Interview with Authority Magazine: "How to Learn to Finally Love Yourself"
Thank you so much for joining us! I’d love to begin by asking you to give us the backstory as to what brought you to this specific career path.
I have lived my own intricate journey from disempowerment to empowerment, from living in numbness to living in deep connection and aliveness. The more I shared my insights and points of view with others, the more I realized that others resonate with and benefit from what I have to share.
It has never made sense to me how people treat each other and our planet in such destructive ways. Now I know that it was, in fact, the world that was crazy, not me. I hold a vision of our planetary collective future, and it is beautiful! I have this deep desire to share both the vision as well as the tools that have been helpful to me, so that others can find their own way from wounding to healing.
In essence, I have a lot to say, and writing a book seemed the perfect way to be able to say it.
I would love to share this poem that I wrote about my vision:
The future I see
Is gentle
Forests are lush
The world’s waters are crystal clear
And sparkling
And teeming with life
Deserts bloom
The future I see
Is kind
Humans have rediscovered their mission as tenders of the garden
Every human footstep caresses and massages the Earth
Every human heart beats with gratitude for being alive
The future I see
Is loving
Humans have rediscovered that the primary purpose for hands
Is to caress the animals, the plants, the rocks, the loam
And each other
And for taking a thorn out of a paw
Hands are also good for expressing creatively
The joy and reverence for Life
The future I see
Is joyous
The sounds are of the natural world
And of human voices singing and laughing with delight
And some humans sing with the whales and dolphins of the joys of the deep ocean
The future I see
Is light
Humans nourish themselves with light and air and water and love and Earth’s bounty,
Generously given and gratefully accepted
The future I see
Is reverent
Every being, mineral, plant, animal, human or etheric
Is treated with reverence and gratitude for that entity’s unique gift
And contribution
Humans and animals of all kinds are friends,
Enjoying the richness of experience that friendship brings
The future I see
Is ecstatic
New human beings are invited into the world consciously and birthed in ecstasy
Remembering the oneness of all
The future I see
Is full of gratitude
I see myself, sitting on the Earth, helping restore balance by helping water flow here
and encouraging a plant to grow there and sending some nurturing love to a nest yonder
And slowly, sparklingly, vibrating out of existence
Because my work here is done
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you hope that they might help people along their path to self-understanding or a better sense of wellbeing in their relationships?
Yes! I am currently designing a course that is a deep dive into our relationship with ourselves, to be able to understand the difference between reacting from ego or fear, as opposed responding from love, which is the nature of our own true beingness.
It will include lots of different practices to empower women to truly embody the multifaceted, brilliant beings that they are, as well as lots of new perspectives and ways of understanding the world.
If we keep on doing what we have always done, we will keep on getting the results we have always gotten. I have heard it said that humans only need a 20% success rate to persevere with a behaviour. That means we keep doing the same thing we have always done, even if 80% of the time we don’t get the outcome we want! Would it therefore not make sense to try something different? To adopt a different point of view, a new perspective? To model someone who already has what we are desiring for our lives, and see if that gets us closer to the lives we want to lead? Would it make sense to break free from “we have always done it this way” and start questioning if the beliefs and behaviours and points of view we have been taught? Are they actually serving us? Are they even true?
I am also writing a second book, which is basically about how to step from a place of reactivity and ego into a place of embodying the divine feminine and divine masculine in a balanced way.
Do you have a personal story that you can share with our readers about your struggles or successes along your journey of self-understanding and self-love? Was there ever a tipping point that triggered a change regarding your feelings of self acceptance?
I grew up feeling like a pretty normal kid in Denmark till I was 10, when I moved to southern Spain with my mother. All of a sudden I stood out like a sore thumb: I was tall, blonde and blue-eyed in a community of people with dark complexions, and at school I was really smart and not one to bow to peer pressure, all of which set me apart.
The way that people were relating to each other and nature also made me feel so out of place. I observed destructive and self-serving behaviours, rather than loving and honouring the inherent value of all beings.
I came out of my teens feeling like I just didn’t fit in, like I was offering diamonds, but people wrote me off because they wanted plastic tokens. I did not have a sense of being loveable or worthy.
I ended up in two abusive relationships in my early twenties, one of whom I met when I was working in my first job as a chiropractor in Glasgow (Scotland). I married him and moved to Australia for him, leaving all of my support systems behind. This was long before easy electronic communications and phoning was really expensive, and I felt very much on my own. He broke up with me after we got him through chiropractic school, seven months after I had arrived in Australia.
