are some of what I call “the sandpaper experiences”.  I often see us as a piece of word in the hand of God, slowing being sanded and shaped into something beautiful, but often we don’t see what is coming, or perhaps we aren’t allowed to see.  I tell my clients that if I was told by my intuition that I’d be sitting here, face covered in tattoos, teaching spirituality for a living, that I’d tell it NO WAY… but, here I am.

The past few months for me have been sandpaper moments.  When I was in DC I had the deep challenge of trust.  People, places and things no longer held the stability that they once had.  The “safety” in my current reality was challenged, and I had to start letting it all go.  In the fall, we still try to cling to the old masks, the old people, and places even if they are no longer serving our highest intent and good.  We try to fit the square pegs into the triangle holes.  I am seeing a lot of us go through these moments.  The beautiful shattering of these experiences.  We get to see how much power we are holding in these moments, and how much we have given away.  We have to take responsibility for that power, and start to bring it back to us.  As time moves forward, I’ll discuss dealing with specific challenges many of us face when dealing with trust: relationships, work, family, life itself, and spirituality.

explosionWhen I was preparing to leave DC, there were moments when I felt angry.  Anger is an emotion that is like fire, it can burn through things quickly.  I was angry at everything, but did not have a place to direct my anger.  It was just an emotion that needed to be acknowledged.  We often try to suppress these emotions, but they are a natural part of the grieving process (if you are going through heavy change, I recommend looking up the stages of grief, it will help you identify and accept where you are as you go through the stages).  As the fire of anger started burning in my heart center, I felt a peace wash over me.  My intuition activated and asked,” Beloved, what are you angry at?”… I don’t know… “Beloved, there is not place to put this emotions.  The people and events that are falling away are to be held in compassion, if you must place this anger somewhere, place in on me.”  The peace that had begun to wash through me started to flood into the deepest parts of that moment.  I view intuition as the voice of God speaking through my soul.  In essence God was telling me, that if you must be angry, be angry at me… it’s okay, I can take it… but please hold compassion for those that you feel deserve your anger, because they don’t… the situation is what it is, just love it… and trust me.

In that moment peace was followed by a deep trust.  It did not mean that I was not going to feel the emotions, the pain, the tearing… but now it also made a little room for the joy, the peace, and the compassion I needed to move forward.  For an instant, I released control and let the divine drive the car, and things began to move quickly.  When the world around us shifts at a rate of speed that does not allow us to “cling”, it challenges trust on multiple levels, we have to be kind to ourselves in this process.  Journaling and yoga have been lifesavers.  They allow me the space to dialog not only what was happening in my mental space, but yoga also allowed me to move the physical energy that had stagnated i my body.  The pain is all part of the greater process of becoming who we truly are.  Sometimes these moments come in slowly, sometimes they are larger explosions, but through all of it I find there is a deep thread of connection to something beyond us.  Something that is guiding us gently through the many beautiful disasters we might face.

What is trust to you?  What do you do when you feel trust being challenged?  Do you find solace in your spirituality?   What happens when your spiritual process are also challenged?

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Michael Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

michael@michaelbrazell.com

www.michaelbrazell.com

www.youtube.com/soulinteraction

www.facebook.com/soulintuitive

Being Still, Being Present, and Just Being

I can’t believe that we are already entering into a new month.  It seems like the year is blasting by at a rapid pace, and many of you are probably feeling the effects.  Time seems to be pushing us into greater alignment with sensations of having to hurry, having to be on time, having to keep to a tight program/schedule and in some ways this takes us out of ability to just be present.

We have to find our stillness in all the hustle and bustle.  Where is your center throughout your day?  Many of us make plans to wait until we get home to begin our meditation practice, but after plopping down in front of the computer we end up either forgetting or just deciding there isn’t time for spirit.

It is important to prioritize your connection to the divine.  Bring it into your day. Where in your day will stillness assist you in connection not only to your day, but to your divine nature.  Taking controlled intentional breaths through the day are invitations to spirit to enter into that moment with you.  When we allow space, we allow the divine to move into that moment.  We just get to be present, even if it is just for one single breath.  The key is to “allow” space for these connections to happen.  I find myself reaching out in the business of the metro station, when people are testing my patience and grace.  I find stillness at the cross walk.

Slowing down throughout the day and just saying “Thank You” to the divine for the moment that is right in front of us.  Thank you for allowing me this space to breathe.  Thank you for this job that I have.  I also take this a bit further, and I love thanking God for the difficulties.  Each time we are presented with a chance to step into our divine nature, and we truly step into that space, we are learning to be present.

Where do you find stillness throughout your day?  Where do you give your moments of gratitude?

Live, love and be blessed.  You are beautiful, you are loved, and you are Divine!

M. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

michael@michaelbrazell.com

www.blogtalkradio.com/michaelbrazell

www.youtube.com/soulinteraction

Expressing Peace in Turbulent Times

We only need to look around us to see that we are in a state of upheaval.  Times are changing rapidly and everyone is moving to the streets to have their voices heard.  Many are also taking this time to go into an internal space to create change within their own lives.  The road ahead might look bumpy, but it is only as turbulent as we choose it to be.  This is an important time to trust your intuition.  The one thing that we have to do is give ourselves permission to be angry.  Be angry!  Get Angry! —  but then allow yourself to move into a state of release and growth.  Why plant weeds in your own garden?  Holding onto anger will only attract more of it in your life.  We are all looking for change, growth, and we cannot expect others to provide that for us.  It is important to have a message of equality on all levels heard in the public forum, but we must first ask “What am I doing to create peace and change within myself?”  Too often we get caught up in the energetic tsunami of others.  This is why we are currently not seeing a unified message within the ranks of the “Occupy” movement.  As time passes I feel that a true, underlying message will begin to bubble to the surface.

Here are a few ways to express peace in your life right now:

1) Say I love you to someone next to you

2) Give forgiveness

3) Ask for forgiveness

4) Smile at a stranger

5) Volunteer and help those that are in need

6) Love yourself fiercely

7) Pray

8) Sing

9) Dance

10) Look in the mirror and love yourself

11) Write a list of all the things you are thankful and appreciative of.  Be in a constant rampage of gratitude.

12) If you feel negativity coming on, pull out your list from line number 11 and begin your gratitude flow.

13) Love your enemies.  Hate, never erases hate.

What are some ways that you bring peace into your life?  What do you do to bring yourself back to center?

Share your posts below!!!

Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

http://www.michaelbrazell.com

757-839-3531

Michael@michaelbrazell.com