I want to fly

I want to fly
Surfing the wings of the clouds
Orbiting between
the dimensions of time and space
Within the spaces
Touching my soul against the
Moon and stars
Releasing fear
Into the bosom of eternity
And grasping life
Within the present moment
embracing, cuddling into this here space
Whilst also looking, expectantly out
At the maelstrom of opportunities
That rise to greet me
In abundance

E Austin
December 2010

Being in a Good Space Emotionally

Dear Everyone

Well how is everyone? Isn’t it getting cosy as the winter months draw in. It’s time to hibernate a little, draw back and away from and spend more time with you, in the cosiness of your space. What a great feeling this is, to be able to spend time with you – that is if you remember who you are. Why do I say this? Because often times in the busyness of life, we forget who we are, we forget to nurture ourselves, we forget to give time to ourselves. Because until we nurture and love ourselves first, we cannot nurture nor love others.

I am also in a good space emotionally. I have loved someone for a very long time, but that has very much been a static love, built on a good friendship and attraction but nothing more at this moment in time. It’s all about timing this life.

So when I was presented with someone who caught my fancy so to speak, not long ago, offering to give me a hug and to hold me, I blanched at the idea. When it comes to intimate relationships, I have always kept my boundaries very clear and kept men out. Yet I didn’t realise that I was also keeping myself out, and keeping my heart shut down. My heart had been shut down for quite a while actually. I was stunned by this as trying to open up was painful and disconcerting. When I was offered a hug, the way I reacted, showed me how much I had never really experienced love in such a genuine, honest , open way. Yet this was now happening because of the work I have and continue to do on myself and to a change in my beliefs about me and my expectations for my life. My issues were to do with trust and feeling safe. Boy, here we go again with another aspect of me to heal and deal with I thought!

Now that I have decided to allow myself to open up, it has been quite a surreal journey. I got tired of being on my own, I got tired, very tired of doing this journey by myself, yet I was not open to just having anyone walk into my life. I had to learn to ask God and the universe to provide me with a relationship which honoured my highest self, and to realise that I was deserving of only the best in my life. I had no specific details or check list of anyone, other than they honoured my highest self and vice versa.

The beauty of this journey is that who I am now has been informed by what I have experienced. On an emotional level, it's good to almost be back to self-loving me which in turn means I can love someone else, whoever that person is. Actually I don’t think I was never on this level with anyone ever in my life – so I should say that it’s good to be able to look forward to exploring and experiencing something truly wonderful. More importantly is the ability to honestly and openly communicate and to be open to unconditional love first of the self, then for another.

I believe that everything that happens in life is for a reason and a season. At this moment in time this is my season and I am taking each day as it comes. For me any experience now is not about how long it lasts, but more so the quality of the time spent with and the joy and love that experienced. There is a saying it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before. This current journey has been short but sweet. It took for one person to hug me and spend time with me to enable the love to flow into me one that I have not experienced for a very long time. It simply was a very short-lived journey but so valuable in terms of who I am now.

I came across this phrase on youtube: 'How can you manifest the heart's desire? The solution is simply to just act'

Many blessings and much love

It is Better to Have Loved and Lost than Not to have Loved at All

Hello Everyone.

Music is a powerful medium. Words are powerful energies which flow into our world.

I would like you to listen to some of the words in this song by Luther Van Dross. They are deep and reflect how when we love unconditionally another, and make that choice to do so, then even for the briefest of moments, we can choose to enjoy a love that sits within our heart and soul.

When we get to a place where we no longer can dream, believe in love or have a passion for life and exist on an emptyness which cannot even pervade our reality and where we live off charades and pretences and being what we are not - then what is this journey all about?

Is not this journey about finding our soul purpose and finding that expression of joy in our hearts? Any walk is about finding true peace and love of self and life itself. And when we operate on emptyness whatever we deliver reflects how we feel inside.