That was possibly the biggest tipping point of my life. I had this sense that if I bent any further for this man, I would break. And I was not prepared to break for anyone. So we split up and stayed split up, much to his surprise! This was the beginning of me examining everything I had been taught about myself and my relationships and discarding what didn’t work and keeping what did. This sounds like a really easy smooth and conscious process, but I assure you it wasn’t. I will be forever grateful for the beautiful people who helped me get through this difficult time.
The second big turning point in my life arose at the age of 42. I had been diagnosed with uterine fibroids (benign tumours of the womb) at 36. They were already big at diagnosis, but I was determined to use natural approaches to heal them. I knew it could be done and that is what my whole professional life has been dedicated to – helping people heal their bodies with natural methods. I did not succeed with my own health challenge however, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. At 42 I looked about 6 months pregnant, and there was pressure on my kidneys, and I realized that my health was going to suffer long-term if I didn’t change what I was doing. I had an embolization done, which means that the blood supply to the tumours was cut off, making them shrink. This was my first true experience of surrendering and trusting that I would be well taken care of (I was).
What I realized subsequently was that my body was inviting me to start embodying the Divine Feminine. I had been approaching my situation with the masculine, steely discipline and logic that had got me this far in life, but I still hadn’t really started appreciating, loving or honouring, let alone embodying, the Divine Feminine. I am not entirely sure how my body could have communicated this to me more clearly than appearing to be 6 months pregnant, but there it is. I have since developed a much deeper connection to my creativity and my body, as well as my innate worth as a woman. “Passion to Thrive” is a direct result of the insights I gained from that experience.
According to a recent study cited in Cosmopolitan, in the US, only about 28 percent of men and 26 percent of women are “very satisfied with their appearance.” Could you talk about what some of the causes might be, as well as the consequences?
It is a bit of a cliché, but beauty does comes from within. If you meet someone who truly shines their light, they will be beautiful regardless of their looks. Why are we making it more important to measure up to some sort of air-brushed unattainable ideal than to truly feel good in our skins? Why do we take seriously let alone give any importance to what other people might think of our appearance? Chances are for the most part they don’t think of us at all!
Why are we not guided by what makes our bodies feel vibrantly alive, which will empower us to truly live a life of joy, and instead spend a ton of money on things that are, for the most part, toxic to our bodies and our natural world?
I will never forget this particular time I went to have a massage. The young girls in the salon were all made up to the nines, trying to look good. The one that gave me my massage was a smoker, and I was completely baffled that this young woman, who obviously put a lot of value on looks, would do something that would age her very rapidly as well as make her sick.
Beauty is not actually skin deep – it comes from the heart.
The other comment I have to make is that we are so disconnected from our bodies. We look at them as if they are machines, and get angry when they malfunction in some way. Would you expect your car to work flawlessly for 75 years without regular services and using the wrong fuel?
Our bodies are these incredible little animal beings that have all the tools, knowingness and resources to navigate us through our lives with ease and grace. They will tell us what we need to do to stay healthy and vibrant and live a life of joy. All we have to do is listen to and act on this guidance. I know it’s not always possible in our modern world and lives – but if you use tomorrow’s energy today, be prepared to pay it back with interest tomorrow! Ultimately, it comes down to priorities.
Every thought we have in our minds has a biochemical profile in our bodies. What type of thoughts do we have all day? Do we speak to and about ourselves and others, be it in our minds or out loud, with words of love, compassion and connection or with words of judgement and “not good enough”?
What do we say to our bodies – when we look in the mirror, when we see “signs of ageing”, when our health starts to suffer? Do we look in the mirror and condemn our bodies, do we use chemicals to shut down the alarm bells? Or do we feel gratitude to them for their guidance and feedback to let us know we are off track? Do we love them for being the amazing travelling companions through spacetime that they are? Do we appreciate the gift it is to have lived long enough to age?
If you have a relationship of gratitude and appreciation and compassion and worth for yourself and your body, your outer appearance is only going to matter to those who ultimately should not matter to you. Ironically, you are also going to look much more beautiful for it. And you are going to have a much more pleasant experience of having an adventure on our Earth as a human being.
To some, the concept of learning to truly understand and “love yourself,” may seem like a cheesy or trite concept. But it is not. Can you share with our readers a few reasons why learning to love yourself is truly so important?
