Tag: challenges

Savage Year

lizaaitken

You were savage in your approach to me,

but I can see now why you came.

In the cruel, punishing and hurtful place,

I experienced incredible pain.

And all of those things I thought so real,

material things and the like.

Stripped me bare so I lost my way out,

I travelled the darkest night.

I questioned why you came for me then,

I know better now on this side.

You needed to help me see my falseness,

on that awful fairground ride. 

Screaming all through that savage year,

I came through knowing myself.

Of all the things you taught me last year,

it was to trust in nobody else. 

~  

Savage

lizalizaskysaregrey©2017

After the Storm

lizaaitken

After the rain had fallen it’s last,

the clouds now empty will stray.

Like challenges that come and pass,

we too can now start a new day.

As the sun shows it’s warmest face,

lighting up what was once dark.

As brightness after challenges will,

though it might leave it’s mark.

As flowers often still hang their heads,

as wet from the gales of the night.

It might take us a while to get up again,

to fully get over each plight.

Then like a bee we bravely emerge,

trusting that things might be calm.

Looking back at the past as it fades,

so thankful we came to no harm.

After our storm has done it’s worst,

warmth will enter our lives again.

It’s the same with a rainy season,

the sun will come out after rain.

The rawness of each emotion we feel,

soothed as the storm passes on.

Standing up tall despite the past,

for our lives will still move along.

We retrieve the hopefulness we lost,

and we start to pick up our pace.

Oh the storms will come and go in life,

it’s a fact that we all have to face.

~

lizalizaskysaregrey©2017

Our Survival

lizaaitken

Those things we fear, those awful things,

the ones that knock us down,

They are hard to bare and very unclear,

but usually how we are found.

I’m talking of the lightning struck tower,

that knocks us right off our feet,

With those fitful nights and awful dreams,

it’s so hard to go off to sleep.

Then after we usually find we survive,

it’s never as bad as it seams.

The nightmare of my impending doom,

is only played out in my dreams.

You see we’re trained to be fearful,

to always expect the worst ending,

Never account for survival it seams,

unless it’s on life we’re depending.

~

Survive

A Temporary Stay

lizaaitken

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I’m renting at the moment, it’s temporary. I’m renting a flat while I take a breather, plan for the future and set myself up, but it’s certainly temporary.

Life is temporary, we are here for just a while and yet our spirit is infinite, our spirit continues long after this life. We travel through many lives, what seems to us a lifetime is just a temporary stop off, like another lesson in school. We enter the classroom, absorb what is being taught, store it somewhere, gather our things and go onto the next lesson.

I like the flat I’m renting, it’s new, modern and spacious. I’m on the balcony at the moment, I just love having an outside space. I don’t like the town of Worthing, it’s not my sort of place, the people are not my people, it’s hard to explain but Brighton is more my vibe. Brighton is full of interesting people, vibrant, weird and wonderful. I can find stimulating conversations on every corner, art and music are just a stones throw and the food choices are huge. I tried to find a good bakers today, I’ll go into Brighton tomorrow and while I’m there, I’ll go to Infinity Foods and stock up on essentials.

We could be born anywhere, each time a different place or keep returning to the same place time after time. I think we are involved in choosing but we might also be drawn back for reasons, unfinished business or to continue a lesson. We might stay up to a hundred years, maybe longer, often shorter but it is still only temporary compared to continued existence of the soul.

I can cope with living in Worthing, I have space and I need space, I’m minutes from the sea and the beaches are not covered with tourists. The sea smells of seaweed and not beer and candy floss, that’s certainly a plus. I am fourteen miles from Brighton and can go in any time I need a fix, my son lives in Brighton.

If we look at life as temporary and break it down into parts, we can see it is all temporary. The good times and the bad, nothing lasts forever and it’s good to make the best of what we have for as long as we have it because the tides will change and another lesson will present itself. Each time life presents us with challenges, welcome them and know they are temporary, that they are there to teach us and they won’t last, brighter days are just around the next bend.

Temporary

lizalizaskysaregrey©2017

 

Massive Change

lizaaitken

Challenges come throughout our lives that require us to make big changes and sometimes these challenges are massive. The changes we have to make can involve us needing to let go of things, sometimes through choice, sometimes the letting go is forced upon us through circumstance. Some of these life changes, rock our very foundations, we question who we are, but often the changes are necessary for our continued growth.

Life changes or challenges come in all sorts of ways, the loss of loved ones, health, loosing our jobs or homes and perhaps finding ourselves outside of anything we knew. Change can involve the letting go of possessions, beliefs, life structures and what makes us who we are. The letting go is necessary if what we have hung onto is no longer of use or just weighs us down. Often it’s people we say goodbye to, those whose worlds we just don’t fit into anymore.

We might initially fight change and continue to fight with every ounce of our strength until we give up, surrender and realise that fight it or not, change is going to happen.  So rather than be a lamb to the slaughter, isn’t it better to take control of things earlier and head off in the direction we are being pushed.

Life isn’t always easy, it’s not meant to be, sometimes it’s just one thing after another, some of these things rip the very heart from us. But each thing that happens to us, happens for a reason, there is a lesson to be learnt from everything that happens.