Luther Van Dross - I'd Rather Be

There is a line in this songs which says:

'I'd rather have bad times with you, than good times with someone else. I'd rather be beside you in a storm than safe and warm by myself. I'd rather have hard times together than to have it easy apart. I'd rather have the one that holds my heart"


Everything is for a reason and season. Have a listen. Music is powerful. Words are powerful. Belief in what we are is powerful. Yet Beliefs are not always the truth.

Much love to you all and just have a think about what you truly want in your life. Often times wee make choices which we feel do not serve our higher purpose, yet for every choice made, the experience of it influences who we then become.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wlDKqCVhLE


Our greatest expression of self is love which you cannot only speak about and write about becauseit is something that you feel.

Much love and many blessings

LEARNING TO TRUST IN THE UNIVERSE, LETTING GO AND LET GOD

It’s been a while, since I penned my thoughts. There has been a lot of shifting and changing going on over the past few months in my life on quite a large scale. Such has been the shift that The Beacon Healing Space which I was due to launch – I had to cancel at the last minute. A matter of standing in my integrity and as a matter of principle.

Sometimes on this journey, we are presented with experiences and it is dependent upon how we view those experiences, which then informs how we approach life.
Sometimes these experiences come at us fast and furious. As soon as one hurdle has been tackled another immediately presents itself to us. In the frustration of such presentations, we can often become so caught up in the jumping that we fail to stand back before the leap, to view the panoramic view of the situation around us, to exhale and to go in gently and objectively rather than with haste and fear. And that is what has been happening to me.

I must admit to being a workaholic. I create ideas quickly and easily and then va va vroom after them. Yet, I say with tail between legs, this has not proved productive, having my hands in too many pots. This is something which I fall into on occasion which meant I had to go back to the drawing board to really re-brand and specifically define what my business offered, to re-discover my USP and to be specific where I put my energy into.

Therefore as I now look back over the past two months more so, they have been incredibly frustrating for me and as a result I have been yo-yoing emotionally. Bat and ball, hell no, boomerang it felt like, back at me all the time. The past two weeks therefore have proved to be a time of enormous shifts where the universe forced me to stop, take stock, properly this time Esther (so says she again tail further between legs....peeps this is an admission I don’t really want to make) and to get some rest. I slept so much last week and the week before you’d think I hadn’t slept the whole year. Yet I also realise part of the tiredness was because I was growing spiritually which often means I retreat and sleep a lot.

I have been reading the most amazing books one ‘Conversations with God’ by Neale Donald Walsch now ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tollie. So much incredible learning in those books. So much so that I chose to take away and evaluate about me. One thing that comes to mind was the mention of the two spectrums which many of us operate from. Fear or Love. Dependent therefore on which end of the spectrum we operate from, this drives our experience of life and how we experience the experience. I have also been learning more about trusting and totally letting GO. Believe me at times I was still holding on to the letting go. Then my eldest son said something this week which made me take a step back. Remember out of the mouth of Babes....... He said believing that you can get what you ask for was like posting a letter. If you post the letter, you have to let it go, in order for it to drop into the letter box in order for it to arrive at its destination. But if you put your hand in the letterbox and still hold onto the letter, you have not posted it and it cannot arrive.

Therefore, when we learn to trust in God/The Universe (whatever you call your higher source) then we know we are being divinely guided. Yet when we slip off that pathway with our own agenda, that is when pain and doubt and fear creeps in. Hard dough.

The journey of being an entrepreneur is fraught with many ‘challenges’ and note I place that word in parenthesis because it is how we perceive what we are going through, which therefore informs how we deal with situations. Yet my learning this year more so than ever has been amazing. The tests I have been given I know have been to inform who I am learning to ‘be’, to inform how I operate in this world and to inform and educate me for the work I am doing and will continue to do.
But basically in a nutshell I had to learn to ‘LET GO AND LET GOD’ do his thing and you know what, what a relief. I can see the woods through the trees, there is a fresh sense of purpose and yes, tail still between the legs, but I had a lot of adjustments to make about how I was thinking and even to look at my belief structure.

