by Amber Goodwin, Merchandiser, Goonellabah, Australia
When I was little I was always freely expressing, I loved to make sounds and tones, and sing. I loved to move my body, music or no music, I loved to play and make things with not a thought on ‘how it would turn out’… my heart had something it was feeling confident to express and I loved this feeling.
However, after a few knocks here and there I began to believe the harsh rules, conditions, expectations and beliefs that were placed on me and I began to squash my own expression so as to not upset anyone else … and in doing so I have held my natural expression back, which has felt crippling for me ever since.
I had an experience recently where I took up the offer to do some art with Rosie’s ‘Expression through HeART’ art class. I needed a mask for a masquerade ball I am attending so that’s what I decided I’d make.
I googled a few mask pictures to get an idea of what I liked and found one that I loved. I took myself shopping to find the materials I wanted to use, and whilst I was looking at options of material, I found it hard to make a decision. It had to be exactly like what I saw in the picture, and for a fair price. Soon I became quite tense as I was taking too much time. I then realised I had to just be practical and take what would best suit and move on to the next thing. However with each item, this feeling of not being confident, of being afraid that I’d not get the right things and end up with something that wasn’t right, kept coming up. After two hours it had become a somewhat painful experience!! However, when I looked in my basket, I loved what I had ended up with – feathers, pearls, gems and lace. Wow! I thought, even though that was a bit of a struggle I really love what I have chosen.
The next morning I arrived at the art studio where I was shown to the space I could set myself up, and the textiles I could use. I took my time to settle and set up my area. I got everything out and ready but found myself hesitant to start. I felt exuberant about making something but felt tense and uneasy about how to do it… I was so afraid of making a mistake, or doing it wrong, or ruining the materials I had paid a lot of money for.
I started with preparing my mask, which needed to be stripped of its existing cover. I began to struggle with peeling the glue off, becoming more tense and pressing on it harder and harder until I accidentally snapped it clean in half! Well, that made me stop!
I sat back for a moment, I felt so tense… I thought to myself “what is going on with me?”, “nothing should be this difficult”, “why is this such a struggle for me?”, “I need to come back to myself”.
I brought my awareness back into my body; I felt the tension in my arms and shoulders and chest and noticed my breathing felt constricted. I took some deeper breaths and then let them go, and allowed my breathing to become more gentle; I got up from my seat and moved around a little to allow the flow back into my body.
I wasn’t going to let the fact that the mask broke stop me, and thankfully I managed to superglue the mask back together and continue.
The next part was gluing the material on with the hot gun. Now this was a somewhat tricky task as the glue dries fairly fast and the material can be a little flimsy.
Once again I began to tense up and feel awkward and uneasy about how to do it, not knowing if it was going to turn out right. At this stage I was well and truly over feeling this tension so I asked for some help. It was suggested to me to try the glue out on a bit of cardboard first, so I did and felt a little more confident as I now understood the way the glue worked.
As I continued with each step I felt the tension rise, but I also kept choosing to stay with me, to feel my body and my breathing and to take one step at a time. I found that as I stayed with me I was feeling more confident as I went along and I started to feel a little more adventurous and ‘freer’ in what or how I might do the next thing.
With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.
I realised I was still subscribing to the harsh rules, conditions and expectations that had once been placed on me and was not allowing myself to feel what was right for me. But now I had chosen to be in a space where this was not happening… a space where I could let go, take my time, feel how I might do things and be with myself without feeling I needed to change or do or be something different to meet others’ demands and expectations: in this staying with me I could feel a lovely-ness and an allowing in what I was doing, and I started feeling confident in the choices I was making.
A beautiful conversation opened up with the women I was doing the art with and there was an openness that felt lovely. One woman then began to sing, and we so naturally joined in and all began to sing and gently move to the music that was playing… I felt like I was five years old again except that now we were beautiful grown women – it felt amazing.
As I completed I began to see and feel that what I was making was actually truly magnificent! I became tense because for a moment I thought “after all that fuss I wasn’t allowed to love what I had made”; but there it was, staring me in the face, (pun intended) this beautiful, delicate, feminine and absolutely gorgeous masquerade mask, and not only was I feeling confident but I could see and feel I had made a celebration of me!
Inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
As children we have the natural tendency to just be and as we grow up it becomes laced with everything else, we lose that or it is piled upon with everything that does not belong. We then spend the rest of our lives being hard on ourselves for not being gentle, wishing and hoping that it will come through. So we have this constant battle in our lives. And the place we need to go to is when we felt free and easy of being us, and to heal the time when it was changed or shifted by something.
Within us all is that child that still has these feelings and they need to be bought up to the surface more often. To actually feel joyful or in glory is a beautiful feeling and all we need to do is let it out for not only us, but for others to feel and reflect too, allowing them the opportunity to do the same too.
Thank for sharing something you discovered about yourself through the simplicity of art.
It’s interesting to note that many of us have this need to be right or get things right and I wonder where this comes from? To me it feels as though it is something to do with School/Education when we had to get our times table correct, or the work that we did had to be correct there was no room for mistakes at all. This was reinforced to the class when the teacher called out the results of the marks we had been given for our homework. It became a humiliation if you got less than the group as the pack energy of the class was smug and superior over those who didn’t do so well.
I agree Mary competition is introduced to us at school that being the best in many things plays out the rest of our lives. We are measured by marks and yet within all of us, we are perfect and we bring these qualities to everything we do.
We focus too much on what we can’t do instead of focusing on what we can and are able to do. The education system seldom promotes this and it needs to change and one day, in the distant future it will, if it hasn’t already began.
When we struggle with something, it is about needing to look at the energy with which we are approaching things. A shift in energy is often the first thing that is needed and then we have the clarity to know where to take it from here.
Amber, this reminds me of how hard I too can be on myself, to not make a ‘mistake’ or to make sure I do not waste things etc etc. Some of this may well have been partly from my upbringing and from learning and watching around me, but much of this feels so much older than that because as an adult I still can apply this to myself instead of being super supportive and deeply nurturing of myself. Funny that how we can still apply certain ‘rules’ to ourselves even though they are now old and no longer relevant, and in fact can hold us back from our own growth.
Everyday living with the soul provides opportunities to feel the truth about how we have been affected by the world to leave ourselves, and return to the love we are. What makes it simple is to feel the truth through the body, as it always communicates very clearly.
The struggle and tension you describe here is so pertinent to how we get brought up to do things – with drive and with no joy in the process while our focus is solely on the outcome.
When we feel tension like Amber described in her blog, it makes sense to stop, ask ourselves what is going on as we re-connect back to our body, ‘I brought my awareness back into my body; I felt the tension in my arms and shoulders and chest and noticed my breathing felt constricted. I took some deeper breaths and then let them go, and allowed my breathing to become more gentle; I got up from my seat and moved around a little to allow the flow back into my body.’
“This feeling of not being confident, of being afraid that I’d not get the right things and end up with something that wasn’t right, kept coming up”. This fear of not getting things right or perfect is paralysing when we allow it to get in the way. I loved the way the writer kept feeling the tension and questioning it, knowing that she was actually creating an unnecessary struggle.
This happens continuously as children we believe what we are told and so absorb all the rules and regulations of society which actually crush the essence of who we truly are. It is a huge set up that the majority of us fall for life after life. And it is actually crippling us all we just have to look at the health statistics to see the affect it has on our bodies.
Mary your comment has made me reflect on how false authority can be, particularly when its age related, when the true authority is our clairsentience, our ability to feel the truth behind everything.
This is a great example of how we can be, that no matter what happens, no matter how we are, or how things turn out, we can keep coming back to our bodies and letting go and feeling what is next. We allow ourselves space.
Well said Monica, for the body is our connection to the Soul.
It is important to stay with our bodies or keep coming back to our bodies, and Amber shared a great example of this, ‘As I continued with each step I felt the tension rise, but I also kept choosing to stay with me, to feel my body and my breathing and to take one step at a time. I found that as I stayed with me I was feeling more confident as I went along and I started to feel a little more adventurous and ‘freer’ in what or how I might do the next thing.’
There is such a freedom when we let go, and when we can be with something without an expectation of the outcome, and even more when we do hit those expectations or tension, how we can simply choose to come back and to feel that tension and let go, and as we do we find again in us the freedom to be us.
This is so often what happens to us as children
“after a few knocks here and there I began to believe the harsh rules, conditions, expectations and beliefs that were placed on me and I began to squash my own expression so as to not upset anyone else … and in doing so I have held my natural expression back, which has felt crippling for me ever since.”
I have spent most of my life swallowing my true expression playing the role of the ‘Good’ daughter, friend, sister, work colleague; I have discovered this actually has been a huge hindrance like a ball and chain around my neck. As children we are swayed by other people’s expectations that are placed as burdens on us. Through the teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon I’m coming at last to the understanding that these ideals and beliefs are not actually mine, this is a stop moment as it now gives me space to discover the real me and what is it that I know to be true.
Moving chasing an image introduces a series of parameters into your movements that guarantee you not being you.
Yes this being hard on ourselves is such a disruptive set up that is all too easy to fall into. Once we are in the trap and can feel like there is no way out. But is only a choice to be a victim of this cycle that is not true.
“I found that as I stayed with me I was feeling more confident as I went along and I started to feel a little more adventurous and ‘freer’ in what or how I might do the next thing.” – In my experience confidence is something that comes from my connection with my whole body as well, and by bringing my mind back to my body, my posture and the way I’m moving it really does make a difference to the way I feel and approach life.
We are in grained with perfectionism so much in a education that we do not even realise the hard thoughts about ourselves are not even truly coming from us but another energy. Shows how far we have become away from our truth.
This is true, we try to be perfect and if we are not then are hard on ourselves, ‘With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.’
Coming from one’s heart is being connected to truth, as you shared by your purchases for your mask – you chose them because they felt true not because you thought they were right – you really loved what you had chosen.
When we carry beliefs and ideals they can stop us from simply being our true selves.
“…’being hard’ on myself was making things hard for myself” – this is so true. We hold such pictures of ideals and beliefs of where we should be at, and it makes it impossible to appreciate what we are actually bringing.
