Holly Hildreth
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • Savor the Sweetness
  • Be of Service
  • Know Thyself
  • Follow Your Bliss
  • Play
  • Be Content
  • Trust God
  • Faster Emotional Freedom Technique-V

Be of Service

Here we discover that what we do in our daily lives matters. Each prayer, each meditation, each loving action, each small act of kindness or support makes a difference. If you could only see the energy of it you would be amazed. Think of a pebble thrown in a pond, the ripples moving outward encompassing each thing in their path, then reflecting back again. What pebbles of service can you toss into your pond today?

Sharing Our Stories

4/23/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I asked my husband, Peter, what he thought my blog posts needed. He gave me the most useful advice. He said that my best posts are those that give examples from my own life, telling my story.

I’ve written posts using stories from my life. They are the hardest for me to publish. They feel risky, exposing my soft underbelly. I feel vulnerable as I send them out into the ethers. What will people think of me with all my flaws hanging out there? What’s more, how can my personal story be important or interesting or even good enough to share?

“Find the courage to put your words out there because that invokes the ritual of surrender.”
-Red Feather 

What is it I am surrendering? Ah, of course, I am surrendering my attachment to all those fears lurking in the back of my mind. I am surrendering my attachment to all those hopes smiling at me from my vision board. I am surrendering my attachment to any outcome at all from these sharings of my heart.

Is that all? I can do that… I think.

I’ll just take my courage in hand, like taking the collar of a reluctant puppy. That puppy may have her tail tucked between her legs and be frantically pushing backwards. So what? I’ll continue to share my journey anyway, in the hope that it may support others.
​
We are each of us more alike, more connected than we know, and therein lies the value of sharing one’s story. Let's share our stories together.

First though, ahem…. I’ll start with someone else’s story. It’s so very good and beautifully written, by a woman who knows how scary it can be. I don’t want you to miss it.

A Fable by Jennifer Louden
https://jenniferlouden.com/a-fable-for-2018/  

Once upon a time, a girl made something from nothing.
She made fairy castles from mud and twigs, painted her dreams in every color and spun worlds from words.
Oh, how she loved the Making.
The bubbling luminescent Love of it gilded everything with possibility.
And then one day, someone intruded. A neighbor boy jeered at her fairy castle, a beloved teacher praised her best friend’s painting but not hers and a parent told her to stop wasting her time making up stories and go learn her sums.
Or, the natural Gap opened between what she could make and what she wanted to make. But there was no one to take her by the hand and teach her how to build her own bridge across the Gap. And the worry was planted: what if she wasn’t good enough?
Whatever the source, her faith in the Making was endangered.
A cage of razor-edged thorns tried to grow between the creating and her, pricking her with, “But if it isn’t perfect, what’s the point?” and “Look at what she made, it’s so much better,” and the thorns pointed at the Gap, made it appear as a yawning abyss and not a natural, inevitable part of the adventure.
Sometimes, the thorns used grades and grants denied and rejection letters to fuel their venom. Strangely, those rarely hurt her as much as the thorns of her own making.
Yet she persisted. Scratched, defiant eyes narrowed in concentration, she made something from nothing.
Sometimes exhausted, she retreated, rested, tried a new way of making.
But she always returned.
She always defied the thorns.
Until one day, after many years, for no reason or a thousand, the thorn’s power grew too great and pinned her to the earth.
Merciless in their insistence, pricking and tearing, chanting, “Give up the writing. Give up the painting. Give up the teaching. Why do you keep trying so hard?”
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She lay with her cheek pressed into the earth, panting.
It will be so much easier if you give it up.
Well, it would be, she thought. They have a point. What has all this making and creating and trying gotten me anyway?
With that, a blanket of gloom rolled toward her, made from everything that is the opposite of creating. A lightless blanket of sameness.
She grew sleepy. Just give it up. Why try so hard?
It rolled toward her with its endless flickering Netflix and Facebook and Instagram and books and paintings and beauty, all made by someone else.
And then, as the blanket of sameness was almost upon her and the thorns grew together over her head, through the gloom and the ugly lattice work of her self-made prison, the woman spotted a glimmer.
A shimmer.
A girl-shaped flame.
She struggled to raise her head.
It was her, as a child. And she was made completely of color and stories and imagination and devotion. Oh so much pure devotion.
She was flame forged from the pure love of making.
Not for accolades or approval or coins.
The girl’s heart cared less for any of that. She cared only for the challenge, the worlds she would shape and cradle, the butterflies of what if? Fluttering, fluttering in her belly.
She cared only for the making.
And the girl stretched out her hand with a giggle and the woman didn’t hesitate to reach out and take it.
May you always remember this woman and how you cheered for her to never give up,
And then may you cheer for you yourself
As loud and as proud.
And may you always remember your voice matters.
             
