I See God In Me

I see God in me, therefore I see God in you. My relationship with God has always been an interesting one. I always knew that God was real but I just didn't really understand the depth and width of the realness. One day I was walking near a heavily forested area and it was almost as though I saw God. I was all of a sudden overcome by the abundance of all the green around me. I mean the towering trees with all of the leaves, the grass, the shrubs, everything was so alive and abundant. That was moment that I got clear that God is a loving God and anything that we could ever need or want is right at our fingertips because God provides us with more than enough.

God created everyone of us. I relate to God as a woman. God created me in her image and likeness, therefore I am whole, complete and fully capable. God created me and everyone else with love that is unlimited and boundless. When God created us she breathed life into us and we were created with perfection. When we are born all we know is that we are pure and we are a vessels that can carry many things but God wants us to be a vessel of love. As we grow, circumstances and worldly things move us away from our original state of purity and being a vessel of complete love. We step into some self loathing due to outside forces and we lose sight of our true nature. Instead of seeing love we see our shortcomings, flaws and wounds and we relate to ourselves in that way; broken. We tear ourselves down so much, and we have these thoughts that correlate with us being broken and we attract one bad thing after another into our lives. We claim that we are unworthy and  the things that are happening are perhaps justified because we have fallen so far from grace. What? How the heck did this happen?

Recently I have been meditating often and in my meditations I have been asking God to breathe life into me and to continue to guide my thoughts and my actions. Once I really understood that GOD is always in me and working through me that made it easier to do what I am sent here to do. My mission while I am here on this earth is to love unconditionally and to be of service. That is how I must honor God and therefore that is how I see God in me. I see God in me by loving myself with no judgement.I see God in me when I am being of service to someone who needs my assistance and that's when I see God in them. I see people as being whole, complete and fully capable. My job is to support them with seeing themselves that way too.

God doesn't want us to be scared and to have fear. Why? Why fear the one you love? Why fear someone who created you and breathed life into you? God is to be loved and to be respected. I deserve to be loved and respected. You deserve to be loved and respected. God is a wonderful God and a loving God. God sees us as beautiful and perfect creations, we need to see ourselves that way too. God is real. Honor God by loving yourself and others unconditionally. Honor God by being of service to humanity.

I see God in me. I see God in you.

I SEE YOU

When The Masks Come Off

"Strangers stop being strangers once common ground is established. Once common ground is established there leaves room for respect to be earned. Once that respect is earned you soon begin to gain trust. Once trust is established, walls come down. Once walls come down and you're completely vulnerable that is where love begins to grow. Once love takes over, nothing else is needed."

I came up with the above quote because of a special group of people who have stirred my soul and moved me in ways that I never really knew was possible. We are people from diverse backgrounds who not only attracted each other but are constantly healing each other through sharing, words and gestures. The question that I have been asking myself is "How come this type of sharing doesn't occur more in the world?" My guess is that people are scared to take off their masks. Furthermore, I think that some people have worn their masks for so long that they think that's who they really are. What's up with that?

People wear masks to hide their true identities. Some do it playfully, others do it erotically and some really mask because they want to hide. Everyone masks for different reasons. My favorite mask used to be the smile. Even when I was dying on the inside I still wore a smile because I did not want to have to deal with someone getting in my business. The reasons why I was damaged or felt hurt was no one's business and I did not want my wounds exposed. However, looking back, if someone had asked to right questions I think that I would have opened up, but I never gave anyone that opportunity because my smile was a beautiful mask that sent the message "All is well".

Once I began life coaching, teaching and mentoring I discovered that I could see people without their masks, even while they were still on. I could see pain through smiles, raging anger, promiscuity, acting out and anything else they used to protect themselves. I was startled by the fact that so many were running from themselves but the biggest epiphany was when I discovered the reason why I saw their pain so easily; my pain was not healed either. That's when I started working diligently on identifying my own mask. What was I hiding from? What did I think needed protecting? I got clear that I thought that my pain was unique, no one would understand, I would be judged and treated poorly. Once I dismantled that foolish story I was then able to throw my mask away and simply wear my TRUE smile. As a result I can now support other people with shedding their masks and giving them the access to their own freedom by sharing themselves authentically.

