Tag Archives: Rebecca Atherton

Green and Gold

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I have nearly completed my Christmas tree and I’m so proud, waxing about her as if she were a newborn child. Given the brevity of time before me and the new terrain, the landscape of ‘different’ in which to source from, she’s a work of art. A patchwork of randomly sourced objects, lovingly put together with an attention to detail and adherence to certain rules – like each additional adornment must be serviceable all year, for life not just for December…, she presents a whole that even I with my obsessive need for perfection cannot readily unpick.

There is a velour cat with a bubblegum pink ribbon; a perspex diamond accommodating two mis-adventuring mice (one, with her purple jacket and hat, reminding me of my grandma) a child petting her pet, who just so happens to be a beautiful chocolate-brown spaniel; a hippo in a tutu attempting a pirouette; a moose holding a snow-clad tree – tiny in comparison to his rotund self; an eccentric giraffe displaying, in his outstretched hand, an umbrella (perhaps to remind me of England and all of the rain I incurred there); a felted tiger straight out of ‘Where the Wild Things are’, a similar felted fox and kangaroo, part of a matching collection; a terracotta angel painted Mallorcan style; a ceramic squirrel with a hollow centre and a rabbit carved from local wood. All that’s missing is the star.

Sitting at the very top, visible from every angle… the star cannot just ‘do’, she has to outshine. So while I’ve seen passable solutions and the occasional ‘blow me away with their beauty but also with their price’ attempts at twinkling joviality, I haven’t yet seen anything that works without breaking the budget (which is also one of the rules!) apart. But I believe… : in the solution, in the ‘right’ one, in the five-pointed declaration that is made specifically for me. When the Universe is ready (as like with everything else), she will extend her palm and yield. And if for some unforeseen reason she will not explain, she, the universe and all of the powers that accompany her… deem I am not to have a talisman, a gem to shine in the night, to ward off the darkness… then so be it. There are reasons greater than me.

And maybe it’s about being flexible in the face of restriction. Or happy amongst the uncompromising walls of limitation. Or about only seeing what you want to see.

Living from the one hastily-packed suitcase, a sitting room full of boxes it would be unwise to unpack; making do with another’s curious ornaments and furniture – a glass bowl full of plastic fruit, a black sofa with rose embellished cushions, threadbare rugs that house more beach than dust, a table and chairs with green velvet seats (seriously?), a kitchen that supports the making of tea but actively dissuades the creation of anything else, appliances that make their grievances known, usually throughout the night; bedsheets that itch and towels that scratch, tiles that bear the mark of generations and shift beneath passing feet: there is a lot of accepting and reimagining involved.

But like with boxes and randomly placed objects; unfolded clothes, decaying flowers and unwashed cups: all manner of unwanted but immovable things… After a while they cease to exist, the eye cleverly distorting what the mind lacks the conscious desire and active need to see.

imageSo really it’s just my tree that stands out, projecting beauty, colour, positive energy, fun, enchantment, love and pride. Greeting my return like a faithful friend, she adds a little warmth and welcome to an otherwise cold and inanimate space.

To be healed is having an awareness that you were never broken

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Everything is perfect

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If the Universe could talk and if you could listen, he – she, it, the Universe – would tell you this:

“Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Give yourself a break. You are wonderful, both inside and out. You are doing so well and you are being so brave and I am honoured to be party to your journey and to be a part of what makes you unique.

Please stop worrying so much. And please, stop being so fearful. Nothing will hurt you more than you already hurt yourself.

Everything happens for a reason: it is there to guide and teach. Even heartbreak. Even hardship. Even difficulty and pain.”

“For without challenge we cannot grow. And without adversity we seldom heal. And neither do we choose to embrace the true path, the path of our destiny, the path that is our right.”

What got you here: to this page, to this blog, to this random space out of all of the numerous other random spaces on the Internet? What led you to click ‘HELLO’ when you could just as easily passed on by?

And then what led you to read when you could equally have gone: ‘NEXT’, ‘BORED NOW’or ‘TOO TIRED’… What led you to surrender? Don’t just continue… Think about it. Take a ‘time out’ to really consider it. Give that gift to yourself. Because there are no random encounters and everything happens for a reason. So if you are here, you are supposed to be here and there is something in these pages for the finding.

Maybe it’s a word? Maybe it’s a picture? Maybe it’s a piece of information about something you had forgotten or something you haven’t found out about yet? Whatever it is. And however you find it… There will be something just for you. Find it. Take it. Embrace it.

Because the Universe wants you to know that

“Everything happens for a reason,” and “right now is all there is.”

Forget about the past. It does not exist, except in your memory. Drop it and stop worrying about how you’re going to get through tomorrow.

Forget about the future. It hasn’t arrived yet. And worrying about it or attempting to manipulate it won’t help it accommodate you.