By breaking things down to one step at a time it really can allow us to step up.
Ah, the tension of those moments where the familiarity provides a priority alibi to not go where we are called to go and the beauty of choosing to go there and of saying no to the familiarity because we saw the trap that it is.
The terrible shame is the stifling perfectionism you describe happens so early in children these days, it is really a sad state of affairs when you see young children unable to express themselves.
That’s so true Vanessa… And the thing is I hear teachers in some progressive schools say this as well that there students… And this is in primary school, are driven by this perfectionism. It is not coming from the parents, it is not coming from the teachers, and this really is what needs to be addressed, talked about, and role models offering something totally different.
Returning to our natural child like ways is totally gorgeous and freeing.
Not a mask to hide behind but a playful mask to share all the childhood pleasure of being with yourself.
When we focus on the outcome it becomes about getting it right or perfect and everything looking the part. If we make things about energy and quality, then it’s a complete game changer. It can be hard to make the shift if you’ve always been focused on outcome as “what if it doesn’t turn out” can easily creep in and drag you back. But if quality of energy is the focus, the ending result is far more complete and holding and the actual result you may have been looking for is a small part of the all.
This makes so much sense, “I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.” What we are is what we are and in other words if needed is we create what we have by the action we choose. When I read this article and this part I laughed as it seems so simple and straight forward and makes me more aware of what I am doing and choosing.
Your experience is an example of how much force and expectation we generally place of our expression being a certain way and in line with the potential we do feel it can be, yet all we have to do is effortlessly allow it out as it is already there within us to express!
Learning how to deal with our inner tension is so important in life, for if we do not we will carve out a lifestyle to avoid or quell this tension which is not particularly healthy!
‘…I loved to play and make things with not a thought on ‘how it would turn out…’
I remember that feeling! It felt so free… And I also remember when it started to turn into trying to live up to my own and other’s expectations. What a burden and a drain… and a quick way to become competitive and ambitious… and from there, doing life in constant push and drive in to succeed and obtain approval and recognition. Far better to feel solid in oneself and go simply and quietly from there.
Amber the description of the women coming together, singing and working, felt very ancient. Perhaps this is what naturally happens when women ‘drop the mask’ of comparison and jealously that we so frequently wear in each other’s company.
Keeping our awareness with our body and breathing is a great tool to alert us if we become tense, or have unease, we then have a choice to be aware of underlying patterns and choose to make loving new choices and movements that support us, as you did.
When we put ourselves under pressure to replicate a picture we have of how something should be or look like, we get tension running through our body, and find it more difficult as we constrain our body’s movements in order to produce what we want, often going against its natural rhythm, and when we allow ourselves free movement with no ideals of how something should be at the end we are able to produce something far better than we could have imagined.
I can relate with having been hard on myself, a pattern i am still choosing to let go of more fully, as hiding remnants can still pop in occasionally. So much more lovely to just surrender to our body and what we are doing in the moment, bringing in appreciation along the way.
We can create a lot of stress for ourselves when we try to do things ‘right’ or to meet another’s approval rather than following what we feel or just know from inside is the way that is true for us to express or do something!
We have become masters of contraction, of letting our bodies shrink and tighten at the first signs of disharmony. Sometimes the fear of disharmony already has us leaving our natural equilibrium and this is when we can consciously care for ourselves by gently bringing ourselves back and staying in the moment and committing to whatever needs to be done.
Amber this is beautiful to read and the simple choice you made to bring awareness back to your body and to not feel defeated by your mask breaking. This happens so often in life when things can get very challenging we want to give up or run and hide, but when we make the choice to commit to whatever task is in front of us it is amazing what can occur when we surrender to this and to feel the power this choice brings.
Expectations are such a killer, and we often place unrealistic ones on ourselves. Bringing understanding, not judgement supports us to appreciate what we can bring and who we are in our innermost. Negative thoughts are a trick to bring us down and not shine and feel who we truly are, children of God.
There is no space within when we bring beliefs, judgement and critique to our movements. It fills us up with what is not us and stops us feeling all that we are.
Are the eyes we watch ourselves through really ours when we look at us? Whose eyes are they?
A great reminder not to take on the ideals and beliefs, hopes and dreams expectations and preferences of others but to come back to what is true for us, to uncover everything that is masking us from who we really are, and in that getting to know and enjoy ourselves again.
This is a great example of how we can sabotage ourselves… and of the power of truly dropping into our body and letting our true expression out.
just imagine what it would be like to, as we attended to our daily tasks, sing together as Amber experienced here… What a different world it would be.
Gosh it was beautiful to read your blog today Amber. What stood out for me was the contrast between the free creative and natural expression as a child, and the tense, worried and restricted adult facing creativity. This is what human constructed life and all of its systems unfortunately does, it shuts down who we innately are and what we know. How beautiful to feel you opening back up to the wise, free flowing child you were again as a woman!
It is interesting how we allow ourselves to take on other people’s beliefs, ideals, expectations and conditions and then later on in life we get to feel in our body if we so choose the consequences of what we have taken on even though we are grown up adults. The pressure I have placed on myself because I had chosen to subscribe to that which is outside myself has felt overwhelming at times but as Amber has so beautifully expressed, becoming aware of what is going on in the body and being totally honest supports us in letting go of any tension and choosing to lovingly coming back to the body also helps us to surrender to what is truly there and therefore express from our essence within.
‘With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.’ A very known pattern for me too and reading your way of handling this is very inspiring, how you let go of the protection and truly celebrated yourself and the result of you choosing you, gorgeous.
“With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.” I can so relate to this as being hard on myself also makes my arms harden. Why would I want to do that? How gorgeous that you were eventually able to make a beautiful feminine mask and celebrated wearing it at the ball. I am finding that appreciation is key to overcoming the self-critique.
Lovely to read how you felt 5 years old again, when we let go and go with what we truly feel, it is like being young again because we didn’t then have the inhibitions that we have now. As we grow up we start to feel how the world is set up and rather than get hurt we protect ourselves regardless if we need to or not.
Amber beautiful sharing, it shows that we always have a choice, and as we become more aware of ourselves we can make more loving choices.
The expectations and pressure we impose on ourselves can be greater than anything from anyone else. Breaking that pattern and appreciating and celebrating ourselves for being who we are is to rediscover the freedom of the young child that is forever within us.
Amber I can relate to being free to create. I find I need space and not restricted by limits.
Thank you Amber for this sharing it really highlights that no matter how we are feeling we always have the power to make a different choice, the way your day transformed for you is a beautiful example of this.
There is an art in how we choose to be. We make it about skills and talent we need to achieve, yet as you show so beautifully Amber, life really is showing us we just need to let things flow. Then naturally what we do is a kind of masterpiece for it will express the harmony that we know in our body.
Sounds like an awesome art class and I like how you have used the experience to deepen your awareness
Amber, you are offering us all a drop of gold in demonstrating how the cycle can go when we are full of expectations about ourselves and have attached various outcome criteria to everything we are doing. But what this does is shut us down whereas your blog also shows that there is a way out of this tunnel through working on connection with ourselves and the task at hand to bring a totally different result. This is a very timely reminder to me as I start out my day, thank you.
A lovely reminder that when things aren’t going to plan, to stop and ask, ‘Why is this such a struggle for me?’ so that we can reconnect to our awareness – and to remember to add, ‘I need to come back to myself’ rather than staying in our self-made tension and hardening of the body.
Trust is an enormous issue in our society, and trust goes to the very heart of all our relationships… It is a very precious commodity, and if we can actually live in a way that we can start to trust ourselves, start to trust that connection with ourselves, not to doubt ourselves, this will bring a clarity strength and presence that engenders trust with those around us, and this can be very healing.
I love how aware you are of the way you feel Amber. It is clear that you are very connected to yourself. Each time you became tense you clocked it and chose to feel what was really going on. This then allowed you to celebrate the beauty you bring. What a great prescription for dealing with anxiousness.
Thank you so much for sharing your process with rediscovering the natural joy you have with being creative Amber and how you recognised the prison of the expectations you placed on yourself and was able to make different choices and come back to your natural flow. I find this truly inspirational as someone who has spent most of her adult life being paralysed by the belief that ‘I am not creative’ and how this has held me back in my expression in so many ways. Love your confirmation that ‘not only was I feeling confident but I could see and feel I had made a celebration of me!’ Here’s to opening up and celebrating me in my expressions.
As a kid I always thought that I was good at art as I received lots of encouragement and compliment, and eventually it all became a pressure to be ‘good’ at it and I was no longer expressing from my heart. Funny how when something natural gets pinned and framed as a kind of form, it turns itself upside down and the end result of expression becomes more important than the expression itself.
Lovely to share Amber, the celebration of yourself.
It is amazing how events from our past have such a promise in our present.
Living by harsh rules, conditions, expectations, ideals and beliefs can be so debilitating, sucking the very life and true nature out of us.
It is so lovely to read Amber that you were able to stay with you to produce a celebration of you; also to join and have fun with your fellow artists.
I’ve realised today after reading your inspirational blog Amber that it is with taking on new challenges that I get ‘twitchy’ with anxiousness and allow pressure to build up within myself. Those are old patterns of ‘expectations’ and giving myself such a hard time of how things ‘should be’. With what you are so clearly sharing Amber – re-connecting back ‘staying with me’ feeling ‘what is right for me’ just opens up so many doorways of opportunities with no pressure applied. The lightness and playfulness of joy can step right in.
What we thing we need to do or be is so confining, it is a joy to just let go of all ideas of how it should be and others would like to see, and just feel what is needed and just do, not thought just action.
I enjoyed reading your blog Amber. I have always felt crippled as I cannot hold a tune or a pencil. I always loved being around creative people and sometimes felt there was something in me waiting to unfurl. Since being part of the Universal Medicine student body I’m not as harsh with myself as I once was and do find some ways of being creative. It is all in the expression.
This is so refreshing to read Amber! It’s not often we hear of and read an experience of someone actually truly enjoying their art and not just enjoying what they are doing, enjoying the experience in full from their entire body and being. This is huge!
