I’m in trouble.
The editors of The Hudson Valley Magazine, a wonderful, important publication in the New York Metropolitan area, chose to include me in their annual People to Watch in 2016 profiles.
So why would that signal trouble?
Because gifts call for more courage.
They are en-courage-ments to show up more fully for the game.
Not because anyone will be watching us.
Not even because of the baby- prize we so fervently wish for.
But because some part of us is watching.
Some part of us refuses to give up on us.
We know what it feels like to show up.
Recognition is certainly a gift. Who doesn’t appreciate being appreciated?
But the most important recognition of the value of what we have to offer, is an inside job.
What if this “infertility” challenge is NOT A SIGN OF YOUR WEAKNESS, or BROKENNESS, BUT A RECOGNITION OF YOUR GIFTS AND YOUR GREATNESS?
What then?
Here is my invitation to you:
Name three gifts YOU RECOGNIZE IN YOURSELF. What kind of encouragement would allow you to use them more fully?
It was so refreshing to re-read this blog post. I felt encouraged to write a comment, seeing the last comment from Sofi.
When I read the post two months ago, I could not think of much. But today I am able to.
I think my three gifts are intellect, expression in the writing medium, and musical ear.
I know it may sound snobbish but I have found that this has helped me choose the career that I am in – i am analyst to the core (which isn’t great in creative pursuits), but i am gifted with above-average intellect. The brain-side, not so much the emotional intellect – i don’t think that’s my gift. But sometimes I have felt encouraged to see good results in my life when I have overcome difficulties using self-help books who I discovered from the internet. This is how I found the FH community. It was not just desperation, but my hunger for more knowledge, and to be guided by the gift of intellect that I can rely upon feels good. Of course I am also a believer in the fact that, when the time is right, the ‘divine will’ will grant your wish. I do not think you can ‘will’ everything to happen as you wish, sometimes God has a different plan for you. Like Julia says ‘We are only co-creators’. I want to encourage myself to apply this intellect in creative ways to find solutions and concrete repeatable consistent actions and to be disciplined in my ways.
I have been told by others that I am good at expressing myself in writing. My writing flows well. I have been a blogger on and off. I know I should write more often. It gives me an outlet that gives me a different calm and happiness, or may I say pleasure. I created a new anonymous blog yesterday! I am hoping to use that blog for my fertile heart journey, or in general, when I feel compelled to share something on Facebook, but i am afraid of having people know that I am on this journey. So then it remain unshared. I have a desire to share information, stories, favorite books and movies. I am hoping this action would encourage this gift to evolve more.
I have a good musical ear, I know this comes from my father. He was a sitar player (not by profession), and also knew how to play multiple musical instruments like flute, harmonium, and so on. I wish he was alive today. I was inspired to take music lessons for a handful of years until I let other things get in the way. Sometimes I convince myself that I just like music and have no gift, but that’s an orphan who doesn’t want to work to cultivate and nurture this gift. I have a sitar of my own and I haven’t played in a very very long time. I want to brush the dust off it and that’s how I can encourage my creative, meditative side. The music I was learning calmed me when I played and of course it is a beautiful thing. The connection I made with my teacher was also beautiful. If nothing, it would help me feel blessed to be reminded of that connection.
I also thought of a fourth gift – empathy. I am a very good listener as I have been told by my friends.
Thank you Julia for helping me see my gifts and think of ways to encourage myself. Fertile heart journey is such an intense creative adventure. I have always thought of myself as not being ‘creative’. But perhaps that’s an orphan that wants to be heard.
Hi Julia and Fertile Mamas,
I know this post is way overdue but I had a major block with this assignment. I have a very strong Orphan who refused to let me see or recognize my gifts. It would not even let me try to do the assignment and try to brainstorm ideas. I mentioned this to Julia in a recent email and she suggested that I should try to post about it anyway. So here goes. After much pondering and avoiding the topic, I was able to recognize one small gift that I can say about myself. I am a good listener. I really do like to talk with people one and one and hear their stories and ask them questions and really understand what they are experiencing. I actually don’t like to talk about myself except in certain settings so being a listener feels safe.
