382 thoughts on “A Playful Walk – What My Shadow Reflected to Me”

1. ‘feeling the sweetness of my voice’, for most of my life I have never liked my voice as it always sounded hard. Well of course it sounded hard as I went into so much hardness not to feel and to keep me safe. All my movements were rushed, pushed and yes hard! That said I have changed a lot over the last few years and have cleared and released so much of that old movement from my body. I am so much more aware of how I move, and now I love to feel how delicate and tender I actually am and my naturally sweetness as a women.I have so much to deeply appreciate.

2. I love watching my shadow, when it is long, or short and even playing with it, there is a lightness to it that dances along next to me, which is a great reminder that when I am playful I too am light on my feet and my touch.

3. Beautiful to read again and feel how we are forever held in God’s love, as through the magic of nature and the universe we are confirmed of the divine qualities that reflect who we are in essence, offering us the opportunity to bring more of our Soulfulness to life.

4. Beautiful Johanna, what a playful and fun way to feel the quality of your essence.

5. It is such a shame that our sweetness is not honoured and nurtured from young so that we don’t grow up needing outside confirmation to feel what is innately true. How gorgeous however that you have been able to truly become aware and can appreciate that it has been with you all this time and you are indeed all what you see in your shadow and more.

6. Walking is such a great reflection of how we have been living. It is lovely to feel how the body responds when I have been living in rhythm and with awareness; there is a lightness and joy in my movements.

7. When we walk ourselves in the full presence and grace that we are it can actually allow a spring of joy to come to our steps.

8. “Through the reflection of my shadow, I watched how my body moved without any imposition” beautiful Johanna. Having walked with my young grandchildren this week on sunny days I’m wondering if this is why they are so fascinated with shadows – just a shadow reflection of everything that is there – no impositions. In Indonesia shadow plays are renowned as artistic endeavours – often a re-telling of dramas such as the Mahabarata – the battle of dark and light.

9. Oh no. Just realised I haven’t bothered to look at my shadow reflected on the ground for a long time. I used to marvel at and be fascinated by how it kept changing its shape as I walked and played whenever I was outside on a sunny day. I used to take every single opportunity to embrace my moment in joy and wonderment. I want that back.

10. The quality of stillness is ever-present as it is who we naturally are, as such this lightness is lived whenever we move in connection to the exquisiteness of our essence. Thank you Johanna for this beautiful reflection of how Divine we are in essence and natural it is for us to live our Divinity.

11. Delightful Johanna, it reminds me of seeing my reflection recently in a window while doing a Sacred Movement class and being struck by the quality of movement I could feel in it. We do not have anywhere near enough appreciation for ourselves and who or what we are in our essence, and how this feels and looks to the observer.

12. I am appreciating more and more how there can be the quality of stillness in movement and love how you describe this as sweet. Having built up so many layers of protection it is taking time to uncover my own sweetness but the more I open up to this possibility the more it is unfolding naturally.

13. Awesome to feel you claiming your sweetness Johanna and in this you will inspire others like myself to consider our own – something I have always shied away from as it felt too exposing to explore.

14. We can associate sweetness with vulnerability and so protect ourselves with hardness to hide the natural sweetness of our true self. When we appreciate sweetness and vulnerability as being very powerful we can come out from behind our self-imposed shield and be who we truly are.

15. A great reminder Johanna that the shadows of our movements can reflect to us so much.

16. Try as we might to hide the wonderful qualities we have they can still be seen and how gorgeous it is to have them brought to our attention by another for us to begin to reclaim the true nature of ourselves.

17. In the past I have seen sweetness as something girly, and not at all associated with a sophisticated, sexy, powerful woman. How wrong was I?!

18. A gorgeous blog to read Johanna, in the past I would have struggled with my sweetness seeing it as a sign of weakness, but as your blog so beautifully reminds us that claiming our sweetness is a powerful and loving choice for us all.

19. Johanna, I enjoyed reading your story. I had a smile on my face as your story unfolded, not because of what you were sharing, but the lengthy journey it took for you to see and claim your sweetness. I have met you very briefly and this was the first aspect I picked up in you. How sweet you are.
    How many other invisible, unclaimed aspects are we yet to appreciate in our-self? Traits that to others are as visible as neon lights. Thank you, Johanna for your sweetness.

20. Me too, I never liked being called/seen as ‘sweet’ either – there was something that made me feel like I was being addressed as less, and that there was something false about being sweet, as in being pleasing and nice – then Michael Benhayon told me a few years ago that sweetness was the delicateness of Heaven – that, I would like very much.

21. I love how you saw your sweetness in the reflection of your shadow and how you then explored this sweetness to know it with every step you take.

22. A great description of how we swap that quality of sweetness as a child for a hardness that we think keeps it – and us – protected from hurt or harm but in fact merely suppresses our true essence which is, ironically, our true strength.

23. I know this needing of reflection to appreciate this quality, but I know that truly embodying this quality will support me more than only seeing it when it is reflected as that isn’t always the case, I can feel that building this will be a great activity to spend my day with.

24. That seems very true to me Michael, I can see this I the moments that I am allowing myself to be this, that’s really what it’s about to allow ourself to be sweet and fragile. This brings a great simplicity to life.

25. Thank you Johanna for a really beautiful blog, amazing what a morning walk can reveal playing with your shadow, so sweet.

26. Absolutely a great blog. Walking with sweetness is so fun! It is walking and embodying US. The world could learn so much from this blog, Walk in a way that is open, accepting and joy-full and you will know what to do, and nothing will be a mystery.

27. lovely blog Johanna, accepting our innate qualities like sweetness can sometimes be a bit challenging, but in truth when we do, it only brings an ease in life. I feel I haven’t fully accepted the sweetness that I am, this is an inspiration to feel into this and see that it actually is there in every moment.

28. Johanna, a lovely revisit of your blog for some inspiration and joy.

29. And all revealed from a simple morning walk! This does highlight the healing power of walking when we are truly walking with love.