I agree Joshua, it is gorgeous reading about Amber enjoying her expression and sharing it with everyone. It changes everything making what we are doing about connection to ourselves and others and appreciating and accepting what we have come up with with no harshness or criticism.
it’s when we do start to catch how tension and anxiousness can come into the littlest of things, and how that anxiousness is actually embedded in us, that we have the opportunity to realise where we have ended up, and then with this recognition, if we choose, to start to reconfigure our lives so that we are not always driven, but can start to feel a connection and flow that has always actually been there, we have just chosen not to see it.
Amber I have felt this often. Being hard or ‘self bashing’ leaves no room to reflect and change the choices we make. Your blog has reminded me of the importance of remembering that there is no perfection in any of our actions but the opportunity to simply give everything in life a go.
Amber- I can relate to your experience. I used to be like this when approaching something new- self critical and with little confidence. But I am now learning to stay connected with my body, to breathe gently when doing anything, and not listen to any self critical voices in my head. Another key point here is to not take anything too serious and have fun and then our natural expression just flows.
Yours is a great example of working with the awareness of tension in our bodies in order to appreciate when we’ve lost that connection to ourselves that enables us to keep perspective and not be taken over by our attachment to ideals and beliefs about getting things right.
Thank you Amber for sharing the valuable experience you had. I too can get so caught up in expectations and wanting to get it right that I almost forget how easy it is to just breath and connect back to my self and start enjoying rather than achieving.
I am still learning the power of the word: ‘oops’ and that there is nothing like ‘I did it wrong’. There is only learning. How powerful and influence full are the voices in our head dictating us perfection and ‘killing’ our playfulness.
Yes Monika R you absolutely got that right. We have to watch out for those voices in our head who have been keeping us from living who we truly are.
It is an ongoing process of choosing the thoughts I allow myself to think by aligning to the energy that feeds them to me.
Thank you for writing about this process Amber, your way of dealing with the anxiousness was so gentle and simple, and what power lies in that awareness.
Yes when we are hard on ourselves it takes us away from enjoying the precious moments of simply being. Allowing ourselves the space to play and have fun is such a joy. Your blog is super inspiring Amber thank you for sharing.
Amazing blog. I could so feel it, too and make the same experience with different things that I am so hard on myself and now it is not even necessary anymore as I can take my time. I also appreciate that it gets lesser and lesser and therefore much more joyfull 🙂
Amber I can’t help but look for and pay attention to what you did after you noticed how hard you were being on yourself and before you started to feel lighter and playful…….. you came back to your body. So simple, you felt the tension, paid more attention to your body, shifted your posture and position, walked a little – there is so much forgotten and powerful wisdom in these choices. They are not to be under-estimated and it might not be the right words but being trained to re-connect through our bodies could serve us in many moments of tension and being hard on ourselves or others.
Reblogged this on florisvanderschot's Blog and commented:
Gevangen door onze gedachtes en overtuigingen of ze los laten en opnieuw leren spelen en vertrouwen als een klein kind 🙂
I recognise very well what you’ve written amber about being controlled by the ideals and beliefs. I often go into overwhelm, try to ignore that and all along become harder and harder. I am realising that this doesn’t work. And sometimes I am able to come back to my body and sometimes it seems that even that is a struggle. The honesty that I am recently coming to is how disconnected I am from my own precious Heart. And without that connection I am not even able to feel my own Love, even if I try to feel my body. It’s like feeling my body from an empty place. Where when I feel my Love, everything is falling into places. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for sharing Floris. I totally recognize what you have written. When I am on a guilt trip, have been angry or discovered I made a mistake or something it can sometimes be very hard for me to connect back to self love. I cannot imagine living life without love ever again.
I reckon the mask you made would of felt amazing to wear Amber
I can easily relate to investing in a certain outcome rather than being and allowing what will unfold to unfold.
I can relate to this feeling of the tension when you go to do something new and the pictures you have of how it should be or what it should look like. Instead of pushing through, register how you are feeling and then give yourself permission to learn and have a go.
A joy to read this again today Amber. It brought back memories of my trying to create a christmas tree shape for school (5-6 years old) I tried so hard to get the shape of the varying lengths of the branches to match each other. The harder I tried the more deflated and stressed and anxious I became. To see others complete their trees and get praise from teacher really panicked me. I can really see and feel how I let this situation cast a shadow over many other events in my life. Like you so beautifully share with us allowing the joy of what you created not be tainted with the ‘harsh rules, conditions and expectations’ of the past.
When we connect to and express from our heart any activity becomes a whole process that values every step – not just the end product.
We know that the journey can be as valuable as the end product so why do we have a society that focus’s so heavily on results and not how we got to the results. If the quality of the journey is not there then neither will the results be.
Reading your blog, I remember how I used to feel as if I was doing it wrong whatever I was doing. I didn’t trust myself nor had any confidence – even though I was capable of doing it well. In disconnection, we experience life as hard and complicated, and there’s no joy in that.
“…had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself”. This is absolute gold – when things are ‘hard’ we should take the time to feel how hard we are being on ourselves. My experience is that when we let go of expectations and outcomes, life flows.
Thank you Amber, thank you for sharing, and it is a perfect read for me this morning. I’m shedding some behaviour which has been keeping me in anxiety, and now when the feelings of anxiety come up, I choose not to go into eating as per usual, and actually just stay with feeling how I feel, accepting it and observing it. I do know there is no reason to be anxious; no need for me be ‘perfect’. So it was great to read your blog this morning, confirming what I am doing, taking charge, instead of keeping going on the merry-go-round.
The evil in social expectations, pressures and ideals is not in their existence so much as it is in how insidiously they become about how we think about ourselves. As soon as we start to think these things of ourselves we then act out their limitations in our own lives.
This is a beautiful description of working through, issues that come up for us when we give expression a go. It can be tricky, old issues and habits arise and our bodies can become tense and it is really confronting when we start to try and sabotage ourselves. The truth is when we go deeper and reconnect with our inner being, our inner heart this can enable us to express our truth. I would say it takes commitment, honesty and practice, when it occurs it feels amazing. I loved how you described a feel of being in a room of grown women and feeling like a child in your playfulness and innocence, this can occur when we express from our inner heart and it has been my experience.
Amber I loved your sharing of the opening of your creative energy, with a few bouts of doubt along the way you sound like it was a magnificent project and mask at the end of it. Most of us put so much pressure on ourselves to do a good job when all we need is to get out of the way and let our creative selves free.
I loved this example of how within a simple piece of craft you were able to return to this ancient art of being you. When we live with this innocent exploration of life, its easy to feel how we are all masterpiece’s in our own right.
We can be very hard with ourselves and yes as you say make our life very hard to live and situations more complicated than they need to be. By giving ourselves a break we can then see the simplicity around us.
This idea of getting things right and the fear of getting things wrong is a curse and sucks all the joy out of things. It is so great to read your overcoming of this and your celebration of you Amber. We need to be true rebels and do what comes naturally to us, discarding the way things are supposed to look, and they might just even be amazing.
Hi Amber. Thank you for sharing honestly how something can be taken over by the drive to get it right and how that plays out. It was quite a contrast to the moment you let go and went with the flow and everything literally opened up. Every moment offers a choice about how to be in each moment. Your ability to notice what was happening and to keep bringing yourself back was inspiring.
Thank you for your blog Amber, and the fact that I just read this is perfect timing! When we subscribe to the ideals and beliefs of the world it makes life so such harder, a common saying is ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’ but isn’t that just another ideal? What if life could be easy? If we trusted ourselves we could easily align with what was needed moment to moment and life could not only be easy but also a joy.
It is so inspiring the way you chose to say ‘yes’ to and claim the love that you are within and not subscribe any longer to the manipulations of the thoughts that keep us believing that we are less than who we truly are. Thank you Amber for your beautiful sharing.
Although through your blog one can feel all the restrictions and pressures that you, and all of us, have been encouraged to put on our expression, there is a moment near the end of your blog when I start feeling the opening, the space, to be you, and that helps me feel the connection to myself, and how that focusing on my body, and letting go of the hardness is what allows for that space to be as expressive and lovely as a child again.
How great Amber, that by not giving up when you felt the tension and choosing to keep on creating your mask, you were able to develop confidence in your expression and also have fun. This is worth celebrating.
So much magic can happen if we are open and allow ourselves to simply express in whatever way we feel to. I loved painting and drawing when I was young but found the constraints put on expressing it at school disheartening and stopped doing any at all. Last year I met with a group of women gathered together to paint in whatever way we felt, and it was amazing! No constraints, no rules, and being able to play with colour, design and texture in many different ways brought so much joy, and through that freedom to express, a painting is now hanging on my wall at home. What I noticed is that the joy of expressing through painting also rekindled other areas of expression within my life. When we openly express in one area of our lives, it opens the door for more expression to naturally flow.
Beautiful sharing Paula, this is so inspiring. I have not seen myself as ‘artistic’ ever, so have avoided having a go with doing art for many years, as I know what would come up for me. Your comment has encouraged me to have a go when the opportunity arises, and to just have fun and express, without any need to achieve anything. I love it.
Wanting to do things right, I know that one very well. And when I do make a mistake or something does not go that well (different from my expectations), I can get defensive about it. I am learning that there is no such thing as mistakes and that I am enough, more than enough.
Isn’t it miraculous, if we just do things innocent, present and not ahead of us?!
What a lovely development you are sharing here- thank you!
I love the feeling of being 5 again, it is so free and without complication – it astounds me just how complicated we make life as we get older and move further and further away from our innate natures of joy.
I agree Vanessa, we really do make things complicated as we get older. The freedom we had as a young child is what I try to remember when I get a little too serious about things that really do not need me to be serious. The playfulness connects me back to my heart and then I just know what to do, to write, to draw, to make. Magic 🙂
Thank you Amber for sharing your story, to be free to express all of us that is something to celebrate.
Thank you for your sharing Amber: “‘being hard’ [on myself] had been making things hard for myself.” I like how you have worded this. It is so true, I am working on the hardness and harshness that I put on myself, and am realising the pointlessness of it. Imagine if we weren’t hard on ourselves at all? Learning, evolving, with a lightness, joy and Simplicity.
