I write from my home this week (and full of Brazil saudades), with a Maya musing to offer you which began in a coaching session with a wonderful client and rippled across my trip as a theme.
On Goddxx Path 121s, we often journey using the JOY, Illusion, Bridge work I explain in my book Journal to JOY, and usually, at the end of the session, we have an overriding theme or ‘landing’. That day, the landing for my client was, “I AM the hero in this story not the sidechick!” (download it as your very own phone screensaver HERE)
After the session, I reflected on how easy it can be (and has been for me in the past), to take a back seat in our life story…for example in romantic relationships to let ourselves be swept along by the other person’s wants and needs and put ourselves last, or in life be swept along by what happens to us and never really carve out the life we would love.
Have you ever felt like you were trying to slot into a plot that someone else was directing?
Or that you were just being affected by the events that happen to you rather than carving out your own path?
Or that you were waiting for life to start “when” something or another happens… as if life is on hold until you are really ready to take the reins, but for now you can’t live the life of your dreams because family/friends/your own beliefs tell you not to?
The value of that beautiful client’s mantra also landed for me in Brazil over the past few weeks as I really did carve out a dream adventure following my intuition (not just being affected by external factors), whilst continuing to work, and letting a three week date (where we were both the hero of the story in Brazil!) unfold … and here is why…
Once upon a time in Lisbon, a friend said to me, ‘Brazilians are free… free in their hearts… we Portuguese, we are not’…
Whilst not true for everyone, I saw this of many Brazilians I met on this trip, and their free-ness really helped me be even more ME to the full out there…
Perhaps a few contributing factors to my friend saying this is that Brazilian music is so Joyful, the climate (and food) is great and the nature is breathtakingly beautiful, but, the thing I find most POW is that people seem to care less about niceties and so are freer to be themselves to the full… of course, it is also a country with contradictions, extremes in poverty and racism… and we cannot talk of Brazilian’s freedom without also acknowledging 5.5 million enslaved people were brought to Brazil between 1540 and the 1860s years and its effects are still visible… but something that lands with each visit is that in spite of all of this, this country is dancing, is full of alegria (happiness) and feels so abundant in nature, creativity and self expression.
I think for the reasons my Portuguese friend hinted at, Brazil is a place where I feel more free to embody my authentic self and carve out my own path: in fact it was upon my return from Brazil in 2005 that I decided I was going to go for it and be a dancer, and after a trip in 2006 (I stayed fro three months that time), that I decided to move to London from Leeds to give dance my everything. Up until that point, I had been thinking I ‘should’ get the kind of job my family would approve of, follow the path I was told to etc etc…
I think the freeness I feel in Brazil is also one of the reasons it was such a great location for a three week date (more coming on the hows and whys of this soon I promise!)
Here are some things that landed for me whilst there: My top 5 tips on how to be the hero in your story without being a dickasaurus (find out what a dickasaurus is here):
1: Do your choices, the inner work, Journal to JOY practice, the alchemy and get to know who you really are every day.
2: Observe and honour your own & other people’s boundaries.
3: Notice and get comfortable with your emotions: use Embodied Alchemy and other techniques to be ok with them.
4: Don’t manipulate/sulk/steal/oppress others to get what you love/be you to the full
5: Go for what you love & dedicate yourself to being you to the full: embrace your magic, your creativity, your heart, your cool weirdness.
And how about you? Are you the hero in your own story or are you dimming your light to be the side-chick in someone else’s? If so how can you step up and be the true hero in your life story?