You are the only person you will absolutely have to spend the rest of your life with. If you do not love and like yourself, the company is going to be pretty bad for the rest of your life!
You will also not be able to have beautiful, reciprocal, loving relationships with anyone else, because you cannot experience on the outside what you do not experience on the inside. It’s a matter of frequency. As an analogy, if you have colour blindness and you cannot see red and green, you cannot see red and green despite it being in your environment in abundance.
You will always get what you expect. If you want love, but you expect humiliation, you will experience humiliation. Not necessarily because someone is trying to humiliate you, but because that is the lens through which you view the world.
For example, when I was in third year of chiropractic school, a friend said that he would never have been my friend. I had poor self-worth and I took that to mean that I was undeserving of his friendship. But what he was actually expressing was wonder that he moved from Egypt to the USA to England, and if he hadn’t done that we would never have met. It was only because one of our mutual friends took the time to clear things up that this misunderstanding was ironed out.
From a larger perspective, every single human being is a precious, unique being, with a unique frequency, skills, talents and gifts to offer the world. If we do not love and appreciate ourselves, if we do not love ourselves enough to put in healthy boundaries, if we do not love ourselves enough to look after our bodies and we get sick, if we sacrifice our own happiness for others and spend our lives in anxiety and depression, the world misses out on our gift! And right now, our world is at a crossroads – do we choose transcendence or annihilation? If you do not love yourself, if you cannot feel your own worth, if you continuously look outside for validation - and we all know that’s a bottomless well! - you will never be able to make the choices that allow you to contribute to the world in a way that satisfies your soul.
What is your contribution, your unique and precious gift to the world?
It is probably something that you feel is trivial.
For example: You just love baking these amazing cakes, and do so any opportunity you get: your friends’ birthdays, your kids’ sporting club fundraiser stall. You have the best time creating the cakes! It almost feels selfish. But here’s the thing: anytime someone eats a piece of cake you have baked, they feel nurtured and happy and cared for, and that raises their frequency. What an amazing contribution!
But if you don’t love yourself, you probably don’t have time to bake cakes.
Or maybe you are a really good listener, and people come to you to be heard, and after that conversation, you both feel elated. WOW!
But if you don’t love yourself, you don’t have the energy to truly listen and hold space.
Or you are this creative genius who can develop technology to clean all the plastics out of the ocean. If you don’t love yourself, you might think you are stupid because your mind works differently from everyone else’s and you never pursue your creative impulses. What a loss to the world that is!
Why do you think people stay in mediocre relationships? What advice would you give to our readers regarding this?
I feel that is has to come down to lack of self-worth and self-love and looking for worth and love to come in from an outside source. But as we discussed earlier, even if it is coming your way, if you are not feeling worthy and loveable already, you will literally be unable to perceive it. When you are comfortable being yourself and being with yourself, you can find a partner who is with you, not because you need each other, but because you choose to be with each other. You are together because you enrich each other’s lives. I only met my current husband of 16 years when I stopped looking for a man to make me happy and decided I was done with relationships and I was staying single.
Another reason is unrealistic expectations. The other person is supposed to make us happy. This is actually impossible. The only person who can make you happy is you! Most movies finish with “and they lived happily ever after”. Living happily ever after means working on your relationship and navigating your ups and downs together, which does not make for interesting storylines. The trick to being in a good relationship is not to find the right person, but to BE the right person. Is your relationship with yourself mediocre? My guess is that it is a yes. If you can love yourself and fill up your own well, you will sparkle so brightly that it will be hard for anyone else, especially someone who loves you, to stay mediocre in your company.
Another reason might be feeling like you have no way of changing the course of the relationship. But if you change, the relationship will change. When we first meet someone and get infatuated with them, we send love signals on all the wavelengths: we eye-gaze, we buy presents, we listen attentively, we caress tenderly, we tell the other person how amazing they are. And as time moves along, we tend to dial down the intensity and fall back into old habits. If you are in a mediocre relationship, and you truly love or have loved that person, I would suggest working on yourself and on your relationship to make it fulfilling. Start by finding out what makes each of you feel loved and make a practice of doing that often. It will transform your life and your relationship.
After a period of time in a relationship, many of us start taking the other person and their efforts and contributions for granted. the sparkle is there, we just don’t see it because we got used to it. Focus on all the wonderful qualities your partner has and appreciate all the ways in which they enrich your life. And tell them how your life is better for them being in it. Feeling appreciated and seen is an essential component of a good relationship. In a good relationship you can deeply appreciate what they bring to your life: their sense of humour, their thoughtfulness, doing their share of the housework, their encouragement of you. If there is gratitude and appreciation in relationships, they don’t end up mediocre. There may not be continuous fireworks, but you have someone by your side who rides the waves of life with you and has your back whatever happens.