30. Thank you Johanna for this gorgeous reminder to embrace and enjoy how sweet we truly are.

31. I very much recognise that when it is not reflected, like with your shadow, I choose to not feel it in myself, the hardness I created to not get hurt is clearly in the way at that moment. But I can feel how letting go more and more of this hardness and opening up, I can just feel my qualities, no need for outside confirmation any more which is very beautiful to account.

32. This blog has me pondering the power and acceptance of something about ourselves when another has told us, but when we reflect on who or how we see ourselves we are lees likely to accept some of the amazing, precious and profoundly beautiful aspects of ourselves. Thank you for sharing how you have opened to the ‘sweetness’ of you Johanna and claimed it in full.

33. Johanna, lovely that you could connect with the sweetness underneath the hardness. Once we let ourselves feel the sweetness within it is harder to maintain the protection of the hardness because that is not who we really are.

34. “Allowing myself to be sensitive has an amazing strength and power”. We build fortresses of toughness around ourselves thinking we are protecting ourselves from being hurt without realising we are hurting ourselves by not feeling the truth of our sweetness and sensitivity and preventing us from knowing who we truly are.

35. ‘I realised that I was not able to really see or appreciate the sweetness in others due to my hardening. I had used this hardness as a type of defence to protect me from getting hurt and to not allow others to get too close’. When I was small I felt invincible with the harness I had built around me, ready to attack and protect anyone I thought needed protection. Growing up and becoming a teenager I remember starting to get annoyed by sweet colours like soft pink and what I experienced as obvious feminine, needy behaviour. Then finally I was no longer able to let any love in or out or let people even get close to me. Now that I have re-discovered who I truly am I started to feel and allow my sweetness, my tenderness to melt me from the inside and out. Whilst staying in touch with where I am at and with what is happening in my body every single moment (or at least attempting to) I feel like a flower that never ceases to bloom.

36. Sweet Johanna that was definitely a blog for me to read. I could not remember that I have had ever think about sweetness and definitely not in correlation with me! So your blog is a real inspiration and your lovely description of sweetness will help me to get more a feeling of it: “Even though I was moving, this delicateness and lightness had a quality of stillness about it that was simply lovely – unimposingly delicious, innocent, tender, delicate, open and what I call and can sum up as ‘sweet’.”

37. Johanna I love re-reading your blog to inspire myself to keep enjoying the delicate quality of sweetness. Whenever I feel vulnerable or my body is tired, if I remember to feel my sweetness and tenderness my body surrenders, it feels like the warmest cuddle.

38. “Since then I have come to fully appreciate how sweet I am and I continue to allow it to be there in every part of my day,” Thank you for reminding me to reconnect to this gorgeous feeling of sweetness that I only allowed to re-surface a year or so ago, and that I can sometimes forget and lose touch with. I am beginning to realise how it is with me much more than I let myself feel and how appreciating that is so supportive not only to me but ripples out to all others too.

39. “Why did I not trust the power of this innate quality all along?” A good question Johanna. We have so much within us that – until I came to Universal Medicine presentations – I never knew existed. Even now I still struggle to claim all that I am, but this is slowly changing, and when I do feel all that I am it is truly glorious – and of course this is not only for myself, but reflects out to everyone around.

40. Your words feel like a coming home to me. That process we have to experience when we have separated from our true nature and are taking those self loving steps to, first recognize almost accidentally who we are, and then put the focus and attention to feel it and be aware of it in everything we do. You found a beautiful way to express it. I particularly relate to feeling the sweetness of my voice when I speak, not let it slip under the carpet, be fully aware when I talk of enjoying my own sweetness. And when I walk. I have to agree that it is self doubt and sabotage and also the hardness we have developed as this sweetness was never confirmed, we forgot that it was there, and gradually crushed it and squeezed it and not let it out for long so it finally seemed like it was not there and was replaced by a facade of strength and toughness to deal with the world and its demands. It is beautiful to come back, isn´t it?

41. Your blog is very inspiring because I realise that I know I am delicate and sweet, but when I lose myself in life this is the first thing that is out the door. And every time I connect back to myself, I can feel the sadness of not being me in this quality and not having met others in this quality.

    1. Thank you Rachel, your comment brings me to a deeper understanding about my relationship with truth when it comes to being pulled up lovingly by others who see, what I have chosen to not see within me. Instead of letting it in and feeling it for myself, I turn away from it. It is not so much that I do not believe or want to believe what is seen and expressed, but by acknowledging it I also have to feel how I have been hard on myself and not allowing to just be me, a delicate, tender, sweet and powerful woman.

42. Recently a practitioner talked about my natural sweetness and I felt instantly I do not appreciate or value this quality. Since then I am feeling into the meaning of the word sweet and sweetness. What you have written Johanna inspires me to consider to trust this innate quality and the power it has. Thank you for sharing about your sweetness.

43. What a gorgeous blog, I relate deeply to having found all the ways to harden myself – always believing that my delicacy was useless in the world. But since re-connecting to what was within me all along, with support from Universal Medicine too, I have come to know my gorgeousness once again and live it everyday to the best of my ability.

44. Johanna, sweet is a word that I would not have used to discribe myself, but when I think of the little girl that I was I know she was sweet, somewhere along the way I locked it away along with fragility, tenderness, delicateness. I am now allowing myself to feel the preciousness that is me.

45. I love what you have shared here Johanna. I have walked with other people and with animals but I have never consciously walked with my shadow. Thank you for sharing the profound realisations and learning that walking with your shadow reflected back to you. I am inspired to walk with my shadow on my very next walk!

46. “being in true connection with this sweetness and allowing myself to be sensitive has an amazing strength and power.” I loved this sentence Johanna, it is such a different way to experience strength and power, and feeling our delicateness and sweetness will never tire us or cause tension, but instead create a glow and warmth for all to share.

47. Thank-you Johanna for expressing here all about your sweetness – a quality that lives within all of us, equally with men as it is with women.

48. I am finding this an amazing blog, presenting all that we choose to not feel something we innately are. But with the reflection from your own shadow being reminded and have the ability to choose this over the hardening that was chosen before, very beautiful.

49. I have spent a lifetime not valuing the quality of sweetness, never seeing the power and strength that that quality, along with sensitivity brings. Indeed a big shame. Blogs like this one Johanna give me the opportunity to unpick what I have invested in, and so be able then to let out my own sweetness which somehow, quite surprisingly, I know is in there somewhere.

