Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn’t know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.
~ Joseph Campbell
Massive apologies for my disappearance from here ~ following the Treasure Yourself Project from May last year sent me on all sorts of adventures ~ physical & mental. I’m in awe of how many positive changes I’ve made in my life since making the choice to say ‘yes’ & join in with the initial TYP last year & mainly just ringing that thought through my head ~ “TREASURE YOURSELF“.
^ My vision board for the project, I made it be my iMac desktop image.
I definitely got lost when first navigating the motherhood journey ~ lost from my bliss, my body, my place in this world. Not to say I wasn’t having a blast getting lost ~ I wouldn’t change a thing about becoming a mama to my beautiful little boy. I jumped into the pregnancy, birth & mama-dom with absolute gusto, pure love + excitement. I parent by heart, and in doing so I threw my whole being into the process & somewhere along the lines I lost myself. I realised this when I ‘burnt out’ a couple of times after some stressful days/weeks & it made me realise that I was giving my all into my family/son/home & wasn’t leaving even any scraps for myself. I wasn’t making ‘me’ time {which I now realise, even with a very dependent bub, is actually possible, you just have to make it happen}, I wasn’t making healthy/nourishing food choices & I wasn’t doing regular exercise. I know I was doing what I thought was best at the time though, isn’t hindsight an interesting thing! As Louise Hay puts it ~ I was doing my best, at that time, with the knowledge, wisdom & experience I had.
TYP came along at the perfect moment in time. I’d started to make changes at the start of last year ~ I realised things needed to change as I hated the feeling of burning out, of being tired & I knew I could be a happier, healthier version of myself. I had already quit sugar, started an organic business, started Make Bliss Happen, was reading/learning at an enormously fast rate & was ready for another sign post on my journey to bliss.
From completing the Treasure Yourself Project, I learnt to regularly use affirmations, to use vision boards, to continually thank the Universe for what I am grateful for, to be able to schedule a regular exercise routine, to make time for myself ~ and to overall, LOVE myself. I don’t know if I’ve ever fully thought about the concept of self love. I knew all the quotes/idea of it, but I don’t think {until reading You Can Heal Your Life} I’ve ever looked myself in the eye & said ~ “I love you Nikki, I LOVE you!” And man, what a difference that makes. Everything truly falls into place, the right doors open up for you, you can hear what your body needs, you can be assertive about what you deserve, you can change your world — by simply loving yourself.
And it’s not in a vain, ‘OMG, aren’t you a red hot babe?!’ context; but in a way that you can love yourself even if you’ve made bad choices ~ you can forgive yourself, you can acknowledge where you are on your journey & know you’re heading in the right direction. You can be kind to yourself. You can make the right decisions next time. You can realise you deserve your dreams to come true & you can open yourself up to finding the keys to make them happen. You realise you deserve nourishing foods & that your body loves to move ~ therefore making healthier lifestyle choices. You love your soul, your essence, your being.
Now, I’m still on my journey {aren’t we all} ~ I’m LOVING fitness lately, as I just joined my local gym at the start of February. I’m following loads of inspiring fitness babes via Instagram & learning more about clean eating + great workouts and I’m slowly but surely allowing myself to reside in the strong, healthy body I desire. I’m always cooking for my family, so I’m learning more nutritious & creative recipes and putting them to the test. Especially on my little man who has decided to become Mr Fussy Pants & thinks that Vegemite on toast is the bees knees for every meal. {Bürgen bread with tonnes of seeds/oats etc & gluten free Vege Spread with extra nutritional yeast flakes are my negotiables on that one! And I want to try making my own ‘vegemite’ with dark miso one of these days.} So I have my little obstacles I face everyday, but I feel peace & happiness in my heart and everything is so much easier than it was this time last year, or even this time last month. I’m following my bliss & making things happen & I’m damn proud of myself.
So, in that essence, I thought I’d finally take some progress shots to share with you ~ of my physical journey. I’m a reality girl, I take these things step by step & if you’re having a shindig, by golly I’ll clink a glass of bubbly with you! But I’m learning to make the nourishing choices more often! These piccies are straight from the camera & I’m hoping to have some pretty awesome new progress shots to share in the coming months!
Obviously you can’t show via images your internal journey ~ but I can swear to you, it’s a whole lot more impressive than these pics!
Love yourself, you wonderful, completely unique, amazing person! It’s the best advice I can offer. And if you are thinking ‘how do I start’ ~ look in the mirror & no matter how hard it is, tell yourself ‘I love you‘. Do it everyday. And get yourself a copy of Louise Hay’s ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ ~ promise, it really is a life changer.
^ You Can Heal Your Life {Louise Hay} & Treasure Yourself {Miranda Kerr}
Big love,
Nikki
xxx