This point to be hard on myself, what you describe Amber I know very well as well. One little mistake and I criticized myself. So for me it is a big learning to be lovingly to myself no matter what I do and my self-worth doesn’t depend on any activity.
Our expectations put us in a prison, we become hard, controlled, contracted and confined. Your sharing Amber, shows us how we can find our way out of that whenever we find ourselves trapped in that place.
So true, Judith. Our expectations can make us feel like being imprisoned. The stronger we hold onto certain expectations the less our cells will feel and we might forget that we are the ones to unlock the door. Seeing someone who is roaming free will be a very powerful inspiration to come out of this cell.
Yes Judith, it is the truth of where we have come to with ourselves. Like you shared for intstance being hard on yourself in life, it gets then reflected to us in for example art or any taks really. Incredible if we choose to honestly look at why we feel uneasy at times, so we can heal what lays underneath.
Gorgeous Amber! I so related to everything you wrote about – the inability to just free up and express and the shackles of getting it right. Now I am experiencing more of feeling and knowing I am good enough and however I express will be spot on. It is so freeing isn’t it? I just love how you stepped us through all you were feeling to then gain so much from the whole experience. A life lesson in a mask!
The only thing missing in this blog is the picture of your mask! I would love to have been able to see your mask. The process was a real journey into and under the anxiety we can torment ourselves with to get things right. Thanks you Amber
Thank you Amber, what a delicate precious description you have made about your experience. It lets me feel the feathery invitation to be me and I am invited to choose this in every moment. And this then leads to openness, community and a beautiful outcome, that reflects back. I got a very tender feeling through reading your blog although this also was a development for me whilst reading, starting from a kind of eagerness and hardness arriving to an opening up to this delicacy. Very interesting, that you let me make the same experience you have described, through reading it! Beautiful!
Amber this a beautiful and super important sharing. I too wonder at the hold the critical or directive voices from our childhood have on us long after these people have left our lives. Your experience is a great example of choosing to let go those inhibiting behaviours and find your own playful expression again. Having the support of others is truly lovely.
As I was reading your beautifully honest blog Amber I could so easily relate to that drive to get things right, the worry of what will people think, and the holding back so I won’t be embarrassed. As you discovered, all this does is to impact on the body and so creating another set of problems, as well as taking you away from enjoying what you had set out to do. How lovely that you were able to work your way through this destructive mine field and to have, what sounds like, a glorious mask, at the end, all beautifully completed with a delightful moment of singing with the beautiful women around you.
Thank you Amber, what you share is so beautiful, how you chose to overcome the rising tension you felt ….. ‘With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.’
This is so true ….. when we put expectations on ourselves, we are setting ourselves up to fail …. crazy.
A lovely sharing with us all Amber – and one that I certainly can relate too, particularly those nagging doubts of ‘what if’ (I get it wrong or make a mistake) the ones the mind loves to play games with. Putting a stop to that by feeling the tension and bringing your awareness back to your body and gently breathing – a great way to settle the busy mind and really enjoy the experience of what you are doing and letting fun play a bigger role.
I’ve found too. Marion that when I stop trying to be ‘perfect’or ‘faultless’ the materials I am working with work with me, and the finished article, food or fabric, flows together almost without effort.
wow, how we can allow those voices in our head can do a number on us. Something so simple and playful, gets turned inside out. Thank you for sharing this, it reminds me not to pay attention to those voices!!
Yes Joel, the same for me, this is a great read to remind me not to listen to the self critical voices, and to come back to the body, feeling myself and being with myself and observing what is going on.
Well said Joel, the voices in our head can be our greatest saboteurs if we allow them to be.
Thanks for sharing this Amber, it just goes to show that sometimes we take things far too seriously, when all we have to do is connect to our inner child and have fun and let the energy flow.
Beautiful to read your blog Amber and see the process and healing that unfolded.
I see the hardness in my life and how that stops me enjoying what I’m doing often, as there’s a constant criticism and evaluating, instead of simply being with my body in all that I do.
Thank you Thomas and Amber – and also to Serge Benhayon – I agree, when things are hard we have hardened; we can then make the choice to reconnect!
Amber what I love about what you have shared is the clear knock on effect of what buying into our beliefs and ongoing tension can have. The complication that’s created was awesome to see. Even more awesome was that you knew that this was not you and how you continually brought yourself back to feeling your breath or your body. And what a joy to feel you at the end of the blog enjoying you and what you had beautifully created for yourself.
This is great to read Amber, as its so true… the playfulness and light joyful feeling as a child still does dwell within our body. Recently I visited my old primary school (from when I was 6yr), and I couldn’t believe how in just returning to this place, I instantly remembered and reconnected to that feeling of me as a 6yr old.. Reconnecting to the 6yr old me, even though I’m walking around today as a 42yrs old. This feeling of me as a 6yr old fired up and I felt so sparkly, happy, and so safe. It was amazing. This reunited feeling continued even after that revisit ended, and now I understand more deeply, how important early childhood experiences / imprints are. It has been wonderful to realize that, that joyfull child still lives within my body just like how you experienced with making your masquerade mask. We just have to remember and live that!
‘This feeling of me as a 6yr old fired up and I felt so sparkly, happy, and so safe.’ Thank you for sharing the joy of revisiting the freedom of the younger you Johanne and the reminder that it is always a choice to reconnect to this and drop the constrictions we place on ourselves to ‘get it right’ that so hamper us from truly expressing.
Thank you for sharing this experience Amber. This sentence really stood out for me “….I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this being hard had been making things hard for myself.” When we let go of the hardness and the expectations we put on ourselves than we can give ourselves space to really express who we are. And what I find beautiful in this process that you have described is that even though you were going through all of this and being really hard on yourself, you were still making your mask which turned out to be beautiful. The mask reflected the true you and not all of the other things that you are not.
That was gorgeous Amber, an amazing process you went through to eventually have your magnificence reflected back to you.
Bringing myself back to the task at hand helps me to get rid of thoughts of incompetence and self-doubt. When I remember that in everything I do I express myself, it is easier to keep grounded and free of comparison. For instance, I know my contribution to the posts is equal to everyone else, but sometimes I may feel mine may not be as eloquently presented as some – but this is what I offer in the moment, so therefore I will contribute knowing I am equal nevertheless!
I had a similar experience recently Amber, I was making a card in a class setting with someone I support for her father. I had the same feelings come up and as you said, when I let go of being hard on myself and getting it perfect, I started to have fun with the other participants in the class.
Thank you Amber that through your sharing you demonstrate so clearly the significance of staying with yourself, allowing yourself to be honest with what you are instead of re-acting and that by doing so you establish a new foundation, which is also healing an unresolved hurt.
Amber, I loved how you described what was going on for you, and the responsibility you took to come back – very cute. Staying with you was the key to coming back and building your confidence. What a significant remarkable event in your life where now you get to celebrate your achievement by wearing your mask.
Amber what a beautiful journey of returning to your natural playfulness and a celebration of you.
I really enjoyed hearing how many different ways you have to express the loveliness you are Amber.
Amber I love the connection of being hard on ourselves results in everything becoming and feeling hard. I have found this to be true in my own life and with my own awareness of this pattern, I have now much greater flow and ease in my days.
So lovely to feel the playful and the gorgeous celebration of you that emerged.
A lovely lesson in overcoming the tricky thoughts that sabotage, and even lead to breakages! Your willingness to return to breathing gently and slowing down shows how powerful these simple techniques are, Amber. You ended up with a gorgeous mask, to reflect your beauty and joy.
What a grand lesson learned, Amber 🙂
Thank you Amber for highlighting that when we are hard on ourselves, we become hard and everything around us becomes hard. This is a great reminder and inspiration to stay connected, let go, allow and appreciate.
“As I completed I began to see and feel that what I was making was actually truly magnificent!” I feel you are truly magnificent Amber and it is so beautiful that you can celebrate you.
I would love to join that art class!
It’s really beautiful that you could learn so much about yourself from choosing to make your own mask and so divine that from choosing to stay with you, you ended up with something that confirmed through it’s reflection how gorgeous you truly are.
A lovely sharing Amber. I too judge myself against others but am learning to let this go and appreciate the differences between us. Life is a learning experience and can be joyful when we let go the expectations and comparisons with others and know that most people feel similar to ourselves so lets break the pattern.
This makes sense Amber that the expectations would be felt in your body as a tension and what came to me whilst reading your blog, is how tightly we hold ourselves to these expectations and put unnecessary pressure on ourselves.
One such example for myself would be to learn a job quickly and feel the tension of taking too long (which is only my expectation), but if I am teaching someone I don’t automatically expect them to pick it up straight away. It just shows how hard we can be on ourselves.
I could so relate to this blog. I used to be the same as a child, constantly drawing and making things, dancing and singing my own songs. But as an adult I have stopped making things. I have a feeling that what I create won’t do justice to what I can see it in my mind. It’s like I have given up before I even get started. I can tell there is a lot to explore and feel about this. When do we stop enjoying our expression and creativity and trusting that it will be perfect for us? As you have highlighted, the ‘getting it right’ energy is huge.
It is so true Fiona, I can really feel the difference in the childlike nature and the adults conditions to get it right. We are molded into beings who care about all the things that don’t matter in the end, and no care about the things that matter the most.
How awful it is that we get paralysed with fear of getting it wrong or making a mistake or have a set idea about how something should be and then get disappointed if it doesn’t match that. I love how you have peeled back the whole process for us and managed to break through all those beliefs and completed something that truly reflects your unique beauty. Thanks for sharing Amber.
Gorgeous Amber! I appreciate the timely reminder that when we feel that things are going wrong, the choice is there to slow down or stop, and check in with ourselves and then move on again.
At school we are taught to not make mistakes. Carrying that anxiety of not being able to make a mistake can certainly close off our expression. I loved how you worked your way through the anxiety and tension and created a magnificent mask whilst you celebrated yourself. Inspiring!