I often reflect and look at whatever I do and how I personally operate. I always go back to what Mahatma Ghandi once said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” When we can reflect upon who we are and our actions and then watch how they play out on the external of us, we can truly learn many valuable lessons which ultimately empower who we are.

I am feeling very different now. After much reflecting I realise I needed to experience all that I did so that I could be fully present to open myself up to trusting what is already in my space. This has also taught me to be ever present with the attitude of gratitude, to say thank you even when I feel that the tide has turned, leaving me on the shore, tired, washed out and wondering - where to next? Ah haaaaaaa

Sending you all much love always

LIFE IS A KALIEDOSCOPE - MEDITATIVE VIDEO WITH POETRY

This poem speaks about life in all its complexity and glory.

Author and poet, Esther Austin beautifully narrates this poem

How I tripped into a deluge of Doubt - Week ending Friday 18th June 2010

This week has taken me on a roller coaster of a journey with ‘doubt’ my 6 legged friend. Doubt being the main hub with fear, frustration, loneliness and its other For three or four days this week I struggled. I got up one morning and self doubt assailed me like a tomb, I actually felt my energy levels take a dive. For once in a very very long time, I felt as if I wasn’t doing enough, as if business was static and with those feelings I found myself becoming more and more frustrated.

I felt that I should be doing more and began to question what was I doing wrong. All of a sudden I felt like a failure. There was also something very important playing on my mind. The inability to express myself and feelings in terms of a particular situation, as I am a person who likes to express, and that frustration coupled with this sudden onset of insecurity and not feeling good enough almost drove me to tears yesterday.

The urge to speak to someone was so strong, to express how I felt, to talk the pain out of my heart, to just get out what had built up inside, to speak out my pain because I had begun to feel pain and I was aching inside. Aching for an intimacy to be had in my life, aching from the frustration of working so hard and ‘feeling’ I was still not doing enough.

These feelings had been building up since Saturday. There is a saying that no man is an island and certainly for me, someone who spends an incredible amount of time on her own, which I enjoy by the way, made me also realise that I needed to stick my head up from my computer and papers and seek the comfort and company of a good friend or two, which was such a blessing.

As I poured out my heart to this special lady, she suddenly said (as she is highly intuitive and psychic) you need a break, you are working so hard, there is one piece to the puzzle that is keeping you in this position and that is you need to promote yourself more widely, so that you can generate more clients, then you can get a break. You are carrying a lot. I must admit I am a workaholic and therefore, I have told those close to me to shake me out of my spot once a week to do something, to get me out and about. Yet this week was such a learning curve for me. The universe allowed me to become vulnerable. I didn’t particularly like the feeling, but I had to be taken there to a place where I got so frustrated that I wanted to cry and even then, I couldn’t because I was trying to hold onto sanity and therefore at that moment by shedding tears – I would’ve crumpled.

Last night, I spent a while speaking with another dear friend. He listened and I shared, then he shared and we came away both feeling better and even healed from being able to release. I just needed to talk things through at a very deep level. A level of consciousness that went deep, as I needed to go there. I looked at how I was handling me. I looked at how I was feeling about me and this situation. I looked at me from every angle possible and just having the space to talk and to release and to get it out was so powerful and in the space of analysing, I also knew I was being too hard on myself, constantly pushing the bar to the next level and not totally being present to embrace life as it was presented to me at that moment in time.

Today I do not ache as much as I have been over the past 3-4 days, because what I had to learn to do yesterday was to accept a few situations as they were, to pull back from having any expectation whatsoever and to know that everything was in divine order and to allow the universe and God to work in their mysterious and magical way. I am calmer and learning to fall back into me again and to trust. I have also learned to just accept my feelings and to know it is ok to feel what I feel. Isn’t that the beauty of love, to know it is ok to love.