Live for right now. Live for the moment. It’s all you have. Pay attention to it and to the gifts that it offers and all will be well.

Surrender yourself instead of fighting. Embrace spontaneity, happenstance, chance and change. Allow life to step in and steer the journey.

Stop hurting. Stop avoiding. Stop hating and punishing, both other’s and yourself. Stop seeing life as a burden, yourself as a victim, situations and circumstances as things that happen to you.

Trust. Believe. Know. Everything is perfect. Everything is correct. Everything is exactly how it should actually be.

Absorb the present moment with gratefulness and wonder.

Say ‘YES’ instead of ‘NO’.

Explore. Investigate. Accept. Do.

Live with enthusiasm. Connect with sincerity. Move with confidence and passion.

Know that you are watched. Know that you are treasured. Know that you are loved.

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To be healed is having an awareness that you were never broken

To keep up to date with my progress and receive love and light in your inbox, send me your email address.

• Ask me a question or book an appointment
• Buy remedies, healing aides and helpful accessories
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Growing from the centre

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Growing from the centre, spreading out; opening tired arms, reaching out… I begin to evolve; returning – slowly, surely, bit by timid bit – to my maker, to the one who conceived the thought and (albeit thousands of years ago), made my forebears who then lead lives that in a very protracted ‘meandering-around-the-fields kind of way (a bit like my writing) eventually led to me.

But who is that voice that’s calling? And why now? Why not before, when I first had need of it? 

Was it necessary to be so beaten, so tattered and torn, so tangled and tormented, bereft? Did I need to lose it all before I could from the ground, the grey grit of the tired bedraggled pavement, start crawling back?

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Praying, meditating, practicing yoga; spending quiet time, alone time, time with me: I pick up the pieces, attempting to reassemble the puzzle that – whole, complete – amounts to an entirety of something I am only now coming to know.

I try to remember that God loves me and that Jesus died for my sins. I try to remember too that other people have suffered, suffer, are suffering still, and that we are all battling similar things.

Only it’s easy to forget and then feel miserable, or perhaps act out, speaking from the lonely part, the child that has since we began been neglected.

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Reading self-help books; studying religion, spirituality, philosophy, metaphysics… I move, crossing a landscape of boulders that was ‘once upon a time long ago’ green and vibrant.

Planting seeds; tending to the garden, praying to the moon and dancing for the sun: colour arrives and I thrive, rising up from the ashes of pain and shame to walk with grace and confidence.

And I try to have fun and to remember how to play, taking advice from children and the tiny inside me, the ‘me’ that I am only now really learning to see and accept. Fimo unicorns dance across tabletops, origami doves gather around lamps, felttip rainbows remind me to be kind to myself when all around me I’m staring at clouds. Having allowed what has been forbidden to surface, it won’t now be shut back down.

I was afraid that perhaps I wasn’t being mature enough.

I was also afraid that I had gone mad, losing my soul down a rabbit hole that, once entered, did not permit one to turn back.

Now I see that the answer is simple, that I have instead been forced to rewind, returning to parts that never grew, reconnecting with parts that were rejected.

Listening to her, seeing her, for the first time; looking with complete awareness, judgement-free: I slowly heal what was allowed to self-destruct. It is painful and slow. Strange how this journey began as one thing, as a new career path, as an evolution of ego – albeit with a good heart – and then turned into something else entirely that has, in new and nefarious ways, challenged me.

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Walking in the light, I see that God had other plans and that, really, when it’s all peeled back, there is only ever one path, one way, and it is love.

Love makes us happy.

Love brings us peace.

Love enables us to forgive and thereby to finally heal.

Love enables us to reach out and touch and begin to restore, transforming hate and anger, cynicism and judgement, depression and pain. Little by little, the world begins to change. 

It is a journey of a thousand miles. And, like all of you, each day I take another step.

by Rebecca L. Atherton
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To be healed is having an awareness that you were never broken

To keep up to date with my progress and receive love and light in your inbox, send me your email address.

• Ask me a question or book an appointment
• Buy remedies, healing aides and helpful accessories
• Check out my Etsy Shop to see what else I do

So lovely. So true. So freaking difficult!

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If you are struggling to see past the red crosses you have drawn all over yourself and self-love is this mysterious thing other people seem able to adopt and then apply but which you (no matter how hard you try – and you really do try hard) just can’t seem to be able to implement…

Forgive yourself.

It’s not something that happens overnight.

Neither is it something that comes from a place of punishment and guilt. So…

Stop beating yourself up.

