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Ready for 2022? End of Year Reflection #4

30/11/2021

My mentor once told me, God is painting the most beautiful canvas of our life, if you keep holding on to the brush and insisting on putting your own colors, you will end up with chaos.

Painters know that adding just one wrong color to the mix can turn a beautiful vibrant paint into a muddy mess… I indeed need to let go of the brush… Letting go does not mean surrendering work and actions; it means surrendering the results… refraining from being attached to any specific outcome… doing the best that I can while trusting the Divine to paint the ultimate piece of art for me.

Caroline Myss teaches that part of humility is to “let go of the superstition that, because you do not surrender, you can prevent God from creating chaos in your life.” She asks readers to “feel the awe that illuminates you where fear once lived.” Letting go of fear is another hard task. Along the years, I have been battling many fears… fear of the unknown, fear of tomorrow, fear of failure, fear of criticism, fear of letting people down, fear of being let down, fear of not having enough, fear of not being enough… and the list goes on and on…
Maybe it is time for me to try once more to let go of my fears… to trust and surrender.

As Myss teaches, “I surrender my mind, my heart, my need for safety and my need for rational explanations to God’s will for me. I trust that all that is in my life is as it should be.”

Now, it is your turn. What do you need to let go of?

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2022... We're almost there! End of Year Reflection #3

23/11/2021

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Like its sister 2020, 2021 has been full of turbulence and uncertainty. If there is one thing I've learned (and am still learning) is that nothing is certain – change is the only constant in our life.

Ambiguity and chaos are integral parts of life. 2021 taught me again and again to make peace with them and to embrace my fears and worries as protectors and signposts rather then decision makers. I wasn't always successful, but kept on trying. I learned not to let my fears choose and decide for me. I learned to acknowledge and listen to my fears yet connect to my heart and let my spirit guide the way.

I've also learned that I have to fight for my rights. I learned to walk the fine line between humility and self-doubt knowing my rights, my value, and my worth.

I learned to connect to God on a much deeper level, talk to Him and embrace silence so I can listen to His answer. I learned to see Him in everything and everyone I encounter. I learned to love Him like I never experienced before.

Now, it is your turn. What lessons did you learn in 2021 – the hard way?

Have a beautiful week

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It's 2022! End of Year Reflection #2

16/11/2021

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For many of us, thinking about our accomplishments might be challenging. Sometimes when we look at our life, we think we didn't achieve much because we didn't reach any concrete goals yet... This is mainly because we learned to measure our success from a Western mentality standpoint, looking only at material achievements - things that we can see, hear, touch, taste or smell; Things that we can perceive with our five external senses; and worse yet, things that others can see and praise us for. With all the selfies and hypes on social media, it is extremely difficult to even try to fit in… we can’t help but compare and we end up beating ourselves up and torturing ourselves with guilt and feeling worthless.
But, this shouldn’t be the case… Sometimes our biggest achievement is in laying the foundation and the groundwork for our next stage in life, our inner growth, our inner heroic journey that only God could see…
When considering your achievements this year, I invite you to first consider your heart, namely its state: Is its mirror well polished reflecting the beauty of your human spirit? Is it closer or further away from its Creator? Is it more loving, forgiving and caring? Is it more balanced? Is it braver, more courageous? Is it wiser and more just?

Take out your journal and start your reflection…

Have a beautiful week,

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2022... New Year Reflection

9/11/2021

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Another year is almost gone. I don’t know how and where it went… so many things happened this year, and so many things didn’t. And, as we are preparing to move into the New Year, we’re also preparing ourselves for a new “norm” that is here to stay – no one can deny that some things have forever changed, not just in the world, but also in us, in our souls… For the best or the worst, I don’t know, but I believe it is up to us to determine… it is up to us to choose.
This year, I am starting my end of year reflection earlier than usual. I felt that I needed more time of stillness and self reflection… more time to sit in silence and ponder… more time to dig into my soul looking for answers or making peace with not finding those answers.

I am inviting you to join me on this reflective journey… Today is the first of our 7-week End of Year Reflection… I’ll post a prompt every week for you to contemplate. You might like to print the image and stick it in a new page spread of your journal and give yourself the whole week to reflect on it…

Despite its obvious challenges, there are always tons of things we are truly grateful for… God sends us grace and blessings every single day, every single moment… we just need to be awake and aware to receive them.
Write your list of at least 3 things you are grateful for in 2021. Allow yourself to breathe them in, embody them, and fully feel the gratitude with every cell of your body. God promises us: “If you express gratitude, I shall certainly give you more” (Q. 14: 7)

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A Soul Yearning...

1/11/2021

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Years ago, my cousins and I used to rent a small boat from the shores of the Alexandrian sea. The fisherman would warn us, “you can row far and wide, but never cross the boughaz (the inlet)” – this was a small opening in the wall of the breakwater rocks that the city had instilled years ago to protect its shores from the raging sea…. The Mediterranean coastlines were thus tamed and peaceful. The sea was still vast and wide open… you can safely row for hours and hours and stop your boat to fish and cast your net… You’re safe and protected as long as you don’t cross the inlet - the boughaz!

Yet, crossing we did… EVERY SINGLE TIME… We couldn’t help it… Those bunch of rebellious kids who wanted to experiment with the unknown. As soon as we got the hang of our tiny boat, we row and row away from the shore and out of sight right through the boughaz… it’s a whole new world out there, a magical feeling… In just a few seconds, you’re thrown into the wild and the Mediterranean shows its true face, its untamed and scary side… It’s much more alive than the boring smooth waters of the safe coastlines. Once we've tried it, we could never enjoy the tamed sea again… we had to cross the inlet… every time we’re out in the sea… and, it was our little secret.

Greek mythology teaches about the Symplegades – those Clashing Rocks in the midst of the sea that collided whenever a vessel would attempt to pass through. In the myth, we learn that they were conquered by Jason and the Argonauts who followed the advice of Phineus, the seer. Jason let a dove fly through the opening to check how fast they needed to go to make it through. The dove lost its tail’s feathers, but made it through, so did they as they row with all their might. They made it and the rocks stopped moving forever.
It is said that the myth is a symbol of the soul yearning to cross the barrier that separates the material worldly realm from the spirit, the Divine breath, the magical, yet dangerous territory of the heavenly dominion.
Not everyone can cross the Clashing Rocks, teach the Sufis… and not everyone is expected to even try. Many of us prefer the safety of the material physical world that we are familiar with. The world of senses, a world that we can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. The spirit is unknown and will forever remain so. No one can explain it… You can only get a glimpse for yourself… You only have a few seconds, to feel this connection, to throw yourself in the wild open sea… a few seconds that will forever change the way you experience reality.
As St. Teresa of Avila describes it, “the little butterfly who feels so estranged from the world begins to seek true refuge again. But where can the poor creature go? She can’t return to where she came from. No matter how hard we try, we are powerless to enter God’s abode until He is pleased to bring us there again Himself.”

Those rebellious kids at the Alexandrian coastlines could never enjoy the safety of the tamed sea again… the beauty and serenity, the peacefulness of the vast blue waters that meant the world to everyone, was but a boring illusion that held them from the true taste of the mysterious world – a world with no boundaries – the “true” Mediterranean – the True Sea, they yearned for.

40 years later, I’m wondering whether the beauty, safety, and comfort of my modern life became but a boring illusion… is my soul yearning to cross the boughaz, to pass the Clashing Rocks and connect with its True Sea?

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Ready for 2022? End of Year Reflection #4

2022... We're almost there! End of Year Reflection #3

It's 2022! End of Year Reflection #2

2022... New Year Reflection

A Soul Yearning...

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