50. I love how you gave focus to appreciate your sweetness in everything that you do throughout your day. Like you Iam good in being strong and powerful but I will put even more awareness on showing my sweetness, in everything that I do after reading your blog.
    🙂

51. Johanna, this is so sweet!!! It’s funny years ago a German friend of mine described me as ‘süß’ (German for sweet) and I was horrified – I wanted to be cool and trendy, sweet just felt dismissive and wishy-washy in my world. And yet I was sweet then, and I am definitely sweet now, but as a child I’d felt dismissed and came to understand quickly that showing my sweetness was not appreciated and I needed to show them I was independent and self contained. In my mind I associated sweetness with somehow being fragile and thus needy; yet it never was, it was just that those around didn’t appreciate it or want it’s reflection so they spurned it. It’s amazing how we can take on a false ideal of what something is, and in the process deny the truth of who we are. So yes I am sweet and learning to let others see this.

    1. Yes Monica I too was seen as sweet quite often throughout my life and always saw it as a negative, meaning being fragile and girly, which never sat well with me. So I would become really hard and show the world my independent side and be all gung ho about doing everything by myself… But what I now see and feel within my body is the delicious sweetness and fragility is super powerful when we claim it in full and let the world see us for all that we are.

       1. Yes that sweetness we have Kelly is very powerful and I love that I’m reading this today to remind me of that sweetness again, and there really is nothing more powerful than one who holds the sweetness of who they are no matter what, yes there’s a fragility in that, but it takes a courage and strength to know that nothing else is needed and that no matter how others react they see it. We’ve been trained that being tough and hard is it (it’s even worse for men) and yet our true strength lies in showing our fragility and letting another see and feel that – it melts us when we experience that, and we get to see and feel that we are so much more than this human experience we are having.

52. Fascinating that it took you seeing your shadow in reflection before you, to enable you to see and appreciate your own sweetness within and that it was the reflection of you from the outside in, as it were, that enabled you to feel it already there. A great reminder of how we tend to look to things outside ourselves for confirmation of who we truly are – even our own shadow – rather than living the knowing of it from the inside out.

53. The rosella walk was playful, and the bright colours reflected how light and clear and appreciative of the morning I was feeling in the crisp mountain air.

54. Johanna this morning I was walking with my husband through a rainforest. It was very quiet and I was enjoying the comfort and bounce of my new sneakers and feeling the lightness in my step. A colourful Rosella flew nearby. I stopped and it flew onto my shoulder. Then it waited a moment and hopped onto my head. It held firm but not gripping, and I walked slowly ahead with it, it felt so joyful.

55. Coming back to this blog Johanna I feel light hearted, I imagine swinging my arms and smiling it is so joyful! There is a little magic in every shadow (shades of Peter Pan who lost his) and Wendy had to sew it back on? Thank you for adding a little pleasurable imagination to my day.

56. I will never forget seeing my niece when she was very young. Her sweetness and delicateness were palpable. Her every move confirmed to me that every single one of us holds these qualities very naturally. She totally inspired me every time I felt her.

    1. I love the way children’s delicate reflections remind us of our own…

57. Yes rowenakstewart, our sweetness may be hidden, but it is there “regardless of our experiences in life. It is a real joy to re-discover it and then cherish it as an adult, to bring it back into everyday life and share its magic”. So true.

58. This reminded me of how playful we were as children playing with our shadows, and any friend’s shadow that was close by, what fun.

59. This was really beautiful to read. I love the reflection you were offered of your innate sweetness through your shadow. It is just gorgeous that any doubt of this sweetness was then exposed and awarenesses brought you to a deeper knowing and acceptance of this truth which you then chose to bless us by sharing.

60. For a long time I struggled to feel the sweetness and the delicateness of me. It seemed that those words just didn’t apply to me. But recently I have been able to get a sense of my delicateness and have slowly begun to bring it more into everything I do. The sweetness has been a little more elusive, but I am starting to finally understand what it means to be sweet. I love this exploration of these new feelings and know, that if I make a commitment to allow myself to accept them, I will then be able to know them more and more each day. Thank you Johanna: I will be taking my shadow, and your beautiful story, with me on my lunch time walk today.

61. ‘Does self-doubt, self-sabotage and being hard prevent me from even recognising this quality that has always lain deep within me?’ I have asked myself the same questions also regarding connecting to my delicateness which I feel is connected with my sweetness. And the answer I came to was yes I deliberately sabotage myself to not feel these qualities in me. When I do allow myself to feel my sweetness, my delicateness, the lovely flow I feel in my body supports me to be joyful with everyone and in everything.

62. Johanna, I really loved reading your blog – and feel to read it several times more to remind me that within me, indeed within us all is this ‘sweetness’ of which you speak – this wondrous aspect that many of us have lost connection with or even the awareness of the possibility that it is inherant within. I feel the grace of what you have shared – thank you.

63. The point about the shadow was for me a great way of expressing how we confirm ourselves by looking outwards at our reflection, as opposed to being with ourselves in our bodies and feeling who we are directly. The first means what life dictates to us is what we identify with and get caught up in, for better or for worse. The second means we bring our uniqueness to life and remain true to our inner nature, no matter what life is serving up at the time. This way when we get a curve ball, we have the inner strength and wisdom to stay with ourselves and feel what it is truly about and not pass it off as an accident or coincidence. This is a very empowering way to live!

64. I love the idea of playfulness and sweetness being a greater part of adult life. And as you point out, they don’t naturally appear in all their glory until we have dealt with our hardness. I am enjoying learning about and stripping away those layers that have been self-protective barriers to my full expression. Thanks Johanna for a great topic.

65. This is a great explanation of the difference between thinking and saying we are something (i.e. amazing, tender, delicate etc) but not actually believing it or living it, compared to someone fully knowing and claiming they are something (as examples above) and living and embodying it in every foot step. When we embody it and live it in our way of being this is truly and fully inspirational!