Photo by Katy Belcher on Unsplash
0 Comments

Loving Your Shadow

2/19/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
“What if we were to remind you that no one has a flaw?  What if we were to remind you that you are the spark of the Divine? What if we were to remind you that there are certain personality flaws that you chose to bring forth to work off your karma?  Therefore, you are in your truth, there is no flaw there. Whatever flaws you brought in with you were part of the lessons. It is kind of like using tools, using five or ten pound weights to help you get stronger. How does that shift the picture realizing those flaws are not flaws at all?  They are only tools.”
-Red Feather
 
We, Light workers, that’s you Dear Reader and me, are teachers. We came here to teach what we’ve learned from our own lives. This gives us meaning and purpose for the struggles of our lives. We can be of service in this way, through the experience of our own lives.

This understanding gives purpose for my personal inner conflict between wanting to be accepted and the desire to be my own person. I grew up with a feeling of lack of self-worth, a fear of not being enough, self-criticism and judgment, generalized anxiety, a fear of abandonment, a fear of life really, all of it pushing me, forcing me to find a place of balance and inner peace.

When I was younger my deepest prayer was for inner peace, refuge from the constant inner battle of my thoughts and emotions. Gradually, through pursuit of self-development and healing I found the tools that taught me to allow inner peace. That doesn’t mean I am always peaceful within. It means that I have the tools to return to inner peace when life throws me a curve ball. That then is what I have to teach and offer to others.

What have you learned on your path of inner healing?

Let’s take a new perspective on all of the perceived flaws that we came in with, those parts of ourselves that we reject as not good enough, not fitting into society, making us unlovable or unacceptable, our shadow selves.  What if as teachers we came in to live what we chose to teach so that we might serve in this way?

Imagine hundreds of thousands of teachers coming in to teach love, acceptance, forgiveness, in all of its myriad possibilities for expression. Hundreds of thousands of teachers, hundreds of thousands of individual approaches to learning about love throughout the world. The scope is mind-boggling and world changing as we each kindle the light within ourselves and then offer it to others.
 

Photo by C MA on Unsplash 

Your Spiritual Toolbox

Loving your shadow self, or even just making friends with it, can be challenging. Accepting those parts of yourself that for so long you have rejected because you believed those parts were unacceptable and unlovable may take time and practice.
​
First, understand that you chose those parts of yourself for the growth and learning they make possible. There is loving purpose here, for as you heal and grow you are then able to offer your life experience as service and teaching simply by being all of who you are.

One of the most effective tools I know to grow into self-acceptance is deceptively simple. It is also surprisingly difficult.

Here it is.

At the beginning of the day, and at the end of the day, look into the mirror. Look directly into your own eyes and say out loud, “I love you.”

That’s it.

​Do this every day, twice a day for at least two weeks. Note how easy or difficult it is for you and if that changes over time.

I have personally been doing this exercise on and off for many years, and recommending it to my clients. I return to it when self-criticism and judgment turn up in my thoughts. It is amazing how something so simple can be at first so difficult, and yet grow into feeling so right and natural.   
0 Comments

Serve Yourself

10/11/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture

"You will find that when you start your day by serving you, it will not be challenging to serve others."
-Red Feather


For many, caring for others comes first, often at the expense of caring for ourselves. Over time this leads to exhaustion, overwhelm and resentment on the part of the caregiver.

Most of us have been there at one time or another. It just seems easiest to respond to the loudest demand and then the next and the next after that, rather than making the effort to balance with time for nurturing ourselves. We think we can make time for ourselves later. Yet somehow later doesn’t happen because later is filled with meeting other’s needs too.
​
What is the solution here? We can only feed others for so long if we do not also feed ourselves. Giving yourself permission to serve yourself is not selfish, it is essential.

