Coming Out Of The Woo Woo Closet

It's been a week since I've faced the greatest fear ever and came out to the world as a spiritual channel. Today, a beautiful sunny Sunday, I'm all by myself sitting by the river, feeling the sun on my skin and my bare feet on the grass.

The thoughts in my head are just like the thousands of frogs singing in the river - I get to decide if they will be music or noise. The mind wants me to believe there is definitely something wrong with me. How could I possibly feel at home within myself here alone when it seems everyone walking by has more exciting things to do? But today I'm not believing any of those thoughts. There's a beauty, a peacefulness and an ease about this place I'm writing from.

Having gone through all that fear last week as I wanted to share with the world what's been happening for the last 10 years as far as the channeling is concerned, having walked that fire and coming through to the other side in one piece and alive (yes, it did feel like I was going to die!), has me feeling a different woman today.

Today I'm feeling an Empowered Woman! I'm feeling a total badass and mainly — I am feeling FREE! Secrecy keeps us prisoners in the darkness!

My guide has been inviting me to TRUST over and over again and having such a logical mind I've fought all these years to really own these gifts. I have tried so many things. I've pushed it away, I've stuffed it down, I've made myself wrong over and over again. There was a moment I've even asked that, if it really did have to happen, then to please make me an unconscious channel. I couldn't think of anything more weird, more out of the box then me, a logical person, be made into a conscious channel that is always present, sees and hears everything and have the mind want to interpret everything, when nothing of it makes any sense to the mind.

On a journey to RECLAIMING MY VOICE and speaking my TRUTH, never in a million years would I even dare to think that I would have to listen to myself speaking a language my mind doesn't understand. A language I don't even know what it is or even if it's spoken anywhere else in the world. I got tired of doing research on it!

There is nowhere for me to hide. This has to happen and the more I resisted it, the more obstacles I began facing in my life and the more intense the spiritual pain got. My soul craves to be fully heard and seen and I didn't understand this was part of it.

Back to last week… what was that fear? What was that fear all about?
It was a fear that did not come from my mind. I couldn’t consciously pinpoint a reason to be afraid. It was in my body, in my cells, in my bones. It was everywhere within my being. My whole body ached as I was facing the fear and was getting ready to speak up. A memory stored in my DNA, a past life and a promise made under torture, kept on for many many lives. A promise that I would never teach high spiritual wisdom again. Guess what I'm being called to teach?!

I started my life by teaching English but I've always felt I was meant to teach something else. I just didn't know what it was. As years went by, I would find myself looking for ways to make the subject I had to teach from the English curriculum fit into a more social perspective, craving to bring awareness into certain subjects and looking to stir those students'  souls. When I look back, I was always a teacher that would ask thought-provoking questions. I was a teacher who would not follow the usual structure and usual way of doing things. I was a rebel teacher!

What has to happen will happen, no matter how long it takes! After 24 years teaching grammar, vocabulary, fashion, recipes, among others, back in 2014 life pushed me to the corner to call for my attention. And it certainly did!

Here I am today, 5 years later, a very different woman, willing to open myself to the scary yet also fascinating experience of living a fully AUTHENTIC life and express myself as I am, letting the world see me in my wholeness expressing my truth. I want to be able to express myself FREELY and owning my gifts is part of that FREEDOM

Here I am today, owning and sharing with the world that my truth, now, is that I've been channelling a very beautiful guide for over 10 years and that I not only listen and write what SHE has to say, but also that SHE also expresses herself through me speaking in a language which my mind doesn't understand but my heart does.

What about you? Is there anything in your life you KNOW you’re being called to do and yet fear cripples you and holds you back? If it is so, then you and I should have a conversation.

Healing The People Pleaser

What's the scariest thing for me as a people pleaser in recovery, who was always told to shut the fuck up?

SPEAK THE F*CK UP!

SHOW THE F*CK UP!

DARE to be fully seen in my VULNERABILITY and show up AUTHENTIC!

Having dared to step outside my comfort zone and show up doing a Facebook Live in the Tribe I created, was at the time a HUGE STEP! Still, I can see how I keep hiding behind the safety of a special place and being selective about who sees what.

I realise how many "gates" I can actually create for the world to see me. (That's how sneaky this can get!) There comes a time when I realise that I am half-daring and half-showing up. And there’s actually nothing wrong with that. It’s just that TODAY I feel like it’s time, and just for today, I want there to be no gates whatsoever.

