letting go

Ah.. If I learned anything at all during this spiritual journey of mine is that letting go is the practice we must cultivate to create space for that which is truly ours.

On that day that I stood in front of my doorstep I knew that I needed to let go.

I needed to let go of all the things that didn't serve me.

I needed to let go of the life that I was told I needed to have to be happy, healthy and rich.

I needed to let go of the physical things that took up space in my closets and cupboards hidden from sight.

If anyone walked into my house back then they would not think I had much clutter.

As a matter of fact, many commented on how clean, minimal and peaceful the house felt.

They marveled at my capacity to keep such a clean house with four young children.

The thing is, I did a good job of hiding everything. Everything was neatly tucked into some box or bin nicely stacked in some corner or closet, hidden from my day to day reality.

It was all this stuff that was causing feelings of overwhelm, sadness, isolation, not good-enough and unworthiness that was playing out in my day-to-day life.

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Just like the physical stuff that we hide thinking they won't affect us if we don't see them, our emotional world works in the same way.

We accumulate emotions upon emotions and tuck them away into the recesses of our bodies and minds thinking that if we don't see them, then we don't have to deal with them either.

Well, sorry to say, but life doesn't work that way. As long as we are holding on to something, physical, mental or emotional, it will impact us.

Why talk about cleaning the closets when this website is written to help us create spaces for our children to follow their inner guidance? How does this fit in?

Well...

I am not here to add more to your plate. We have enough already.

What I am here to do is to show you how to let go.

Let go of all the things - physical, mental and emotional- that gets in the way of discovering/revealing who we are.

When we let go of all these things that no longer serve us, we create space.

Space for our light, for our love, for our joy, for our people, places and things.

It starts with letting go of the extra cups and eventually leads us to letting go of judgement and expectation.

See, we practice letting go of the judgement and expectation that comes with letting go of the cup so that when it's time to let go of the judgement and expectations that we have around our children, we'll have already practiced.

SO LET'S BEGIN...

We start this practice by letting go of what no longer serves us in the physical world.

We let go of the bundles of pens, the two extra spatulas, the clothes that don't fit.

We enter the dark spaces of our closets, bins, basements and attics to see what is lurking there.

We touch and hold everything that we bought or are saving for some future version of ourselves or for fear that someone would need it one day or that we would suffer without it.

And as we touch each thing we stay with the feelings it evokes.

We hold space for the parts of ourselves that felt the need to buy that thing because...

...we thought it wold do the trick.

...we thought it would make us feel a certain way.

...we thought we didn't know enough.

...we thought it would make us happy.

I know this may sound silly. But practicing letting go of those little things eventually allowed me to let go of the big things with the same ease and grace as letting go of a pen.

So after a few years of letting go I was able to let go of the house. As much as I loved it, it no longer served me and every time I drive by (I live in the next town.) and I see the young couple gardening and taking care of the house, like my husband and I never could. All I feel is gratitude and happiness that this home is being honored and loved the way it needs to be.

With every piece I let go of, I would say:

"I let go of what no longer serves me so that I create space for that which is truly meant to be me mine."

As I practiced this letting go of my history, I became more and more excited about my future.

I invite you to start this practice of creating space by grabbing an empty box or bag and opening up one drawer today to touch something that no longer serves you and be with the part of you who purchased it. Why did that part want another one? Listen to that part of you. What does it want to share with you? What did that part of you believe it lacked for you to buy it?

Do this daily and watch your life start to shift.

With Much Love,

Maria

sanctuary

Breathe. Be. Allow. Align. Let go. Trust. Receive.

These are the feelings that come to mind when I think about sanctuary but how often do I actually feel this way in any particular place?

A sanctuary is a distinct feeling. You know when you have entered one.

I remember entering my daughter's private school for children with language based challenges and feeling this sense of sanctuary.

I entered into the large and spacious foyer and felt an immediate shift from what I was feeling in the outside world.

The air is different.

There's quiet.

Not an eery-kind of quiet but an - I-can-breathe- kind of quiet.

The kind of quiet that, for a person who is sensitive to the noise and overstimulation of the outside world, felt so good.

