28 years

This time when I opened up my Evernote note on my laptop where I collect all my lessons and reflections on life throughout the year, so that I can share them with you on my birthday – I thought to myself “Hmmm, I don’t think I learned that much this year.” 

….But WordPress is telling me that this blog post is over 2000 words, so perhaps I did learn a few things after all! 

Thank you for being so patient with me. I know that I have been neglecting my blog, but it is something I would like to come back to, and I will. 

Here are links to my birthday reflections from 27 years old, and 25

It is a foolish thing to live another day of your life like it was promised to you.

You can make a person smile. You can make a person laugh. But you cannot make a person happy.

You can’t make a person happy. You can only remind them of it.

 When I find myself complicating and overthinking what I should say or how I should act in a certain situation I just have to bring myself back to the absolute truth of the situation, and ask myself how I can best communicate as close to it as possible.

Do not waste your pain. You must use it.

Every single thing that I do is infused with the energy with which I do it with.

There is no such thing as other people’s children.

To go beyond the own limitations of your self, first work with your natural personality and not against it. Take the good in you and make it better. Once you have generated enough energy and momentum in doing that, you can start experimenting with different aspects of self that you never thought were possible.

When you are being ineffective – take a break.

In a calm, sober state, look at your life and decide what is important to you and what you want. Once you have decided, do the the right things you need to do to make it happen. Put aside your compulsions and feelings, and just take the right steps.

In my marriage, no matter what the issue is, no matter who is right and who is wrong, I am always sorry to hurt my husbands feeling and I can always apologize for that.

When I stopped trying to imagine what my future would look like, each day became a gift. And I was pleasantly surprised.

You can have an intense, sweet, romantic, passionate love that doesn’t hurt.

The loss of your child is a deeply karmic experience. It changes the fabric of who you are.

The loss of our parents is a deeply karmic experience. Our parents, regardless of our intimacy to them, have given us life, and we in turn, must live through the death of theirs. It changes the fabric of who you are.

There will be times when we have feelings that we are not proud of. And that’s okay. We have to feel our feelings. Feelings are normal, it’s our mind’s job to produce them. We don’t have to do anything about it, we don’t have to act on a feeling, but we do have to feel them.

Family means the people you show up for, and the people who show up for you.

The most precious thing I have is this moment.

While it is true that God/Life teaches us lessons through pain and through hardships, I believe that God/Life first tries to teach us through joy. This means there are softer, more gentle ways to learn the toughest things we have to learn – if we just learn how to listen and see the choices we are always presented with, and if we just learn to choose joy instead of pain. Every time we ignore our gut feeling and our inner joy, we are choosing to opt out of learning in joy, and instead choosing to learn in pain.

Always leave gracefully.

I don’t need to talk to my daughter who died to know what she is saying to me about life.

You can find wholeness inside pain. You can be whole inside loss. You can be whole inside devastation. You can be whole inside disease. You can be whole in times of stress. There is nothing in this life that you cannot find wholeness at the center of.

Just as you bring your children to life, they too bring you to yours.

This present moment is not simply a stepping stone to the next more desirable moment. Living like this moment is simply an obstacle to be overcome is a painful way to live.

Death is not the end of anything but the body. When the body dies, you can open up to their spiritual presence.

Whatever we are given in this life, whatever we may come to possess, or experience, or be blessed enough to call “ours” – we should try to take it to the best level it can possibly be. We can do with it the most we can to make it the most wonderful version of itself. And then we must let it go. and when it is time for our house to burn down, or the seasons to change, or our friend to leave, we can let it go with no less love in our heart.

If you want others to listen to you, you must first learn to listen to yourself. And if you want others to listen to you, you must first listen to them.

Conceiving, growing and giving birth to a child is one of the most profound spiritual experiences I have had. How delicate and precious it is to know and embody the spiritual truth of all life, which is: that this human being is as much a part of me as she is completely separate from me.

Don’t defer your joy for another time. There is never a good enough reason.

“Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.” Marianne Williamson

The antidote to fear is unlocked only in this moment. The antidote to fear is to take action.

The more I experience in life, the less I want to advise people.

Life will stretch whatever boundaries you place on yourself. The less boundaries you have, the easier it will be to stretch and grow.

