This facet will be covered over the course of several classes. It’s the heart of what you’ll learn about yourself and the biggest awakening of your self-love. In this class we’ll focus on the stories you’ve made up about who you are, and how there is something much more beautiful about you than you’ve allowed yourself to see.
Now we’re going to get into the heart of what this workshop is all about.
We’re going to delve beneath the surface to see what’s been driving you.
This is a most fascinating journey into your ‘inner world’ that will soon help you emerge as the woman you truly are, glorious and glowing with radiant love.
This may be something you’ve never done before. That’s part of the reason we started with some simple meditations–or more accurately, guided visualizations–so you’d get used to how it feels to ‘go inside’ and connect with your Inner Wise Self.
It’s a beautiful world inside of you, where your True Self, your Essence can be found. It’s also where your deepest hearts desires are held for safe-keeping. One of the primary goals of this workshop is to help you make those desires a reality.
Second Facet of Feminine Grace
Love Yourself
Remember first that everything you think,
Neale Donald Walsh
say and do is a reflection of what
you’ve decided about yourself.
The primary reason to develop Feminine Grace is to become happier and expand your ability to love and be loved. One thing I’ve learned in my years of working with women and men is their ability to love another and to receive love is directly proportional to their level of self-love. What’s also important to understand is that your level of happiness is tied to self-love.
Everything in this section is designed to help you develop more and more self-love.
Your Story Is Not Who You Are
We all have a story that makes up the tapestry of our lives. It’s filled with unique experiences that are often dear to us, and sometimes painful. Your story is the details of what has happened in your past. It’s the story of what occurred on the surface, the events. Your story is not what lies within your heart, your psyche, and your innermost being.
Too often, we get stuck in the story, spinning round and round, telling it over and over, offering up the details, thinking that is who we are.
But in telling your story, it’s unlikely you’ve gone beneath the surface, which is how your story has influenced your day-to-day life.
So I’m going to help you see yourself as the woman you are, within your heart, not the details of what happened to you.
The more you can discover what drives you, what causes you to respond to the world as you do, what you want, what changes you want to make, and how you want your life to look in the future, the more you will be able to let go of the story and connect with your true self, which is the part of you that you will fall in love with. This requires you to quiet your mind so you can feel the real you inside.
We stay so busy, dealing with the surface stuff—the details of our stories—that we never delve into the parts of ourselves that really matter. And when we have someone who will listen to our story, we’re generally looking for affirmation that we’re right, or that we’ve been the victim and seeking sympathy and agreement.
Or, if we’re proud of something we’ve done, we want approval. None of that will help you get to the heart of what really matters, how you really feel about what happened in those stories, which is required for you to become the happy women you say you want to be.
Assignment #1
What Are Your Stories
In your journal, write the stories you’ve been telling about your life. These are the stories you tell over and over, either out loud, or just to yourself. Maybe about your childhood, your school years, your old boyfriend, the break-up of your marriage. Write your stories as little notes, or in great detail. Notice how excited you are to tell your story.
An example of one of my stories: My dad left when I was 3 and I never saw him again. He was with another woman when I was born; he used to steal from his family and pawn what he took; he was charismatic and good looking; loved to party; called me on my daughter’s 3rd birthday and we had a nice talk, then he called again wanting to borrow money; he called one more time wanting to borrow a smaller sum, $17 and I found the strength to say no. (As you can see, there’s no emotion in that story, just what I’ve told over and over.)
Assignment #2
How Do Your Stories ‘Feel’?
Now that you have your list of stories that you’ve been telling about yourself, I want you to do a meditation that will unearth the feelings behind those stories.
Here’s the reason it’s important to do this process in a relaxation meditation. Because you’ve been telling these stories about yourself for a long time, and you probably haven’t given them much thought. So the neuro pathways are quite embedded in your brain. You’re so used to the story part, that you haven’t noticed the feelings around most of those stories.
It’s the feelings that have colored your being, how you react and respond to life. So in this assignment, I want you to go to listen the guided visualization below, ‘Discovering How Your Stories Feel.’
Note: If you have not done the meditation for the 2nd Class, please do that first so you can meet your Inner Wise Being.
When you are deeply relaxed, pick up your journal and with each story, close your eyes, and ask your Inner Wise Being to help you discover the feeling (or feelings) that are associated with that story. Make notes about how it feels to make these discoveries about yourself.
Depending on how many ‘stories’ you have to go through, you may want to do more than one session. Or, if it’s difficult to find quiet time, you might want to select the most significant stories and work with those.