Do people depend on you?

Being a support system for other people is sort of like having a superpower. Your presence has energy that others can feel just by being around you. It feels safe, making it easy for them to open up and maybe even ask for help.

Those who have this quality are likely to be spectacular beings, but being there for others can have its challenges. On one hand, being the person that others depend on can bring you a sense of fulfillment, knowing that you have a positive influence on someone’s life.

On the other hand, being the person people depend on can feel like a heavy responsibility, that could ultimately cloud your focus of what matters most.

It’s easy to lose yourself in what you believe you “should be” doing for others, while your needs get pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

Before you find yourself experiencing angst, frustration, or worse, resentment, it’s important to become aware of your relationship with being there for others.

Checking-In With Yourself

Some people have very welcoming energy about them, once you’re around them you feel comfortable and safe to speak your truth. This is a wonderful gift that could easily be taken advantage of if you’re not careful.

People who are always there for their loved ones, coworkers, and sometimes the occasional stranger on a park bench, aren’t always there for themselves. It’s challenging to set a boundary that requires you NOT to be available for other people, after all it has become a part of who you are.

This doesn’t mean that being of service is a bad thing, but too much giving and not enough receiving is a recipe for an imbalanced lifestyle.

A good place to start is by checking in with your experience as well as how others are doing. The next time you are needed or being asked to do something, ask yourself:

How do I feel at this moment?
Can I handle this emotionally?
Am I doing this for the right reasons?
How will I feel after accomplishing this?
Will this hurt me or anyone else?
Is this way of helping aligned with my highest good?

Check in With Your Wellbeing

Get curious about how serving others is impacting your wellbeing. By deepening your connection with the service you provide you are more capable of creating a much-needed boundary.

Because if you are willing to do anything for anyone, you’re going to quickly burn yourself out. The more attentive you are to your own needs the better able you are to show up for those who need you most.

Tune into your energy levels, check-in on how you’re feeling, listen to any resistant thoughts popping up, all of these are signs that you need to take care of yourself.

When your energy is replenished you have more to give, no matter what pops up in your day. Start by checking in with how you’re feeling moment to moment and allow the honest answer to surface within you.

There is a difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling disconnected from the way you serve your community. The only way to understand which one you are experiencing is by turning inward, which may not come naturally to someone who does so much for other people.

It can feel selfish to consider your own feelings because the obligation to others is so deeply rooted. The people who invest a considerable amount of time and energy into the needs of others are wired by service.

If left unchecked this can be a driving force toward resentment or anxiety about what you do and who you do it for. By tuning into your personal experience and choosing to be present you can tap into the truth of how this affects you.

Self-Care is Necessary

When caring for others more often than not the mind is wired to focus on them, considering their needs before your own comes with the territory. But when you aren’t at your best you can’t deliver your best self to them.

Your performance may suffer, your energy levels may deplete, you may be physically present while your mind is somewhere else. Something as rewarding as serving, providing, and caring for others shouldn’t have to come at the cost of your mental health.

What I would love for you to take away is that there is most likely something in your life that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

Maybe it’s the lack of healthy food your eating or movement you giving your body. Maybe it’s the way you deal with the hardest challenge in your life or the troubling emotions that feel too impossible to handle. I’m telling you to pay attention.

Look at how you treat the unpleasantness in your life, and how it returns the favor in your lifestyle. Notice the lack of attention you give yourself, while you glorify the attention you give others.

Raise your level of self-awareness so that you can truly begin to deal with and heal from whatever is going on in your life. This is the first step to being better for yourself and for those who need you most.

Love. Heal. Grow.

Identifying Your Focus

The dance between desire and resistance is constantly pulsating throughout your life. It lives in every thought that arises, every emotion that surfaces, every decision being made, as well as the consequences that follow. Each day you are sifting through what you want and don’t want. As you identify your goals, dreams, desires, planning out the next steps, and learning all that you have to overcome, you are co-creating your life with the universe. Figuring out what you desire takes energy, just as figuring out what you do not desire takes energy. If you want to attract a better, more improved lifestyle, it’s essential to understand what you are constantly focusing on.