We often put people into boxes when we feel we know them. At that point we stop perceiving them for who they are and who they are evolving into, and start relating and limiting them to who we think they are. Make a point of seeing your partner with fresh eyes, share in their journey, in what makes them feel alive and excited.
It is really important to establish good habits in a relationship, such as remembering to be grateful that the other person is in our lives, that we choose each other every day. When something does get triggered within the relationship, and it will, it’s on the backdrop of a deep knowing that the other person is in it for the right reasons and that they have our best interests at heart.
And if your partner truly does not want to rekindle the relationship with you, love yourself enough to have a sparkling relationship with yourself. And that might mean leaving. Just know if you leave a mediocre relationship expecting the next one to be perfect you will just re-create a mediocre relationship next time unless you do the inner work.
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When I talk about self-love and understanding I don’t necessarily mean blindly loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. Many times self-understanding requires us to reflect and ask ourselves the tough questions, to realize perhaps where we need to make changes in ourselves to be better not only for ourselves but our relationships. What are some of those tough questions that will cut through the safe space of comfort we like to maintain, that our readers might want to ask themselves? Can you share an example of a time that you had to reflect and realize how you needed to make changes?
Every single human being has choice in how they are in the world. Every person has the whole range of human experience available to them, ranging from evil to saintly. Most of us fall somewhere in between.
Self-acceptance means actually being aware of that and making conscious choices about who we are in the world.
Self-acceptance actually means accepting that all of the human experience resides within ourselves.
For example, I recently had to ask a woman to leave a position she was in. The circumstances and timing just weren’t right for her to be able to fill that position in the way it needed to be filled. I knew that this would hurt her, and it did. I think of myself as someone who doesn’t go around hurting people, and if I have the option to hurt someone’s feelings, I choose not to. However, on this occasion, it was called for and I did. I was heartbroken, but what I didn’t do was create a whole lot of drama around it to justify my decision and I didn’t judge myself for it. I also didn’t blame her or love her any less. Sadly, sometimes, these situations arise. And I accept that in those circumstances, I am someone who can cause another person hurt. And in this way, it only happens when I choose it rather than by accident.
So many don’t really know how to be alone, or are afraid of it. How important is it for us to have, and practice, that capacity to truly be with ourselves and be alone (literally or metaphorically)?
I used to hate being on my own! When I lived in Scotland by myself I had half of Saturday and all day Sunday off and it seemed interminable! I married the first time just to escape that loneliness. Didn’t that turn out well! Turns out, where-ever you go to run away from yourself – there you are!
The thing about being alone is that it allows space to just be. To start with, all the undealt-with emotions, thoughts and beliefs arise. This is usually uncomfortable, and we have been conditioned to suppress discomfort at all costs, including our health and longevity.
In solitude we are forced to connect with what we need to replenish ourselves spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. When we are new at it, the things we have been trying to frantically avoid show up insisting on being acknowledged and processed.
The beauty is that underneath the discomfort lie self-love, self-acceptance, self-trust and self-worth. Being present for ourselves is possibly the most important thing we can do, and it empowers us to be present for those we love.
It is also the space where creativity lies, be it creating artworks or new ways of thinking and being in the world.
The truth is that we are far more magnificent than we ever could have hoped, and the first place you will encounter this truth is in the quiet moments. But to get to that truth, we have to allow the unpleasant to arise and sit with it until it is processed.
How does achieving a certain level of self-understanding and self-love then affect your ability to connect with and deepen your relationships with others?
You can only hold space and be present for another to the extent that you are able to hold space and be present for yourself. If you find something unacceptable or you judge something in another, it is merely a reflection of what you don’t accept and what you judge in yourself.
Self-love and self-acceptance are ultimately about seeing what we all have in common, that if I were in your particular circumstances and had your particular tools, I very well might be doing what you are doing right now. It stops us from thinking “them vs us” and allows us to be compassionate.
If we drop into our heart we can see that the vast majority of humans do the very best they can with the tools that they have. And some people’s tools are very bad. If you can approach yourself and another with a sense that we are all just learning and doing the best we can, we can relax into our best selves. If we start seeing our lives as an evolution, if we can take outcomes that were not intended as feedback instead of failures, if we can approach life with curiosity and playfulness rather than an expectation of perfection, if we can love and accept ourselves unconditionally, knowing we are doing our best while we are learning, we can hold the space for others to just be where-ever they are at too.
