Open Your Heart

‘I didn’t know love, until I knew you.’

– Parzival –

So I enjoyed yet another truly wonderful Dru Yoga class today. Words literally cannot describe how fantastic and powerful this style of yoga is. The practice that my teacher put together today was nothing short of amazing, and I was in a flood of tears by the end of it. Some would think that’s a bad thing, but I was obviously shifting something, which I’m incredibly grateful for.

At the beginning of every year I set an intention. Last year it was to improve my relationship with money, little did I know that I would end up enduring 7 months of not making any money at all through my business, in order to learn the lessons that I needed to learn (including the importance of being able to receive). However, the tricky stuff aside, the Universe definitely delivered and I have definitely improved my relationship with money, and am continuing to perfect it day by day.

This year I set the intention to really, truly and honestly understand what it is to unconditionally love, knowing full well that that would begin with myself. Because once I have unconditional love for me, I will then experience it with all of the other people and relationships that I have in my life, as they’ll be reflections of me.

And the Universe, being true to its word has already set about helping me out with that one. First and foremost, it has required me to be single, so no more boyfriend for me right now. In fact, no boyfriend until I love myself completely and unconditionally and don’t need anyone else to fill in the holes that I haven’t filled myself.

The next few months of this year is going to be a love affair with myself and opening my heart as far and wide as possible. And there are so many beautiful things and experiences that are showing up to help me with that. Dru Yoga, heart opening meditations from Mind Valley, amazing energy work from Heart Centered Living expert Mr Robert Kirby, Sound Healing to open up my heart, the list is endless. In fact, my intention of every day is to open up my heart as wide as I can, wider and wider with every day that passes, so I can let as much love and light in, and give is back to the earth in equal measure.

Also, very interestingly, this is an 11/2 Personal Year for me in Numerology. The 2 representing a year of relationships, balance and emotions. A year to create harmony in my life and work on relationships, including, most importantly, my relationship with myself. And the higher vibration of 11, means I’ll experience a year of illumination, inspiration and personal growth. A year where I will be given opportunities to reach a higher level of awareness and experience growth and further enlightenment. To calculate your personal year, you add the day and month that you were born to the current year.

So for me this is 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 4 = 11 As I was born on 2 Nov.

And so, as I write to you from the comfort of my sofa at home, a cup of rooibos tea, some cadburys chocolate and a couple of candles flickering beside me, I’m enjoying a very lovely date night in with myself and I couldn’t be happier. Once this post has been written, I will probably enjoy a lovely soak in a epsom salt + lavender oil bath and then snuggle down for the night.

So, I guess the purpose of this post is to encourage all of your beautiful people to open your hearts too. Whenever life sends you a slightly tricky situation or an experience that perhaps isn’t ideal, just open your heart and let love out and let love in and see what happens next. I’m doing this as much as I can every day and I’m getting some pretty beautiful results.

And to close, here is a very beautiful song ‘Til I Knew You by the very wonderful Parzival.

 

Here’s to love, light and opening our hearts to all the love that is there for us to experience.

Open-hearted love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

P.S. If you want to fin out what the meaning of your Personal Year is and have a 60 minute Numerology reading, I do these in person in Manly, Australia or over Skype for $220. Just drop me an email at kat@thoughtcloudcollective.com to book a time slot with me. 🙂

Image gratitude – http://poemsprayersandponderings.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/let-your-heart-be-known/open-your-heart/

 

Everything will be OK (Part 2)

‘Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.’

– Anon –

Following on from Part 1 of this four part blog series, here is Part 2 for you.

. . . I literally had no money in my account for months and months and months. Any money that Darren helped me out with went straight out to pay for training courses I had already committed to, paid for my phone bill, or contributed to ferry tickets so I could go into the city and meet with prospective clients.

This was the most dire financial situation I had been in throughout my entire life. However, I know, for certain that it happened for a reason. In fact, it had to happen. Because I needed to learn the things that I needed to learn, by going through what I went through. And no matter how rubbish it felt throughout that 7 month period, I have come out of it the other side, an even better person than I was before. I also know that I wouldn’t have the perspective I have now looking back on it.

