27 years of life

I am 27 years old today.

I am sitting at my parent’s dining table. It is 6:30 in the morning. The house is quiet and the new risen sun is pouring its warm white light through the window and onto me.

Over the last few years I have been compiling a list of lessons, reflections and realizations I experience in my life. 2 years ago I shared everything I had written in there to that point. You can find that post here.

Since then I have learned a few more things and I would like to share them with you today.

Never touch anything with half of your heart.

Marriage is not just about being together forever. It’s about transforming ourselves into better humans.

To live with conviction means to wake up every day and think “No matter what happens to me today, or around me today, I will be happy.”

I am not my thoughts. I am not my philosophies. I am not my mind. I am not my body.

Life is not a spectator sport. You can’t watch it happen from the peripheries. You have to play.

Trying to get happiness from another person always ends bitterly. Happiness is something that is created within me and can be shared with all those around me.

In your relationship, treating daily acts as sacred, will make them so. Treating mundane daily acts of service as sacred will create great love between you.

You don’t have to make anything in your life spiritual. It is already is. You just have to notice it.

The center of your relationship is your souls. Not your personality, not your agenda, not your likes and dislikes.

For transformation to happen, we have to learn to sustain new levels of being. Remember the last time in your life that you felt the most alive, connected, present, inspired, vibrant, open and joyful. Now, live this way for a month. After a month has passed, life will already be remarkably different. A new light will illuminate in your heart. Now, keep that light on.

Every day, at the very least, you should ask yourself “was I a more joyful person today than I was yesterday? Did I bring joy to others today?”

“If you eat and you are still a little bit hungry, you have eaten enough. If you eat and you are full, then you have overeaten. If you eat and you are uncomfortable, you have poisoned yourself.”

If you take the time to touch life, life will touch you.

I do not need to know the meaning of life, when I know the magic of it.

Marry someone who you can suffer with. Is he soft in your sadness? And do you soften in his?

Death is not the end of love.

Don’t be a “why me? person. Why not you? I am not deserving or undeserving of anything. Everything is fair game. And I’m here for it all.

“If you are not hungry, don’t eat, even if the Gods give you food.”

Instead of trying to get rid of your bad habits and qualities, put your energy into creating good ones. Eventually your bad habits will slip away because you won’t have the time or energy for them anymore.

The world is a beautiful place, and life is as bright and as magic as you make it.

My only resolution is to keep my spiritual growth as a priority every day. Everything else will happen by itself.

The greatest gift you can offer humanity is for you to evolve into your brightest, most vibrant self. For someone to be with you will be a wonderful experience. This is the greatest gift you can give someone.

Every day I live with my husband I move closer and closer to my most evolved self. I become more myself.

Don’t be with someone who, each day you are with them, takes you further and further away from yourself.

Every day ask yourself – How have I nourished my mind, my body, my soul, my loved ones, my community, today?

Doing what you want to do is not true happiness. Loving to do what you need to do, what is in front of your right now, that is freedom.

My husband is not here for my entertainment. I am not in here to be entertained by him. I am here to be his wife.

Allow life to touch you. Be sensitive to life. We’ve become so hardened that it takes something big and important to awaken our heart, to make us laugh, to make us cry tears of joy, to make us smile, to make us feel something, to make us think of something other than ourselves. But being sensitive to life means that it just takes the smallest thing. a blade of  grass, the warmth of your child’s cheek,a birdsong, the smile or heartache of a stranger, the coolness of the rain on your face – let these small things too, awaken your heart.

Learn to do everything in life lightly and deeply.

Try to leave things a little more beautiful than when you find them.

I am not in love with anyone. I am just in love.

Prayer is not about making a deal with God, or having a one sided conversation. Prayer is a state of grace, prayer is transforming your life into an offering, prayer is feeling wonderfully small and living in constant communion with the divine.

If you do not live at your full potential, you are wasting your life.

Only share what works in your life. Ignore the rest.

Use the internet, but don’t be used by the internet.

Even in all our togetherness, my husbands life is still his unique journey that I must honour, but cannot know completely.

There is more to life than consuming. I don’t want my greatest satisfaction come from purchasing things. I want to be a part of the creatives. I want to be one of the ones that bring things to life.

If you hate the week and you live for the weekend, you are spending 70% of your life miserable. Life is not something that can be saved and lived on the weekends. It’s always on.