I realized that the orphan that is blocking me fears that if I see my gifts I will be forced or obligated to use them, and that sounds very dangerous to this orphan. It believes that I am safer in the dark, just being the dutiful employee and working hard for everyone else and putting my own needs and desires to the side. It’s also been blocking me in my working on my career for the same reasons. It’s scared that if I find my passion and decide to change my career path, I will end up broke and worse off than I am now. So it has kept me blind to what would feel more fulfilling and exciting than what I am currently doing now.
I have tried working with this orphan but Field of Creation wasn’t that effective for a very quiet stonewalling kind of orphan. So I have been doing Nine Hearts for the past week which I tend to do for the second half of my cycle, to help strengthen the visionary around conception and birth.
I am still working with this orphan, trying to understand but also to get past it as I can’t become the visionary until I can see my gifts and passions and what I am really meant to do with my life.
Hello to all of you fertile-mums & Julia!
Here I am after being for quite some time in hibernation.
I found it very difficult and I had to do some serious thinking before coming up with my three strong points:
1)I’m emotionally intelligent
2) I’m honest and straightforward
3) I’m a good helper and supporter to others.
It feels nice to be reconnected to you.
Much love,
I was on vacation and have had limited internet access so am posting this a little late. I notice that this thread has less replies than previous threads. I found this assignment challenging, as did many of you. It seems like it is so much easier to identify orphans than gifts and visionaries.
My gifts (very similar to others who posted):
I am kind
I am smart (I have doubted this for so long and am just now beginning to believe it).
I am strong – I have survived and even thrived despite some challenging stuff.
The OVUM practice has helped me identify the best environment for my gifts – I actually moved back near my family and best friend after a very strong vision during work with Busy Being Born. That environment is a place where I feel loved and forgiven.
Reading everyone else’s gifts, I would love to have any of you for a mom!
Very much looking forward to our call tomorrow.
Dear Paolina, Openhearted, stacyw, Chayim, Gealua, FearlessRose, Chopin, MLee, MamaJ, Moving Forward, marymary, gutsymama, Heartsease, MiraculousLife, Sparxy, TracyM, butterflyfaith, Heather1975teaching
Paolina -Wonderful for remembering your dreams.
Openhearted- Insightful dream.
stacyw – Wow – wonderful gifts.
Chayim – Yay for the tools. Yes- finding balance and nourishing yourself
Gealua – Welcome here and wonderful gifts!
FearlessRose – Yay for your gifts including adventurousness.
Chopin – Good for accepting compliments. Wonderful for identifying mothering your mother.
MLee -Powerful work with parents. Yay for music.
MamaJ – Yay for realizing you don’t have to be perfect.
Moving Forward – Yay for happy moments and acknowledging human imperfection.
marymary – Good luck replenishing your cup.
gutsymama -The best to you healing your heart and wonderful for loving animals.
Heartsease – Yes vommitting to time to care for yourself – I can relate to that.
MiraculousLife – Wonderful for courage to go out of your comfort zone.
Sparxy – I’m sorry you had so many challenges with your parents.
TracyM Empathy and humor are wonderful gifts
butterflyfaith – Yay for claiming your gifts.
Heather1975teaching – Love the tenacious, compassionate and loyal.
I have been doing Child’s Play Fertile Heart body truth and Meeting your child halfway Fertile Heart Imagery (II). I have been working on getting to bed by 11 – a couple nights not so great, but I’m proud of myself for doing it most of the time. It was fascinating playing out a different scene with my parents in the imagery the previous week and I did write myself a letter from them – it’s like we could all consult together on the challenge/orphan of the moment – kind of fun.
Blessings to all.
,
GSD – you are awesome!!!!!!
Dearest Visionary Mamas,
In working on my “fun-work” over the past week and a half since our call, I have been focusing on the advice dear Julia gave as we navigate the complexities of the relationships we share with our mothers. Change the environment in which you receive your mother. Soften your reactions and use the imagery work to express and feel empathy. I have finally begun to do this, in a way that I have not been able to do before.