So, you may ask, what have I learnt? And this for me is the most important thing. Life sometimes throws us curveballs. Sometimes it gives us something to deal with that, in the moment, we feel as though we just aren’t equipped to handle. But, sometimes what we don’t realise is, that the Universe only ever gives us exactly what we need, in the exact moment that we need it. And it never gives us anything greater than that which we are equipped to deal with.

So, what have I learnt?

I’ve learnt to receive help from people who love me, much more easily and willingly – I know that before this year I would feel very guilty receiving help from people. I didn’t want to feel vulnerable or weak. I didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t want to put people out. I didn’t want to admit that I needed help from someone. It was always much easier to just deal with things by myself. And so far this year, I have definitely allowed people to help me a lot more than I ever had.

It has been in these moments of allowing myself to be vulnerable, that I have allowed someone in, who loves me, to help me. And by doing so, I have softened my heart and started to remove some of the armour I had subconsciously built up around it. The armour that existed, because I didn’t want people to think that I was weak.

I’ve also learnt to have a better relationship with money – my relationship with money had never been perfect. Before I started my business, throughout my 20s, I had earned a lot of money working in the Corporate World in Branding and Marketing. In fact, since starting working for Virgin in 2003, I can’t really remember there ever being a time where I struggled for cash. I was always earning. There was always money in my bank account. I never had to worry about whether I could afford to do something or go somewhere, I just did. I had a Carpe Diem approach to life and a Carpe Diem approach to money. However, I never saved. I never had anything in reserve. It was only when I was with my ex-boyfriend that I saved, and that was only for one year. It was an important year though, because the $7000 that I saved while we were together, contributed to the other money that I saved not long after my 30th birthday, which paid for my Round the World Trip, which ended up bringing me to Australia . . . . .

Part 3 will follow tomorrow . . . .

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Open up your pure heart

‘I didn’t know love, until I knew you.’

– Parzival –

Recently I have really got into the crowdfunding movement. I think it is one of the most beautiful ways to get funding from likeminded people for a project, book, film, album or business you are wanting to start, but lack the capital to get it going.

I’m working on a film called A Vibrational World at the moment and we will be running a crowdfunding campaign for the first round of funding quite soon. And I am also pulling together a campaign to fund a conscious clothing company that I am wanting to start called Katkin. More on those two projects in later posts though.

Anyway, I have set the intention to start to find and fund projects through Indiegogo that I think rock, and yesterday was no exception.

I came across the most beautiful musical artist from Seattle, called Parzival yesterday who was looking for $1000 funding to support the release of his new album called ‘Pisces Rising’. The album ‘tells the story of love and self-acceptance as a way through modern perils.’ Which I thought was super cool, especially considering the work that I have been doing on myself in this space over the last few years.

So I followed the link to the campaign page and came across this incredibly beautiful song, which reduced me to tears pretty quickly. ‘Til I Knew You, is not only a song about love for another, but most definitely a song about the love that we need to have for ourselves. And the fact that we can only experience that love, when we decide to truly open our heart and allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

I donated $25 US in exchange for a digital download of his new album, a CD copy of it and a copy of his first CD too. The digital download was emailed to me a few hours after I had donated, which was super cool.

Firstly I would say, if you like the song, pop along to his Indiegogo page and contribute to his campaign. And secondly I would say, if you have any kind of project or business idea that you have had in the back of your mind or floating around for some time, but have been held back by lack of funds, now you have no excuse. Just set up a crowdfunding campaign, share it with friends and family and see what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Learn more

Visit Perzival’s crowdfunding page

Visit Perzival’s website

Image gratitude – http://realawkwardwords.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/the-night-i-lost-my-car-in-ocean-beach/. Photo by alonis.

We only get one life, best make the most of it

“You say the more you think you know what’s right 
The less you do what you feel inside 
So I won’t pretend that I always know 
I just follow my heart wherever it goes 
And I may not always get it right 
But at least I’m living coz I’ve only got this…

One life, one life, one life, I’ve got this one life.” 

– James Morrison –

While I was travelling in 2011 I was listening to all sorts of music, which provided the soundtrack to my escapades, and I came across James Morrison’s album The Awakening at some point along the way.