We must learn to accept that everything we have in life, our possessions, our home, our car, our partner, our friendships, our children, our garden, this very earth we walk on – it is all borrowed and will one day be returned to the consciousness it came from. I want to live my life with sense of belonging that says “This earth belongs to me” and looking after it with the same level of care we do with everything we believe belongs to us – while at the same time, knowing that it is not truly ours to keep forever.

Silence is golden.

Don’t put too much importance on an opinion – yours or another persons. An opinion doesn’t necessarily mean the truth.

Practice relating to all things in your life calmly. First practice with things that are not intrinsically stressful in itself – things like watering the plants, or cooking.

If I am at ease with myself, other people will be at ease with me.

Feeling both inferior or superior to another is ego. It is not truth.

When you have a moment of time, try not to indulge in distractions like going on your phone, or listening to music, or even in your thoughts. Instead just be, and indulge in life.

There is no such thing as other people’s children.

When my dog looks at me, she doesn’t judge me, she just sees me. This is how I want to look at people.

Notice the things you tend to defer or put off in your life – from the big things to the small things. Is there a theme?

In the sleepless days with a newborn, it is easy to become frustrated with your partner. Try to fix unpleasant exchanges as fast as possible. Be quick to apologize. Don’t let things hang in the air.

“There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice” –  F Scott Fitzgerald.

Wake up in the morning without devices. Feel your consciousness wake up and greet the day, before you mute it with the opinions, thoughts, news and lives of others that we see through social media.

When the body is gone, you are left with the intensity of the soul.

Each time I talk about a plan or goal before I execute it, I sacrifice some of the energy behind it. The more I talk about it, the more energy I lose. It’s better for me to save that energy on bringing it to life. The wisest time to discuss something is after it has been done.

My daughter is an invitation to my life. She introduces me to myself.

Listen, before you speak.

The gift of darkness is a gift too.

Try to understand as much as you can, before you speak.

Take care of, and protect all beings that need it.

We are modern mothers giving birth to prehistoric babies.

We can awaken spiritually without any guru, or meditation, or kriya, or philosophies, or spiritual practice. We just need to want it enough.

If you are not aware of your own mortality every day, you cannot live as well as you could.

Whatever labels you place on yourself will limit you. Whatever labels you place on anyone or anything will become your prison.

The only way to find out who will be by your side in 50 years, is for you to to be by someones side for 50 years.

Having a family and being busy with family life cannot take me away from my spiritual life. My daughter encourages my spiritual growth every day. Now I get to really live it.

Don’t try to be successful in the future. Can I be successful in this moment? Can I be successful today? That is success.

Lead by example.

Start with something small. And love it, and take care of it, and make it into something beautiful – it might be something as simple as a plant, or your bedroom, or the windows in your home. Commit to being fully responsible for it, and doing the best you can do for it, every single day. Once that sense of responsibility has become part of your life, widen the peripheries of your care – bring something new in, and take care of that too. Keep doing this until you feel your heart expanding, little by little, until you can eventually include the street you live on, then your neighbourhood, and then your community, and then your city,  and then your country. Soon there wont be anything on this world that doesn’t feel like it isn’t a part of you.

Your spiritual awakening is not the moment you realize you have a long way to go, or a long journey ahead of you. Your spiritual awakening is when you realize in the most profound way that you are already there.

I have nothing to teach my daughter. I have much to learn with her.

Falling is a part of love. But so is rising. Marry someone you can do both with.

When you find pockets of time in your day – like when you stand in the shower, or when you wait at the doctors office, or when you wash the dishes, or when you first open your eyes in the morning – practice being a still, completely alert and vibrant presence. Forget about who you are, your identity, the role your playing in your life right now, and instead just be. Just be an awareness, just be a presence, just be life energy.

The sweet, simple traditions you engage in as a new family, create the atmosphere of their childhood.

Thinking of the past has a very seductive and hypnotic effect. It can often reel you in. But you don’t live there anymore. You live now.

The biggest illusion I have been living with is that the past has power over the present.

You cannot really convince anyone of anything. Each person has to come to their own understanding of it. You cannot make someone change, or even want to change. Each person has to see for themselves that there is a need for them to change, in order for them to do so.

There is no one “better” out there, only different.

I was addicted to falling in love when I didn’t know what love was.

We often look back on our life and paint the past golden. We see it as a golden time of life that we will never get again. And then we look to the future, and imagine that when certain things happen for us, we will finally be living to our maximum potential, we will finally be fully at peace and happy. But life is golden right now. If you think it will happen later, you’ve already missed it.