challenges – Page 2 – lizalizaskysaregrey

Tides of Change

November 28, 2016November 28, 2016 lizaaitken

I’m going through a difficult phase in life at the moment, you might or might not have noticed, but this influences what I write. The structures around me are falling away, the tides are changing as is what I once trusted and my priorities, I’m changing from the inside out. But I retain hope, I believe there is something out there just waiting for me to discover it.

I know this change is the culmination of a number of difficult years where my experience of grief and loss led me to a point of reevaluation. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, not even the same person I was a couple of days ago. Things are moving fast for me now, I’m changing by the moment. It’s an anxious time, but I’m trying to breath through it, hold onto my beliefs that everything is as it should be. I’ve been here before and I did make it before just as I will again, that it’s a little harder this time is just evolution.

I believe life only gives us what we can manage, and although I’m not always sure at the time I will manage I have incredible resilience. I have wonderful friends and family who provide the support network I need. Some friends, I’ve begun to realise, are not what I once thought, but others feed my soul. Bloggers I’ve met on here have been so supportive, I hope that I am also able to help in the same way, I try to inspire just as I’m inspired by you.

I’ve discovered nature, I have a deeper connection somehow through looking at the messages nature gives me. I share these as I hope the messages might mean something to others. Colours are brighter, feelings more intense, everything is changing but I think it must be for the better.

Nature tells me everything is going to be alright, the world will go on spinning. Seasons will come and go and in some way there will be an impact on the environment, land will change shape, cliffs will erode, rivers will dry up or widen but they will continue to lead to the sea. Life in all it’s glory will continue as it should.

Nature Lessons 96

November 28, 2016 lizaaitken

A flower might get burnt by the elements, weather conditions such as wind, sun, rain and frost may cause it damage dependant on where it is planted and what challenges life presents it with. We can also get burnt in life on occasion just like the flower, but like the flower, it does not always mean the end. We can continue to stretch ourselves out and grow, we have at our disposal the power and strength of spirit to do this. Ultimately those difficult episodes in life can act as a blessing, if we can just gather ourselves up, treasure and focus on what we have left.

~ Liza

Nature Lessons 76

November 9, 2016 lizaaitken

A flower does not stop opening because of a storm, a tree continues to hold out its branches, even though for both of these, petals are damaged and leaves often blown away. Life can be a series of storms, it’s how we face them that matters. Change is natural and there is little we can do about it, challenges come and go, this is nature and all part of being alive. Live to the full each day whatever life presents, just as storms will blow over all things will pass.

~ Liza

Ravaged by Storms

June 10, 2016 lizaaitken

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place – Rumi

I believe in this quote from Rumi the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. I believe as it helps me face my challenges head on, it helps me survive obstacles that can sometimes feel insurmountable. I don’t welcome challenges but I accept them, I acknowledge them and let them sit with me until they pass through. Only then can I see and feel what they have left in their wake, only then can I begin to understand them and build from them. I think of myself as a tree ravaged by the winter storms, uncovered and naked only to be clothed again in spring as I begin again with the warmth of a new day.

Soul Trauma

February 8, 2016 lizaaitken

Are there traumatised souls beyond this world…

Much of my work in life has been with traumatised children, many of whom have been traumatised through their early life experiences. Born into unloving homes, with parents incapable of providing the love a child needs to thrive or abused at the hands of adults who should have cared for them.

Although early intervention, love and understanding can help in recovery for children who have suffered traumatic experiences, I believe in some way the soul carries these scars forward, certainly in this life and maybe beyond. If the purpose of the challenges on earth is to develop the soul so that it becomes enlightened, surely it can only do this through these memories and how they impact upon this life. What understanding we gain from them and how we change.

They say that stress can bring on disease to the body and I have seen that enough to believe it possible, but what about the soul. Does the soul carry the trauma on with it or can it, when not connected to the body understand the reason for the challenges. Are these challenges just for us, our own learning, or are they for the people around us and part of their lessons.

Mediums or channellers of spirits might say that they have a connection with a soul who passed and give evidence to loved ones of an illness that took the spirit over. If this is a memory for the family, providing evidence of life after death, it must remain in some way with the soul of the spirit that has passed. I hope that after death illness disappears as it is only an illness of the body but I have a feeling the memories must surely remain.

My mother has always had a fear of not being able to breath, terrible claustrophobia. Today my mother sits with an oxygen cylinder by her side assisting her breathing, her lung capacity is at a minimum and she has a lung disease that will eventually end her life. That the fear became a reality is strange, is it a coincidence or something more meaningful, did she know all that time ago, was she in fact involved in the plan. I know for sure that I have learnt from her pain and will continue to learn as I care for her.

The soul of the child is born into a family who cannot show love and therefore the child cannot learn love unless, provided with this experience. The child cannot show empathy, trust and understanding to others, as it has no knowledge of these things in this lifetime. But what about the soul of the child, the soul that has lived many lifetimes before this one, does it not retain some of those memories. Do the challenges and lessons of previous lives help us through the ones that follow.

What about our resilience, do we develop it here on earth or is this something we bring with us, learnt from the many challenges of the paths we have walked before. What is natural resilience anyway, I’m resilient, but I also know I have achieved this through my own experiences here. I am able to deal with some traumatic situations by removing myself from the pain of them. Or am I still kidding myself, will the pain slap me around the face one day.

The brain of the child does not receive the signals required from the parent in order to grow and development is delayed. What happens to the soul is it underdeveloped too, does it know it has been let down, is it raging inside that this life might negatively dictate its future journey.

Does the soul not recall love, does it not know there is love in the world. I know as a child, I had a friend, invisible to the adults around me but she loved me. I was born into a loving family and I did forget her, maybe when life on this world became the larger part of my experience and therefore had to be the truth. But I hope this shows we are born with an understanding of love and that we bring some of it with us.

I don’t think the soul is a blank canvas at birth I think it retains some of the wonder of worlds beyond and lives before. It just forgets as the new world unfolds around it. Hopefully a child will receive love, know that there is someone there for them unconditionally and grow up into a loving and understanding world.

I hope that the memories the soul carries help in this life, even if forgotten for now they provide a memory of what is possible and hope.

When people live traumatic lives, through loneliness, war, loss, mental health and illness how long does it take to recover and what happens to the soul. If each lifetime is a lesson, can one lifetime destroy the lessons learnt before.

When you hear stories about life beyond this world you hear of ills being cured, those that were blind seeing, those who could not walk walking. What about those that were not loved, I assume they, find love and are loved in return. I’m guessing they will have more time to recover before the next life………….

I found this piece of writing in my drafts, it was before my mother passed over. I probably wrote it at a time I attempting to come to terms with grief, thinking about my own personal trauma and that of my mothers. I haven’t answered all of the questions yet, I might not.