Co-creation has a great deal to do with focus and decisiveness. Whatever you focus on is what will begin appearing in your life. Once you’ve decided on what action needs to take place, the momentum will begin to shift the sails of progress in your favor. When you know what you want, and believe that there is a force out there helping you reach it, life will propel you toward the next steps. Co-creation is happening whether you or not you are aware of what your attention is on. Therefore, if you’re focused on fearing the worst and catastrophizing all of the ways your life can unfold, you are aiding in that particular co-creation in your life.

A common mistake in co-creation is focusing the majority of your attention on that which you no longer want. You may think you’re simply separating that which you desire from what you do not, but that’s not what your energy is saying. Each time you talk or think about what you wish would change in your life, what you’re lacking in your life, how unfair circumstances are for you, what you don’t like anymore, and all the ways you are suffering, you are focusing your energy on resistance. Resisting what you WANT by focusing on what you DON’T WANT. See, the universe doesn’t respond to the words you’re speaking. It doesn’t hear “don’t” “can’t” “no”. The universe speaks in energetic frequency or the feeling you experience when thinking those thoughts and speaking those words.

When your attention is focused on what you don’t want you to feel contracted, closed, limited, frustrated, and far from that which you’re searching for. The more you experience this feeling, the more you share the energy of resistance to what it is you truly want. because that is the frequency you are strongly emitting. Therefore you have to become attuned to the energy and feelings that your thoughts are generating so that you are aware of what it is you are calling into your life. It’s very important to distinguish what you want from what you don’t but what comes after is monumental.

Tapping Into Your Desires

Visualizing the best version of yourself is a powerful form of communicating exactly what you want. It’s a practice of building up the muscle of your mind to create goodness in your life. It’s easier to play out the negatives in your life because you spot them easier. The brain was designed to keep you safe, out of harm’s way, so you’re likely to notice the wrongs over the rights in your life. All this means is that you’re practicing focusing on one more than the other. So it’s important to implement a visualization practice into your daily routine. Start building your imagination muscle to create the wonderful abundant things in life you label as “impossible”, “some-days”, or “dreaming big”.

Start by asking yourself questions that dare you to dream big. There are no limits to your imagination unless you put them there, so when you begin to notice them start dismantling them. It may be hard at first if you’re someone struggling with self-doubt, disbelief, and fear of that which you have yet to see. That just means you have to practice shifting your thoughts into the limitless possibilities more often. Remember that all things that exist today began in the mind of someone, just imagine what’s waiting in yours.

In your mind’s eye play out what it would look like to be successful, how it would look to feel peaceful, how it would look to be happy with yourself and in your relationships, how it would look to have a job you love providing a service you believe in. If you’re not sure of what exactly you want out of the next phase of your life start by focusing on what brings you joy now. Think of the activities where you’re smiling not worried about the time, experiencing flow, feeling fulfilled and exploding with love. Bring to mind the people who make you feel good, the places that ground you, the events that are forever etched in your memory bank as magic. The longer you hold your focus on a thought, the stronger you emit that frequency, the more clear the universe gets your request.

Aligning with that which you desire is simple to do, but requires constant awareness of your energetic focus. Once you’ve become aware of the many ways you are feeding into low vibrations, distracting thoughts, and negative feelings, you can start bringing yourself into that which you do want. Start looking for things that make you feel good and appreciating those moments while they are happening. Practice visualizing the life you want to live when you notice you’re focused on all that you want to change. Begin strengthening your focus on better feeling thoughts and you’ll start attracting improved circumstances.