So relatable Amber. Working creatively myself, someting I do weekly, I still get caught up in the rules I perceive I need to abide. I often freeze up, worried about trying something new in case it doesn’t turn out how I’d like, and what if someone see’s it and I’m not finished, they will think I don’t have a clue….etc etc. All nonsensical thoughts of course. It often takes a little while for me to realise I’ve lost myself in the process before I can walk away, take a breather and remember that there is no right and wrong. Usually once I release the shackles, everything flows and the tension dissapears.
Being playful and allowing our expression to take its own course without holding back, is a truly freeing experience. As you say your mask was a celebration of you, looking back at you.
‘Performance pressure’ nailed in a nutshell, Amber. Along with the way to truly back ourselves and be with ourselves bodily in what we are doing – whatever that may be. Having spent many years crippled by outer expectations, and realising just how insidious I’d allowed such influences to be in my life, due to my own predilection for hiding in self-deprecation and a lack of worth, I truly get where you are coming from. And celebrate that you have refound how simple it can be to just express ourselves, naturally.
It’s really up to us, isn’t it… just which way we choose to confirm ourselves as being.
That is so true Victoria, we can put unnecessary pressure on ourselves to be a certain way. Only this morning, I was thinking about something that I did and found myself starting to judge myself for it, and then I reminded myself, to not make myself wrong in it. I made a choice but it didn’t need to be judged in any way, just accepted for what it was. It totally lifted any pressure and left me feeling my lovely self again. Love is really very simple.
Agreed Julie. And the way you’ve described your awareness of your own thoughts and attitude towards yourself is everything here, isn’t it… The moment we look at such negativity and realise it’s actually ridiculous and oftentimes more deeply harming in itself than anything ‘wrong’ we may have done, we can come back to ourselves. We can honour and appreciate our willingness to learn, our amazingness in so many ways… something we can so often neglect, especially it seems, in this Judeo-Christian culture of ours…
I so loved reading your transformational journey Amber.
From the ‘freely expressing’ child to the “squashing’ it, being hard on yourself, becoming aware of the tension and how you overcame that, returning to the delicateness, celebrating and seeing the gorgeousness of you reflected in the mask.
Beautiful sharing Amber and one that I feel I shall return too many times. I can so relate to feeling “Afraid of making a mistake” or “doing it wrong” immediately this sets me up to go into panic mode and sends the tension/anxiousness levels sky high. This always happens if I ‘try’ to get ahead of myself in whatever task presents itself. As you share it is as simple as bringing our awareness back to our gentle breath, connecting and taking one step at a time. I do make it so complex for myself sometimes – but to keep bringing myself back to the present moment and not jumping ahead with my thoughts is only a gentle breath away.
I know this feeling “With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.” It is so true that we make it hard for ourselves by ‘being hard on ourselves’ what I felt strongly when reading this blog was how your confidence was expressed when you let go of this and began enjoying ‘you’ for ‘you’ and expressing this feeling. Lovely to share in – Thank you.
I had a big smile while reading this Amber, thank you. It is amazing how much pressure we put on ourselves to get something right and perfect and as a result miss out on enjoying the process. Your mask truly does sound like a celebration of you and I can’t wait to see it one day, perhaps even borrow it!
What I have been experiencing lately is we are given many chances to discern and feel in our body what feels truthful or not. When there is anxiousness then that is a signal that something is not right, when there is a feeling of joy in the body then that is a confirmation of the truth.
What I get from this blog is that we are given opportunities to come back to our natural way. It is up to us to say yes to them or to act as business as usual.
A mask unmasking the exquisite beauty of the fun, joy-filled, and playfully loving woman you so openly share in all you have expressed here, thank you Amber.
I agree Giselle. The mask was definitely unmasking and celebrating a remarkable woman
It’s great that you did stick it out and not give up halfway through or give up when you snapped your mask in half. I like the commitment you have demonstrated to complete what you started and do this for yourself. Awesome.
Thanks Amber for your sharing, so true when we stay connected and let go of any expectations we feel free to explore and be play-full like children.
‘ and not only was I feeling confident but I could see and feel I had made a celebration of me!’ – how beautiful…..such a great reminder to express in full always.
This is so beautiful Amber. I love watching my 4 year old make things, he just does whatever he feels and has such a great time doing it! I too used to love making things, drawing, painting, being creative when I was younger, but feel a bit stuck with it – your blog has provided some true inspiration – thank you!
“and not only was I feeling confident but I could see and feel I had made a celebration of me!”, that is so beautiful, Amber. A joy to read.
Loved reading your blog Amber. I enjoyed reading about your experience in making the mask and in the process it was like you were symbolically taking one off of your own face. The mask we choose to wear which holds us back from knowing that we are already enough. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your sharing- it is great to come back to the natural innocent way of doing things. Feels much more relaxed and the true purpose of the actual action is “fullfilled” so to speak.
Amber this is really beautiful. I can remember being as a child exactly as you described. As an adult anything artistic or singing when others may hear was terrifying and I would always brush it off with ‘Oh I am not the artistic type’. The truth is though that I always loved that sort of thing but just did it hidden from others. Letting go of the impositions placed on us with regard to any expression is very healing and sets us free from the pressure we placed on ourselves. I love that you have shared your experience with us and that the creation of your mask was in fact a rediscovery of yourself.
Indeed there is a magnificent beauty that shines through in our expression as it did for you Amber when we connect and discard that old and well tempered mask of harsh rules, conditions and expectations.
So true Rob. Letting go of the harshness and the restrictive rules allows playfulness and lightness to become part of our expression. I know when I catch myself taking things too seriously and then choose differently the playfulness comes so easily, so eager to be invited in.
I have experienced how being hard on myself has effected my body. And it can still happen, that’s for sure. It’s like I become smaller, my shoulders are all tight, my stomach feels hard, my heart is closed and there is absolutely no joy whatsoever. The moment when there is no joy and my old time favorite humor, then I know something is not good…..Making a mask sounds like fun, just like other things we do during the day. It’s bringing that fun, light and humor back in all our activities.
Your expression here Amber is so lovely to read; I enjoyed reading how you became aware of how life shut you down and how you courageously overcame that.
I’m sure your mask was gorgeous and divine also, as you are.
Thank you Amber
This is gorgeous Amber, I had a bit of a laugh as I could relate to your experiences. We can definitely be very intense with ourselves, much of our education is about getting it right, being perfect and not making mistakes. It is no wonder we end up living in a way that continually conforms to this, even though technically we are no longer at school or being graded but the condition sticks. Thank you Amber for sharing.
Such a relatable topic Amber, thank-you for sharing your story. So many times and ways in life we shut down to others and hide behind a mask, and as you say carolineraphael, want to get it right, or perfect and not make mistakes which was definitely how I chose to be from a very young age and then carried that through to my adult life, thinking that that was the way I needed to be. And worse still is that you actually believe that you are a good citizen or a good role model when you do that and pride yourself on being that because you believe that is right. Thank God our hearts are much wiser and truer than our minds and can set us straight when we choose to stop, breathe and connect to our truth, that true love, doesn’t need a mask, it loves its own glorious and all encompassing sparkle and naturally wants to share its universal language.
I love how you realised that you had been very hard on yourself, and that ‘this being hard’ had been making whatever you were trying to do hard. I spent many years being hard on myself to the point where I couldn’t even start things sometimes, or if I did start I wasn’t able to finish them. This became quite debilitating. Now I am letting go of the being hard on myself, everything does become so much easier and I am starting to enjoy learning new things all over again. I’m sure your mask was gorgeous!
Nice Amber. It’s interesting to note how the ideals placed on us as children have affected us. I liked hearing about how much attention you were paying to yourself whilst doing things and what you noticed as well as how you responded to yourself.
Amber I can relate to your experience and will sometimes find that if I feel pressure to ‘get it right’ I will disconnect from my body which then creates anxiety.
‘… in this staying with me I could feel a lovely-ness and an allowing in what I was doing, and I started feeling confident in the choices I was making.’
Staying with me allows me to let go of the ‘push’ and trust that everything will find its way naturally if I remain connected.
Well said kathrynfortuna, staying with me allows me to let go of the push and trust that everything will find it’s way naturally if I remain connected. I will remember that today, and every day.
Thank you Amber – I can really relate to the feeling of working on something where there seems to be such a lack of flow, and a tightness and frustration that kicks in when it does not fit the picture that I had in my mind. In your blog I love how you could relate to the time you were a child and the freedom of expression that you once enjoyed and how this helped you unlock that for yourself once again. It is so much about letting go of what the mind is conditioned to think; to think what or how we ‘should’ do something, and instead surrendering to the playfulness that is naturally within us, that knows how to do something whilst having fun and being tender.
True Henrietta, great reminder that we all naturally have play-fullness and joy within. It is no wonder we all love being around children and enjoy their natural joy and play-fullness because it reminds us we are that too. So much happens over a lifetime to stop us connecting to it, yet as Amber has beautifully shared we are able to let go at any point if we are willing to make that choice.
So true Henrietta. That childlike innocence, being carefree is not something that has to leave us with our childhood. That exquisite playfulness and innocence is in truth part of who we are, and it is glorious to see adults let themselves be in that playfulness again. Thank you Amber for the lovely reminder.
Yes, absolutely. And in this playfulness we can see how simple the ‘hard’ things really are.
Carefree, playfulness and innocence-words we adults relate to kids. And yes, how lovely it is to see ‘grown up’ kids connect to this again. I love those moments with myself. This blog is a great reminder to just get in-touch with this again.
How easily we forget that we have the playfulness within us, and as we connect to that feeling, we know exactly how to let go of any anxiousness in our body and tightness we hold. To me it really is about about surrendering to the playfulness and allowing the tenderness to come true. However when I get caught in being control and doing my body starts to get anxious and I go into my head, not a great feeling at all.
Hi Amber, why is it so easy to go into the I could or should have and yet seems so hard to celebrate ourselves. Your final line ‘I could see and feel I had made a celebration of me!’, is a truly lovely completion of the journey you made with the mask!
I can totally relate to your blog as in some situations I would also react and become very hard on myself when things don’t go to plan, however the method you have illustrated of coming back to yourself and being lighthearted is very effective and results in a far more harmonious outcome.
Your experience is like how we all can be in every moment of our lives … Who’d have thought we could actually have fun when we let go and let our selves be playful like we did when we were kids?
