Your golden face
Is full of sun my dear.
Let me rest here awhile with you.
Cry if you must,
as I play you river music melodies.
Sweet honey friend,
Your lover may be gone,
but remember that god will never leave you.
Golden Sun
Tag: life
Stop Chasing, Start Trusting
Stop chasing
What isn’t meant for you
Trust
That rejection is your protection.
What is meant to be will flow to you
When the time is right.
When your soul is ready
Everything will open
Just as it should.
Without any effort at all.
Does a flower ever bloom before it is ready?
A Love Letter
Dear,
It’s not always easy, is it? This marriage with yourself. The contract you’re upholding between your divine masculine and your divine feminine. The relationships you’re trying to nurture, and the life you’re trying to grow.
The bond between you and your love. You try, you fall down, you get back up.
You could keep fighting it, or you could let go. Stop dragging your feet baby! Open your heart wide, and dive for the treasures at the bottom.
It’s exhausting sometimes, I know. Take a break, take a nap, take a walk. Take a fresh perspective. Look up at the sky and smile.
Find something to laugh about, and many things to be grateful for.
Love in every moment.
Laugh whenever you can.
The sun is always shining, above the clouds. Rise above.
I love you, deeply & fiercely,
Namaste.
💓 Join me on Instagram @kimberleybeatrix 💎
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Design your Life
In a recent ayahuasca ceremony, I saw the word ‘design’ in big fractal letters.
A few months later, and I’m continuing my exploration of the meaning of the word.
Initially cryptic, the message has been getting increasingly clear. It was about taking ownership and responsibility to design my life.
We write our own story.
Taking responsibility is hard in the beginning. Knowing that YOU have power over your own life. That it’s up to YOU. That YOUR words, YOUR actions have meaning, and consequence.
“What about life events” you say? “We can’t control a car crash. We can’t control the weather.”
Of course, we can’t control the externalities. What we can control is our adaptation to these externalities.
Or, in other terms, we can take ownership of our life design.
5 minute Exercise: Designing your perfect day
Take 5 minutes at the start of your day to visualise your perfect day. Design it with no limitations. Don’t think of work, or duties, or responsibilities.
Imagine total freedom. What would your day look like?
Then, look at the themes that came up during the visualisation. Work at weaving them into your day.
Do this every day for a week.
Notice the effects of your practice.
Be patient.
Life design is a subtle art. Like all things, it takes time to practice, and master.
Remember, your life is your own. What you do with it is up to you. So get creative & start designing!
Happy creation 💖
Namaste friend,
Kimberley
xxx
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How to: Start your days off right
Welcome to the fifth and final article of my five-part “How To” series.
The dawn breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep.
-Rumi
Mornings can be wonderful! The key to enjoying them is practicing a few morning rituals.
Rituals are important. Their repetition provides a focal point from distraction. They give a level of comfort and familiarity, and most importantly, they provide a space and time for us to practice being in the moment, moment to moment.
In this article I share with you my top 3 favourite morning rituals that have helped me learn to love mornings!
How to start your day off right:
1. Japanese water therapy
Japanese water therapy sounds fancy, but it’s simple.
It’s just drinking water on an empty stomach. Six to eight glasses, to be precise.
Why?
The Japanese believe that drinking lots of water first thing in the morning has many health benefits. From improved metabolism, to reduction of inflammations and body aches, and better digestion, the benefits seem to far outweigh the effort of doing something we can’t live without anyway.
I’ve found that starting the day off with the water element really helps me flow throughout the rest of my day with ease.
Give it a try, and let me know what you think in the comments below!
2. (Wim-Hof) Breathing
Developed by the superhuman known as the Ice Man (aka Dutch athlete Wim Hof), the Wim-Hof breathing technique is about as simple as it sounds.
That’s right, after drinking, I’m now proposing that you breathe 😹
Jokes aside, Wim-Hof breathing is amazing. You breathe deeply for 3×30 breaths. At the end of each round, you see for how long you can hold your breath for.
The Ice Man developed the technique from ancient Tibetan practices, and has kindly adapted it for our often hectic modern lifestyles.
So much so that there is even a great free app you can download here, with full instructions and a handy tracker, so you can see your progress.
Remember, be gentle with your rigour! It’s ok to just drink your water and breathe in bed before you get up, if you’re not quite a natural morning person just yet. Respecting yourself also involves knowing your boundaries, and working with yourself in a way that is right for you!
3. Healthy breakfast
I used to never eat breakfast. As a teenager, I preferred sleeping in until the last possible minute and if possible even later than that. Skipping breakfast over sleep seemed sensible.
Oops.
Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I have learnt a lot about the benefits of eating breakfast.
I wrote about the benefits of nourishing yourself here. A healthy morning breakfast ritual is the key to unlocking this!
Why?