Again, this is a huge step forward in facing the FEAR of being fully AUTHENTIC. You know, the fear will always be there and that’s one of the reasons practising daring and showing up is so crucial to me. I have tasted far too deep how crippling this fear is and can be if I let it control my life. There’s always a big fear of what my family will think or say about me, crying in a video out into the public. Chances are they’ll think I’m crazy! But you know what?!

I’m NOT CRAZY!!! I AM READY!!!! I AM FUCKING READY!!!

Do I really need to be seen? To be honest, I have no damn clue! But for me, this is where fear has been showing up big time and I know this is my free pass for the highway to freedom.

So, today I am sharing with all of you a behind the scenes (RAW & MESSY) of what happened inside that tribe of women a while back, where I held space for all the judgement, anger, frustration towards the people pleaser in me and it was only after this episode that I was able to finally ACCEPT and ACKNOWLEDGE that part of me.

Right now, the fearful side of me is in my head, doing everything it can, to have me post something else rather than this. To be totally honest, it´s been over 2 hours since I started this article.

It seems that there's this wave of authenticity and vulnerability showing up in the world and I can see how it can be easy to start rolling our eyes at that. And that's exactly the monologue the ego is having in my head right now: "Are you really going to write about that authenticity stuff, AGAIN? People are fed up with that!"

Oh yes baby, I am! Watch me! I won't be held prisoner today! It may happen tomorrow, but NOT today!

Doing this video allowed me to tap into unknown parts of myself and to learn that I can actually hold space for the WHOLENESS of me.

I don’t know a lot of stuff, but I KNOW THIS:

- I know for sure that HIDING in FEAR is no longer serving me and only stepping into this authentic & unfiltered experience of myself will I end up knowing myself deeply and truly.

- I know in my bones that authenticity will set me FREE and the more I dare into it, the more I TRUST myself!

- And I know in my bones that the more I TRUST myself, the more POWERFUL I'll be to have the GUTS to be willing to FIERCELY go beyond personal identity.

I don't want personal power to be rich! I don't want personal power to be famous! I don't want personal power to impact millions! I want personal power to set myself free.

I am thirsty and starving for FREEDOM baby!

That's my legacy! That's the impact I want to have in this world!

Being part of this world, I can no longer hide in the false modesty that “I am not important” or that “I don't matter”. This shit ain't about me only! What the fuck is all this talk about "not enoughness" or "too muchness" doing for me or for the world?

Being part of this world, it's my responsibility to set myself free from the cage of fear and step into BOLDNESS!

Being part of this world, it's my responsibility to step away from the selfishness of ego that wants to make this all about me and keep hiding myself in my little world, in a small town, in a tiny country called Portugal.

Being part of this world, it's my duty to share this I AMNESS with all of you! And those who resonate, will vibrate along with me.

In the meantime, I am RECOMMITTING to my own commitment:

1 - SPEAK UP about my feelings;

2 - HONOUR my emotions has a manifestation of my HUMAN EXPERIENCE;

3 - CREATE SPACE to whatever may be showing up in my life, either in my inner or outer world;

4 - NURTURE my childlike CURIOSITY;

5 - DARE to be 5% MORE AUTHENTIC every step of the way until it becomes who I am (and if it doesn't, be ok with that too);

6 - LOVE MYSELF, treat myself with KINDNESS and COMPASSION (no different from what I would do to a puppy or a baby).

We're in for an AWESOME COSMIC RIDE people!

Bless you all

<3

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No More Body Shame

It doesn’t matter how others see you. In the end what really matters is how you see yourself. It doesn’t matter how beautiful, intelligent or attractive others may find you. If you don’t see it or feel it yourself, in the end it is meaningless.

Once, in a retreat with my Buddhist Lama he asked “is the beauty in the flower or is the beauty in you?” I have been feeling into this for quite a while, and I have been seeing how the image and judgement I hold of myself actually conditions my experience of others and the world. That’s such a debilitating filter to have!

I have always struggled with body image and weight issues, and I’ve always judged myself really hard on that. No matter how many times my former partners would tell me I was beautiful, sexy, sensual… I have always struggled to take that in!

“How could they be so blind?”, I used to think. And many times, those compliments used to piss me off, because I was forced to sit with my own lack of self-love, and I silently hated them for that. It was right there, crystal clear on my face… them… holding the mirror for me.

Beach pictures?! OMG! Those were always a nightmare. And if I ever dared to have one or another taken, I couldn’t put my eyes on them afterwards.