Through this process, another realization has come to me. When I was growing up, I was shown that taking care of yourself was somewhat of a selfish act. That good mothers take care of their children first, their husbands second, and if there’s any energy/nurturing/time left over for mom, she can have the scraps. This self-healing reflective journey requires us to let that orphan come out of hiding – the orphan that says you are selfish for taking time away from your family, friends, spouse, etc. to rebirth yourself, energize yourself, heal yourself. I had been struggling with my mother’s judgmental nature and judgments (whether they were verbalized or not) she might be making about my parenting. Because of the greater connection I feel each day to the Visionary in me, these anxieties are starting to melt away and this orphan is being healed. It’s OK for me to do things differently and (imagine that?) not be concerned with anyone else’s judging. What a freeing feeling!
Wishing all of you a freeing Wednesday!
Congratulations, Julia! That’s a great recognition of your work and dedication to supporting so many of us in the curvy road towards motherhood! Great picture, it made me smile.
I spent some time thinking about the 3 gifts, and based on what I have been thanked or appreciated for so far, these would be my gifts:
Altruism and compassion, I try to always be there for my family and friends, ready to help practically and morally when they are in need, listen to them and encourage them when they go through rough times. Some of my dear friends had babies lately, that’s the time when you need the most help and support, especially if you are an expat. I found myself resisting the idea of being around them because their happiness reminded me of what I miss. My love for them and a strong sense of compassion prevailed after having worked on myself, and I am glad I did not surrender to my orphans. One time, Julia, you told me that being around babies it’s good, and it’s true, they gave me joy and reminded me of what I can have instead of what I miss.
Enthusiasm and curiosity, I love change and I constantly look for new things to learn, discover and start, new places to explore and new experiences to live. These gifts pushed me to travel extensively and helped me advance at work and enjoy life’s unpredictability. These gifts made me meet my husband and move to the US.
Resilience, when things hit me hard, I fight not to succumb and find my equilibrium again. I am not too proud not to seek for help, support and learn from other people’s experience. It’s thanks to this gift that I found the FH community.
One last thing I wanted to share is that, while all of you during the call had this complex and symbolic dreams to tell, I could not remember even one dream, my subconscious simply did not talk to me. I don’t know why, but in the past week, I was able to remember some of the dreams. I am not sure what the message is and I woke up a little anxious. I dreamed of a baby who I recognized as being mine, which made me very emotional, but he ran around without seeing me. In another case I was holding a baby but she/he was taken from me because he/she apparently belonged to someone else. Finally, it’s the second time that I dream I am about to miss a train but in one case that train was not mine and in the second case a friend of mine woke me up to help me pack so I can catch it, although I was not sure I would have made it. Another time that in the VM community we talk about dreams, I would be curios to hear if someone else had similar ones.
Congratulations Julia! I am so glad others get to read about this practice and you!
My three gifts are:
1. empathy – I find I want to understand where people really come from. I want to feel there o, and get a sense of there v.
2. Kindness – always willing to help, but need to watch this as I can over extend! Try to use my no can do visionary when I know I will be spread thin.
3. Love – to honestly still find deep love for people even when the hurt orphan wants to hate, but the v in me knows that I have always been a lover!
I wrote my letter to my mom and then a letter back! It felt freeing to see it on paper and also visionary rooted to know I can create the things I wish would have occurred for the 6 year old in me.
I did have very strong dreams related to my writing. One dream I was almost drowning but swam to the surface. I felt tense and full of uncertainty most my dream. As if the 6 year old was part of the dream. I also had a dream about a friends baby she gave it to me to take care of stating the child was fine. However the baby had a blue face. I had to warm and comfort the child to bring the child back to a normal skin color. I am thinking this could relate to the o and the v in myself!
Currently working with all of me all of you and cry for justice.
OH, you inspired me to do the same thing. The Glass House is an imagery I really need to do, and that is most likely why I am coming up with any and every excuse not to do it. Writing a letter has my Visionary screaming “DO THIS NOW!” and yet I don’t. So you know what? I’m just going to try it. As my F**K-It Visionary of not that long ago would remind me, “Why not?” Thanks for the nudge.
great article and empowering picture. Congratulations!