The truth is, everyone wants to love, be loved, acknowledged and appreciated. At some point these things were violated and once that happens people retreat and begin to hide. Many of these things occur when we are children. Children are masters at make believe and hiding things. However, children who mask become adults who mask and before we know it we have all these masks but no real faces. However, trust, respect, and love gives life to people's true nature. When people feel like they are loved they will strip down, bare and they will tell all. Telling all brings such a freedom and a depth of personal peace that is indescribable. I encourage all of you to drop your masks and embrace yourself before the mask. Heal thyself.

Dedicated to a group of people who absolutely make taking off my mask so much easier. I love you guys so much.

                    

CLEAN YOUR SPACE

What you do in one place, you do everywhere. I am starting my first ever fast tomorrow and boy am I excited about it. It has been a long time coming and damn, yes it is time. I am doing a five day fast that includes only a drink made of maple syrup, cayenne pepper and lemon juice, otherwise known as the Master Cleanse. Why? Well, in addition to cleaning out all of the toxins and the junk in my body, I am also cleaning out my thoughts and deprogramming my mind and my spirit. It is all connected, mind, body and spirit. Everything works in tandem and in order for me to be in absolute alignment with myself I must prepare on every single level.

To prepare myself for this fast, I started with writing my thoughts down in a journal. When it comes to doing anything that is deemed difficult the FIRST and most important step is to observe your thoughts. Literally, I am sitting down with my journal and I am going to write throughout the day how I am feeling, what thoughts are associated with what emotions and how am I dealing with it. Fasting isn't just something that I want to do to lose weight but I want to get very clear on what goes into my body, my mind and my spirit. My goal once my cleanse is over is to become a vegetarian again. When I was a vegetarian my thoughts seemed much more clear and I was closer to my higher self than ever before because it was not clogged up with any unnecessary toxins and unwanted junk. I am creating a body that is a temple and nothing unhealthy is going to be allowed inside, food, thoughts or anything else that does not serve me.

I am clear that this process is going to change my life forever. This is not just a diet or something that is fun to do but this is a conscious lifestyle change. In addition to eliminating toxic foods, I am also eliminating toxic thoughts and toxic people. It is a MUST to remove the things that do not serve me positively out of my life. I know that this will be easy for me because I am ready. I am ready to fulfill on the being the healer who has healed herself through diligent work on my body, mind and soul. I am committed to my mental, physical and spiritual self and NOTHING is going to compromise that, EVER.

I am a child of the Creator. In order to honor the Creator I must always do my best. That means that as long as I am aware of what I am doing (observing my thoughts) I have no reason not to shine and be extraordinary. I am excited to walk on this journey because it will reveal a lot about my will power, my commitment, my strength and my connection to the Creator. I am sure that I will attract people who are in direct alignment with what I am up to and will support me on my journey. There will always be naysayers and those who will want to give their opinions. I may choose to listen or not. However, what I can say is that I ALWAYS trust my intuition. My intuition is usually always spot on and leads me to choices that are in fact best for me. My journey is mine and mine alone and I will choose to invite some people to walk with me and others will be there to teach me, but that will be MY CHOICE. I am cleaning my space, mental, physical and spiritual.... I hope you choose to do the same.

Soldier of Love

I was actually laying in my bed reflecting, crying and doing my best to heal myself before I chose to write. I am not sure what my fingers will type, or how deep my heart will let me share or how much my soul will let me divulge. However, I suspect that I what I am about to share is really for me, and the beginning of the healing process and the closing of chapters that do not serve me.