Last weekend was no exception. But this time, a more pure and authentic love was holding the mirror, and I could do nothing else but SURRENDER… I mean, if I am actually REAL about this healing journey, which I am!

There we were, me and my 11-year-old kid, absolutely stunned by the beauty of the river, the blue sky, the warmth of winter sun, the boats, the seagulls, the sound of the distant stormy sea, kids laughing and playing… BLISS!

Usually I’m always the one behind the camera capturing these moments, and having a blast while doing it. Very occasionally I dare to ask to be photographed, and last Saturday I did it. I have no idea what I was expecting to see in those pictures but without any surprise to me, I didn’t like them.

I kept looking at those pictures, and I kept witnessing a cascade of judgmental thoughts rushing through my mind as I stared and stared… I kept staring and I began to crop them. Would I be able to find a way to be in those photos without “ruining” them? If I kept my upper body only, maybe that should do it. Shit! Maybe not!

And I found myself focusing on how much weight I have put on, how my belly stood out, how my comfy cotton yoga bra didn’t make my titties look sexy… and the list went on and on.

Why couldn’t the pictures be as beautiful as I wanted them to be? Why the fuck couldn’t I fit into the beauty that was all around me? How come I had so much beauty inside to be able to see the world as beautiful, but I couldn’t see myself the same way?

And then… his sweet wise voice stopped me in my tracks! As he peeks over my shoulder to see what I was doing, he says: “Why are you cropping them? You’re ruining the pictures!”

OMG!!! He is so right! What am I teaching him with this behaviour? Can’t I just fully accept myself as I am RIGHT NOW? I am 46… when will that happen?!

And so I stopped! The cropping wasn’t saving either the pictures or me. Where else in life have I been cropping parts of myself?

Let’s own this shit, Teresa! What do you want your kid to grow up learning? Do you want your kid to grow up not loving himself or his body? Oh yes… I have also judged his body too. Not verbally! Not out loud! But I have silently judged his little belly that tends to show up too.

This has been on my mind since last Saturday, and this morning, as I woke up and was getting ready for my yoga practice, I decided I would take some time to honour my body and hide no more. How fucking powerful is this body?! It was built to last. The scars are also proof of that!

My body has endured generating and giving life to two human beings, bringing them into the world through two painful and invasive caesareans. It has gone through the trauma of an epigastric hernia surgery… And what about all the unexpressed stuffed emotions it has had to deal with, for ages? And what about all the anger trapped inside? What about all the judgement, and making her look less than beautiful and perfect just the way she is? What about all the bad food choices and lack of exercise?

It’s because of this powerful body that I am allowed to FEEL DEEPLY!

As I stood there, honouring my body, pouring love into my cells, my skin, my bones and my flesh, I dared to SEE myself, as I asked for forgiveness.

And what I saw was BEAUTIFUL!

I could fool myself into believing that I was being fully authentic and honouring my body, by admitting the cropping of the pictures, and showing you an original one below (the only one that survived my frustration!). That surely would have been a big step too!

But you know what'? I’ve had enough of this bullshit of body shaming myself!

So, knowing how creatively skillful I have become at deceiving myself, after years of people pleasing, I want to DIVE right into the fear of being FULLY SEEN. Daring to dance with fear one more time, I want to step up my game, and be COURAGEOUS to do what scares me right now. I want to shine a bright light on my body. I want to shine a light on SHAME, that feeds off hiding and staying in the shadow.

My journey of honouring and loving my body starts today. And odds are that the true healing begins too.

If it was easy, SELF-LOVE wouldn’t be a REVOLUTIONARY act!

Here’s to the Self-Love Revolution!

#HonourEveryBitOfYourProcess #EveryLittleStepMatters #SelfLoveRevolution #NoMoreBodyShame

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Honour Every Step Of Your Process

Do you ever struggle with PERFECTIONISM? Do you hold yourself back because you think the right conditions are not in place? If so, keep reading.

Back in 2016 when I started coaching, I had a client from Bulgaria who wanted to learn how to make these pancakes that I make, and so I decided to give it a go and record a video with my first (and only so far - still using THAT one) brand new android phone.

So, there I was, getting a hand on this whole new technology stuff. I didn't know how to put the video together BUT I said I would do it. Knowing myself I knew I would find a way, and I did!

OMG! Today, watching that video... oh man, it looks so... BASIC (for lack of a better word) 😂🤣 Free advertising, I guess … ;)

Here are the TWO LESSONS I learned from getting out of my own way and leaving perfectionism aside:

1) Take ACTION! Don't hold yourself back!