Aircraft safety instructions recommend first putting the oxygen mask on yourself in the event of depressurization of the cockpit if you are traveling with young children. Why is this? It is so that you can be conscious enough to then put the mask on your children.

​As a caregiver making sure to take care of yourself makes it possible for you to continue to care for others. The same is true with any demanding life situation. It is essential to care lovingly for yourself first so that you may serve with love.  


Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash 

Your Spiritual Toolbox

​Today, take Red Feather’s advice. Structure your day so that you have time to care for yourself first thing in the morning, or as soon as possible thereafter. Give yourself permission to serve yourself in whatever way feels nurturing to you.

Red Feather goes on to say,  “Attend to yourself with a good breakfast, maybe some meditation or inner peace, some movement.”

It does not have to be a long time. Just knowing that you have a routine of self - nurturance every day is supportive in the most loving way. 

* To read more about Red Feather, visit: www.redfeatherwisdom.com
0 Comments

    "Love is service."

    - Mother Teresa

    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    November 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018

    Categories

    All
    Abandonment
    A Call For Guidance
    Acceptance
    Affirmations
    Anxiety
    Appreciation
    Aspirations
    Attachment
    Attention
    Attitude
    Autoimmune Disease
    Avocation
    Balance
    Beat
    Blessing
    Brain-Dump
    Breath
    Breathe
    Catalyst
    Channeling
    Children
    Children's Story
    Choice
    Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
    Clarity
    Community
    Compassion
    Conflict
    Connection
    Cooking
    Creative Energy
    Creative Life Force Energy
    Creativity
    CSA
    Dance
    Decorating
    Developmentally Disabled
    Dog
    Dream
    Dreams
    Ease
    Energy
    Exploration
    Fable
    Farmer's Market
    Farms
    Fear
    Flaw
    Flow
    Focus
    Gem
    God
    Grace
    Grandchildren
    Gratitude
    Guidance
    Happiness
    Happy
    Higher Self
    Hobby
    Home
    Hopes
    Humor
    Inner Child
    Inner Peace
    Inspiration
    Intention
    Jennifer Louden
    Journaling
    Joy
    Light
    Light Worker
    Live Fully
    Local Business
    Love
    Love In Action
    Loving
    Make A Difference
    Making
    Making A Difference
    Mala Beads
    Manifesting
    Mantra
    Meditation
    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
    Mind-Sweep
    Mirror
    Morning Routine
    Music
    Nature
    Organization
    Outcome
    Patterns
    Prayer
    Puttering
    Questions
    Ramana Maharshi
    Ram Dass
    Readings
    Red Feather
    Rejection
    Rejuvenation
    Resistance
    Retreat
    Rhythm
    Robert Ingersoll
    Self-Acceptance
    Self-Care
    Self-Criticism
    Self-Judgment
    Self-Realization
    Self-Worth
    Serenity
    Service
    Shadow
    Sharing
    Shine
    Shola Arewa
    Spark
    Spirit
    Spiritual Development
    Spiritual Practice
    Spiritual Tool
    Spiritual Toolbox
    Spiritual Tools
    Sri Babaji
    Stay-at-Home
    Staying Positive
    Stories
    Story
    Support
    Surrender
    Symbols
    Task
    Teacher
    The Lord's Prayer
    The Message
    The Prayer Of Jabez
    Thich Nhat Hanh
    Topics
    Treasure
    Treasure Hunt
    Uncceptable
    Unlovable
    Volunteer
    Wounded Child
    Yearnings

    RSS Feed

    Join My Mailing List

     And never miss a blog post! Your personal information will not be shared. 
Submit


​All materials provided on www.hollyhildreth.com are provided for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only and are not intended to be, or serve as a substitute for, professional medical/psychological advice, examination, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or psychological condition.
​

© Holly Hildreth
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • Savor the Sweetness
  • Be of Service
  • Know Thyself
  • Follow Your Bliss
  • Play
  • Be Content
  • Trust God
  • Faster Emotional Freedom Technique-V