66. The loveliness of you shines through this thoroughly sweet and playful blog Johanna. I am feeling my own sweetness now, you’ve made the word very real for me… and I’m looking forward to a walk.

67. Walking is a great way to check-in with ourselves, and your blog shows us how intimate and playful this can be, and a way of us learning more about ourselves. Thank you Johanna.

68. Johanna, I too find walking, especially in nature a wonderful way to remind me of my own innate, but often forgotten, qualities. The sweetness you talk about is like discovering a preciousness within ourselves, something that is so easily buried under any hardness we take on to ‘deal with’ the world when we feel alone and have forgotten that there is a loving way to handle it all. Nature often brings me back in an instant on my walks and helps me to connect back to this lightness and preciousness…and sweetness as you have so beautifully described!

69. In the past I would accuse my shadow of being a lazy bugger as it would just follow me around all day but wouldn’t help out when I needed a hand, a classic reflection as I have spent my life as a do-er. What you have shared Johanna is beautiful and something I will pay attention to.

70. Johanna this is such a beautiful reminder for me to never give up on my sweetness and trade it in for what i have thought it takes to survive in the world. Thank you.

71. I can relate to not seeing the qualities that I naturally bring and it has taken me a bit of practice and still does to appreciate all that is naturally there. The example you bring with the reflection of your shadow is gold because when we allow ourselves to observe we can learn a lot about ourselves.

72. Yes, making hardness a thing of the past feels like a good plan!

73. Lovely blog Johanna, and very inspiring. I haven’t quite connected to my sweetness, so thank you for sharing. I look forward to discovering and re-connecting to my own sweetness too; I do know it’s there.

74. It has been lovely to re-read your blog and I can feel how lovely it is for you to take your sweetness into the whole of your day. How gorgeous for everyone you meet too.

75. As always my love you are not only an inspiration to me but to all around you with the light within you that shines so sweetly. As I read that blog I felt its expression play out in my own life- have I really claimed all that I am. I am now more self aware and once again I have you to thank for that.

76. Johanna, your blog reminds me of a moment I also had a couple of years ago – I even took photos of my shadow as I could feel the natural grace in its reflection and it felt like a beautiful return for me at the time. Yet in reading this I realise how much further I could’ve explored the meaning of this reflection and I realise now that to this day I haven’t fully embodied the grace I felt then. So I now shall take a leaf out of your book and feel into just how innately and naturally graceful I am in all of the ordinary moments of my day. Thank you for the inspiration!

77. Thats a very sweet blog 😉
    I like the way you have used the shadow as an example because I have noticed I could walk past a mirror or window and see my reflection and go wow, you look amazing, you feel amazing, you are so confident and beautiful but then when I am not seeing my reflection I am not walking knowing all of those qualities… exactly that same as what you have describe with the shadow.

78. Sweetness is a quality that melts the heart and takes away the rough edges of life. Sweetness can be very playfull. Sweetness in it purest form is innocent, is inviting to drop the shields and feel how precious it is to let someone truly in.

    1. Beautiful Delorme- I love the quality and all that you have expressed around this one word . The way you have described it, makes it so tangible for the reader to feel and understand.

    2. How lovely to reclaim our sweetness. Like many others who have commented here, I know as a young child I was in touch with my sweetness — it seemed very natural, joyful and playful. And then it became a kind of patronising condescending diminishing label, somehow being called ‘sweet’ meant not being taken seriously. Innocence was equated with naivete and being out of touch with the real world. Like others, I ‘toughened up’, hardened and closed down my sweetness in an effort to fit in and be taken seriously. Thank you Johanna for reminding us of the purity of our sweetness and that it is still there. And thank you delorme2013 for reminding us that sweetness ‘melts the heart and takes away the rough edges of life’ — the rough edges we have been protecting ourselves from. What an awesome reminder to bring these qualities back into our lives — sweetness, playfulness, innocence and preciousness.

79. It is lovely to read of the rediscovery of your sweetness Johanna. It is something we do tend to avoid and overlook as something that is not worthy of our attention. We put so much effort into toughening up for the world we tend to forget our natural qualities. I know I have covered up my sweetness with aggression and roughness in the past as a way to protect myself. It is a joy to start dropping this protection and rediscover what is underneath.

80. I love the title of this, it reminds me of being a little girl and playing with my shadow. Your article is proof that we all have this innocence within us and that we can connect to it again as adults, it has not been lost, just buried under a lot of beliefs that don’t belong to us.

81. How lovely to reconnect to your natural sweetness Johanna, as I feel into this for myself what I feel reflects back is that I too have denied my natural sweetness. I find I substitute with indulging in sweet foods but what is underneath is that I truly miss the beautiful, sweet person I am. I feel we can hide our sweetness as it is often not considered a desirable quality. But what I feel is that we do all hold a sweetness within that is so worth bringing out and letting shine in the world.

    1. Well said Jade. The world needs our sweetness revealed. Sugar consumption is at an all-time high, so we all miss the sweetness – and substitute it with this harming substance.

82. Me too Tim. Johanna’s experience has inspired me to deepen my relationship with my walks and appreciate all that they bring.

83. I just love re-reading this beautiful blog, Johanna, will be returning over and over to it, it so inspires me. I look forward to a sunny morning today, I can’t wait to explore walking with my own shadow, will be really interesting to see what is there for me to see at this point. It feels a wonderful exercise for me to discover so much more about myself.

    1. Beverley, I love that you say, ‘It feels a wonderful exercise for me to discover so much more about myself’. Rather than going into comfort as you age, you are an inspiration as an elder who continues to see what is there for you to see, to explore what is there to be explored and to continue to unfold back to the glory we all come from.

84. Johanna this is a wonderful topic and one I have been pondering on myself. When I see small children and babies I see that we are all sweet naturally, boys and girls alike. Girls are allowed to retain that quality a little longer than boys generally, however eventually most let go of it all in favour of a way that feels like it protects us from the hurt of the world when that quality is not treasured. For me the idea of being sweet seemed so foreign (and perhaps I judged it as pathetic or weak?) and I could relate to being so many others things just not this. Now that I understand more about the true quality of sweetness I realise that there is nothing pathetic in it rather an incredible power from being able to express a quality that is naturally who we all are.

