Loving Soulful Code Of Conduct

I am a big fan of Iyanla Vanzant’s work which has stirred things up quite a bit for me. I have grown so much from reading her books and doing the work she invites us in.

At the moment I am working through her book “In The Meantime” and I have been doing deep inner work with it.

There’s a section in the book which she refers to as the “Loving Behaviour Reference” that I would like to share here with you. At a first glance it may seem just another list but if you take the time to sit with it, you may come to realise that this is QUITE a CHALLENGING list.

For me, I see it and I feel it as being more of a Loving Soulful Code Of Conduct.

Here it is, quoting her:


♥ Ask for exactly what you want.

♥ Tell the absolute truth about what you want.

♥ Clearly let others involved know your expectations of them.

♥ Ask for clarity about what is expected of you.

♥ Tell the absolute truth about your ability to live up to the expectations of others.

♥ Renegotiate any agreements you have made if you find that you’re unable to keep the agreement.

♥ Honor what you feel, first to yourself, then to others around you.

♥ Remain open to hearing what others want and expect without feeling you have to do anything about it.

♥ Never dishonor or deny yourself or what you feel simply to please someone else.

♥ Be willing to surrender (give up) what you want or expect when surrendering it serves a greater purpose, such as healing or generating more love.

♥ Be willing to forgive people for the things they do or fail to do in fear or anger.

♥ Be willing to forgive yourself for the things you do in fear or in anger.

♥ Bless every experience and ask that Divine will and understanding be granted to you and others.

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My Soul Screamed And A New Woman Was Born

There are moments in my life which I can't really explain to others how much those moments impact me.

I have been told to be a "too much" woman, and to feel "too much".  I used to believe that, and to judge myself for that. Today, I embrace that as a gift, because the most simple things in life can make me feel blissful, and can also shake me to the core, and make me feel more alive than ever.

Today I want to share with you one of those moments, which happened a couple of years ago, more precisely in 2014, when the intense journey into knowing myself really began.

For the most sceptical ones let's say it was a coincidence ;)

A poem crossed my path, and as I read it, I found myself gasping for air, reaching out for a breath that I felt was being taken away from me.

I was shaken to my bones, the cells in my body vibrated, and my SOUL screamed.

I have read somewhere that the soul whispers but that day my soul screamed louder than my pain, and I heard her for the first time. I guess my soul got tired of whispering, and me never listening to her. Maybe she figured out I had hearing problems (insert any kind of laughter you wish here, as I am laughing at myself right now! LOL)

It really doesn't even matter the reason why. What matters is that that day, reading that poem, I really felt ME, an unknown part of myself was shown to me, a part which I had never acknowledged, and didn't even imagine existed.

That poem struck me so deep down to my core, shook me inside out, ripped me off, and…

For the first time in my life, I knew with every cell in my body that I didn’t love myself.

And I cried ... 

And I cried ...

And I cried ... 

And as I allowed the tears to roll down my face, without even knowing it, I was creating the space for a different woman to be born that day.

That day I promised myself that my garden would never be forgotten and dead ever again. 

This was the poem:

“The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine. 

”In return for the odor of my jasmine, 
I’d like all the odor of your roses.” 

”I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.” 

”Well then, I’ll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.” 

The wind left.  And I wept.  And I said to myself: 
”What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?””

— Antonio Machado

How have you been taking care of your garden?

Drop me a comment as I would love to hear from you how this poem resonated with you or not. What did it bring out for you?

Myself!

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The Day I Stopped Fighting Myself

My whole life I have been in a battle with myself, and thus with the whole world!

That constant fight harmed my body more than I could ever imagine or wish for. I guess the physical pain was the strategy to make me STOP, and to lead me to a fucking threshold where I finally did something for me, and for my life. 

My whole life I felt wrong, like I didn't belong anywhere, and always resisted the fact that I was born a woman. For me being a woman meant being weak, being superficial, being too sensitive. To be honest, I was angry at the fact that I was born in a woman's body! For that reason, I kept my feminine energy trapped and caged for ever, resisting her, ignoring her, making her wrong.

Rejecting the femininity in me also brought me some deep emotional and physical health issues. Yes, that's how deep I rejected myself! 

Well this post is not meant to tell you the story of my life. Instead, what I really want to share with you is the moment my Masculine and my Feminine energy met.

You see, against my own will but following my gut and honouring my soul's desire, I started being part of some women circles. Let me just share with you that those circles — oh boy, they all seemed way too weird to me.