3 gifts:
1. compassion
2. kindness
3. loyalty
Continued fertile heart practices seem to help me use these more fully. It is not always easy to remember this but it is important to get back to the good place emotionally.
Dearest Julia
I felt compelled to reach out to say that I have had a tough day today and was full of anxiety and remorse. I have completed my practice and I did Welcome Home as my Body Truth as I needed to move and engage with my body. The sound of your voice is immediately soothing to my anxious heart and as I went through the familiar routine, always unique in its execution, I felt my body unwind. I also felt a real sense of power return to my body as I remembered that I trust it.
I wanted to say thank you for giving me such powerful tools. It is great to be able to change how you feel in such a positive way.
Take care. Love, Chayim x
Dear fertile community,
I want to connect with you and feel an stronger involvement with the tools. This are three of my gifts and talents.
I’m a perseverant person.
I am gifted with my hands, with the sense of touch. I am a gifted artisan.
I am a good listener❤️
I am working with The body truth excersice woman and I am feelling The Wisdom of The ancesters I come from.
I am working with The imaginary excersice: learning how to ask and I am Getting new insides about where I am asking from my Child.
With food, I love soups and broths, and is where I find more dificulty to shift. I have The tendency to eat to much in order to fill up my emptynes.
I need support. I feel lonely have moved to US 5 Years ago and feel strugling feel unrooted. Have created a lovely home here just like I dreamed. I am trap in so many emotions with missing my family and integrating in my husband’s family.Would love to enter deeper into this work.
Thanks for having me in the circle!
Love,
Gealua
Dear Julia,
First of all – congratulations on the great article in the Hudson Valley publication! that is really great news! On our call just now you mentioned your blog – and I remembered that I had not posted on it recently. So, no better time that now, I thought!
So – like many of the Visionary Moms here, I struggled with finding my gifts and what I value about myself. Recently, I think I have been noticing more what I do not like about myself. I find it much easier to criticise myself than to appreciate my gifts. Thank you for this blog as it has just given me a kick in the rear end to realise that I very rarely show any appreciation for my own gifts and my own greatness. So here is what I came up with:
1) Compassionate and kind towards others – I always help others when they are in need. With doing the Fertile Heart practice and especially the most recent calls, I now realise that I need to be careful about doing this for the right reasons and not just to please others – i.e., not be driven by my very strong good girl Orphan who says ” you need to be loved and accepted by everyone”, but to be sure that I am doing it from a position which is honouring my own truth, too
2) Resilient and determined to live a full life: I realise now that my resilience and determination are rooted in my courage of keep ‘starting over’, picking myself up and moving on to a new and better place. This time, I am doing it with your immense support and with imagery & BTs practice & the very kind support of the fertile moms – I feel like I am rising from the ashes again, but not just leaving everything behind me this time, but embracing everything (the ‘good and the bad’) and listening to & healing my Os and strengthening my V and UM
3) Adventurous: I love to learn new things, meet new people, see new things, learn about myself and others. So, I guess I am open-minded, too.
Chopin says she is now not scared to hear a compliment about herself – I am now learning to do this, too. It does not come naturally to me to accept a compliment, nor to even compliment myself & appreciate all these gifts. I am excited that I am starting to appreciate myself again!
FearlessRose xxx
Thank you for this blog, Julia. And congrats to your place in the Hudson Valley magazine, what a pleasure to see you shine in that picture!
The three gifts I recognize in myself are my musicality, especially my voice – recently a conductor in a choir I joined in Prague told me my voice has a beautiful color. It took him saying that for me to hear the beauty of my own voice. The next gift is my humor. And the third is my tenderness. I wonder where all these came from? Thanks you for provoking me to recognize them in me. I used to be very uncomfortable when someone complimented me. I didn’t know how to accept a compliment – a simple ‘Thank you’ – instead I would be putting myself down, belittling it. Turning the attention away from myself, to remain in the background.
Now I am not scared to hear a compliment about me anymore, but it is a new skill that I developed, also thanks to my Fertile Heart practice, which I also consider a gift. Thank you, Julia.
I found this message and this exercise extremely challenging and beautiful. At fist, the challenge was to think about my gifts. This made me realize I constantly think about things to improve the way I am or my behavior, I could name several of those very easily.