It’s so touching that you took the time to go there with a special project – I can feel how enriching it was for you. It reminds me that “Expression is Everything” – a jewel from Serge Benhayon that we can wear and celebrate everyday.
It is crippling how critical our self talk can be and that we are doing it to ourselves! Such a crazy cycle. Being open and exposing the truly ridiculous nature of this type of harsh critical voice is one of the steps toward living free from this internal noise. It is certainly worth the effort and dedication to love yourself as even though I am not free of this sort of harsh critique through self care and self love it is greatly reduced and I am much more present and thus the tune inside my head is far more loving!
Hi amber, knowing you personally and seeing you transform back to the women who expresses freely and expresses ever so lovingly is truly a magnificent thing to watch unfold. Absolute congratulations for being able to support true expression … and to make it a solid come back.
Thanks for a great blog Amber. I could feel for a moment as I started to write, I wanted to get my comment ‘right!’ – my body tensed and my natural expression did not want to come out. I caught the old familiar voice in my head harshly asking if I could write a comment. When I let all that go and simply connected to the gentleness in my body I can simply feel the joy in you returning once more to that joy-full, loving, open expression you knew as a child. Awesome and inspiring.
Dear Amber,
I too used to be so very hard on myself, the wanting things and me to be perfect was behind this hardness for me. I still fall for this at times, but what I am noticing is that when I do I loose the very natural flow that my body has and instead I choose to tense up. What I am finding is that my body really doesn’t want the tense holding pattern to be its way, it never has, it has just taken me a little while to surrender to what my body actually wants and this is to be held lovingly, fully supporting it in everything I choose to do.
I know exactly what you are talking about, Amber. I loved painting and drawing from my early years. My mother was always very critical of my art. I’ve been told that I have to do it perfect-otherwise not do it at all. So all my life I was striving for perfection, to make my mother proud of me, or others to like what I paint. But it wasn’t fun, it was this underlying pressure of meeting someone’s expectations, to get their approval.
Only few years ago I met a woman who is an artist and a potter. When I told her about my difficulty with creativity she said: “Just do it for yourself and enjoy it!” As she gave me this permission I felt a relief, so much space inside me. I started to paint as a child, without any limitations, as nobody is going to see it, and it felt so liberating, so joyful.
Since then I changed my approach to art – it is simply my expression. Others might like it or not, it is up to them.
I also learned from Universal Medicine presentations that connecting to my body and being present is taking away nervousness and brings confidence. So I keep practicing.
That’s great, Amber, that you write about your experience so we all can learn together. Thank you
I have always had a fear that my art wasn’t good enough, wishing I was better at it. It would always shock me at school when I was given high marks in art because I thought my work wasn’t complex enough. This blog has reminded me of that, and inspired me to make sure I check next time I am creating something if I am still being hard on myself, wanting to get it ‘right’ or terrified of being wrong, or if I am simply letting go and creating with all of my amazing creativity!
That was lovely Amber – thank you for expressing your feelings as you struggled through the process. I can so relate to the feelings of inadequacy whilst still also feeling that I wanted to be free and express how I was feeling. So often I have held back to “see how other’s do things” when I have been at a workshop as though others would have all the answers of who I am and how I would celebrate me. I would be afraid that if I let myself go I may truly be able to rejoice in something that truly reflected all of me. As I free up my body it supports me to let go and I am now able to express more freely and enjoy the process of expressing what is truly me and to allow the world to share that.
Amber I adore your description of how you used to freely express when you were little. How refreshing it is to consider that we all started off with this freedom… and that we can make or do things now as adults as a celebration of ourselves – rather than towards a fixed idea on how the outcome should be.
Lovely blog Amber, it is amazing how having an ideal of the end result in the mind actually blocks our natural expression, which in its self is a guarantee for it to not work out. As you say, making it hard on yourself was actually making things hard.
Lovely Amber, thanks for sharing. I can totally relate to being so creative and free when I was young, and how this slowly came to a halt when I thought I had to make things perfect or look a certain way. Maybe it’s time to let go and let my creative side out again!
Amber what came to mind when reading your article was how often and in how many different situations our expression is stifled out of us. It gets so suppressed or at best allowed to come out but altered in some way that we stop expressing naturally and just learn to deliver what is expected from us. So if expression is everything (as taught by Serge Benhayon) then who exactly are we being?
What I loved about this Amber, is how you allowed yourself to feel the tension arising in your body – you observed it and chose to come back to you. Repeatedly. And this was the unfolding of you to a deeper level of not only being with yourself, but creating something so beautiful as a reflection of your own inner beauty. A truly lovely sharing, thank you.
The expression and message for us all in your blog Amber is inspiring; thank you for sharing your experiences.
Being hard on and critical of ourselves is so harming and as you pointed out being appreciative, confident and celebratory is such a joy and a healing.
Amber reading your blog reminded me of the many times I have done exactly what you have described, being super afraid of “not getting it right”. I’ve also observed how much tension there is in my body when I am in this mode. What I have been working with is staying with myself and being super gentle and playful. I have realised that when I am hard on myself, I get super serious, which isn’t much fun. When I bring an element of playfulness, it is easy to stay connected with me and feel the loveliness and then it is much easier to cut any of those thoughts that come up to tell me that ‘I’m not getting it right’.
Great blog Amber, thank you. As I was reading your blog I realised I am sometimes very hard on my 7 year old daughter when she makes little mistakes, I become impatient. She also likes to sing, make lots of different sounds and expressions but her brother finds it difficult to tolerate more so than any of us. You have reflected things for us all to look at as a family. Learn to support each others’ true expression and not supress it.
Beautiful sharing Amber. I can so relate to needing to get something right/perfect and in that energy feeling so hard in my body and tense in my shoulders- putting so much pressure on myself in needing confirmation and recognition.
But of late I am finding that by staying with my body, and breathing my own breathe I am learning to trust to express from my heart- so freeing, expansive, confirming and joyful.
It is truly that simple!
Amber what you have written can really apply to life in general. The feeling of leaving the self and the innate knowing of what we want to do and choose, and the tension and stress that comes from ignoring that to “follow the rules”. I actually get worked up myself quite a bit still so there is a lot in this blog that’s very supportive for me. Thanks for sharing Amber.
Thank you for this beautiful sharing Amber, it shows how much support we can give ourselves and how very important it is to observe ourselves lovingly.
This has been such a great reminder of how to stop, listen and feel what is going on when anxiety or tension comes up in the body. Or feel that something isn’t flowing as it should. I often feel this, something isn’t going my way, situations, anything. What you have shared has just provided such a lovely process to keep at it, even if the momentum has been set up, you can bring yourself back when you stop to feel and breath.
Great sharing. I recognize this hardness when expectations or ideas how things should be kick in, it kicks into the body. For a while now I am more aware of when this happens. I stop, connect to my body and feel the hardness. Although it can happen many times during the day, each time I have a choice to let go and give my body the space to be. And then the gentleness and also the playfulness reappears. Lovely to feel like a kid of five again in the body of a woman in her forties!
Thank you for sharing. Its amazing how we have learnt to do so many simple things in life with tension as if it helps but in fact it always makes it more difficult. If we could all express it so honestly we would, like you have, identify that it’s much more enjoyable to just be ourselves with the task.
Hi Amber. As children there is a natural freedom to express from the heart. You describe “..my heart had something it was feeling confident to express and I loved this feeling.” Unfortunately this soon gets squashed and withheld as the child tries to conform to the conditions and expectations of others. It was beautiful to read how you re-discovered the freedom and playfulness to express from the heart once again.
I love re-reading this, I so relate and it is such a good reminder to just stay with yourself, even when that feels uncomfortable and tense but be willing to stay open and come back to the loveliness that never goes away.
Thank you Amber, I loved reading about your experience and could relate to so much of what you have written. I particularly love this line “I found that as I stayed with me I was feeling more confident as I went along and I started to feel a little more adventurous and ‘freer’ in what or how I might do the next thing.” There is such a natural confidence that comes from being in our bodies and not letting our mind run away from the moment.
I too can feel frozen at times when I am about to embark on a creative project. There is so much fear around getting it wrong, or it not turning out how you expected it. I find it takes me some time before I realise I’m being far too serious about the whole thing, and then I surrender and just allow myself to get it wrong and see what happens. In the end it’s never wrong anyway, it’s just part of the process.
‘I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.’
I find there to be so much wisdom in this line, having been in the past, someone who was incredibly hard on myself. It serves not, to ever be angry, or self critical – great job for exploring that in your own observations Amber.
Thank you Amber for a great blog. I, too, have made things hard for myself and notice how my body gets harder. The tension in creating with judgement and criticism is sometimes difficult to overcome but, I have found when staying with my body and allowing my heart and hands to just do – then magic is present and the end result, to me, is always something of an awesome surprise!
Thank you Amber – the masks we all wear are often quite broken yet we tense up if anyone challenges what we have accepted for so long – thanks this blog helps me to realise how tense I get at work when in actual fact if I stay with me it is more likely outcomes are sustainable, loving and enabling for myself and others. A whole lot of heART!
How hard can we be to ourselves, Amber, when we squash our expression because this was not fully appreciated when we where young? It feels frustrating when we know what we want but, because we have disconnected from our natural expression, become insecure about what to do or to choose. So let us all return to our natural expression to bring tenderness and joy back into our lives.
I can really relate to being hard on myself and how my way of doing things confirms this. So much energy spent on things that could be so simple and come together easily. I appreciate how at times the writer settled back into herself and found progress through that and another time sought help from someone else. These two choices seem integral to any worthwhile project. I got a lot from this blog.
I love this blog Amber, it is so timely as I today realised how hard I was on myself too – in my case with shopping for clothes and shoes. Your first paragraphs really explain for me why I found it so difficult to choose and express myself in buying clothes and shoes for me. Today I chose to let myself play around and try on whatever I wanted and kept light and playful, even if some things totally didn’t fit or looked funny. After reading your blog it felt like I let myself be expressing freely just like I did when I was a child. Thank you for sharing.
I could feel Lieke that when you allowed yourself to, ‘play around’, how much more you could just be you and have fun with your shopping. Lovely to read.