How could they not? I was the one who felt weird myself. I was totally disconnected from myself and from my core essence.

In the pictures below (first time in that circle), you can see how disconnected I was if you look closely at the red thread. We had to introduce ourselves while passing on the thread to some other woman. By the end of the exercise, the red thread that arrived and left my wrist, on both ends it was beyond loose. I was the only woman who could move her hand and arm without moving the other women along.

Last weekend I was in another circle, and for the 1st time I felt a brand new woman! I felt the woman in me was totally integrated. I felt like I belonged and there was nothing wrong with me.

This healing process took me about 3 years. It demanded a lot of courage from me, a lot of deep work, and an unshakable commitment to be happy no matter what!

Today, looking back at many of the healing moments, I had a breakthrough and I wrote about the moment my Masculine and my Feminine energy met for the first time. I didn't understand that was what was happening back then, but I do now!

I was lying on the floor, fully trusting my body to her hands. 

“I SURRENDER

I am hurt!
I am bleeding!
I am tired!

I have been in the battle fields for way too long!

Me and my enemy
Me and my ghosts
Me and myself

What a long and painful battle it has been!

I am tired!

I stop fighting
I put down the weapons
I allow the armour to be undressed
I allow the open wounds to be exposed to the light

I am vulnerable!
I surrender!

No more running away
No more hiding
No more rejecting parts of me
No more guilt
No more shame
No more fighting myself

No more!

Tears wash my soul

I surrender!
I surrender!
I SURRENDER! 

Suddenly,
As if magic...

I taste the sweetness of tenderness
I feel the softness of loving-kindness
I am cradled by the warmth of compassion

I am finally home!

I see the face of LOVE
It is a WOMAN!”

— Teresa Pimenta

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The Question That Shaped My Life

Back in December 2016, I was at Tony Robbins’s six-day seminar in Florida, Date with Destiny and there I had A LOT of breakthroughs (another word for that would be insight). For those of you who have not been to a TR event or haven’t heard much about him, the best thing you can do to understand what he is truly about is to watch the documentary I’m Not Your Guru on Netflix.

One of the countless things I’ve learned from Tony Robbins is that QUESTIONS determine your focus, and what you focus on is what you experience and what you get from life.

So, today I want to tell you about a major aha moment I had with what he calls the PRIMARY QUESTION.

A Primary Question is a dominant question you ask yourself on a consistent basis, and that filters your thinking (conscious and unconscious). It’s a question that pops up constantly across contexts. Even if you aren’t consciously aware of it, you believe that if you live by this question, you will feel ultimate success, pleasure and fulfilment. Your identity is often tied to this question. You experience life through the lenses of it.

Now that you know what a primary question is, let me share with you what MY primary question has been for 44 years.

I have lived my life through the lens of this question — “How can I make this better?”.

For me, life, in all its areas, was always about improving, making better, making more effective, more inspirational, more impactful. I was always looking for ways to make anything, I mean, ANYTHING better.

The magical thing about having a “aha” moment with Tony Robbins is that he always makes sure you find the higher intent behind any of your behaviour / decision / emotion. So, not only was I able to uncover that primary question, but to also see both the benefits and the downsides of it.

As TR also teaches us, first let’s go for the UPSIDES of that. What were the empowering effects that came about for asking that question? What did that question do for me?

Well, here’s what I found out: to consistently ask myself that question, I believed that there’s always a better way; that there’s always space for improvement; that change is needed, and that change is something positive. I learned not to settle, to become more creative and more determined.

And what about the DOWNSIDES? What did that cost me?

I must confess this was a very deep and emotional moment. When I was face to face with the truth of it, I cried as I became aware that I was always too hard on myself, always demanding too much from me; I didn’t enjoy being myself because I was always looking for ways to make ME better, and that means in some moments I was making ME wrong.

I would always try to “fix” others and make them better, as if there was anything wrong with them… Can you imagine how I have made people feel in the past? OMG, so many things I did wrong with my kids and my relationships. It’s a fact that what I did to myself I would do to others. I know I did the best I could with the resources I had but it hurt like hell to think about the pain I caused, especially to my kids.

TR helped me find out WHY I had that as my primary question.

For some reason (well, like I said I had a lot of breakthroughs, so I know the reason, but I’ll tell you about that in another post) I had this belief that if I didn’t make things better, more inspirational, more impactful, etc., people wouldn’t notice me, I would be unseen, which means I would be ignored, which means I would be insignificant, which means I wouldn’t be loved.

What a scary frightened little girl there was living inside of me!

