honoring who we are

Part of the healing journey is honoring who we are, how we do things and what comes most natural to us.

You would think this would be our birth right - the freedom to be ourselves.

But in this society, in these families, in these schools, it is not so.

I am slow. I cry easily. I live inside of my imagination. I like things in order.

These are neither good nor. bad traits. They are just traits.

But imagine for a minute how all these things can be seen as negative.

We live in a hustle society and my dad was a hustler.

Being slow is looked down upon. Especially in my family. You were not allowed to be slow.

Everyone's in a rush. Make more money. Lose some weight. Meet someone.

Move. Move. Move.

Do. Do. Do.

Hustle. Hustle. Hustle.

Honoring who I am, has been challenging given all these inherited beliefs.

Turning papers in before I was ready.

Wanting to linger when everyone was ready to go home.

Being in a bigger body because I didn't move much.

All of these things had me thinking, "What's wrong with me?"

I spent a third of my adult life going to bed every night hating who I was and wanting to be everything that I was not - faster, more active, more productive.

When the healing journey began...

My healing journey began when I finally said, "Enough!"

I was tired of hating who I was.

At this point I already had four children.

So imagine what I passed down to them when I saw myself reflected in their behaviors.

But healing between parent and child happens regardless of how many years have passed.

I can say that's true of my relationship with my children and it's true with my relationship with my mother.

Wanting to be seen, heard and known for who we are is a human need.

It's probably the driving force for everything we do.

So regardless of where we're at on our journey, healing is possible.

Our intuition, our inner guidance system, was put in place to honor our soul's essence.

If we are slow it's because our soul's purpose requires us to be slow.

If we need to move, it's because our soul learns through movement.

If we need to take our time to realize something, then it's because we needed that time.

Whatever temperament you were born with, you were born with it for a reason.

The same for your children.

It's time we stopped looking at society to tell us who we should be and how we should act and how much we should do.

By going slow, I accomplish so many things.

By going slow, I can contemplate all the things I'm learning so that I can share them here with you.

By going slow, I am able to notice the smallest things that are impacting my life and my children's life.

I honor my slow so that I can honor my child's slow, and I can honor my other child's need to move.

When we honor each other, we create space for love to shine through.

We create space to be seen, heard and known.

This is trusting our inner guidance system.

It will look different for everyone.

With Love,

Maria

the pull

My entire life I loved cutting images.

When I was younger I played with Barbies. My sisters and I each had one. My mom wasn't a big fan of toys so we had no clothes or furniture to play with. What we lacked in toys we made up for in imagination. We had an empty attic with empty closets and shelves so we would cut out furniture from the daily newspaper and turn the empty shelves into luxurious apartments with different floors.

When I was a teenager, I fell in love with magazines. I had this yellow school folder bursting with cut images of people, places and things that inspired me. I remember taking the folder to the gym and going through it while I rode the bike. One image I will always remember was of Justine Bateman in her cut out jeans and white t-shirt. It became my got-to uniform during those high school days..

I was also the kind of teenager who, instead of hanging up posters of the latest cute star or singer on the walls, would hang up the Guess ads. Do you remember those from the 90s? They were these voluptuous, beautiful women - images I aspired to that reminded me that beauty wasn't only for the stick thin.

My magazine obsession grew into my twenties. During these years I used cut images to create a journal of what I wanted my future to look like. I cut and pasted images of beautiful homes, a loving relationship, children, more women in fashion and eventually what I wanted for my wedding. The images continued to inspire me and as the years passed I read less of the articles and cut out more of the images.

In my thirties my vision board obsession started. The vision journals became vision boards that hung in my room. I hosted vision board parties and shared my love of cut images and manifestation. I still make them til this day.

By the time I hit my forties I began to wonder about my obsession. What was the point of buying all these magazines when I didn't read the articles anymore? Pinterest and blogs took over my visual fascination but I still felt compelled to subscribe to and buy magazines. As much as I tried to stop myself from accumulating magazines, I couldn't.

When I got to the second half of my forties I discovered SoulCollage®.

SoulCollage® is an intuitive collage process where you create a deck of collaged cards, each card representing an aspect of yourself. It was created by Seena Frost back in the early 2000's.

I tell you that in my wildest imagination, I could never have imagined that my magazine and cutting images obsession would have ever turned out to be so beautifully encompassed in this practice. Not only do I get to play with cut images, but SoulCollage® also holds within it's energy self-healing, spirituality and psychology - ALL THESE OTHER THINGS THAT I LOVE!!

As a SoulCollage® Facilitator I get to curate images for my workshop participants to use in their process.

I get to make money cutting images and making collages! I can't even say, "This is a dream come true" because, like I mentioned earlier, I couldn't even imagine this.

I call this a RED THREAD. The Red Thread pulls us. It tugs at us saying, "Come this way."

That is our intuition.

Our intuition is moving us toward something and we may never know what that something is.

We just need to trust the pull.

Can you think of a Red Thread that you have followed your whole life?

Once you recognize, acknowledge and accept your Red Threads, it will be easier for your children to follow theirs.

Just remember that we don't even need to know what our Red Threads are, we just need to trust that we are being pulled toward the people, places and things that are meant to be ours. All we need to do is follow it.

With Love,

Maria

trust your inner guidance system + develop a relationship with your higher self

So often I hear friends and family try to make life decisions based on their gut feelings.

Quit the job.

Sell the house.

Move to another state.

End the relationship.

They want to make major life decisions on a gut a feeling.

And that's okay. You're allowed to do that. I believe that no matter what, we will learn.

Thing this is, what I teach here and what I believe with my whole heart and soul is that listening to and acting on our inner guidance system is not just reserved for big, life decisions. As a matter of fact, I would say that you shouldn't make big, life decisions that way.

An Intuitive Living Practice is based on the premise that our inner guide is guiding us through all the mundane and minute moments of our lives. It's guiding us on what to eat, how much to eat, what to wear, if we should sleep, when we should move, when we should postpone something, when we should reach out and take action.

It's in the small daily acts of tuning in, listening to and acting on our inner guidance that builds trust.

Trust is what we develop and cultivate with every action we take.

Trust tells us that it's okay to take the action because we are going to learn something new or be guided towards healing or towards something that is meant for us.

With An Intuitive Listening Practice we develop a relationship with our Higher Self and we allow that part of ourselves to guide us.

THIS IS THE INTENTION WE SET FORTH: TO TRUST OUR INNER GUIDANCE SYSTEM AND DEVELOP A RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR HIGHER SELF.

Are you ready to live a life in alignment with your Higher Self? If so, I'm here to offer a hand if you need one.