That feeling of allowing myself to just be is such a weight off my shoulders, no expectation.
Thank you Amber, I can so relate to being hard on myself and you reminded me here of how this starts when we shut down due to the beliefs, ideals rules etc. that are imposed upon us. The trick is to learn more to trust ourselves as you gradually worked at noticing the tension and not allowing it to rule you and ruin your true creativity.
It was lovely to feel how you stayed with yourself Amber, no matter how much the “hardness” and anxiety tried to surface. To end with a mask that truly celebrated your essence felt divine. A beautiful sharing.
Thank you Amber for the awareness you brought to me, in how by making my body hard it also made it hard and difficult to simply express words or write comments on blogs.
Great sharing on how we do create the scene for pressure, intensity and anxiety, by not allowing ourselves the space to be, with what we are doing.
Amber, I connected instantly with your story. I often feel the same. Unconfident and scared to attempt incase I stuff it up. I have even found it hard to write on a birthday card incase I make a mistake. It is stifling and stunting, and I know it, which makes it even worse. I bundle myself up so tight in protection, or more likely choose to avoid the whole situation, resulting in not writing or drawing or painting…… and most of us don’t aim high, so we don’t experience a fall.
How gorgeous!!
Amber, your story gave me such a boost as I often realise I contract and harden when it seems like something isn’t going according to ‘my plan’. What you have reminded me to do is to stop trying to control the outcome of things and to just stay with me and allow myself to express naturally whatever is there to come out – and to have the confidence and trust to know that whatever the outcome – it is the right one for me at that point in time.
It would be great if this was taught at school.
Gyl that’s so true. My experience of school was striving for excellence without caring about what it did to my body. To be taught to express and be tender with ourselves would be amazing and what’s more, as a by product, I have no doubt what would be made would be amazing because it’ll reflect how amazing we are naturally.
Thank you for this very moving blog, Amber, and for expressing what I – and I guess many others – have also experienced.
„With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.“ I took me a while to realise this and at first left me feeling helpless as obviously I did not know anymore how to be gentle and loving towards myself. I gradually took little steps towards me. What helped most was to understand that there really is no wrong – just different options and possibilities of learning.
Expression is the most recent step towards living my true self more and more and feeling how wonderful I am and what wonders there are to be seen and to be felt everywhere.
Michael, I too very much related to “With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.” It has only been since beginning to self-care and be more gentle and loving with myself that I have realised how hard in fact I previously was, and how I made things much harder than they needed to be! I’m not beating myself up because I didn’t have the awareness to realise this was happening at the time, but am taking this opportunity to appreciate the change that is possible when we begin to take the steps towards self-care, and as a result to allow ourselves to express (whether through art or otherwise) more of the real us / me.
Indeed Angela, and it is so beautiful to experience that there is always potential to go deeper and allow ourselves to make even more loving choices. Appreciation is the most amazing support and fuel on this journey.
How fantastic that you stayed with challenging the different reactions being experienced in your body. Old rules, beliefs and conditions do feel so harsh and overwhelming when young, although what you knew to be true was the beautiful, fresh and creative essence of you was still there and just waiting for the opportunity to shine once again, and it did.
It’s true that being ‘so incredibly hard on myself, does make things ‘hard’. It is harder to connect with what we feel so words do not flow easily and actions become jerky and awkward. Yet as a child, we are naturally connected to what we feel and can express that spontaneously without the restriction of the beliefs, ideals, expectations or impositions that we tend to take on as we grow up.
Thank you Amber for your expression and can definitely relate to the pressure we apply all in the pursuit of perfectionism. And that when we come back to our body and out of the head, things/the ‘issue’ can feel so much more clear and we wonder what all the fuss was about!
So true Zofia. When we come back to our body, the spin we have been in can seem almost ridiculous. However, the more we see what is playing out, the more we understand the choices we have in each situation.
In my study for architecture this is something that comes up a lot in me. The feeling that my expression needs to be seen as perfect by me as well as by others who will look at it and give their opinion. Your blog made me feel that there is truly no need to hesitate in my expression as it is in the end always a great product because its made by me.
Love how you expressed this Benkt: “…there is truly no need to hesitate in my expression as it is in the end always a great product because its made by me.” So true!
Amber, your words went straight to my heart- “I wasn’t going to let the fact that the mask broke stop me”, how great that you did not give up but stayed with your connection being gentle to yourself and not wanting to be perfect. Very needed in this world, where it is a lot about being perfect – which creates fear.
Kerstin I too loved those words Amber has written. There’s nothing more sad than people giving up on themselves – I know because I have done so in the past. It was lovely to read of Amber staying with herself despite the initial hardness. I am usually so hard on myself and have to stop to let go of the being perfect because it so does create fear and tension in my body.
Such a beautiful way to start brining back that true expression and it must of felt exquisite to wear.
Beautiful Amber!
I laughed out loud at one point because you exposed so well the very ridiculous thoughts and conversations that have often taken place within my head too!
I loved the line “… I felt like I was five years old again except that now we were beautiful grown women – it felt amazing.” I can feel your absolute joy in this expression 😘😘
There are two things here: we first give in to all the pressures that make us believe we are no good or at least not good at a particular task and then, when we finally dare have a go again, we expect of ourselves to get it right first time around, be some kind of expert and confidently deliver what is at hand.
Do we expect a baby to just get up and walk? Ridiculous, isn’t it?
Beautiful sharing Amber thank you,appreciation is definitely the way to go as being hard on ourselves is what keeps us in misery and contributes to the despair in the world. Appreciation of ourselves just being us and the expansion from this is the joy that is really there for us all to feel and see.
This blog is a very timely reminder…”I was so afraid of making a mistake, or doing it wrong…” I was feeling the same as this today and my body felt tense … and I too stopped and asked myself ‘why is this feeling so hard?’ and then in popped the answer… ‘it’s not hard, you’re just being hard on yourself, so you’re making it hard.’ In this I realised I was not appreciating what I was doing, I have found that appreciating myself is such an important part of my life because when I forget this, I become hard.
Amber thank you. Your story is one I very much relate to. It is easy to understand the steps you have taken to bring about this change. I am taking steps too my body feels lighter, my confidence growing as I stay more present feeling those child qualities again rather than the pressures I can put on myself which then take hold.
Being hard on yourself equals making it hard for yourself. I like that. It’s a lose-lose every time. Aiming for perfectionism is the quickest way of being hard on yourself. And let’s face it, nobody is perfect.
Beautiful article Amber thank you for sharing this so honestly. It is beautiful and I can relate to the hardness put on myself from young, that if I am not careful I find myself carrying with me. The joy and freedom from letting this go and feeling child-like again with singing, movement and expression in all forms is truly amazing to feel.
Thank you for writing this article Amber. The pressure I have always put on myself to do things right to please others is beautifully exposed. I too am gently returning to the singing and dancing little girl that I left behind.
Since the day we learn to walk and talk as kids, we are not made aware that everything we express leaves an indelible mark in the world and the ripples go on and on. So expression is about all of us and never is it about self. This is a big thing I am getting to grips with after being deeply identified with my own expressions through art and music.
On reading this article again, it made me remember as a child being very creative and inventive but not when and how I lost or buried it. Time to reconnect to that child again, I feel. Thanks Amber.
Thank you for writing Amber, I loved reading your blog. I can relate to “believing the harsh rules, conditions, expectations and beliefs that were placed on me.” They do stifle and constrict, but to actively choose to not accept them as a way of being anymore is completely liberating. Like you, I am finding it a work in progress and it is satisfying to take a chink of armour off one at a time with each new experience. The joy you felt in the celebration of you really came through in your writing.
I know, I can relate to this too, like rushing to get things done and everything goes wrong! What I am understanding more and more is at times like this to take a step back, stop, re-connect with me and go from there. It is always a choice we have … It is just seeing and taking that choice!
Wow, this blog has been an eye-opener for me. Just the pressure alone of righting a comment caused feelings of tightness in my body! The pressure of ‘getting it right’ to shape whatever we do into a certain way is exhausting and feels ugly to experience. What this has shown me is that if I just acknowledge the fact as Serge Benhayon has presented, Everything is already within me, it doesn’t matter how it comes out because it feels lighter not being so controlled and rigid. Thank you.
Being afraid of making a mistake or needing to get things right causes a lot of tension in our bodies … more than we realise, as we are then living from rules rather than the free flow of tuning in to what feels right for us and our natural unique way of moving and doing things. I have enjoyed reading Amber, how you became more confident through the process of making the mask. Giving ourselves the space and time to feel what is right for us and approaching things with openness and an explorative quality is a life lesson. I have found this is how true confidence develops.
I recognise how we are very hard on ourselves when we feel we need to perform or produce something specific that has to be right. I am interested Amber, in the way you make clear that you felt you had to follow the picture of the mask you found and liked to the exact detail, and consequently that gave you a lot of anxiety, instead of looking at what was available and choosing for YOU. But in the end that is what happened, as the “right” materials weren’t available. Obviously, it then became YOUR piece of Art, not a copy of someone else’s and you were able to open up and sing, and make something for yourself truly from your heart. I have found in artwork, drama work – whatever process, that the mistakes and sudden faults that appear are often the truest expression of ourselves as we have to let go and let things happen. I love how you describe the whole process and come through it to a celebration.
It’s great to re-read your article Amber, I can relate to trying to stick to the rules and not allow my true creativity to flow. I loved drawing and making things as a child and was always very naturally creative, but as an adult I stopped because I went into doubt about whether what I was making or drawing was correct and whether it was good enough and so the natural confidence and flow hence wasn’t there. It’s inspiring to read your experience and realise that I can choose to stay with me and be creative as an adult too.
Thanks Amber, sometimes I look back on how tense and stressed I used to get about silly things and laugh and yet at times still catch myself going there. For me now I am starting to worry less what other people think, which takes off some of the pressure; expression and self love sorts the rest.
“With this I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself”. This sentence is so true, and for me it has been particularly obvious with my swimming. I have gone into the water tense and hardened in my body, and then wondered why I did not swim like a fish! Only recently have I begun to let go and enjoy exploring how my body can move in the water, and even bring a bit of playfulness back.