Then I came up with three gifts: loyal, smart, and honest. Maybe I am those things sometimes, and is definitely something important to me or qualities that I want to have. But when I started thinking about this journey, about this work and what it has taught me, I discovered that many of all the defects and areas of improvements I thought I had turned out to be gifts.
I had asthma in my childhood and was used to be sick all the time, then when I was a teenager and started drinking alcohol and smoking with my friends, I used to throw up almost everytime and even though I was young I would get terrible hangovers. Around this time I started with migraines. Now I couldn´t get pregnant. So I always felt my body was failing me. I wanted to be healthy so much. Now I can understand my body was not failing me but desperately trying to talk to me. It was only being wise and sensible to all the bad things I was unconsciously doing to my body and my mind.
A second fault I thought I had or that I was embarrassed about were my angry outbursts, specially towards my mother. Everybody would tell me how nice and sweet I was but I always thought (and my mother would tell me) “If they´ll only really knew me.” Now I can understand better I had these orphans crying out loud for attention and I learned I can take care of them, I can be a caring and nice person to myself, being angry was only an expression of this need and I could take care of myself, I could love myself.
A third fault I thought I had was being insecure about my decisions and never truly commiting to anything fully. Now I learned I can follow my instinct, love my body and all that I am, so that I can allow myself to feel what I am passionate about, what I really want and then it becomes easier to do what is needed.
So after all of this I would say my gifts are to have a smart body, be caring, and determined. The encouragement is to keep listening to my smart body, care for myself, so that I can feel my longing and keep following through.
LOVE that photo of you Julia!
I spent some time thinking about my gifts this week, and to echo our other VM’s, this was a challenge for me as well.
I feel immensely blessed to have been given the gift of art. My musical ability is a soul-nurturing endeavor and allows me to connect with others on another level to share in this experience. I have been using this gift more fully by actually playing my instrument in an ensemble (instead of just saying I should do it) and showing up to every rehearsal ready to focus on music. When I play or perform, I see nothing but the art – the worries, the troubles of the world, the stresses of life all melt away.
I am a passionate person. When I love, I love hard. I cry when I am moved by beauty, which for me is often found in music, dance, or poetry. Playing music with others helps encourage this gift, along with finding more time to connect with female friends – this truly lifts me up!
I am determined. I was very close to the Dean of my department in college who wrote a letter of recommendation for me when I applied to graduate school. In that letter he described my determination as being like a tiger – seeing something I want and going after it with fervor, spirit and grace. I am determined to go on this journey and keep the commitment I have made to myself and the child we are waiting to receive.
I have been doing the Glass House imagery all week after our call last Monday. I felt it was important to keep revisiting that space with my mother and deal with the suffocating nature of her need to control me and my Dad. The last few times I have done the exercise, I have actually begun to shift my anger and frustration to empathy for her, and what I now know as her orphan-rooted way of raising me. I realized that my mother has always strived for perfection in every aspect of her life, and always viewed how I behaved, who my friends were, my choices (good or bad) as a reflection of her parenting and her worthiness as a person. As a result of this imagery, I have been able to confront my mother as my adult self with language that is firm but kind, but that as a child would have been taken as horribly disrespectful and taboo. I am really starting to feel more connected to the Visionary in me, the one who truly knows what’s best for me, and then as Julia as so beautifully guided me to do, act accordingly.
Thank you for this challenge, Julia (and it was a challenge for me!). I have been doing a great deal of work with self-love for the past month due to some health issues that have come up for me; this soul work or “fun-work” as you call it, was a perfect assignment for me. I must admit that I resisted doing my “fun-work” and I found it difficult to come up with 3 gifts. I had these orphans in my head saying – “yes, you are generous most of the time, but there was that one time…”. And “you are loving but remember that time when you weren’t?” This went on and on. I kept writing qualities that I believed I emulated and then deleted them. I felt like a phony and a fraud. The orphans just kept saying, “you’re not good enough”.