Once you reflect back to others that what you see in them is beautiful, they can start owning their own beauty.
In your experience, what should a) individuals and b) society, do to help people better understand themselves and accept themselves?
Follow your heart.
I read Neale Donald Walsh’s “Conversations with God” books not long after they came out. One sentence has stuck with me ever since: “What would love do?”. If you ask yourself that question in any given situation, if you drop into your heart and follow its lead, things become so simple.
It is really important to include yourself in that loving. If what seems to be the loving thing to do for someone else is going to leave you depleted, it is not the loving thing to do. You are no less important than anyone else. You are certainly no good to anyone burnt out! Sometimes the loving thing is to say no. You never know just what resources and creativity the other person can draw on to have their needs met, and they might never find out for themselves either if you continuously solve their problems for them.
Rest.
This does fall into what I just spoke about, but I think it’s worth mentioning separately. Rest does not just mean sleep. It means giving yourself permission to just be. It means allowing yourself to daydream, to tune in to your body and asking it what it needs to thrive right now, and actually acting on the guidance you receive.
We live in a culture that values continuous striving. This is not sustainable. We need rest. We are cyclical creatures. If we do not rest, we will burn out. Will you really regret not buying that expensive toy when everything is said and done? I can guarantee you will not regret having had the time and energy to be truly present for yourself and those you love, to have actually lived every single moment of your life.
I once had a partner who would talk about getting together and just hang out while we were being together just hanging out. He would take photographs continuously when we were on holidays so we could revisit later. He completely missed the experience of feeling alive in the moment.
What you resist persists.
Accept that life is not all rainbows and butterflies.
Hard times will happen. You will feel grief, anger, frustration, shame, despair and other unpleasant emotions if you stay on the planet for any length of time. Be ok with that. Allow all of the emotions to move through you, knowing that they will pass. They are just feedback. If you resist feeling them, they will stay in your body, stifle your flow of life and stop you from actually enjoying the beautiful moments. The more you can accept and allow the unpleasant, the more you will be able to enjoy the highs of life.
I recently observed that I was continuously thinking: well, when we get through this life will be less intense. But the curveballs kept coming. My insight was that I just needed my approach to be that curveballs are normal, and that melted away my resistance to them. So now I just really celebrate the spells where the sailing is relatively smooth.
Here is the main question of our discussion. What are 5 strategies that you implement to maintain your connection with and love for yourself, that our readers might learn from? Could you please give a story or example for each?
1. Breathe, observe yourself and choose
It’s surprising how often we forget to breathe. When something challenging is going on, take a big breath into your belly and let it go. Notice all the emotions and thoughts that are going through your body, knowing that they are not you. And then choose how to respond to the situation.
For example, a couple of years ago, I came across a young man busking. He was doing the beginning of a piece of music that I have been working on for a number of years, so I went to sit and listen to him. We struck up a conversation and he was playing this music for his high school leaving exams. I told him he played it well, and that I had been playing it for 4 years. He proceeded to tell me that it was really easy! I actually felt quite hurt. Him saying it was easy implied to me that I was not doing a particularly good job of it, seeing I had already spent so long on it. He was also just doing the first half page of a 5 page piece of music, which is the easy bit of a very complicated piece. In my hurt, I contemplated asking him when he was going to play the rest of the piece? But my choice was to wish him well instead and not to lash out in my hurt that ultimately had nothing to do with him.
2. Take things spiritually
Don’t take things personally. For the most part, what people say and do to you says absolutely nothing about you and everything about them.
For example, if the person at the check-out is unfriendly to you, it’s probably because they are having a bad day. That has nothing to do with you. Maybe you even feel empowered to smile at them or to tell a joke to brighten their day.
Unless, of course, you get triggered by it, such as you feel angry or upset in response to it, in which case it is an opportunity for you to heal a neglected part of yourself. And then you go back to breathe, observe and choose.