Once in a while I slip off my train which hurtles through life. I have learned especially this year to enjoy the scenery as I go along by slowing it down a little. I often take myself off for bike rides and find the most remote of places where I can just sit in open space and dream or meditate. Or I head off for long walks along river banks and parks and other outdoors spaces. I love the outdoors as it nurtures and replenishes and revitalises me.

Today, this message is simply to say that NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. I had to reach out to a few people yesterday. Those close to me and whom I trust. But most of all I had to learn to fall back into the arms of God and the universal flow of energy. I was at the end of my tether, I was tired, I was aching. I needed to share and to feel as if I was being heard. For once, I wanted to be the one someone listened to.
So once again remember, NO MAN IS AN ISLAND.

Esther

Unconditional Love and Respect

(These get it - Unconditional Love - ahhhhh)

Unconditional love is a term that means to love someone regardless of one's actions or beliefs. It is a concept comparable to true love, a term which is more frequently used to describe love between lovers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_love



This word has become another one of those clichéd and over-used words amongst many other words which in their simplicity have very profound meanings . Words which not only empower, carry impact and emotion, but which define a richness of humanity’s core essence, a platform upon which standards and values are created and built on. Yet many of these words have been reduced to a drizzle of their former meanings.
Love, more so unconditional love is a gift which many of us never experience in life, because society dictates that conditions are placed on this feeling. A feeling which embodies healthy communication, honesty, integrity, friendship, unity, togetherness yet individuality. How we experience receiving and giving love is usually dependent upon various factors i.e our parents, upbringing, life experiences, our perception of life who we think we are etc, etc.

Therefore, many people lower their standards in order to accommodate sub-standard levels of love which can often be dictated by control, manipulation and conditions, disempowering our true authentic selves, where we loose our sense of identity. Yet, to be fair, because we all seek to be loved individuals will put up with even a little bit of love.

Unconditional love has nothing to do with power, nor manipulation. It is not about switching your emotions on when you feel like it and then turning them off. Unconditional love is a forever feeling in constant flow. When we learn to stand within our own truth and understanding; when we learn to truly love who we are, without external things defining who we are such as status, an over-extended ago, then we will not only receive unconditional love and understand its concepts, but we can also give unconditional love and know that we deserve it.

Many have learned to live with abuse in the name of love and therefore have tendencies to believe that this is a norm. Whilst others feel that love may never pass their way, so they allow themselves to put up with substandard behaviour from others and even engage in surface relationships where they can avoid making a commitment.

The Beatles once sang “all we need is love, ” Tina Turner sang “What’s love got to do with it?” Love is the universal force which holds the very fabric of life together and is certainly what makes the world go around.

A journey into the self is the only way we can truly learn to appreciate the beautiful gestures that love gifts us with. A journey into exploring who we are, how to love ‘ME’ or re-learn how to love ‘ME’ again and in the process learning how to draw RESPECT from that journey. Once we learn to love ourselves and realise that we deserve the highest possible best and outcome for our lives in and with the intention of love then we are sure to be presented with the most nourishing and honest friendships and relationships.

I have been doing much reflecting of late in terms of how I interact with my world and the bigger world around me. In terms of my friendships and relationships I realise that for any decision I make for my life and what I expect from others has to come down to how I ultimately feel about myself and what I deserve and on that basis, how I feel about myself will then reflect back at me from my world around me. The basis therefore for all this is based on my belief in the following:

• Honesty and integrity
• Good open communication
• How my children perceive me and how my actions affect them

Good communication is extremely important. It cuts out having to make assumptions and second guessing. It also enriches and enhances the relationship and in effect, taking the time to nurture and honor them is therefore a reflection of our beliefs. I have very few friends and that is by choice. There are a few I speak to every day and others who touch base a few times a month, yet we are ok with this because we know we are busy yet still remain in each others thoughts and we respect each other for this honesty.

