by Tara Joyce | Jul 19, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
To see only yourself in every reflection, and only the parts you want to see, a life is lived in the shallow end. Where there is deepness and darkness, you do not probe, unwilling to go deeper. Uncomfortable with its truth, you reject and dismiss that which you care not to understand.
To be shallow is to only see—and believe in—the surface facade of others, and of yourself. This shiny surface is so alluring when the darker, less “perfect” aspects of yourself are unacceptable. You live on the surface, so that life’s deeper truths and anyone who expresses them, can easily be rejected.
To dip below the surface is supremely threatening, for to acknowledge the depth possible is to accept the imperfect life we each bear. Dipping below your own facade, your own shiny surface, to acknowledge and accept your own imperfections is more than your shallow heart will currently bear.
Instead, it is easier to see that “other” people have issues, that there is something supremely “wrong” with them. It is easier to point fingers and to place blame. It is easier to not understand and to judge. Resolved of responsibility, comfortable in the shallow end, you do not see the deeper, darker truth of yourself hidden in plain sight. Everyone in your life is a mirror reflecting back the parts you love and dislike about yourself. Those which provoke you and numb you, those which drive you to turn away and to hide from your darkness, are the very reflections you can learn the most from.
photo credit: stttjin
by Tara Joyce | Nov 27, 2015 | Self/Business Growth
The messenger brings with them a message that is not really their own. It has been given to them, to deliver to you.
If you don’t like their message, if you don’t want to receive what they’re sharing, you may feel angry with them. You might want to shoot the messenger. But consider, is it the message you don’t like, or is it the person delivering it? There is a difference.
If it is the message you disagree with, take a moment before you shoot the messenger. Consider that your disagreement with their message is not necessarily a reflection of them, it is more a reflection of you. In seeing the messenger as the source of the problem, you aren’t seeing the difference between the message you are receiving, and the person delivering it. There is a distinction. The message is what triggers you, and the messenger is simply a deliverer of that trigger.
We are so much more than the messages we (consciously and unconsciously) share with others, and we are so much more than our emotional triggers. In recognizing yourself as both a giver and receiver of these potentially triggering messages, you share in the responsibility of knowing this emotional truth. We are all messengers, we all have value to share, and yet we can not be defined by this role and other people’s reactions to it. Our work is to be responsible for how we deliver our messages, and how we receive the other messengers in our lives. Working to know our triggers, we come to fully embrace our role as messengers, as we learn to distinguish the value of the messages — and the messengers — in our lives.
photo credit: David Seibold
by Tara Joyce | Jan 5, 2014 | My Journey | What's On My Mind
Happy New Year to you! I hope you’ve had a restful and lovely holidays.
I love the potential of this time of year, an old year ending and new one starting.
Being a naturally introspective person, and combining that with a cultural attachment to reviewing the year that has passed, I’ve often found I’m pressuring myself as the calendar year comes to a close to UNDERSTAND something about the time that has passed.
This year I decided to let that go. My attachment to UNDERSTANDing. I let the year just be.
And when I did, I found myself naturally, on New Year’s Eve, seeing the year behind me. I saw a year where I had transformed my relationships.
If there was something for me to UNDERSTAND about 2013, it was about relationship. My relationship with …attachment …release …my mind …my heart …creating …criticism …sharing …authenticity …perspective …recognition …authority …shame …and so much more.
2013 taught me that when I allow myself to change my relationship with something, I allow myself to let go of something holding me back.
I suspect you may have learned something similar.
Now we find ourselves starting 2014, and we are more centred in our self, and in turn, our relationships. Our structures have been fortified.
I don’t dare to guess what 2014 holds for us. For I know whatever I do dream up will fall short of reality.
But I do dare to plan. To continue growing more into me. And the power and love of what I am creating in this world.
For 2014 and always, I wish the same for you.
love,
photo credit: challiyan
by Tara Joyce | Oct 19, 2013 | My Journey | What's On My Mind
I’ve made some changes around here.
After 5+ years, my website, my online home, felt like it didn’t fit me anymore. So I decided to fashion myself a new dress. And I’m excited to share it with you.
I hope you love it, as I do.
I’ve been in heaven over the last two weeks, creating it. It’s be hard to focus on much else.
What I’m most excited about is the new space I’ve created on elastic mind for my writing. It feels so good to have reached a place in my life where I am ready to give it the space I now know it deserves.
So please, come by and check out elastic mind 2.0.. Over the years I’ve been writing to you I’ve come to see myself much clearer, and I hope you’ll find that reflected back at you here.
by Tara Joyce | Sep 10, 2013 | Cultural Creativity
A reflection of our disdain for authority in our own life.
The things our critic says are likely things we heard from an authority figure.
Things we did not agree with — but heard anyway.
Things that once were someone else’s ideas about us, that have now become our own.
It’s not the truth.
It hurts us anyway.
We hurt when we allow those ideas to have power over us again. Whether they come to us from an external source or from inside.
Our pain is our disdain for the un-truths we believe.
Our pain can be a tool.
If we observe it, it can support us in letting go of what we are holding onto inside.
It can show us where we can create more freedom. From authority. And from our own critical self.
When we drop the disdain, the judgement of authority, we can too drop the pain.
If we let go.
Of thinking we aren’t good enough. Of the stories we tell our self.
Can we accept that all the people in our life, even the most controlling, have added value?
Are we willing to let go of our pain around the authority that hurts us, and release the power our inner critic has over us?
Can we accept that our greatest pain can be our greatest power?
photo credit: mason bryant