I’m not entirely sure when it was or where I was, but it had a pretty profound effect on me. And three songs in-particular: ‘One Life‘ and ‘The Awakening‘ and ‘The Person I Should Have Been‘. This also came at the time I was listening to Mumford & Sons ‘The Cave‘ a lot, especially during my time travelling around New Zealand.

“Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it’s meant to be”

 I remember sitting on the Kiwi Experience bus as we bombed about the North Island, zipping through luscious green fields, passing by herds of sheep and hay bails with All Blacks signs attached to them in support of their National Rugby Team for the World Cup. And as I sat and stared out the window a-gasp at just how incredibly beautiful a country could be, the soundtrack to my travels filled my head with thoughts and ideas about what I would do when I finished travelling.

I knew I wasn’t going back to the UK, but wasn’t going to share that thought with anyone until I knew what the plan was. What I really wasn’t sure of was where I was going to end up. My initial thought had always been to finish my 9 month trip in California, head straight to Silicon Valley, ditch my backpack at a hotel, buy a nice dress, head straight to the Facebook offices and stay there until someone in their Marketing Dept agreed to meet with me and not leave until they had offered me a job.

However, I hadn’t planned for a $5000 surgery bill in Singapore (of which I only got some, not all back from my insurance company), and 6 weeks worth of hospital trips to treat an abscess wound in my leg. To cut a long story short, I was 6 months into my trip, running out of money and running out of puff.

So, at the end of my one month travelling in New Zealand, I had a decision to make. Either I could carry on travelling and spend two months in South America and a final 5-6 weeks in the USA and Canada and end up back home in pretty bad debt. Or, I could apply for my Working Holiday Visa for Australia and head back to Sydney.

My head said, Kinnie, finish what you started. Keep on travelling, you’ve only got 3 months left, use your credit card if needs be and you can get a job easily when you get back to the UK and pay it off.

My heart said, Kat, you need to go back to Sydney.

Don’t ask me why it said that, or what it meant, as I really don’t know. All I do know is that the overwhelming feeling that I had, was to head straight back to Australia, and to Sydney in particular.

It was the middle of November, and as mentioned I was running out of money and steam for travelling. As awesome a time as I had had, I was really longing for a little bit of normality in my life: a bed that I could call my own, a wardrobe to put a few of my things in, organic food, and even a job! I felt like I wanted to use my brain again. Plus it was getting close to Christmas, and I didn’t fancy spending it with a bunch of strangers. Despite all of the fantastic people I had met along the way and having celebrated one of my best birthdays ever in Wellington with some amazing new friends I had made, I was keen to spend time with the people who I knew in Sydney at Christmas and New Year.

So, what’s the point of this post today?

Very easy. Whenever you are needing to make a tricky decision in life, follow your heart. Always follow your heart, and above all, follow your heart.

Forget your head, forget what the logical or rational thing to do is, throw all of that out of the window and follow your heart. Listen to your intuition. We’re given it for a reason, and it’s never wrong, and even when we think it’s wrong, it has led us down a path, so that we can learn what we need to learn, because everything happens for a reason.

If you get a positive feeling about something, follow it. Just like Alice following the White Rabbit. Imagine that the White Rabbit is your intuition. And if she hadn’t followed the White Rabbit, she wouldn’t have found Wonderland. 🙂

Goodness knows where I would be and what I’d be doing if I hadn’t followed my heart back to Sydney. I’m sure it would still be awesome, but at the same time, I’m incredibly happy, grateful and appreciative of the incredible life I have created for myself here. The day that I followed my heart, was the day I stopped listening to my head and I cannot recommend this way of making decisions highly enough! It’s how I make all of my decisions on a daily basis now. I do what FEELS right for me, always.

As James Morrison sings ‘I got one life, one life, one life and I’m gonna live it right‘.

And to close this post, I’ll leave you with a fantastic quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland:

“Alice came to a fork in the road. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’ responded the Cheshire Cat.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.
‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”

Inspiration for this post:

One Life by James Morrison

The Cave by Mumford & Sons

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll