Each of us experiences a personal truth that belongs to us alone. It is subjective and unique. I invite you to use the affirmation, “I express my truth,” to continually make choices in the ever-present moment that create the circumstances necessary to recognize and open channels for your self-expression.
Last month we talked about cultivating the safety necessary to create openness. We talked about the importance of making space for our thoughts and feelings to be expressed within our own minds and bodies. This month we can take that one step further to explore what it might look like to let those thoughts and feelings out in ways that create balance, beauty and an example of authenticity that shows others that it is safe for them to express themselves, as well.
We create barriers to self-expression when we don’t feel safe. Perhaps we are afraid that if we are truly seen, we won’t be accepted, or that there won’t be a space for us. We might fear that our inner truth will break something if it doesn’t fit into the mold we are told we must abide by. We might fear that we are too much or not enough or even that we are broken or missing pieces. We might believe that our truth will be taken from us if we express it. Love is here to change all of this. Let us remember that fear is not the enemy but rather a valuable part of ourselves that expresses in order to show us that we have, again and always, the opportunity to choose love.
When we choose to express beyond our barriers, we are consciously choosing love. We are bringing our fears into the light of awareness so that they may tell their stories and transform into their love-based counterparts. For example, jealousy becomes appreciation, doubt becomes confidence, lack becomes abundance, guilt becomes forgiveness and anger becomes inspired action rather than a feeling of powerlessness. Love is the power, the fuel behind the change that we wish to see in our lives and our world. All we have to do is choose it and that power of choice can never be taken from us.
There will be moments that choosing love looks simply like allowing our thoughts and emotions to exist within our own bodies and minds. It is here that we find anxiety dismantles. Rather than feeling a pressure to organize and make sense of our inner experience, we choose the first step to self-expression, which is simply acceptance. By accepting our thoughts and emotions, we are saying “Yes” to ourselves. We are listening, and by listening we are affirming, “You deserve the space to speak and you deserve to be heard.” This is an incredible act of self-love. This choice will begin to reorganize not only our internal neural pathways (patterns of thought and belief) but also our external environments, as our choices are now completely infused with the light of our inner awareness.
It is truly each of our individual responsibilities to share our inner world. This is how we create! So, this month, use the affirmation, “I express my truth,” to guide you as you take a look at the walls that you have built around your heart and choose self-expression as the means to bring them down. Each brick in your walls is made of something valid and valuable, something that when acknowledged will transform into a great gift. Let it out! Together we can celebrate our differences and realize that no matter our personal context, we are all working on and toward the same things.
As always, I invite you to look at back at my columns from December 2018 through now to build the support that you need to integrate this month’s affirmation. Remember, you are worth it. Everything you dream and wish to be, you are worth it. Your dreams may change but they will never die, so dig deep, give yourself the safety of a friend or a journal, or as I like to have, a stage! Go ahead and let it all move you.
The most important aspect of self-expression is to understand ourselves as being change, or, as being time. As we rest in the moment, we rest as the moment. We are the movement of the one energy, and it is this movement that allows us to experience ourselves as being. Whether we look backward in our memory or forward to our potential futures, we are choosing, in the moment, which filter we are looking through. This brings great importance to the way in which we talk to ourselves. How do you tell your own story? What is possible? What is off the table? Who do you tell yourself that you are and what reasons do you use to justify your narrative? All of these things are choices that we make in each moment and we can make them with more awareness and freedom by simply saying to ourselves, “What you’re experiencing is real and valid and deserves to be expressed.”
So I say this to you now: what you’re experiencing is real and valid and deserves to be expressed.
Oftentimes our thoughts and feelings do not fit into our current model of understanding. That’s okay. As we allow ourselves the freedom to think and feel whatever we think and feel, we find that our belief structures change drastically to make space for our truth to be heard and experienced in new ways. Similarly, we find that our external environment begins to shift to create channels for our inner world to be expressed.
So, we might start with just noticing our thoughts and feelings and saying to ourselves, “I don’t understand this but here it is.” This alone changes our energetic pattern of movement, or “frequencies,” to align with new opportunities for self-expression. You’ll find that this practice of listening to yourself brings you others who are willing to listen. It will bring you artistic means and the support that you need to explore them. It will bring you the curiosity and passion that feels like the fire of aliveness within you that directs you toward the means of self-expression that will set your unique soul free.
Through self-expression, we can choose to allow our lives to unfold in ways that uproot patterns of thought and create, not only new behaviors but new life circumstances and potential futures that fit our biggest, brightest dreams. Dreams never die, they simply sleep and transform.
This month, go ahead and ask yourself, “What dreams do I have in hibernation?” Together we will wake them up. Dreams feel like aliveness. They feel like something calling you forward into a new space. Naturally, this process of becoming free will bring up our fears and limitations. It will show us all of the thoughts and the patterns of thought that tell us that we cannot be our fullest, most beautiful selves. It will say things like, “There is no space for you,” and “You are wrong or too much or not enough,” and “You can’t heal,” and “You are the only one.” This is an important voice. This is your subjective truth and it deserves the space to be felt and heard and expressed through your thoughts, emotions, art, movement and voice. Express it however you can and let it move. Because, that is what happens when fear is acknowledged — it becomes light again, and it flips to its alternative, which is love.
I like to thank my fear when it arises for holding my hand and showing me the way back to love again and again. Fear is the means through which we see the stories we tell ourselves, and we see our opportunity to choose to tell our story differently. Choose love.
Choose to express yourself. Choose to let your walls fall down as the voice that speaks from within them creates a new way.