85. Thanks Johanna for a great article and reminder of how I have also discounted the fact of being innately sweet and tender from a small child and hardened so as to try and protect myself by not being me . If the true state of being sweet, tender and fluid in our movements and life is not reflected to others how will they know it’s ok to be what we so naturally are before our protective reactions kick in.

86. I remember noticing my shadow last year and taking some photos of it. It reminded me of a time when I used to play with my shadow as a child.

    1. Natalie, reading your comment, I suddenly also could remember playing with my own shadow a long, long while ago. I can’t remember much of my young childhood, but little things like this are triggered every so often. Oh I can feel the joy of how I used to be when I was little.

87. Great sharing Johanna, I totally relate to what you say about the protection and hardness that you can go into, from being young and being sweet and not getting any encouragement to be this as you say it starts to fade away pretty quickly. The other switch is turned on and that open sweetness has been shut off. Like yourself I have been working on leaving the sweetness switch on and it truly does feel sweet. Highly recommended.

88. Great blog and comments. I have never been a fan of sweet, but I think I had connected it to the fake sweet Otto mentioned. That can come through physically in movements or the baby voice or emotionally with a neediness. What you introduce here is something quite different and well worth exploring. How lovely is the play-full-ness of our shadow as a regular reminder!!

    1. An interesting observation Lucy. I have seen this “fake sweet” in many little girls who use it to manipulate to get their own way – completely off putting and no wonder we throw the baby out with the bath water! Real sweetness is very engaging, grounding and powerful.

    2. Yes I can relate to that too Lucy. it makes me consider just how many misinterpretations we have of the true meaning of the words we use and have in our languages. And what are we missing out on about discovering, realising and connecting with ourselves because of these reinterpreted meanings?

89. It’s beautiful to read you claim this sweetness that you are Johanna. It’s very refreshing. In a world where many of us are hard and tough, to allow this sweetness out is very touching and makes me relax just thinking about it. Thank you for sharing.

    1. So true Shevon, reading and allowing myself to feel the lovely words Johanna has shared here helps my body to drop another level of guardedness and hardness. I feel the re-connecting to my sweetness helps release the anxiety from my body.

90. It was lovely to bring the two parts together: the ripple effect of you expressing your sweetness would be a reflection and an opportunity for your daughter to allow her natural sweetness to be there…. and in that you have broken the generational hand-me-down of the sweetness and sensitivity not getting seen or honoured which would (as happened to you), mould your daughter into the strong independent child who then starts to shut away that sweetness. An amazing cycle to break Johanna.

91. It is lovely you have re-connected, claimed and can appreciate all of your sweetness.

    1. It most certainly is Vicky…

92. Being sweet is not a word I would ever have used to describe myself, even though I have felt it in others and in the past would have baulked at the mere mention, but I can see now how being hard and protected would cover up all of these other expressions which are in fact more natural to us than the hardness. I get a sense that by choosing to be hardened against life, I have missed out and closed myself off to the possibility of being so much more.

93. Such beautiful reflections Johanna, thank-you. Reading this, I was struck by how the reflection of your shadow confirmed the sweetness innately within you… a sweetness that was always there, just not fully acknowledged and appreciated ‘consciously’.
    And that perhaps, not having this outer confirmation (not seeing your shadow), it offered an awesome opportunity (as you’ve explored here) to truly know this deeply within yourself – fully in your embodiment, your movement, how you feel in yourself… without the need to have it reflected at all, in the deep knowing of it being so simply and naturally a part of the power of ‘you’.

94. Thank you Johanna your sweetness is a great inspiration. After reading this blog, sweetness is something I will ponder on in my day as I walk.

95. Beautiful Johanna to connect to this sweetness and playfulness. Sweetness seems only for very young girls – how sad we feel we have to leave it behind in order to ‘grow up’. Society almost makes us feel like it is a weakness. How beautiful it feels when reading your blog to give myself/ourselves permission to reconnect back to that sweetness that is still there; a deepening of rediscovering my/our true essence. Thank you Johanna.

96. Thank you Johanna, A great reminder for me to connect to my sweetness at all times, and be playful with it.

97. This is such a great reminder that how we move our bodies every day in even the simplest task can define our being and how we feel about ourselves.

98. Thanks Johanna. As I was reading your blog I remembered when I was young and would have moments of sweetness. I would buy my mum some flowers and write on the card ‘thank you for being you’ but these moments were on occasion and not consistent. Once the moment was over I would go back into the hardness that I too had built for protection. It is very lovely to reconnect to the sweetness again and allow it to be out in the fresh air more regularly now. Still working with it being there consistently but I am enjoying it when it is.

    1. Your comment robynjones11 reminded me of when I was young, trying to catch my shadow, spinning around, chasing it, it was for sheer joy and the the fun of playing, yet I lost that innocence as I hardened to protect myself. This article shows we can recapture our natural sweetness, no matter what age we are!

99. Walking brings me back to my body and I do find myself becoming more playful in my walks, swinging hips and shoulders, enjoying the weight transfer from foot to foot and the general rhythm of each walk. When I walk to be with me and to deepen a sense of my body and being, I feel myself letting go of much tension and hardness in the body and the more sensitive I allow my self to become, the more I feel this letting go deeper in my body. For me the word would be harmony, to describe what I feel I come back to and grace is the wake that expands out when I walk in harmony. Sweetness is also a great description here because it does describe and essential quality we return to when we let go.

100. Wow I feel empowered to explore further the sweetness I do often feel in me but have chosen to override with hardness because I wanted to protect it, not fully realising that if I were to stay with my sweetness, no matter what the situation, I would then come to appreciate how powerful it is.

     1. I agree – and I can remember so many times I have overridden myself so as to not seem weak or in need of help, when in truth perhaps showing vulnerability would reflect that same quality in others.

101. So sweet Johanna, I had not allowed myself to feel that sweetness in me. Thankyou.

102. I can really relate to this article Johanna, as a child I was very sweet, but couldn’t feel this sweetness around me, I learnt to put on a tough exterior, as a teenager I drank alcohol and acted in a tough, rough way which went completely against my natural sensitivity and sweetness, ‘I learned to suppress the way I was feeling’.

