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Be Seen
Your truth is your voice.
How you express your beingness is a journey from within. Too often, we focus on being accepted rather than being authentic, real, and unfiltered.
Go all in with who you are. Your life is your playground for living out loud. Connect with your essence, nourish your soul, ground yourself in your truth, love yourself, and be grateful for being YOU.
Your life is NOT about being accepted. It’s about being seen.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Aa Novo
What Are You Telling Yourself?
Are you aware of the dialogue you spin in your head?
Are you rehashing a painful, past experience?
Are you doubting yourself?
Are you replaying somebody’s harsh judgment of you?
Are you what if’ing yourself into an oblivion?
Are you judging others?
Are you amplifying your fears and piggybacking them with anger?
Are you aware you can change all of that?
words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Henry Be
Your Worth
You know what is special about you.
Go. Reconnect. As often as you forget.
all words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Jessie Bowser
Truth Is In The Present
The traditions of living can create a false sense of what is, for you. When you adopt a tradition, you walk a path already walked. Of course, there is joy to be experienced through tradition. But it’s a feeling of familiarity, of comfort, of security. The joy is not discovered or created.
Truth is ever available in each moment. When you let go of the past and unlearn your conditioning, truth is revealed. Your truth is rather than was. Lack of awareness welcomes tradition. Mindfulness is a relationship with truth.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Samuel Silitoga
How You Frame It
Your inner dialogue greatly influences your mood, your behavior, and your outlook about life.
If you are forever re-running something painful from your past in your head, don’t be surprised when the emotions associated with that experience are what you feel. If you doubt yourself or harshly judge yourself, don’t be surprised when you feel “less than.” If you are always giving into fear and telling yourself, “I just couldn’t do that.” don’t be surprised when you don’t make progress.
If you are going through a challenge, how you think and talk about it, matters. A lot! How you frame it is how your whole being responds to it. If you refer to your life (experiences) in a negative and/or defeating way, you will attract more negativity and defeat and feel negative and defeated.
It’s not magic. It’s not being naive. It’s not ignoring the work. It’s all about taking a healthy approach to your life in every moment. Everything you could ever feel or give begins within YOU.
If you’re hurting, acknowledge the hurt, and tell yourself you are healing. If you’re lost, acknowledge being lost, and tell yourself you’re learning. Of course, reinforcing this healthy mindset with healthy behaviors in healthy environments will also help.
words on image: Michael Barat / image: Pixabay
Comfort Is Quicksand
Think about those mornings when every inch of your bed just hugs you? The sheets and blankets have created the perfect temperature, that you almost feel one with them. Your pillow is a soft cloud for your heavy mind.
What else is going here? That’s right. Your comfort is holding you back from beginning your day. Exercising. Meditating. Eating a heathy breakfast. Spending some meaningful time with someone - or even with yourself.
Comfort denies new experience. Comfort ignores creativity. Comfort stunts growth. Comfort delays learning. Comfort teams up with fear to stop you from: exploring, going further, looking more intently, being curious and courageous, and yes, they stop you from living divinely and loving deeply.
Comfort is best experienced as a flowing reminder that you are living. However, it can also be a stagnant stop.
words + words on image: Michael Barata / image: Lisa Fotios
Your Inner Badass
Inside each of us is a badass. Our inner badass lives authentically. Loves boldly. Speaks confidently.
To our inner badass, fear is something to overcome. Pain is the teacher and healing is the lesson. Vulnerability is an opportunity for growth. Our inner badass will only express our truth.
What stops our inner badass? We do. We quiet it. We hide it. We ignore it. We deny it. We doubt it.
No more. Give way to your inner badass.
words on image: Michael Barata / image: Mabel Amber
Your Truth Is Enough
No need to figure out life. Your life is your gift. Your truth is the unfolding of it.
Along the way, you will doubt your truth. You will hide your truth. Hell, you’ll even be told your truth is not enough. They are obstacles. You may trip and fall. Get up. It’s your truth.
Your truth is beautiful because it’s your truth. It’s what makes your life, authentic. The highs and lows, the flow and the falls.
Your truth is yours. All of it. The knee-buckling obstacles as well as the awe inspiring beautiful scenery.
words: Michael Barata / image: MaLeK DriDi
Heal From Within
We hurt. We endure painful experiences. We mourn. We resent. We express anger. We cry. We lament. We self-doubt. We feel exploited. We fear.
Through all of those experiences, we can also heal. It may look and feel unattainable, but healing is the mindful, heartfelt, and soulful experience we can choose. That journey will be unique to YOU.