Don’t get caught in the perfectionism bullsh*t. We all have to start somewhere, and many times (if not most of the times) BEGINNINGS don’t look neat or pretty or even polished. Nevertheless, it is THAT very first step that actually takes us where we want to go.

2) DARE to honour the beginnings!

Don’t be ashamed of your baby steps! Can you imagine making fun of yourself while you were learning how to walk or to speak? And the way to overcome this is to show up authentically. Yep, I want you to know that there's a part of me that's TOTALLY NOT HAPPY about me sharing this AT ALL! 😂🤣 (And that’s the reason I’m doing it anyway!)

So… honour EVERY MOMENT of your process! Celebrate the big AND small steps!!! Every Little Step Matters!

Take a moment and think about ONE thing that you have been putting off because you're falling for the trap of perfectionism? Got it? Now ask yourself: what's ONE little step that I can take to put me in the direction of making that thing happen?

You’ve got this!

Speak The F*ck Up

What happens when we actually talk about what we don’t like about ourselves? What happens when we bring light into the darkest aspects of ourselves?

Well, I was dared to write down five traits I don't like about myself, and to record a video talking about it. I didn’t have to post or show the video to anyone. I could even delete it afterwards.

“Come up with 5 things I don't like about myself? That’s EASY!!!”, I thought to myself. Well, not quite! Not only did it turn out to be harder than I thought to come up with those five things, but I also found myself stuck in that process: “Are these really THE ONES I don't like about myself?"

No wonder! One of the things I don't like about myself is second guessing myself!!!! LOL

Thinking I would be on my own (at least so I thought! The ego has interesting ways to get in the way of our growth - if you watch the video below, you’ll understand what I am talking about), I decided to sit with that assignment and record the video, and see what would come up.

JUICY AF, I must say!

Second guessing myself as a result of decades of people pleasing, and mastering the art of fitting in (without even knowing it) was brought to the light in this raw video. I guess this is me evolving OUT LOUD!

I then decided that posting the video to the public would be a huge step forward in facing the FEAR of being fully authentic. Posting the video isn’t about people watching it. It’s about me facing the fear of showing up so raw, unedited and unfiltered.

It’s a paralysing fear, and I am committed into not being held hostage by it.

It’s crazy to notice that there’s a big fear of what my family will think or say about me, crying in a video out into the public. Chances are they’ll think I’m crazy. But you know what?!

I’m NOT CRAZY. I AM READY! I AM F*CKING READY!!!

After all the release (that can be witnessed in the video below), I sat down with the experience, and here’s the insight I got from all that time talking to/with/about myself — if I don’t pay close attention, and fully connect to the truth of who I am, the fact that I have been doing this work for a while can actually be an excuse for the ego to judge me.

“How can that be?”, you may be asking yourself. Here’s how I see it:

The ego will take turns in showing up as the solution to the problem it created in the 1st place, judging its previous manifestation, almost as if peeling off skin, and pretending to be another "entity", one after the other…

Also, if I am not mindful, the ego can easily keep me stuck under the illusion that tapping into feeling all these human emotions is nothing but a waste of time, because “now I know better”.But here’s the thing… Spiritual bypass doesn’t work.

There’s no shortcuts to healing! We have to feel it to heal it! We need to ALLOW the emotion, honour it, create a loving space for it to be expressed, fully see it and ACCEPT it for what it is.

So... here's my commitment for this 2019 (and for the rest of my life):

1 - SPEAK UP about my feelings;

2 - HONOUR my emotions as a manifestation of my human experience;

3 - Create SPACE for whatever may be showing up in my life, either in my inner or outer world;

4 - NURTURE my childlike curiosity;

5 - DARE to be 5% more authentic every step of the way, until it becomes who I am (and if it doesn't, be ok with that too);

6 - LOVE MYSELF, treating myself with kindness and compassion (no different from what I would do to a puppy or a baby).

So, here’s my dare to you! Grab a piece of paper and write down 5 traits you don’t like about yourself! Then, get your phone and record a video of you talking about it. If you want, you can pick one of the five, and only talk about that one. Of course you don’t have to share that video with anyone. You can even delete it afterwards.

Aren’t you curious to see what happens when you TALK about it? Aren’t you curious to find out what happens when you bring light into that shadow?

All I can say is that I found FREEDOM on the other side of that video.

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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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