103. Johanna I noticed recently the way that I walk around most of the time does not reflect the tender and loving man that I am but instead in each step is taken in the mould of the person I have crafted myself to look like. There are times when I connect to that tenderness and it feels very powerful to walk forward but I’ve certainly not claimed this. A great reflection in the blog as if I don’t claim that truth in me I don’t truly see the truth in another.

104. Such fun playing with shadows and seeing how they reflect back to you. I love the play of the angles and the sweetness – it’s like the shining of the moon when you look at it in the sea and it seems to follow you wherever you are with such beautiful clarity and consistency.

105. I can very much relate to what you write. I also chose hardening as a protection. At the time it was helpful to not get hurt, but it also took me from feeling my sweetness on a daily basis. I am now in the process of re-connecting with my sweetness again. It is a moment to moment practice, being aware of how sweet I type, sit, walk and yes, even talk. I have moments where I am not able to see and appreciate the sweetness in others because of my own hardening. But the great thing is that I notice it right away now: I am too sweet and sensitive to support that hardness in my body anymore.

106. This blog reminded me of when I was a child and playing in the sun and looking at my shadow. I can see how I have exchanged the sweetness for hardness as I have grown up – in that I notice that my body looses that flow and delicateness that as children we know so well. Thank you for reminding me that sweetness is a natural way for our bodies, the feeling of being light and playfull.

107. It is so lovely to feel you re-discovering your sweetness and I was struck by your comment about how the fact that you had hardened to protect yourself meant you were ‘not able to really see or appreciate the sweetness in others’ which I can relate to. It feels amazing that the more we are open to feeling our own innate qualities the more we can connect with them in everyone around us. Thank you Johanna.

108. Johanna thanks for sharing your amazing insight into yourself. I could feel how I have protected and hardened myself and not allowed my sweetness to be part of me. I really enjoyed it, it has given me something to feel into while on my next walk.

109. ” …. if someone had truly asked how I felt, I probably would have cried. I learned to suppress the way I was feeling. I have used many forms of protection, such as being forcefully direct, exercising my body to make it hard, using the ‘happy go lucky girl’ facade, reacting to some situations and being over the top at times. I can so relate to these words Johanna as I have lived in the same way. Your blog has helped me understand more deeply how what I have been avoiding is deeply honouring and feeling in my body how sweet and sensitive I truly am and in accepting this I can also feel it in others too. Our sweetness is a strength and a game changer!

     1. Indeed our loveliness and sweetness is a game changer, it continually surprises me how much strength there is in my vulnerability.

     2. I love this comment, Suzanne, that our sweetness can be a game changer. I would never have understood this in the past, but am now more in touch with the preciousness that never gets lost inside, and how sweet we can be in our expression of it. It is indeed a game changer because it brings us back to the truth of who we truly are rather than the protected and measured version of ourselves that keeps us much lesser.

110. How much we can learn from the way we walk! Walking exposes all the hidden things if only we take notice as you did, Johanna. I know I have accumulated a collection of influences on my life and walked them one by one, so they built up into a protection of myself, and an inability to claim the gentleness and sweetness, so my walk became hard and driven. Learning to un-walk it all is an amazing journey, and frees us up to be ourselves through our walk.

111. Sweetness is not a word I would use to describe myself, but after reading your blog, I have opened up to the potential that I am sweet. It is just my past behaviours that may have hidden that from me.

112. Beautiful, it is time to feel all our layers of protection. Such as hardness, nervousness, toughen up and to let them go. And to bring out the sweetness and preciousness, we all are and we all have felt in our bodies.

     1. Beautifully said Claudia. Once we feel our layers of protection, we can start to trust ourselves to let them go and allow the sweetness to rise to the surface and be all that we are.

113. Why do we struggle with accepting our sweetness when we know it’s there? I can see the sweetness in a children and in the way they play. At times I see the sweetness in a grown up’s face and in the grace of a flower yet when it comes to seeing and accepting the sweetness within me I am struggling! It is wonderful to feel this resistance giving me a platform to go deeper.

114. Reading this beautiful blog brought tears to my eyes especially reading ‘feeling the sweetness of my voice’. I have struggled with accepting my voice but this blog has opened a door for me to explore my voice and how I feel about it. I appreciate very much your sharing Johanna – thank you.

115. Your blog describes exactly what sweetness is, it is a very powerful quality.

116. Thanks Johanna for your writing, life is so much more tranqual when we connect and express from our sweetness and delicateness, free from all our layers of protection and hardness.

117. I love how you use your changing relationship with your shadow as it changes when you move as reflection of your relationship with yourself. That by doing so you gained a deeper understanding of yourself. Very powerful, informative and instructive blog from which I, and as sure many others, will be inspired to also look deeper using common day occurrences. Thank you, Johanna.

118. To feel the sweetness we are within is a great reminder of our beauty and fragility. I too have also noticed the hardening that takes place when I let my sweetness go. I love to feel the sweetness of how I breathe.

     1. The sweetness of our breath – I love it Toni. It’s very inspirational yet easy to focus on…which I will do now and repeat until it is always the natural sweet breath that is me.

        1. I have also realised recently that the way I breathe also can be an allowing of myself to feel another and let them in.

119. Johanna. A real eye opener on feeling into our bodies whilst we walk. I always thought when out walking I was doing all the right things regarding my body and posture.
     NO WAY. My wife pointed out to me the reason I got slight back pain was the way I walked. At my age being shown how to enjoy a good walk with out pain, all stemmed from how I moved my feet. Since being shown, no more pain, and being aware more and more of all the beauty around me.

120. Thank you that was very sweet and it is certainly a quality that many people including myself have covered up. A friend of mine was also sharing with me the other day how she had connected with her preciousness. Preciousness is another one of those qualities that many of us have lost connection with. It certainly feels very precious to reconnect to and share these innate qualities of ours.