Healing is an inner experience...and ever available to you. .
words on image: Michael Barata / image PhotoMIX Ltd
Self-Love To Heal
We yearn for what was. We fear what hasn’t happened. And we tend to loop inner dialogues based on both.
If you’re hurting, then hurt. But also give yourself an opportunity to heal. When you relive what has hurt you in the past, you ignore what can heal you in the present. Your hurt will only last as long as you give it energy. The clear message is that you do have something or someone in your life to be grateful for. Yes you do. Remind yourself, as often as you want/need.
Accept the hurt and accept the healing. I know we can’t control every thought that pops into our minds, BUT we CAN consciously decide what to do after a thought. This is true for every moment of your life. Therefore, the beauty is you can choose healthy, healing thinking and behavior whenever you want, such as: gratitude journaling, positive self-messaging, therapy/counseling, meditation, yoga, exercise, walk, travel, a forgotten hobby, a warm bath, reading, etc. I’ve deiced to do 20 pushups whenever I consciously engage in a hurtful thought or behavior. Bonus: my pecs desperately needed the attention,
I know the ache can be debilitating which can also cloud all of your senses. In these states, we also doubt the possibility and bliss of love. So, we give even more space to the hurt and build a wall to love. Your healing can be so restorative. The journey to healing can present lessons and gifts you never could have imagined.
But first, you need to commit to self-love. To heal, you must love yourself.
words: Michael Barata / image: Designecologist
Begin With YOU
We can spend so much time and energy wondering what others are saying about us. If you’re not there, you’ll never know the what, the intent, or even the sincerity. It’s ok to not know.
What you do have complete control over is your own self-dialogue and how you express yourself to the world.
We tend to forget or hide ourselves in the curiosity of “the other.” Why? Because sometimes being you can be excruciatingly vulnerable and scary as hell. But it can also be magical, freeing, and healthy. Yes. It can be ALL of that and more if you choose it.
Find yourself. Accept yourself. Love yourself. For all that is unique and beautiful about you. That all begins within you - not with the other.
words: Michael Barata / image: Leah Kelley
We Are Worthy
We surrender our self to people because we are taught to believe that’s what it means to serve.
We barely get to know our self, which is why it’s so easy to surrender it. And for those who catch a glimpse of it, but deny it, that then causes us to fall prey to our fears and doubts.
Sure, we always hold the power to be whatever we choose. But, when someone you respect or care deeply for or love prefers you don’t live your truth for whatever reason and if you comply, in that moment, you also dismiss your worth.
I know it can be so incredibly challenging while you ache with pain, but know this, your worthiness is not to be bargained, cheapened, or denied by you or anyone.
I am worth You are worthy.
words: Michael Barata / image: Lukas Hartmann
You Are Your Obstacle
Not….
Other people
Opinions
Judgment
Fear
Debt
Lack of certainty
Money
The past
The market
The future
Where you live
Self-doubt
Or Lie
So much is said about living authentically. Identifying your purpose. Being who you were meant to be. Acknowledging your vulnerability and choosing to live wholeheartedly. Honestly expressing yourself. Knowing and accepting yourself.
Essentially, if you’re not living your truth, you’re living a lie.
image: Joe Longo
Grounded In Gratitude
We all get so distracted. And then we forget to be grateful.
image: I Love Simple Beyond
There is always something or someone to be grateful for. You can consciously give gratitude for your breath and for yourself. Think about what you do have, instead of lamenting what you don’t. Think about all the people (near and far) who love you. Ground yourself in gratitude.
When you open your heart and your mind to this beautiful life, goodness flows to you. It all begins with gratitude. And in the most magical moments, you will see that grace is a smile in the present about a challenge from the past.
Experience Your Why
Should you do it? Should you say it?
What will it take to convince you to live your truth? Certainty? Security? No judgment? Acceptance from others?
image: Pixabay
Seeking hypothetical comforts or exploring infinite contingencies does not lead to action. You can “What if..” yourself until the end of time or you can take a step and experience what happens. See, living authentically is not about what happens, it’s about how you live your why in each moment you get.
The Choice Is You
Another year…..of reflecting on the last year. Another year….to plan (and hope) to make your life different.
image: Jenna Hamra
Maybe you want to change your health, change your relationship, change your career, or change some kind of behavior. The reality is, it’s not the calendar that can help you achieve that. It’s YOU. Only you. We have been and always will be the one person who holds ourselves back or moves ourselves forward.
Rather than looking at the calendar and choosing a gym, choosing a partner, choosing a new career, or choosing a new lifestyle, look in a mirror, instead, and choose YOU.