A few year back a friend asked me to describe my essence, what made me who I was. This was when I was starting out with my consultancy business and he felt it was a good exercise in knowing what I could offer. I found this quite difficult, maybe as it was the beginning of my life changing as it has. Today if I look at what I wrote there is a lot I don’t recognise. Today when I complete the same exercise, it looks totally different because I’m totally different. It’s perhaps good that I’ve closed my consultancy business now and I’m working in a different way.

I’ve learnt, when we continue to fight change, things get even more difficult because we are fighting universal plans and lets be honest, who can take on the universe. The best thing to do is embrace change, scary as this may seem, once we start to walk the right path and surrender ourselves, things start to go in our way. Opportunity presents itself and we find ourselves in the right place, meeting the right people and laughing again.

When I think back to all the difficult periods in my life it’s usually because I’ve been fighting things, challenges, often endings, usually the inevitable, and each and every one of these were meant to be. It’s so much easier to surrender, allow and accept change, embrace and welcome it when it comes because then it might not turn into something so hard to manage after all.

When we fight against the things that happen to us, it’s like the universe steps it up a gear just to prove to us we are not in charge. I sometimes think we are just actors, we have an invisible script to follow, sometimes presented at short notice. Okay I think there might be room for some ad-libbing but I don’t think we can totally change the play.

 

Daily Prompt – Massive

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The Old Boot

lizaaitken

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Life here on earth is a game of sorts and each of us has a different part to play. As much as we can make decisions and have free will, things will change, obstacles will get in the way and we will be presented with challenges. You see, as you might have realised, we are not entirely in control of the next move or the outcome.

Somewhere in the universe, or another one completely, this game is being played. Each player makes the moves that will change our lives for better or worse. We can prepare for this by understanding that things will change, being prepared and not clinging onto possessions of any kind, and that means people too. Because our turn will come around again soon and we will each feel it. Each move effects one of us, but each move is felt by those around us too. Sometimes the things that happen to us are wonderful, we move up the ladder, sometimes we go down the snake or into jail and miss a turn but the game continues.

It’s not a game of chance, because those that are playing understand that the object of the game is to help us grow, assist us in moving up to our best possible selves. Their goal is to take us to a place in which we can realise and meet the true self.

Think about it if you will, I’m sure you have played a board game or two in your lives. Think how you sit around a board, all with your own counter or figurine and your task is to move this around the board. Now think about the counter, imagine yourself as the old boot on a monopoly board, two steps forward, two steps back, miss a go. How does the boot feel, bored I imagine, stagnant and certainly not heading anywhere. A change is needed and the person who chose the boot to play with needs to make some right moves, their intention to get the boot to the end of the game. Okay so maybe monopoly is not the right game to choose as it’s all about amassing wealth but if money and property were lessons can you see where I’m going?

In this game, the players work together, not against each other because they know that each counter needs to get around the board. It’s a poor game if only one succeeds and anyway this is not possible. Let me explain, one player might decide his counter needs a job, house move, lover or any experience and during their turn put the plan in motion, but they are totally reliant on who plays next. So, the idea is a job and they get their counter to apply for this job, now they must wait to see what the next player will do, will they work together and agree with the game strategy or will they go against it, you see it will depend on what it means to their counter, maybe the job would have been good for them too.

Each move changes the board totally, the change for one effects each counter, therefore our lives are constantly changing. Things don’t come out of the blue, although it’s not a bad phrase if it’s blue where the game is being played.

Now for the mind-blowing part, who do you think is responsible for your counter?

It’s yourself, the self that we really are, the self we are in search of that knows all, the true SELF. You see we are spiritual beings, it is only the humanness that prevents us from seeing the truth, this game is being played within each of us and by each of us, only we don’t know it, because we haven’t really discovered ourselves.

So you see the importance of knowing ones self, connecting at a deeper level. See how you can influence and invite things into your life by being connected to the game player, spending time getting to know them, realising their purpose. 

Take some time out today and think about how the game is being played for you.

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The Hidden Path

lizaaitken


If the path ahead was paved with gold it would certainly be easy to see. But there is also a hidden path that requires focus, asks that we remember all the twists and turns in case we need to find our way back. This path will reveal things along the way. It might require more courage, may be harder to tread but it might well be the one we need to walk.

There are many paths down which we can travel, some easier than others, all reach the same destination but only one of these paths is for each of us. The pathways we choose through life build us, teach us and strip away the false to reveal what is the truth. 

You may not always be able to choose the path through life you want, but you can think about every step you take.

~ Liza

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Tides of Change

lizaaitken

If we compare the challenges we face in life to the ocean, we’ll begin to understand that whatever is happening, the tides will change.  That boat that gets blown about in the gale will enjoy the calmness of a summer day, the gull that can’t land because of the swell will sleep on the ocean in months to come and those waters will always turn warm again.  The storms are needed to wash away the rubbish from the shore in preparation for another summer and the sound, smell and taste of the ocean will sooth us once again.

~ Liza

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