Walking Forward in Faith

It’s called co-creation because you’re not alone in making things happen, although there is still work to be done on your part. Identifying your desire, practicing gratitude for your current blessings, focusing your attention on what is on it’s way to you, and taking the practical steps to make this shift into abundance-these are all your responsibilities. Spirit is all-knowing, therefore it has a different role in the co-creation of your life. Spirit’s role is to guide you on the path. Not reveal the next 2 miles ahead, you’ll only get a few hundred feet. Not to give you the answers outright, but will give the guidance on the next step IF you ask. Not to provide all the solutions for you, but to lead you to the resources to help build your levels of knowledge, resiliency, and awareness on this journey. If you’re lost on the path you can, and always should ask for guidance. Release the idea that you know how life should unfold for you, or the specific steps you think need to happen. Let go of the idea that you are in control of the how because you’re not. Set up the best plan you possibly can, take action on it every day, keep moving forward in all the ways you possibly can, and then let go of the outcome.

Releasing the reins on the how is one of the hardest things for humans to be. The ego drives you into thinking that your perspective, your plan, your idea, your way is the right way. This kind of thinking can cloud your judgment, sometimes taking you away from what’s best for you. Spirit is all-knowing and always knows what’s best for you. Walking forward in faith is about trusting that the higher power you are co-creating is orchestrating life to work in your favor. The connection you share with Spirit is one of unconditional love. Just as a parent wants nothing but the best for their child and will do anything to make that happen, Spirit wants that very same for you. When your desires are clearly communicated, your energy is aligned with your purpose, and you are taking action on your goals, Spirit begins paving the unknown for your arrival.

On top of all of your concrete actions that need to be taken, there is yet another powerful decision to make that can’t be seen or measured. It can only be felt, believed, understood, and experienced. That is having faith in that which you cannot see but already believe. A prerequisite of acquiring the life you want is believing it will show up, even before there is any evidence proving you right. Keeping a strong sense of faith during times of uncertainty, suffering, loss, change, illness, and fear is going to be difficult. With each challenge you find yourself facing you will have a choice: strengthen your faith or strengthen your doubt.

Doubt comes from the inability to believe that something is possible, mainly because we are focusing on the specific tools, knowledge, and circumstances currently available. Doubt creeps in and plans it’s hostile take over when there isn’t enough “proof” that everything is going to work out. Doubt is strong, and the mind has had plenty of practice in building its case with it. Faith, on the other hand, comes from the ability to believe in something that is felt but not seen. Faith is the medium of communication between who you are now and who you are becoming. Faith is harder to keep around than doubt because it’s asking you to keep going when it feels impossible, to keep your head up when you’re exhausted, to keep moving when you “think” you have nothing left. But faith will bring you to the other side of fear, where all of your desires are waiting, while doubt will keep you complacent and safe from change.

Piecing It All Together

There will always be the labeling of the wanted and unwanted, desire and aversion, attraction and resistance. This is how people sift through categories of life, creating mental vision boards of what you believe is best for you, and what is not. Now you understand the energy that goes into this process and just how powerful that energy is. The energy you release with the thoughts you experience and the words you share are creating a conversation with the universe. You are communicating the details of the life you want to create, whether you are aware of it or not. And now that you’re aware of it here are 10 practices you can start today.

Be mindful of where your focus is throughout the majority of the day
Spend less time focusing on what you DON’T want
Practice shifting your attention toward the blessings you already have
Begin thinking of how good it feels to have what you are attracting into your life
Build a plan and keep working toward attaining these goals, successes, accomplishments
Surrender the outcome to a higher power, release the how
Actively choose faith over doubt once you become aware of the choice
Practice building your imagination muscle and visualizing your future
Stop limiting what is possible for you
Be gentle with yourself in the challenging times, you’re doing the best you can.

Spirit has been waiting for you to finally commit to co-creating your life with a conscious effort. Each time you practice you release what no longer serves you and gain clarity on what is best for you. Lean into the process by having fun with your imagination and conversations with the universe. Asking for help can be as simple as “I don’t know what I’m doing, please help guide me”. Just be sure to practice patience for the answer to the surface within you. Keep an eye out for your surroundings and anything that could be seen as a sign, you’ll just feel it. The more you practice communicating with a higher power the more comfortable and clear your relationship will become.

Love, heal, grow.

Tag: Spirit

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