But…after some gentle, loving guidance, here is what I came up with:
1. Intuitive
2. Compassionate
3. Desire to live a life of character (and do the work that it takes to get there)
In order to live these gifts more fully, I am realizing that I do not have to be perfect. My desire for perfection only reinforces the “you’re not good enough” orphan. I can shift the conversation to be more compassionate, more caring and more loving.
Thank you, Julia. You are a gift.
Beautiful photo Julia. Energising and uplifting. Well done you deserve it for being a true trailblazer.
It’s lovely to have to think of three gifts that I recognise in myself. It’s easy to say ‘ people think I’m a good listener’ but it’s much more challenging to say this is what I think of myself. However, I believe this is much more powerful and has a much greater impact on our inner souls. Thank you Julia for highlighting that recognising what we have to offer to this world is ‘an inside job’.
I believe that I am strong. The outside world thinks I am gentle and may make other assumptions because of that but I am quietly very strong. I am persistent. When there is no answer I search and I search again. Life does not hand these things to me on a plate so I try to reach higher and higher to find what I’m looking for. My final gift is that I am human. Julia has taught me that this is a gift and that when painful events happen to view them as a human journey. Before I started this work I wanted to be perfect to have a perfect life. I now accept that by being human that is not possible. Thank you Julia for helping me find this final gift because it is truly humbling.
The encouragement I need again has to come from within. I will use these gifts because I really believe they will help me lead a fulfilled and happy life. Part of growing up is acknowledging that a happy life is very different from a perfect life. I will be my own cheerleader in searching for more inside gifts to help me on my current human painful journey.
Because I’m Irish I’m going to quote Bob Geldof. He has come to the conclusion that there is no state of constant happiness, only happy moments. This helps me cherish those tiny moments day to day that are joyous and helps me live for the here and now. Still hoping for a more constant state of happiness though.
Love to you Julia and all you fertile mamas. Xxxxxxxxx
Dearest Julia and Fertile Mamas
What a great blog Julia. I too love the picture. You are so deserving of the recognition in the Hudson Valley article.
My three gifts are
1. Loyalty
2. Integrity
3. Persistent hard worker
I use them very fully in the care of others and need to use them to care for myself. My practice and dreams have been revealing how low down my list of priorities I am most of the time and this has to change. Not because I want to be selfish but so that I can gain more balance to become a happier more fulfilled person who can give more back and make more of a difference.
Take care and much love xx
Yes! Yes! Yes! Julia! What a terrific honor to be listed in the Hudson Valley Magazine as People to Watch in 2016. What an honor for anyone who is fortunate enough to come across your gifts! And what an honor for me to witness and be a part of your love work. I love, love your picture – I FEEL so much energy from simply looking at it!
I love how you broke down the word, “en-courage-ment”. First, it reminded me of the root word of courage which is cor and in Latin means “heart”. Following, the the prefix en- means “within, in” and the suffix -ment means “action, process”. Encouragement = In heart action. So, to me this is all about the heart in action – opening, fertile, and loving.
I too had to think of this a bit. Thank you to all fertile mamas out there for sharing your gifts, it got my heart in action!
Three gifts that I recognize in myself.
1. I have an eye for beauty. I can see beauty in almost anything and anyone.
2. I have a willingness to grow and learn.
3. I can listen and be present with someone. People feel heard.
The kind of encouragement that would allow me to use my gifts more fully is the type of encouragement that gets me to be focus on myself first including self-care, rest, compassion. In other words, I cannot pour from an empty cup, so I need encouragement to fill up my cup first.
So grateful to be here!
What a great article. I love this picture of you too Juila! I just want to throw my arm up in the air and yell “yes”! Part of my fun-work is to answer the 3 quesitons on this blog.
1. I have a fun sense of humor and a good laugh
2. I can be very nuturing at work and at home and in life in general
3. I love animals and have alot of compassion towards them. I can see a dog, cat, goat, pig or any animal standing around and I want to pet all of them and show them all love.
The encouragement that would allow me to use them fully is allowing myself to continue to open my heart. After hearing myself say the other night “healing my broken heart”. I really mean it. I want to heal my heart and not carry such a heaviness I have felt to allow more joy and more humor and laughing!