In life there are codes of conduct in terms of how we conduct ourselves. Those codes of conduct help align us to how we operate in terms of our values and beliefs.
Also more importantly about Love and Respect is that I always think how I would feel if someone treated my child dis-respectfully or even if my child did the same to someone. Yet also how would they feel if I behaved inappropriately (as at home we have a set of standards ) if I allowed or settled for substandard treatment from anyone, or gave of the same, then how would my children see me as a mother, someone they have looked up to for so long, someone they have depended upon? And then how would that affect their perception of relationships of what is or is not acceptable?

Remember we cannot speak about love or of love and sincerely mean it, if our actions belie otherwise. Love cannot just be spoken about. It is something that is felt, and if it is felt then it is to be experienced and once experienced then an action is formed from that. Remember: All We need is love. Think about it!!

If I Can Do it, So Can You!!!!

As always my message is one of ‘If I can do it, so can you’. A simple statement, but often hard for us to believe and attain because in the process of this simplicity has to be the understanding that with this comes steadfast vision, sacrifice, lots of learning and an incredible amount of hard work and sheer determination. Remember the saying Success is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration. Yet more importantly and what many of us suffer from is lack of belief in self. How bad do you want whatever it is you are after?

Another aspect to this statement is that outcomes are often dependent upon many factors. From how we perceive ourselves, our self-belief, the places we are at in our lives at any given moment in time and how we view the world around us etc. Therefore, I would like to impart to you the following. We are all capable of achieving the most amazing and wonderful things in our lives. Often times we fail to see the woods through the trees. We fail to see and believe in our capacity to be, do and fulfil our life’s purpose. We fail to believe in our capabilities in who we truly are because of messages we have been given along the way, other peoples perceptions of us etc.

Also, we tend to get distracted by what others are doing. We reference our lives, our success and failures by those around us, forgetting that we are on our own individual path. This distraction then leads us into becoming self absorbed in someone else’s achievements and successes, which then reflects back at us highlighting our own perceived insecurities and deficiencies. This then leads to feelings of resentment, frustration, envy and even jealousy.

Yet when we choose to self reference, when we choose and allow ourselves to look at our lives, to discover and embrace the gifts, talents and unique human beings we individually are, then we can achieve the most amazing things and embrace who we are. Once again, this is not always an easy process and it is often hard for us to recognise our uniqueness. The message I would like to leave with you is this. Anything is possible, life is a plethora of learning and experience. It is how you perceive what happens to you and how you react and respond to these experiences. For now I will leave this here. If you want to find out more about how to achieve your personal best, then listen to some of the interviews on Qarma Broadcast, visit youtube and check out Dr Wayne Dyer, The Barefoot Doctor, Louise Hay and many more from the Personal Development arena.

In the meantime, there is a wealth of resources that you can tap into right now to help you on your personal development journey.

Like Nike says "Just Do It"

Much love

POETRY ON THE MOVE

Feel the crisp breeze of Spring’s floaty sensations
tickle your fancy, caressing winter’s blues away
view through eyes that dance with awakening
Renewal, rejuvenation, a newness of life


Feel the effortless flow and energy of new beginnings
Meander its way through your cluttered mind
releasing, detoxing, making way for you to rise
Like the golden orb of sun


And so we rise like a phoenix from the ashes
to greet this new phase, a new gift in our lives
and let us embrace Spring’s offering of newness
And stride forth to meet its glorious handshake


Esther Austin – All Rights Reserved 7th April 2010

And if I Stand

‘And if I stand still along this road for one brief moment
to reflect and look at the path just trod
From what angle will I view my life
which therefore determines how I proceed forward?

Will I see my life’s challenges staring up at me
with angry beacons of failure, regret and pain?
With my finger always pointing, accusing, outward, away from ME?
A fallen victim of my innermost fears and illusions?