- It helps boost your metabolism.
- It gives you energy for the rest of the day.
- It balances your moods
It’s important to remember that not every breakfast is the best for you. A lot of breakfast cereals have hidden nasties, and they’re not giving you the right mix of complex carbs that both power you up and keep your blood sugars consistent for a long period of time. Or until lunch time, anyway.
I usually eat my chef husband’s amazing Inca oatmeal. The Very Secret Recipe goes as follows:
- Oatmeal
- Raw cacao powder
- Maca
- Salt
- Coconut butter
- Chia seeds
- Black seeds
- Hemp seeds
- Coconut sugar
Quantities are up to you. We don’t measure. Try it, see what happens. As he likes to say ‘it’s all about imagination in the kitchen’. And in life, too.
Keep dreaming friend. And when you’re done…good morning!
Namasté,
Kimberley
Xxx
How to: Overcome Resistance
Welcome to the fourth article of my five-part “How To” series.
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end
-Leonardo Da Vinci
You know that feeling when your alarm goes off, and you hit the snooze button the first time? and then the second? And then by the third, you quit resisting, and eventually get up and get on with your day?
That feeling is known as resistance. Or, as Freud called it, our ‘death wish.’ Writers call it their ‘block’. In layman’s terms, it’s that familiar voice in your head that says, ‘No, I don’t want to.’
We all feel it, and it manifests in all areas of our live, and touches every single one of us.
The evolutionary point of resistance is linked to our survival instinct. We could and should resist violence perpetrated against ourselves and others. Peaceful resistance such as the Civil Rights Movement in the US in the 60s, or Gandhi and Mandela taught us about the importance of using resistance to say no to injustice.
However, many of us have that survival instinct on overdrive. We are so stimulated in our day-to-day lives, that we are triggered by ‘threats’ that do not actually exist. And so that resistance takes over, and we say ‘no’ all too often.
You are not alone in feeling resistance.
Resistance blocks us from living our most creative lives. Many of us are resistant to change, which could often be positive for us in the long run.
This could be from small to big changes.
Let go of what no longer serves you
That job you want to quit, because it makes you really unhappy? Resistance steps in, and starts to list all of the (fake) reasons why you don’t want to quit.
That dance class you want to start taking? You resist taking it because of that voice in your head that says ‘No’.
So, how do we turn that no into a yes?
Here is my step-by-step guide on how to overcome resistance, and step into a fuller and more creative life:
1. Recognise resistance
‘Knowledge is power’. If you know what resistance feels like within yourself, you are already halfway towards letting go of it.
Start paying attention to when you say no.
In order to do this, you will need to start to…
2. Listen to your own mind
Meditation is a great tool for this. here is a great YouTube meditation for learning to listen to the voice within).
Just finding some silence, and recognising what comes up is great for overcoming resistance!
3. Cultivate willpower
When you cultivate willpower, you grow enough strength to flip the script, and beat the resistance that is saying no. Your voice becomes louder, and you start to say yes!
One of my key tools to cultivating willpower has been yoga. However, any activity that requires some discipline, from running to martial arts, music, drawing, writing, they all cultivate willpower.
Even breathing deeply for 5 minutes a day can cultivate willpower!
I’ve recently discovered Wim-Hof breathing, which *include wim-Hof breathing notes’ which includes holding your breath for as long as you can.
You will find your mindset changing, and feel stronger and more grounded within yourself to take bolder decisions that will change your life, and take it in the direction that you want it to go in.
4. Remember that you are in charge of your own destiny
Only you can make changes in your own life. You get a reset every single day. Make today the day! Carpe diem.
Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?
-Rumi
Happy life changes!
Namasté, friend
Kimberley
Xxx
P.S For further reading on the topic of letting go of resistance, I highly recommend the following:
-The War on Art, by Stephen Pressfield
-Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsche
-The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
How to: Follow your Dreams
Welcome to the third article of my five-part “How To” series.
‘Open your eyes for this world is only a dream.’
-Rumi
Dreams are signs too.
I recently wrote on the importance of dreams as signs in this post here.
Our dreams tell us so many things. Our fears, our loves, our desires.
Most of us cannot control our dreamworld. For those of us who can, we engage in practices like dream yoga, and lucid dreaming (more on that in a future post).
Our dreams speak to us.
We don’t only dream at night though. We are actually dreaming all the time.
Our dreams are projections of our thoughts. Our thoughts become our reality. So, following our dreams is important, because in the conventional sense, our dreams have the potential to become our best envisioned reality.
A head full of fears has no space for dreams.
How to follow your dreams:
1. Pay attention to them
I started a regular practice of yoga nidra and dream journaling. Why? Because I learnt so much more about myself!
What comes up in your dreams is a mirror of your self. Your mind, body, and soul. Your subconscious, super conscious, and conscious. Whatever you want to call it.