I was eleven years old, my mom was away and I was living with relatives. I was in the care of someone who loved me dearly, and always treated me kindly but there was no real direction or guidance. There were two other people who had different roles in my care taking; one for school related issues and the other for what I would call etiquette and life lessons. To me, these two were one in the same and now, looking back I don't really get their perspective on things nor do I agree with their way of doing things. As an eleven year old I had a very inquisitive mind. I read countless amounts of books and I was also a dreamer. So, what I could not get from books or from myself, I would seek from the adults around me. I think the younger generation of Caribbean kids can be my witness when I say that asking certain questions to certain people will get you into trouble. My question to my loving care giver was about babies, not where they came from but what was it like to be pregnant? How did it feel? Was it painful? In today's world that question is normal, back then when I asked, it sent everyone into an uproar. They wanted to know why was I asking such a question? What could I possibly do with that answer? Was I thinking about having a baby? Was I thinking about sex? WHY WOULD I BE ASKING ABOUT PREGNANCY? I was met with such hostility, anger, belittling and sarcasm that I no longer wanted to ask anyone anything about anything. Following my question fiasco I literally felt like I had a scarlet letter on my face. I was treated as though I were this wild, boy crazy prisoner who at a moment's notice would just lay down with a man, have unprotected sex and be pregnant. Yea, that was he beginning of my love affair with poetry. It was the only thing that I could do that would allow me to escape from the harsh words, shady attitudes and the deep loneliness that I had inside of me.

The years progressed and although I was reunited with my mother, I still never overcame my sense of isolation. I longed for my friends who always made me laugh and feel better. The fact that these friends were boys made my mother nervous and suspicious andnever wanted me to talk to them too much because after all, talking leads to pregnancy... My relationship with my mother grew into something volatile, unhealthy and a desire for me to leave and never return. It was based on a lot of speculation from her part and a lot of lying on my part because I didn't want to be in trouble, yet again. There were never any loving sit downs or actual questions of what was wrong, but just endless name calling, accusations, put downs and no place for me as a person to live. What I needed at that time, and really from the time I was 11 years old was someone to trust. Given the question fiasco and several other adults who claimed they were trustworthy but turned out to be absolute liars and any trust I had was all gone. No one was worthy of my trust. My trust had died and the only thing that kept me going was writing poetry.

Flash forward to the present and I am clear that some issues have gotten handled and others not so much. I now have mastery over asking questions. I will ask anybody anything about any topic, no one will ever be able to silence that again. On the flip side, my issues with trust and internalizing are still being worked out. I am clear that my mom did what she thought was best. I am sure these other adults in my life did what they thought was best as well. However, thinking about that really does not solve my issues. What I am constantly working on is MYSELF. I am constantly battling issues of isolation and trust. I am very trustworthy, I am the keeper of many secrets for a lot of people. I take trust very seriously but I do not think that I have been truly trusting with more than two people in my whole life. Trust goes hand in hand with vulnerability. In order for me to bring myself to TRUST someone I have to be willing to be vulnerable with them and that is something that I am working on diligently. In order for me to be as authentic as possible, I must be willing to put it all on the table. The biggest thing that I have to keep telling myself is that I am safe. I AM SAFE. I stopped feeling safe when I was 11. I stopped feeling protected when I had do defend my innocent questions against people's perverted minds. I had to fend for myself and protect myself so I withdrew and I hid behind my poems and I built walls around myself so high that even right now I am still processing what I did. Trust and vulnerability is about feeling safe.

As a life coach, not only is it my mission but it is my DUTY to ensure that my clients feel safe. They come to me for answers but in order for us to unlock those answers we must dig and digging can reveal some nasty wounds. Once people crack those wounds open, the tears come because the unleashing of the original hurt is fresh. I myself, even now typing this my tears flow because I still have some healing to do. I have to keep reminding myself that I AM SAFE. Not only am I safe but I am protected. I am protected because I can say what is so for me. I can say that I closed myself off as a child and continued building walls because I did not want anyone to get close enough to hurt me. I also realize that by keeping people at a distance that I am not allowing them to see a very young, hurt me, vulnerable me, I entombed my little 11 year old self inside of these enormous, stone walls, barricaded by steel, barbed wire and every thing else because I was protecting myself. In 2012 and all the other years to come I am committed to giving myself the space and opportunity to heal by allowing people to see me.

"Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now."

That is me. No, that was me because starting now I am going to give love and energy to me the same way that  I give it to people. I am always reachable and accessible to my people when they need me, but very seldom to I reach out when I am in need. I have poured all of my energy into developing my company and being the best mom possible that I have completely lost all sight of me, me TAHIRA. What is it that I want? What do I need? That is another blog for another day. I am declaring that I will be breaking 11 year old Tahira out of those walls and freeing her. I am freeing myself from that way of being which includes hiding, not allowing myself to be taken care of, not allowing myself to be protected and not allowing people to be there for me. I am so done with that. I am also tired of it. I have loving, beautiful people in my life who are more than willing to accommodate me, I just really have to ask.

I left my little 11 year old self in a little corner, scared, sad, hurt and alone. I left my little self for dead because I allowed some negative nancies to kill my spirit. Today, I bring myself back. I will ask for what I need. I am safe. I am not hurt. No one can steal my joy of take my sadness because I am a solider of love, yes I am. I am and I will always be. I am still alive. I am stronger than ever.

I am a SOLIDER OF LOVE....

Happy New Year!!!

"It's a new dawn, a new day, a new life and I'm feeling goooooood!"

Every time I hear J-HUD belt out those notes, I get all tingly. Those simple words, sang first by Nina Simone resonates so deeply with me on any given day. I'm not one for resolutions because to me, every single day is an opportunity to fulfill on my greatness. A new year, though does come with an element of newness and starting fresh. You're not fresh but the new year is, and well, why not relish in the brand new year?

What am I up to this year? Well, I have a very deep focus on my spirituality and centering. I am starting an Aikido class this Saturday. Aikido will be used to not only center me but deflect any negative energy that's coming towards me. It's also supposed to condition and tone my core and well, my entire body. I've also been meditating a lot. By a lot i mean every single night, diligently and I must say that I am getting some deep insights into myself. Not only am I more relaxed and at peace, I can feel my anxiety and nervousness come to a halt. It's a feeling that I have never, ever felt and I am so happy that I discovered it.

Pure Peace Life Coaching, my company is going to soar very high this year. It's already beginning to take off. I've invested in a brand new website, a new logo and expanding my services to schools, groups, non profits and corporations. I am also committed to handing out business cards to every person I meet. Pure Peace Life Coaching is not just about coaching but it's about healing. I have the ability to take what is broken and fix it. I heal through love, light and breathing life into what was once dead. My journey has brought me to a place of Pure Peace but has also revealed a healing power that is still revealing it self to me daily. My company is a part of my heart and my soul, it is me and I take good care of myself and every extension of me will get the same amount of care.

Overall, I'll say I started this year in a very powerful place. I am claiming every single one of my blessings and declaring that I will be very successful. I'm not going to just be successful financially but my soul will reach a new level of overstanding and peace. My gifts of healing and the ability to bring people to a sense of peace and healing will grow tenfold. Everything on the vision board that I made will come to life. It will, because I SAY so, my intention is focused and the Creator is blessing me everyday. The Creator has blessed me with my gifts and therefore I must use them. In order to honor the Creator and my time on this earth I must do what I came for and that is to heal.

I am so thankful for all of my blessings. I am blessed and I am highly favored. I also know that everyone in my life is also blessed and highly favored as well. We are all perfectly imperfect and created in the image and likeness of the Creator. Everyone is special, unique and has a light inside of them. Some people allow their light to shine and others need guidance turning it on. But that light is in everyone. My mission is to make sure it shines in everyone I meet. I'm a light bearer and and an illuminator. I shine so bright, you should too.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!