Or will I see them sitting silently amongst the thorns
and in between the hedges, no longer holding me captive
no longer cradled in their power
because I have saluted and honored the space they played on my journey
because I have allowed myself to learn the lessons presented to me
for without them I could not stand on this mountaintop
With back straight against the biting wind
For without them, I would not be able to reflect back upon
For without them I could not have discovered me

Esther Austin
March 2010e

The Road to My Destiny

Climbing the road towards my destiny
I glimpse the path from whence I just trod
a panoramic view of lessons learned
lay sprawled in captive state below
And seeing the distance between the land and me
I continue towards the mountaintop
Though steep and treacherous it appears to be
I choose to continue unabated.

EAustin 21 February 2010

Riding the Waves of Life and its GREAT

It has been a while, has it not since I have put pen to paper on this page. Often times over the past few months, much has come to me. Yet I have denied myself the opportunity to translate from mind to paper my thoughts as I have allowed other daily pressures to overwhelm me, thereby silencing the flow of words into the abyss of stagnation.

Yet many months down the line, here I am riding the waves of life in the boat of contentedness feeling a sense of anticipation, expectation at what I know will manifest in my life this year.

My journey has been incredible to say the least and the beauty of this journey is that I am always learning, constantly trying to understand myself during this process. My mission down here is to serve humanity and I am enjoying this role so much. Yet in order to serve well, I have had to learn to love well, to open my heart to compassion’s lure even more fully and to embrace everything that I experience from that place of love. It’s not always been easy emotionally for me to let go of emotions which were negative and at times a struggle yet this lesson serves me well.

How ,you might wonder have I got to such a place? It has certainly not been an easy journey and there have been times when I have been left wondering, will I do this whole journey on my own? The saying that people come into our lives for a reason and a season has certainly served me many lessons. The main lesson for me was in the letting go of certain people within my circle, for whatever reason, knowing it was for the best and that I should learn to do this in love. Not in anger nor resentment (and believe me there were times when because of my own expectations, I wanted to do get angry - but the new me would not let me) – yet the learning for me was that it was ok to let them go and more importantly it was time to let them go because certain friendships no longer served a purpose.

Sometimes some were severed in not-so-comfortable nor amicable ways and I had to learn to deal with all this from a place of love. I even had to question on occasion, the way I handled the separation in terms of whether I had done this from a place of judgment. What I now find about myself is that it becomes easier to look in my mirror or truth and deal with my faults, because I have learned to love myself and love both sides of me. Therefore when I need to deal with anything which I would otherwise sweep under the carpet, I can face them boldly.

So why I am still riding the waves? Because the beauty of this spiritual walk is learning to walk my talk. Constantly trying to be mindful of who I am and what I am. Of my thoughts, words, deeds and action. The more I understand myself, is the more that I can experience life in its abundance and in a more peaceful and calm way. Therefore the truer I am to me means I am more able to serve humanity from a place of honesty, integrity, truth and wholesomeness.

Sounds like spiritual waffle? Well it’s not because like Mahatma Ghandi once said ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ and the more we focus on the self, on ‘US’ and take our focus off others and excuses is the more that our lives can shift and transform into a more comfortable space and that place is a wonderful place of awakening.

Riding the waves is for me, at this moment in time, is the manifestation of everything my soul has ever desired from the universe. Riding the waves is that after years and years of trials and challenges, of building my business, which I know were put into place to test and strengthen me, it seems (fingers crossed) that I have at this moment in time, passed the test and now it is time for me to reap my abundance and for this I am eternally grateful.

Remember: Success if 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration

Yet for me the beauty of riding the waves is in just BEING me. It is in doing the work I do, following my dreams and realizing them and loving every moment of this creative and fulfilling process. Through serving others, empowering and transforming lives, yet this is only because I have allowed myself to be the channel for this vocation 100% and have accepted the role I have to play.

So yes, I am back here with you all after a few months, surfing and riding the most beautiful of waves and waiting for them to crash to shore where I will leap off to dart into another of life’s wonderful adventures creating more magic in my life and other peoples lives and its GREAT.

So my motto to you is: ‘If I can do it, So Can You’