By paying attention, and starting to listen, you come into a deeper connection with yourself, and so you begin to understand more the direction that your dream symbols are pointing you in.
2. Dream journaling
In the beginning, it’s difficult to remember our dreams. We usually just wake up, and drink our coffee, right?
Cultivating a practice of dream journaling is an amazing tool for increasing dream recall.
To start, buy a journal, and keep it by your bedside.
When you wake up, write what you remember. Try to be as descriptive as you can, and ask yourself questions such as “What could I sense? Where was I? Who was I with?”.
Slowly, you will find your dream recall increasing, and then you can begin decoding the messages behind them.
For a more in-depth guide of how to dream journal, I highly recommend this article by How to Lucid. It is an amazing resource for all of you interested in dreaming and lucid dreaming.
3. Practicing courage
Practicing courage is what the Light Lioness is all about! We need bravery in this life.
Fear is a powerful emotion, that can keep us stuck in a negative thought patterns, comfort zones that are actually not comfortable, and toxic relationships!
By practicing courage everyday, we grow in strength and bravery. This will
Start small. Don’t go out and start tackling violent crime! Make sure you’re always staying safe, and protected.
Keep it it simple. Even small acts like walking on a different side of the street than you usually do, or doing a different activity on a Friday night than usual can be great steps that start to develop your courage.
It is when we are courageous that we dare to follow our dreams.
Dare greatly!
4. Listening to your heart
Not letting your mind take control is important when following your dreams.
Let your heart guide you. Listen to what it’s telling you.
To switch off your head, and settle into your heart, I recommend this 30 min heart opening yoga on YouTube by one of my favourite online yogis, Candace.
5. Taking action
Listening to our dreams, decoding them, and practicing courage are all very well. The last step is to take action!
When our dreams tell us something, we will then have the skillset to remember them, decode them, and the bravery to follow our hearts and act upon where they’re telling us to go next in life!
Sweet dreams, friend 💖
Namasté,
Kimberley
xxx
How to: Read the Signs
Welcome to the second article of my five-part “How To” series.
“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
We’d all love a map to life. And, whilst I cannot promise you this, what I can tell you is that the world is full of signs for us to follow, which illuminate the steps of our path. We just need to learn how to read them.
We most often use words, in order to convey our signs. But really, words are the least effective communication tool we have.
What is far more effective are feelings. The beauty of signs is that they can open us up to our feelings. Accessing our deepest feelings takes us to our highest truth.
Living in our highest truth is the way to authentic happiness.
On this path, all we can do is figure out the next few steps.
Think about it for a minute: when you’re in a dark forest, you risk tripping over yourself. Figuring out just the next few steps can stop you from tripping, first of all. And secondly, these steps are what will carry you all the way out of the dark and into the light.
The beauty of the unknown is appealing to the brave, and speculating on the future is fun, but we’re really only always here.
Now.
Rooted in the present.
This shouldn’t stop you from reading the signs in the meantime, as it is important to figuring out your path whilst you’re here!
Here’s my step-by-step guide of how to learn to read the signs:
Step 1: Silence
Find silence. Even if it means locking yourself in a bathroom stall at work with white noise in your headphones, 5 minutes of silence will clear your head, and begin to open your mind to the universe and its messages.
Step 2: Ease the pressure
If you find silence outside, but can’t find it inside, begin to quiet your mind by easing the pressure.
Remind yourself that you don’t need to know what you’re doing in a year. You don’t even need to know what you’re doing in an hour.
This should take the pressure off, and start to ease your mind.
Step 3: Meditate
I keep mentioning meditation, because it’s a lifesaver. Not only that, it’s also a life guide. Everything you want to be, you already are. It’s about connecting to your inner wisdom.
One of my favourite meditations to connect with my inner guide is this one here, by Hypnotics Lab.
Step 4: Open your eyes and use your senses
Once you’ve connected to your inner wisdom, you can start opening your eyes, and reading the signs!
Use your senses to tap into the immediate world around you. What do you see? Smell? Hear? Taste? Touch?
Ask yourself these questions.
That blackbird flying overhead? It’s a spirit animal, telling you something.
That smell that reminds you of a memory you’d repressed? It’s a chance for you to do some emotional clearing, and uncover some more truths. As Aristotle said “Know thyself.” Why? Because knowing your true self as pure love without emotional baggage will lead you to happiness.
Step 5: Practice
Keep practicing and reading the signs will become easier for you!
Nothing happens by coincidence.
The universe is unfolding perfectly.
Keep listening, and walking your path with grace and ease.
Namasté, friend
Kimberley
xxx
Sabai Sabai
Be your Nature
Death
Accepting death, becoming death, integrating death.
This is what it takes to be Alive.
Have no fear.
The Light Lioness 