So now, I cherish and nurture that part of me, the scary one, the one looking for love and significance. And I also forgave myself for the pain I caused to my kids.

If we are always looking for ways to make things/people better, we are not allowing space for things/people to be just the way they are.

Many times, WE just want to be loved, THEY just want to be loved, I just want to be loved… unconditionally loved, being imperfectly perfect.

And there are moments that we just need to BE and not DO. After all, are we human beings or human doings?

So… I am so thrilled and excited to share with you my NEW Primary Question –

“How can I appreciate even more the beauty and the perfection of what is in this present moment, trusting that I am always guided?”

Can you imagine how different my life will be having this question as a filtering lens?

Now, I’m curious to know…

What is a question you repeatedly ask yourself? What do you consistently focus on? What question do you ask most often based on this focus?

It’s my deepest wish that this story may help you in some way, and I would love to know what your primary question is. So, please leave your comment below.

And remember, YOU are imperfectly perfect.

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Have You Loved Yourself Today?

Today I had a breakthrough! I have just experienced with full awareness how subtle this self-love thing can be and I wanted to share it with you! There's a chance that some part of this story may resonate with you, and you can get some value from it.

Last December I made great, awesome and unique friends at Tony Robbins' Date with Destiny in Florida, USA. (For those of you who don't know about Tony Robbins or if you even wonder what that event is about, I would suggest that you watch “I am Not Your Guru” on Netflix)

One of these amazing new friends, a phenomenal woman and so talented artist, Susie Suh, sent me four essential oils all the way from the USA, to help me recover faster from an epigastric hernia surgery.

When the oils arrived, she explained to me what I needed to do to apply them. So, the only thing I needed was to get some carrier oil, like coconut or almond oil (or any other), blend it with some drops of the essential oils, and massage my belly in the area where the hernia used to be.

Guess what?! It has been 6 days since those oils arrived, and I haven’t applied them yet. Why not? “I don’t have carrier oil”, I thought. “When I get it, I’ll do it!” And then I asked myself: “when are you going to buy it?”; “what are you waiting for?”

How come that woman, Susie, used her time and energy to go to the post office and send me those oils, and I wouldn’t take 5 minutes to buy the carrier oil? Did she love me more than I loved myself? This question made me tremble!

Very often, things aren’t what they seem to be. I was hiding behind the excuse that I didn’t have the carrier oil, when in fact the truth is that I was not loving myself nor making myself a priority. Why was that? And that’s when it hit me.

Even though I’ve walked a long path on this healing journey of loving myself, this is a daily process, and I can’t take it for granted or as something I can be distracted from. I need to be present! I need to be mindful, and to remind myself daily to love myself.

Being naïvely distracted from my own self is a recipe for disaster. I need to stand guard at the door of my mind while taking care of my inner garden, otherwise weeds will grow.

In the past, every time I engaged in any behaviour that would make me feel important or loved, even if it was just a glimpse of it, guilt and blame would be running the show: “who the hell do you think you are?”, “what?! Do you think you’re special?”, “what do you think makes you so fucking special?”… and it would go on and on and on…

The truth is that I wanted so badly to be loved ... So I thought I had to stay low, to be less, to play small, and without even knowing it, I was annihilating myself so deeply that my soul started aching.

Because Life is a wonderful teacher, it keeps bringing me all sorts of different situations, so that I understand how important I am, and that there’s nothing wrong about it. Life keeps showing me that there’s no reason to feel guilty for making myself a priority, and for feeling that I am important and that I do matter.

Life keeps showing me that if I think I’m not important, nothing else will ever be.

Every time I neglect my own needs, and every time I don’t love myself, I suffer. And from that suffering place, I judge others, I get angry, I get frustrated, I doubt my own capacities, my own strengths, my own inner power, my own inner voice, my soul, my spirit.

That’s when fear kicks in! That’s when the mind starts to rule my life. That’s when the mind kicks the heart out, and runs over it, shutting its voice, its truth, its wisdom. True Wisdom and True Love live only in the heart, not in the mind!

How can I think anyone else is more important than me, if we are all connected? We are not separate!

It all begins with me and in me!

I need to be the change I want to see in the world, and that’s why I am 100% committed to loving myself, cherishing myself and honouring myself, and that means loving myself unconditionally, with both the shadow and light that live within me.

Fully committed to loving myself so that I can love others, I went to buy the carrier oil and all it took was 5 minutes of my time and 1,14 euros.

What about you? Have you loved yourself today?

Let me know in the comments if this resonates with you at any point. I would love to read it!

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