3. Connect with nature
Nature is who we are, and it is essential to our wellbeing on all levels. Connect with nature in whatever way comes naturally to you. Many people love gardening or nurturing their pot plants. Many people love playing with their pets. A lot of us feel that pets are family to the extent that we forget that they are an actual nature being who is sharing our lives. Hug someone you love! Both of your bodies belong to nature, and bodies thrive on being touched with love as much as pets do. Connect with water by having a swim or a bath, adding essential oils or salts, and allow your body to relish the warmth on your skin and the feeling of being submerged in water. Watch a sunrise and feel the energy of the dawn charging up your energy field. Sit by a rock and feel its energy interacting with yours. Hold a tree and feel its energy interlacing with yours. Everything in nature is vibrantly alive if you only allow yourself to feel it. Connecting with the beauty of the natural world is deeply restorative for me.
4. Gratitude
This would have to be my longest-standing and favourite practice. I started using gratitude as a practice over 15 years ago, and it has changed my life from one of despair to one of abundance. When I had just arrived in Australia and my first husband was abusive and I felt the lowest I had ever felt, I derived joy from watching sparrows feed. Sometimes, when the chips are down, and we feel that there isn’t much to be grateful for, just focus your gratitude on the little things, such as hot water in the shower, a hot cup of tea, hands that are able to cook a meal, eyes that are able to see beauty.
The more gratitude you practice, the more you will have to be grateful for. It’s definitely a kind of magic!
5. Body movement, singing and chanting:
Body movement can be a run, a walk, dancing, yoga, essentially any movement that makes your body feel good. Or you can use your voice by chanting or singing to very similar effect. You can do sacred chants or classical singing or just belt out your favourite tune. The beauty about these practices is that they can move energies, such as emotions, through our bodies, without us necessarily knowing what they are or what stories are attached to them. And they are fun and make you feel good! There have been countless times where I have felt on edge or upset for some reason and after I had a sing and a dance I felt completely different. And the beauty of it is that this often is one way in which we are already open to our body’s guidance, where we can tune in and really feel our bodies. And it doesn’t have to look our sound good to anyone else, it just has to feel good!
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources for self-psychology, intimacy, or relationships? What do you love about each one and how does it resonate with you?
Some of the authors that have changed my world are Gregg Braden and Bruce Lipton and Eckehart Tolle. They have such a beautiful, succinct and accessible way to present otherwise complex concepts.
Another favourite author is Paulo Coelho, who presents his insights in a story form that is so compelling I don’t want the book to end.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer, author of “the Invitation” and “the Dance”, and Kahil Gibran’s “the Profet” also inspire me every time I pick them up.
Richard Bach’s books have graced by shelves for 30 years now, and have often been the books I went to when the going was tough.
I follow Steve Nobel from the Soul Matrix, who records these amazing meditations that have expanded my awareness and who interviews different people on various and interesting topics.
Christiane Northrup’s “Women’s bodies, Women’s wisdom” is an amazing book about women’s health, which spans from surgery and drugs to the metaphysical.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? Maybe we’ll inspire our readers to start it…
I would have to come back to gratitude.
This is not just an empty intellectual concept. It is a full body emotion. You really know this state when you have tears in your eyes from just feeling so blessed.
Gratitude for the obvious blessings in our lives are relatively easy, so I would encourage everybody to make a practice of writing down at least 3 things they are grateful for every day for at least a month, but ideally for a year (and yes, I have done this). It will change your life! I also recommend writing “I am grateful for ….” in front of each sentence, rather than bullet points, because it becomes an affirmation in its own right.
If you always focus on what you are wanting or on what you don’t have, it makes you feel empty. Gratitude allows you to focus on all the blessings you already have in your life, and it fills you up. Suddenly you can allow yourself to set aside all the striving and just “be”. These are the moments that give your life meaning and depth, that you can take with you when you leave the planet.
And if you are having a difficult time, knowing that there is a gift or learning and growth in this difficulty makes it so much easier to get through.
For example, I am grateful to my first husband for taking me to breaking point. I essentially lived my worst fear of being lonely and abandoned with nowhere to go. And I learnt that I could not just survive, but thrive. I have been able to approach other difficult situations with the trust in myself and the universe that I would be able to handle whatever it was ever since. Getting my worst fear out of the way at the tender age of 26 has empowered me to steer my life into a completely different direction.
I am also grateful for the tumours in my womb – I was missing half of the essence of my own being and didn’t even know!
Can you please give us your favorite "Life Lesson Quote" that you use to guide yourself by?
Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life and how our readers might learn to live by it in theirs?
My own favourite quote is: “You are enough, in fact, you are more than enough just by being who you are. Anything you do is a bonus.”
My favourite quote by someone else is by Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiring insights!