121. I can so relate to what you you recount here, Johanna. I could accept that I am nurturing, tender, gentle. lovely, but sweet, no way! The first time someone referred to me as sweet, I thought they were trying to wind me up or insult me! That was how far away I was from accepting that this quality as part of me – and very far away from seeing this as a quality to be appreciated. Even now, I have the slightest cringe when someone calls me ‘sweet’ so your article has shed a whole different light on this. Thank you.

122. It’s quite remarkable how we have chosen to harden over the years of contraction (or life times). There are many routes away from our true sweet selves yet the way forth to love is indeed in the way we choose to move. I can feel the connection you made through appreciating the simple lovely-ness of your sweet strides. For me, the message here loud and clear is appreciation of the body. Thank you Johanna.

123. I was right there with you on your walk Johanna, as you described what you could see and feel in your own movement. Your connection to your sweet quality, your open questioning and your focus on feeling and accepting your sweetness in those following days and weeks, is a gorgeous example of claiming that quality as part of you.

124. We are forever our own teachers as we are also the eternal students. Johanna, I love how you took the time to explore what your shadow was communicating to you with all the inquisitiveness, wonder and delight of a child. Just as our shadow walks devotedly by our side, so to does our sweetness live within and just because the sun may be obscured behind a cloud at times, does not mean our shadow nor sweetness ever truly departs.

125. Never before have I been able to feel the true depth of sweetness. It is a feeling I rejected as not being part of me – I refused to see and feel this and instead hardened and turned my back on it as this felt like the only way to deal with what I was feeling all around me.Thank you Johanna for offering another opportunity to feel my sweetness and deepen this feeling, which I am now realising is an innate part of who I am as a woman.

126. I have to admit that sweetness is something that I have never really considered a quality. Now after reading your blog it’s certainly on my radar. Just on reading some of the other comments I wondered if our over-consumption of sugar and sweet foods has affected, or highlights, our disconnection from the sweetness we all naturally are. Thanks for you insightful blog Johanna. I love playing with my shadow too when I walk..

     1. Interesting point Jennifer, re the sugar consumption. Are we seeking an external sweetness, to compensate for the sweetness we naturally are but are very much disconnected from?

        1. With the external sweetness we seek – being no match whatsoever for the sweetness we are.

        2. An interesting question to ponder on Victoria. Probably we indeed try to replace the sweetness we are not feeling anymore with the sweetness from sugar – and with that numb ourselves further away from ourselves and our sweetness within. How absurd is that?

     2. This feels to be true Jennifer, our over consumption of sugar and all things sweet is because we miss our own inner sweetness, and for myself, I used sugar as a subsitute.

     3. Love this Jennifer are we reaching for sugary foods to compensate for our disconnect from our natural sweetness? I can certainly relate to doing this in my life!

127. I can very much relate Johanna, I recently acknowledged more how delicate and precious I feel and that it is my innate quality. A quality I could not relate to before and was always wondering what people are talking about when they said that I am so delicate – even though my whole body shows just that. But I had become so identified with the hard protective shell that I built around me (sort of annoyed with my body that it was not living up to that) that I completely lost the connection to the true powerful preciousness that I am.

128. I used to think that to be sweet was to be weak and that I would not be taken seriously. A sweet little girl, or a sweet woman, who listens to them? So I contributed to that over all consciousness that sweet is not a quality highly validated in the (business)world.

     1. I agree, delorme2013. I never wanted to be called sweet in the past as I felt it was slightly patronising, but Johanna has embodied and expressed the true joy and power of this divine quality.

     2. Those mental pictures really do take us away from our selves and the glorious qualities (such as sweetness) we are.

     3. Yes, we use the word “sweet” often to put something down, as a judgment. But I have to say while I am developing and with the support of expressions like on this blog I slowly get the real meaning of the word back into my body:
        -Sweet as little birds are moving and singing.
        -Sweet as my childish innocence, which I start to claim back this days.
        -Sweet like my being and expressing without boundaries.
        -Sweet like the dearest love that melts all shields.
        Divine Sweetness comes with all the power we are and the playfulness with that as well – and maybe here is the key: Did we not mix up true power with hardness, being in control and tough? Special in business world but I guess everywhere it is more about surviving and success (in the untrue meaning of ‘making money’) instead of evolving, integrity and real success, which would mean bringing more harmony into the world.
        And so sweetness ended up with being a bit “naive”, not to take seriously…”not allowed to play with the big kids” – so to say.
        But what if “the big kids” lost it, if they gave up on a divine and precious special nature?
        For me, to appreciate and claim back my true sweetness, is really a way to enjoy each other again, instead of comparing, a way to bring my true (sweet) power back into the world.

129. I love being reminded of our innate sweetness. Over the years I have hidden mine beneath a veneer of hardening, resilience and capability, but it has been there all along since childhood. I too had a reaction the the word ‘sweetness’ but am now reclaiming it. Beautiful post, Thank you Johanna.

130. Beautiful blog Johanna. I can imagine being playful with my shadow – it is like “being with me” and play with me. Very childlike – in the best way. For me no wonder that sweetness is felt here. I feel also a lovely innocence coming up again. It is definitely worth to bring my “being with me” back into my life – also if I have to go a way with the sun in my face (and the shadow behind me). Actually I feel it is to appreciate and enjoy every moment with me and others – how sweet : ) !

     1. Sandra that’s an awesome reminder – much of life is spent with the sun in our faces and our shadows behind us, out of sight… but just because we can’t see them, it doesn’t mean we need to stop feeling and knowing the sweet connection to ourselves.

        1. Yes Victoria – it is about not losing ourselves – our sweetness and playfulness – out of sight.

131. Thank you Johanna, it is such a lovely reminder to appreciate and allow that sweetness in me to be felt more fully.

132. It’s interesting how in the past I would have considered words like sweetness, delicate, tender, gentle, fragile as being weak and feeble, but I am coming around to the fact that to get through this life we don’t have to be hard and protected and that every single one of us has all of these aspects within us, if we start looking.

     1. I love your point Julie, I too in the past have felt the same about these words. I realised just last week that my feeling around being ‘precious’ has shifted somewhat over the past several years. I would of once considered precious as being weak and the need to toughen up. I now see it as a beautiful and natural way to be and love the feeling of preciousness.