And stop judging your insides against the outsides of others. Their insides are mixed up too. And most of them have issues with their outsides, no matter what you in your ‘not knowing’, in your ‘separateness’ from them, perceive. They’re only together, ‘fixed’, ‘sussed’, on the right spiritual/life path… because you, in your ignorance of their authentic truth, their blueprint reality, are attributing that quality to them. You’ve literally shone a halo over their head. And it’s beautiful and it’s bright. But in their mind’s eye (and that’s the eye that’s important), it’s not there, it’s not even remotely visible. In fact, if you were to ask them and find them willing to share, they would tell you that actually they’re scared, they’re stressed; they’re angry, depressed, sick, aching, damaged, battered and bruised. Because viewed in that light, none of us escape unscathed.

But who says injury is a bad thing?

And why does an outbreak of eczema or acne, a large birthmark, a scar, a burn, etc., make us any the less beautiful, any the less acceptable to the world?

And do we have to wear make-up; have clean, styled, freshly-washed hair, don tight bodies and fashionable clothes, in order to be deemed worthy to ourselves and our colleagues, our friends and family? No, it’s ridiculous.
Animals love themselves exactly as they are. They don’t even question it.

Babies and children too.

Watch a child. See how they treat themselves, the love they demonstrate.

They don’t see faults, flaws. They don’t look in the mirror and grimace, turn from their reflection when passing shop windows, apologise hundreds of times each day for their behaviour, their lack.

When they are in pain, they demand immediate attention.

And when they play, there’s no “you go first” or “it’s ok you hurt me… I don’t mind”. They protest. They stand up for their rights. They know who is supposed to come first and they make sure that in every given moment, encountered situation, received experience, that that person does.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we all start acting like two-year-olds or that we forget about kindness to others and consideration and care. These are important too.

What I’m saying is that somewhere in the process of growing up, we sort of lost ourselves and forgot that we need to be treated with respect. And that that respect ought to come from inside first before we even attempt to find it outside of ourselves. Because outside is, essentially, external, separate; subject to mood, location, season and whim. We need to have a firm, stable centre; foundations to draw from, to act from, to sit upon… before we start collecting people and things, adding them to what lights us up.
Acceptance and compassion (i.e. self-love) are all about learning to hold the space and to embrace yourself exactly as you are in any given moment or situation. Yes, that means loving the lesser as much as the better hair days. And treating the belly aches, back aches, headaches, foot aches, arm aches, breaks and sprains; psoriasis, eczema, acne, dry patches, wrinkles, shadows, creases and lines, and all of the other various nefarious illnesses, ailments, injuries and perceived misdemeanours – that, irritatingly (although I won’t judge), seem to multiply over the years – with care. By this, I mean tuning into the body-part or area in which we are experiencing discomfort: feeling it, seeing it, sensing it from inside. And then attempting to commune with it, striking up a conversation, building a relationship.

• What does it look like?
• What does it sound like?
• What does it want to say?

Finding out as much as we can so that we can get to know it, not just as a part of ourselves, but as a part in its own right.

For example: a spot might be telling us numerous things. That we are allergic to something in our diet or environment. That we need a good night’s sleep. That we would benefit from more exercise. That we are unhappy in our relationship. That we are stressed at work, etc.

And what about neck pain? What are we refusing to see? What won’t we turn and look at – thereby avoiding and, knowingly or unknowingly, allowing to dominate our lives…?

Every perceived problem is actually a communication, a message from our bodies, begging us to slow down, go inside, stop and listen.

And by learning to listen, we not only develop a much better relationship to ourselves; we improve all of our other relationships too. Our relationship to our life. Our relationship to the people around us. Our relationship to our job…
So, next time you’re beating yourself up:

• take a moment to stop and listen
• find a quiet space
• close your eyes
• put on some relaxing music
• hold where it hurts

– or where you think it (the discomfort, the thing you are ‘right-now’ hating, resisting in the moment; the thing that is perceived as a burden) is coming from.

• sense it
• see it
• feel it
• listen

And as you are listening, ask not “why are you doing this to me?” but “why are you doing this for me?”, “what do you have to say?”. And know that the answer is important, no matter what it is.

Because the truth is that:

Your insides can’t lie to you like your outside can.

Be brave. Be strong. Be reliable.

Instead of rejecting yourself, show up.

And when you do, be accepting and compassionate. Treat yourself as you would treat a plant or a small child. Get to know yourself all over again. And from that place plant many seeds that – with love and attention, with kindness and consideration – will grow.

Open. Unfold. Spread out and unpack. Expand, develop and communicate. Commence. Initiate. Set in motion. Set up. Raise the curtain and – when you are good and ready but not when you are too late, when you are in the here and now not in the goodbye – proudly step out to embrace and meet. 

by Rebecca L. Atherton

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To be healed is having an awareness that you were never broken

To keep up to date with my progress and receive love and light in your inbox, send me your email address.

• Ask me a question or book an appointment
• Buy remedies, healing aides and helpful accessories
• Check out my Etsy Shop to see what else I do