“Monday’s are fine. It’s your life that sucks.” Ricky Gervais

When you fall in love with someone, your heart overflows, you glow, you radiate happiness. The same thing happens when you fall in love with life and the world. And yet, we grow up believing that there is only one way to fall in love.

Everything in your life can be used as a tool for your spiritual transformation. From big, life changing experiences, to just washing the dishes.

When you allow yourself to truly experience a yearning of the soul, you will do exactly what is necessary. You will transform yourself and become exactly as you need to be. You won’t need to look for a guru. You won’t need to follow a certain spiritual discipline. If you let your yearning be intense enough, then everything will be as it needs to be.

Stop snacking. On food. On temporary fixes to for your emotional yearnings. Allow yourself to truly feel the hunger. And then nourish yourself with what you truly need.

You don’t have to take someone’s word for something unless you absolutely trust them.

Each moment is preparation for the next one. Doing the best you can in this moment automatically puts you in the best position to make the best out of the next one.

Waking up each morning alive is a miracle. Smile. Just waking up is enough to feel the urgency to live more reverently. Do you notice it?

I am responsible for myself. Responsibility means your ability to respond. And there is nothing in this world that I cannot respond to. But I cannot always act. My ability to respond is infinite, but my ability to act is limited and determined by my capabilities and the circumstances itself. But I am responsible for myself, for my life, for everyone and everything.  (Inner engineering)

When you are about to talk, ask yourself – is it truth? Is it wise? Is it helpful? Is it uplifting?

Be conscious of your words. If you can use less words to say what you want to say, you will start to become conscious of your speech. When you are conscious of your speech, this will bring awareness to your thoughts too.

It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. Something as ordinary as waking up, or eating a meal can be transformed into something magical and extraordinary. And this is the way you change your life. Because when you change the how of your life, slowly the what will transform all by itself.

Being a mother is not limited to biology. Being a mother is energy.

I am a mother of this world. I can contain all within me. There is nothing in this world that I cannot contain with me, and nothing that does not contain me.

Things should not just be over, but also, complete.

“A joyful life is not about others. It is about the brightness associated with being alive” – Martha Beck

When a friend is suffering, your job is not to take away their pain or suffering. It is simply to show them that they are not alone.

This moment is the only moment there is. All of life exists in this moment. Be here now. Engage with this moment, dance with life.

Vulnerability is strength.

Don’t overuse the word “Sorry.” And you don’t have to say “Sorry” when you should be saying “thank you.”

You need to accept your own mortality before you can understand the intensity of life.

Life is a gift.

Death is just as sacred, just as beautiful, and just as important as birth.

We use other people as keys to unlock our heart so that we may feel love. But the truth is, we don’t need a key and we don’t need a lock. If we get rid of both then our heart is constantly open and we are constantly in love with everything, everyone and life.

To live with intensity, in each moment, remind yourself of your own mortality and presence in this moment of your life. Then make this moment, and this activity you are about to engage in, as beautiful and as lovely as it can be. And make it as intense and as vibrant as it can be by throwing yourself fully into it.

Always be aware of what is alive around you.

I have always been the type of person who leaves toxic situations. I don’t thrive in it. As soon as I find a situation becoming uncomfortable, I never linger for long. I thought this was a good, sensible, and evolved way to be – to be sensitive to toxicity, rage, and seething darknesses. To slip away and not allow it to touch me. But now I realize that while sometimes leaving is the most powerful thing to do, sometimes leaving is just avoiding something important. Sometimes it is not the right thing. Sometimes I have to stay. Sometimes I have to exist in it and I have to say what I need to say and be who I need to be.

Every situation in life requires it’s own unique and appropriate response. This is why you shouldn’t go into life with fixed ideas of how you should be. What works in one situation may not work in another. What works in dealing with one person may not work in dealing with another. There is something sacred about doing the right thing at the right time. There is power in being appropriate. And there is strength in being flexible.

We have a connection to everything around us. What the trees exhale, I exhale. What I exhale, the trees inhale. This is a beautiful relationship that I must always acknowledge and honour.

I don’t always know the reasons why bad things happen. But I do know that everything that happens can be used as a way to transform myself into a better, more happier, more present, more alive person.

 Yesterday’ s fun times.