'Self' Time

When you have a career that keeps you busy and you're involved with pursuing other passions, hobbies etc, it can sometimes be so easy to forget about your 'self'!  Blogging for me has become an opportunity to express my self.  Part of finding your own sense of beauty is looking within.  Very often when we think of the world of beauty, fashion, makeup, we can get trapped on focusing on the 'material' component of these things - focusing on seeking beauty and its forms 'outside of ourselves' vs 'knowing' our beauty and value within and expressing it.  Beauty, should start from the 'inside' of you - then extending outwords to others vs seeking beauty outside of yourself to fill a void!  Sounds deep and actually, it is!!!  I recently had an incredibly 'beautiful' experience with a life coach Susy Fonesca.  She uses art as part of her coaching, enouraging you to simply paint what comes to mind as you are speaking with her during the session.  I found this incredibly liberating, as I know that I was creating something from deep within and it was materializing on the paper in front of me.  I was taking time to really listen to the 'self'' and learning to appreciate the beauty that is within my life and the beauty of 'me'!  I reflected later on how my perceptions of beauty have been affected by others and I asked myself 'what do I truly think is beautiful about myself?' (not on a material level, but on a 'soul' level).  I felt my answer on a very deep emotional level and I finally had that 'a-ha' moment - what truly makes me beautiful is shining my light from within to the world - letting myself 'shine', letting myself be the best I can be and being confident in that light within.  We all have an inner light that is just begging us to shine - begging us to reveal itself to the world - often it can't because of our judgments, fear of our own light/power, feelings of unworthiness etc.  Then I realized what an amazing world we could live in if everyone was able to shine their own light in the world without fear and judgement, from a place of love, appreciation, wonder/awe and respect for one another - it would be BLISS!  Having this life coaching session has transformed my way of thinking and although I have some inner work to do, I am really looking forward to another session with Susy!  If you're in the Toronto area, I would highly recommend having a session with Susy - you can contact her at: susy@susyfonseca.ca
I decided that I wanted to share the art that I created during my first session - I didn't have any ideas in mind of what I would paint, this is simply an expression of what I was feeling at the time and its amazing to me how I manifested the following image:

I feel this really represents a part of myself that is ready for creation (on various levels) - ready to shine my light, ready to appreciate myself and others, ready to let go of judgments/fear and take responsibility for my life and happiness vs seeking it outside of myself.   I can't express how amazing this experience has been and it all started with recognizing that it was time to finally start listning to my 'self' and respecting that its time to 'shine'!!!