The kind of quiet where you can see a friend in the hallway and be able to say hi, but not just hi, to be able to have a lovely conversation with them because you can actually hear what they have to say.

The kind of quiet where your nervous system can reset itself. There was no fight or flight or freeze response needed.

It was the kind of quiet that felt peaceful.

And there was reverence.

Reverence for each student who walked those hallways.

Reverence for the learning environment that was conducive to helping these kids find their sense of self-worth after being in schools that saw them as less than capable, trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all curriculum.

Reverence for each child's innate ability to learn and the knowingness that these children are more than capable.

And there was sacredness.

The kind of sacred where you can be seen by someone else and feel honored to be in their presence.

The kind of sacred that values everyone's unique learning style, personality and way of being.

The kind of sacred that all of us need to experience in our everyday lives.

Have you ever felt this kind of sanctuary?

I invite you to notice where you feel this sense of sanctuary.

Explore places that may provoke in you this feeling - a museum, a church, some quiet place in nature.

Notice the feelings.

The way your body relaxes into the moment.

The softening of your body, mind and spirit.

The peace that settles over you.

It's this sense of sanctuary that we will be bringing into the spaces we create.

Get to know it and allow it to guide you as we move forward.

With Much Love,

Maria

create space

At the heart of An Intuitive Living Practice is the art of creating space. We learn how to create space first in our physical world and then move on to our emotional and energetic world. Regardless of where you are in the journey, we will always come back to this - creating space in our body, mind and spirit.

I remember it clearly.

I had just come back from a therapy session where I was learning how to use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and found myself standing on the sidewalk staring at my front door.

I didn't want to go in.

The kids were really young, between the ages of 4-6, and the house was a constant mess.

As I stood there I knew that when I walked into my home I would be greeted with chaos - food and dishes all over the place, toys scattered on the floor and clothes strewn all over the place and my husband sitting on the sofa watching tv.

I just stood there crying. How could I feel such deep sadness over the things that I wanted and loved more than anything else - my children, my dream home, my husband? Why would I feel like running away instead of walking in?

At some point, in the midst of all the crying, I found myself in a moment of pause - a small crack between the part of me that was crying and the part of me that could see beyond.

In this pause I decided to try EFT.

As I began the tapping sequence I began to notice through the words and tapping that it wasn't the home or the husband or my beautiful children that was upsetting me. It wasn't the things that they used in their day to day lives that felt overwhelming. It was me.

I realized that all the chaos was caused by the things that I bought. My kids hardly ever used any of the things in my home. It was all the closets full of memorabilia that took up space. It was all the scrapbooks left to be finished. It was all the books that were unread. It was all the baking sets that took up space for the future me who wanted to bake, or thought should be a baker.

It was all mine. My paints. My papers. My arts and crafts. My baking sets. My books. My journals. My stuff. That was the resistance I was feeling before entering my home.

It was this moment where the word sanctuary was born in my heart and soul. I wanted my home to be a sanctuary. A place where I looked forward to entering and greeting everyone and everything. A place of peace and love and safety.

So let's take a closer look at what happened in this moment:

1. There was space. A small tiny crack. A moment of seeing something beyond that moment. That is the space we will learn to live in. We will learn to create these spaces between our small self and our higher self. In this space, we will learn to breathe and live and have our being.

2. Sanctuary. The feeling we will learn to access is sanctuary. A safe space. A place we want to return to over and over again. A place where we can breathe and love and play. It is this feeling that we will learn to cultivate in our homes, in our relationships, in our bodies, hearts and minds.

3. It's never what it seems. I thought it was my kids and my husband and all their stuff. I was projecting my own stuff onto them. Had I not stopped to listen to myself, to see what was really going on, I would have continued to believe it was all them and continue resenting them for making me feel so miserable. My stuff would still be filling up all the closets and spaces.

This moment. This crack. This pause. This was An Intuitive Living Practice in action. I healed a part of myself in that moment. A part of myself that wanted to be listened to and acknowledged. My letting go of my physical things to create a sanctuary in my home took years. But in that moment, everything changed.

It is my intention to show you how to create this space, a small crack in your own life where you can wedge your foot in and enter the sanctuary that is always within you.

With Much Love, Maria