Amber, I love that you show the process & work of getting back to you in the making of a ‘mask’ of all things…and this mask turns out not to hide who you are but to celebrate who you are! Cool.
Love it Jo – we hide behind so many masks in our lives but here is one that is a true celebration of who Amber is because of her commitment to discarding her ideals and beliefs and coming back to herself.
I couldn’t help myself laugh out loud when you shared how you broke the mask in half – “Well, that made me stop!” Because I get it, when I go into override and push things even though I have clocked it going on but don’t actually make the choice to change the way I am going about things. Then bam at some point I am forced to stop to cut the motion that I am creating. It is incredible when I don’t really want to look at things and know that there is something to look at but keep going with not even the slightest hesitation that it doesn’t feel right. With the support of attending Universal Medicine workshops and courses as well as seeing Esoteric practitioners I have begun to honour what I feel and not going into the override. Re-claiming my Power from what I feel.
A lovely reminder Amber that as adults it is possible to express as freely as young children despite the stuff that gets in the way of this, if we choose to connect and let go of what we have taken on. No easy task, but one that gets easier with practice.
Beautiful blog Amber thank you – it’s amazing what we take on, subconsciously even, and how this affects the way we express.. Inspiring also to read about how you reconnected back to your natural playful, joyful, uninhibited expression.
This way of worrying about perfection is something that I have found all too familiar in my life, and can really become crippling. What I have found is that usually what I feel is not good enough and in need of ‘perfection’ is usually ‘perfectly fine’ (pun intended) and nobody else would even notice the difference. It’s like an internal battle with myself, all based on living up to some ideal or trying to please or impress others without accepting myself for who I am. I have let go of this tendency after it became down right exhausting, and I realised the insanity of it all. Amber, your article also helped me realise that I have been holding back my own artistic expression that used to be more prevalent in my life. Time to give it a go again, and this time without trying.
Thank you Amber for a great blog. I can relate to the way I have anxiously put myself through high expectations wanting to achieve instead of letting out the flow of my expression in my own pace and enjoy the process. I realise that most of my adult life was lived in anxiousness. Thank you for the healing.
I really enjoyed this blog; I smiled a lot and it reminded me of today at work. I felt myself ‘doing’ and ‘tensing’ my body, so bringing it back to gentleness and that lovely gentle breath is so helpful. Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you for sharing Amber – it’s a great reflection for me as I can find when I am trying to get something ‘perfect’ or ‘right’ that I find myself tensing up and getting anxious about it for no real reason. It is only when I take a step back, like you did, that I can see there is nothing wrong and what I am doing is great if only I allow myself to see it!
Thank you Amber. The structure of your blog is beautiful and the way it reveals as a story. I love the image of grown women being transported back to childhood innocence by all joining in a song.
I loved the unfolding in this blog, how you felt tense and were impacted by beliefs from when you were growing up, but didnt give up, but kept on coming back to your body.
There is a lot in this article that you have shared and it is lovely to follow you through the process of making your mask and what it brought up for you and how you constantly brought yourself back to be with you in this process. Following your commitment to self and unfolding to the point that you truly en-joyed yourself. Lovely. Thank you Amber.
Yes I agree Elaine, it is a great reminder of the connection between coming back to our presence and confidence.
It was lovely to feel how you let yourself open up to the possibilities of whatever you might create, it made me aware that the expectations we hold or the underlying rule we give ourselves that “I must get this right” or the idea of “what would be perfect” only sets us up for a hard time and often the feeling of failure or frustration. I totally agree with you Amber and have found this so myself, that when we let go of the outcome of what we think it should look like, we can enjoy the process of what we’re making or doing as well as the end result!
Hi Amber, this is such a great experience to share. I recently decided to go on a painting course after realising that I didn’t do any of the things I used to love as a child. I loved art and hadn’t done anything creative in my adult life, so I was really looking forward to it. I had absolutely no expectation of what I would create or what I wanted and I relaxed and enjoyed myself so much. It was great to feel, in comparison to how I can often be at work, often feeling like I have to do everything perfectly, becoming stressed and not enjoying myself. So I am practising letting go of the pressures I put on myself, bringing more of that joy and feeling relaxed in all areas of my life.
Thank you for sharing your story. It’s very lovely. Your playful quality still speaks through all the anxiousness.
Such a playful blog. Sometimes our way of doing things has become so ingrained, so habitualised within us that we do not even recognize how we are going about our days. Even placed amongst others working in a different way we still maintain our way subconsciously fighting all going on around us. Things become seemingly tough and strained. However as you have beautifully described it only takes a moment to recognize this struggle or tension from within and then a surrender to the possibility of something else, before a true unfolding of another way occurs. One with a potentially huge and beautiful reflection of the beauty and simplicity within and around us all.
I could relate to your honest blog Amber, how we get swept away by the harsh rules and conditions that have been placed on us in the past and how they can play out in our lives today, and can continue to affect us until we stop and recognised what it is really doing to us. The hardness that it creates in our bodies and the complications that follow. Thank you for sharing Amber it was a great reminder for me.
Wonderful blog Amber. I know this so well. Holding back my expression in fear or anxiety of what others think. I love how you brought it back to your body and the expansion that flowed from this, and the beautiful fun and joyful creativity that you then allowed. Gorgeous. Thank you.
Thank you Amber, this is great to read, I’m aware that I can also tense up in certain situations and for me I can go into anxiousness, particularly with other people. I have recently been practicing coming back to my body when I feel this tension or anxiousness, letting my shoulders drop and allowing my body to be relaxed and open, this feels lovely.
This is great Amber, how we get so hard and tense, it is a crazy game! It is truly wonderful to start to live without this sort of pressure and pain! Being creative is awesome when it comes from a loving playful place – I can just see a group of women making and singing, very joyful.
I can relate to this Amber. As someone who has put a lot of pressure on herself to get things right, this tenseness I am familiar with. What you describe here is a reminder that we only get tense when we lose connection with ourselves and our body and we’re trying to be something or somebody else.
A great reminder Shevon that we are not naturally that way and we only need to work on our true connection with ourselves by really getting to know ourselves inside out.
Its amazing the pressure we can place on ourselves to meet expectations and often these are imagined and not real, just stemming from childhood experiences where we felt the pressure to be a certain way. Thank you for sharing Amber
Amber this is awesome, I love it, it has brought up many amazing memories of being a child and how much joy and love I felt, the freedom to be, to express, to dance, to sing and to make art, to draw pictures and paint to my hearts content just because that is what I loved to do. I was always painting and drawing and dancing and having fun. Then something changed making art no longer became about a joyful expression and extension of who I naturally am, it then became about producing stuff, to meet other peoples expectations which then became mine, there was a hardness, a drive and all joy went. It was not about connecting to my body, presence and feeling the joy and love that is in there to express.
The bit that jumped out at me was when you asked for help. There is no doubt there are things we find difficult, and so often I will ‘soldier on’ and get myself worked up trying to figure it out. But when I do look up, there are people all around me who would love to offer their support and expertise… and suddenly life is possible again!
I totally get that Simon, the soldiering on/I can do it myself, and that it is okay to ask for help.
It was great to see the choices you made.
Great blog Amber, this is a great example of a situation that should be care free and fun, or so you would think and then the body shows you otherwise. I can relate this to work and the level of anxiety I experience even with the most simple of tasks – great reminder to come back to the body and choose to breath gently.
So much has been shared in this article. The worry of something being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ plays out in so many ways. I am learning how this is woven into many of my behaviours and is based on what or how I expect an outcome to be, yet causes an unnecessary level of anxiety.
It is interesting that when we are little we just do it because we are in that moment we are connected and enjoying it. Colouring in, singing, dancing, playing…what the end result is doesn’t matter and then, in our presence, we move on to the next thing to express ourselves. Beautiful, thank you Amber.
This blog speaks volumes to me as no doubt it does to others. Putting pressure on myself needlessly is an ingrained pattern of behaviour that I have recently become more aware of even with daily tasks. We miss out on so much loveliness as you say when we do this, and the tension hurts the body terribly. Thank you Amber.
Amber, I can deeply relate to what you describe so well here. You have exposed the horrible cycle of struggle with the statement “… I began to realise that I had been so incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself.”
Subscribing to the belief that life is a performance that is measured by our achievements is where we begin to question the worth of what we DO.
In fact life is forever an opportunity to simply BE ourselves in and with each other and whatever it is we may be doing – in the willingness to be, the flow of what we do is forever a celebration.
Your mask (so beautiful it was on you) and your blog are a testament to this – thank you!
This is a beautiful comment Helen, what you have written is so true, ‘subscribing to the belief that life is a performance that is measured by our achievements is where we begin to question the worth of what we DO’.
Helen, I too can relate to Amber’s experience and especially this ‘…I began to realise that I had been incredibly hard on myself, and this ‘being hard’ had been making things hard for myself’ Learning to quieten the mind and as you say Just ‘BE ourselves in and with each other’ And yes wherever we are let there be celebration, not competition or comparison.
Yes, that rings home to me as well that being ‘hard on myself’ and as much as I know I have worked with that and it has dropped a lot – I still can see there are elements of that slipping in and it has not fully left me. The more I surrender to my natural being that is delicious the more I feel I let that go, when I go into tension I can feel it slipping back in again. Surrender to my beauty is all that I need to do.
How beautiful and what a gorgeous reminder of how easily we can bring ourselves back to love.
Thank you for sharing Amber. A beautiful expression with such honesty.
This blog serves as a great reminder of all the pressures we have had put on us as children to conform and thus not be our real selves. The ridiculous thing is, as adults, we can continue putting pressures on ourselves and thus are not being our real selves then either. I loved reading how the making of a mask for a masquerade ball revealed all these old patterns of behaviour and woke you up to what was really going on. Thanks for sharing – a great revealing of truth – and a great reminder to be diligent as to where I put pressure on myself as well.
This is a great comment Judith that “as adults, we can continue putting pressures on ourselves and thus are not being our real selves” and Amber thank you for sharing so honestly with how you dealt with your tension as it is very inspiring.