I just have to share I had a dream last night and I was pregnant. I was in my 2nd trimester and my belly was starting to round out. In the dream I was rubbing my belly and I felt the baby kick! It was so real in the dream. I am sharing because that is something I have longed for and wanted to feel so badly and to feel in my dream was so sweet. I am working with Field of Creation in regards to my last dream I shared on monday night’s call. I used unconditional gratitude the last couple of nights too for body truth. take care all!
Loving these answers. Impressed by your headstands butterflyfaith! And thanks for translating stubbornness into tenacity Heather. i was going to put that as one of my gifts. I’m certainly stubborn, though I’m finding that’s not often in the most helpful ways, so not sure it’s a gift. Also I’m encountering the giving up orphan so much lately that’s making me question whether I’m really as tenacious as I think I am.
1- I appreciate beauty. I can en-courage that through a gratitude practice, listening to beautiful music, admiring the beauty of people on the subway and those I work with, and by buying myself flowers occasionally.
2- I stand up for what I believe in. The surprising answer to how i can en-courage that is to let myself off the hook a bit more, go off duty more and have more lighthearted times. Yes please!
3- I follow through on what I commit to. By way of encouragement, I can just give myself a hug for that! And maybe I also need to be sure I commit to some time to just rest and unwind, and be more discerning about what I commit to.
Wow beautifully said Heartease !! Your encouragement sounds very visionary !
i realized I skipped how I en-courage my gifts.
What a wonderful article in the Hudson valley Magazine, Julia. So many summaries offer pieces of what this practice is about, but this article is wonderful – with great attention to accuracy and capturing the spirit of your work in a small space.
Gifts that I have are creativity (I can’t really say I have it, it’s more like it channels through me), compassion and I like to sing (I’m not a great singer like some people would be but I can carry a tune and I enjoy it.) I definitely feel like I am using all these gifts. Sometimes, related to creativity, I have to carefully choose the best creative thing to do from the many possibilities that appear when I open myself. For instance I would say or think I need an activity for a children or junior youth class, and then not usually immediately but often very soon a flood of ideas come in.
I have been doing the Glass House imagery with my mother (and actually my father with whom I had more difficulties) and Child’s Play Fertile Heart body truth. I didn’t realize there was so much there in the parent department to trigger emotion. It makes sense that the challenging interactions we may have had as children relate to orphans of the parents. My dad felt he was abandoned by his parents who were you might say overzealous church supporters. When it came to how might there be better interactions, one thing that came to mind was often, when I was a young child, I felt that I had to comfort my mother when the things my dad would say to her )or the delivery of those things) made her cry. I should not have been in that role. Then later, when I was older, my dad would tell me things/habits that he disliked about my mom. My adult me watching these scenes tells my younger self, I should never have been in that middle position. My adult self today would say to the two of them ‘You two work it out and with a little more respect please”. My young self wouldn’t dare say such a thing. Now today I dearly love both of them – they have both passed away. I am so blessed that my dad started saying all the things I needed to hear as a child to me starting a few years before he passed away. I don’t know that my brother and sister ever received that from my dad, not that he wasn’t trying to give them that love the last few years, but because my brother and sister had built up protective walls over the years of challenges and wouldn’t let him in.
Blessings to all.
Wow Gravid – I really identify with your story. My parents both had so many orphans that I am just beginning to identify with Fertile Heart. My father was orphaned when he was thirteen and adopted by a couple that didn’t provide for most of his needs. My mother’s parents were cold and occasionally abusive. I have been my mother’s primary support since almost before I can remember. She has always relied on me to help comfort and calm her. Sometimes I feel like I am her mother. That was a hard position to be in for a little girl. I am sorry that you lost your parents. My father died when I was 21, too young to really ever know him as an adult and sometimes I miss him now more than I did when he died. I am lucky to have my mother, but that relationship still has some vestiges of resentment. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you, Sparxy, for writing about your feelings toward your parents. What resonates with me is how you were a mother for your mother. I have been in similar position myself and it feels encouraging that there is a way out of this position. I am sorry you lost your father already.
Like I wrote to you yesterday Julia, I love this photo. You are beautiful and it so completely captures your infectious energy. When I look at it, I feel the same energy awaken in myself like it did at the Meeting Your Child Halfway seminar that my husband Dan and I attended in December. By the way when we left your home, Dan called you a “firecracker” ( in a most flattering way of course) :) I am so pleased you are being honored by the Hudson Valley magazine.
Like many of the other fertile mamas out there I found this request to be quite difficult.
I think the three gifts I recognize in myself are:
1) Tenacity. I am hard pressed to give up on most things and this journey is no exception. I have been knocked on my butt so many times in our path to our child that I dare not even count. Sometimes I stay down and cry for a bit, sometimes I stay down and cry for longer, but I alway, always get back up and brush myself off with renewed determination
2) Empathy. I have always had deep empathy for others but this has grown much deeper on this journey. Especially when I am reminded about how before our journey began, I would find myself judging other infertile couples (just eat better! I would say, or wow why don’t they do some research and see what vitamin you need) Now I know the other side very well and I have taken all of my advice and more and yet I am still here. So the understanding that we can not see in to someones else heart or in to their lives and that I should not judge has blossomed and I hope it continues to.
3) Humor. I have a really good sense of humor and its a wonderful gift indeed, but the real gift is that I now see how I use humor to avoid feeling and facing what I need to face. I used to use it to hide my pain and now I use it much more judiciously and watch very carefully for that orphan to peak in and say hello.
Living in my truth and bowing everyday to what is encourages me to use these gifts more and more.
Awesome article Julia…congratulations once again :) !!
This is the most difficult challenge. As I was noting down my gratitude towards GOD for what I have been bestowed with yesterday, this is what I came up with about myself, the three gifts that I recognize in myself are – ”
1. dared to walk out of my comfort zone (I needed to remind myself not everyone can do this), so in other words courage
2. Strength and persistence to keep walking no matter what – being a fighter
3. Having discrimination to choose the right thing (by God’s grace) – this I feel is truly a HUGE gift, which I am realizing more and more now a days
I want to complete how I would encourage myself to use these gifts fully. Firstly, I will always support myself to be open, especially now that I have seen how it actually worked out :)
Secondly, if i desire something from the bottom of my heart, I would encourage myself to reach out even if it the path taken is not the regular route
thirdly, I would like to really hug myself, pat myself, show gratitude to my dearest body baby and all the cells of my body
I’m so proud of you! Great honor!
So you know I struggle thinking that anything I have is truly a gift. But years of therapy taught me that diminishing what I’ve done or what I can do doesn’t serve me well. So here we go:
1. I am a pretty decent writer who can use words to comb through the tangles of life and smooth things out;
2. I”m persistent as hell and I know how to fight;
3. I can do an awesome headstand. (I’m honestly stuck on #3 and this is the best I can come up with right now). ;-)
I am not sure what encouragement I need to utilize these gifts more fully. I do get encouragement for my writing, but yet I don’t embrace it as I need to. I think I need to give myself permission to just write, no matter what it’s about. Maybe I need to just simply encourage myself. Sometimes the persistence doesn’t feel like a gift, but more of a burden. But I know it’s a gift because in life, some of the best stuff requires effort to get. So maybe I just need to encourage myself to remember that.
Love to you, Julia! I am so excited to be launching the new year with you and all of the other awesomely fertile mamas here.
I read this article after Julia posted a link on Facebook and was so happy to read it. I had a huge smile on my face, especially when I saw the photos. You can just see the visionary so clearly. Julia, you are most definitely a person to watch. I’m so privileged to be part of this work and our circle.
Love this picture of you and I enjoyed the article!I agree with heartsease, it’s great to see FH getting the accolades and exposure! I really had to think about the three gifts, it’s easier to find flaws and faults, which gently reminds me of orphans that need tending to. I think my gifts are being tenacious (much nicer than stubborn), compassionate, and loyal. This was a challenge, I’ll admit.
Gorgeous picture! Is that Elbows First?! And it’s a gorgeous article. I’ll be enjoying Watching you, all through 2016! But, truly, it’s great to see you and your work getting this recognition and exposure.
Nice to understand the word encouragement in this way, thanks. Now… Three gifts. What a good challenge. I’ll need some time to answer that.