     2. Yes me too Julie. But now I realise how they are so powerful as it takes great trust, connection and love to allow ourselves to be in our natural sweetness and tenderness, especially what life reflects and encourages the hardness.

        1. So true Julie, about life encouraging the hardness. It’s there, male or female, wherever we turn, exhorting us to ‘toughen up and just get on with it. The popular sign ‘Keep calm and carry on’ in the way it currently feels, should in truth probably read ‘Toughen up and carry on’. It’s actually a PR piece from the British government in advance of the blitz of WW2. While there’s a practicality to this advice, I can’t help but feel there’s a denial too.

        2. Yes. There is such immense power in these words; ‘sweet’ and ‘precious’. For they are in fact both our truth and there is nothing more powerful than the Truth. I too am often blown away by the power that I feel when I embody these words – words that, as you so rightly point out, used to imply weakness.

        3. I agree with Julie and Johanna, I now feel what power lies in being tender, gentle, sweet and fragile. And what strength it takes to allow them to shine their delicate light within.

     3. Absolutely Julie – due to the bastardisation and false perceptions of words like ‘fragile’ and ‘delicate’, a lot of people believe them to directly linked with being weak – but that is not what they mean at all, and in no way should we feel the need to walk around protected and shut down in order to avoid being seen as ‘weak’.

133. Its beautiful Johanna to feel you returning to the sweetness that you have always been. The Livingness brings an awareness and connection that allows us to shed these years of physical and emotional protection and appreciate these delicate qualities that remain – in the way we move, express and live.

     1. Nicely said lucindag (see, I’m using the ‘nice’ word already!). And I agree: The Way of the Livingness – the way of living in harmony with ourselves and others as presented via Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine – is the way forward in terms of how I’m learning to do all these things. I looked for a long, long time and tried a multitude of other religions, methods and treatments and NONE of them amounted to anything or lasted beyond a few days. The awareness and connection I’ve felt with The Livingness has been profound, real and enduring – and is ever-evolving!

134. Appreciating our qualities is so key in being able to express them in full. It supports getting to know ourselves more, building confidence and being able to inspire others naturally.

135. As a man, the non-relationship with the word ‘sweet’ is even worse! Most men would consider it an insult to be called ‘sweet’! That is how far we have come from the gold that is inside us. My relationship with my sweetness is changing completely, and this blog really resonated with me. I now love my sweetness, love expressing it and love being with it. Also, I am finding that other men do actually love it too and I can feel their relief when they are met by someone who isn’t wearing the normal bravado armour. Sweetness melts people. (but it has to be true sweetness – not the fake sickly version!)

     1. Love what you say here Otto about how other men met you in your sweetness. This so shows the power of one and how each of us can and do change the world.

        1. Absolutely. That power is within us all and that opportunity is there every moment of every day. It makes for a very different reason to get out of bed in the morning!

     2. Beautiful to hear that you too, and other men are beginning to love and share their sweetness, and as I say this I feel the sweetness that is you Otto.

     3. Ha ha, yes no saccharine sweetness here! It’s funny but there is a female equivalent to what you’re saying as well, Otto. For me, sweetness has been equated with being a little girl. I’d also like to reclaim the word ‘nice’. There’s something about girls needing to be ‘sweet and nice’… sort of passive, invisible and acquiescent. But ‘nice’ without those kind of connotations feels more like ‘cool’ – as in a type of appreciation. And uh, oh, ‘nice’ does need rebranding – I just looked up the origins and it means ‘silly, simple, ignorant, incapable’. No wonder it’s never felt so good!

        1. Victoria, I pondered the line “There’s something about girls needing to be ‘sweet and nice’… sort of passive, invisible and acquiescent” and it is definitely something I feel I have associated with the word ‘sweet’ and never liked. I’ve also always kind of cringed away from ‘nice’ too … and your explanation revealing the origin perhaps explains why! The ‘saccharine sweetness’ felt from ‘nice’ is poles apart from true sweetness – which is what I feel from Johanna’s blog, there is a beautiful lightness to that quality; and I fully agree with Otto too; true sweetness melts people!

     4. Great to have you voice this here Otto. Reading some of the comments, and about women losing their sweetness at times to keep up with what boys & men ‘do’… I couldn’t help but reflect on how much (if not all) of the ‘tough stuff’ isn’t necessarily natural for any of us – whether we are male or female.
        There is most definitely a ‘true sweetness’ as you say, something I feel I only got in touch with in recent times by virtue of it being so powerfully reflected by a woman that I know. When I felt this power of true sweetness, it blew me away – it is this that could stop a war. You are so correct, it melts people and holds them in an absoluteness of love (with not one iota of ‘niceness’ in sight) that one would have to work pretty darn hard to resist…

     5. I love the fact that you have brought men’s experience into the ‘sweetness’ equation Otto. This helped me realise that even now I associated certain level of weakness with the word. It is marvelous to witness the gradual re-imprinting of the definitions for powerful words which we had put into the weak and pathetic camp, such as gentle, tender, precious and sweet. I am learning just how key and profound these qualities are.

136. I love the playfulness and depth of your contribution – it is so easy to sacrifice our innate sweetness and tenderness and swap it for hardness and a toughened stance, traits that apparently help us get through life; but then – at what expense? Is it really worth it when we add up all the things that don’t work and turn life into a mere existence?

     1. I agree with you Gabriel, “it is so easy to sacrifice our innate sweetness and tenderness and swap it for hardness and a toughened stance, traits that apparently help us get through life; but then – at what expense?”. I know that I did just that. I became the tomboy, that climbed the tree with the boy next door. So sad that I let that innate sweetness be hidden below all the layers I heaped on top of it – I can feel the tears coming.

     2. Thank you Gabriel. I absolutely agree with you – it is not worth the hardness to eventually end up living a mere existence without the joy, tenderness, vitality and love we all are.

     3. Being ‘hard’ and ‘tough’ can appear to have its upsides but in truth they are just a barrier, which no love can get through or out from. These forms of protection leave us far removed from the beauty that we truly are.

     4. I agree Gabriele, the strength and innate qualities of a woman are often not celebrated, and instead her ability to keep up with men and do it like they do is championed.

        1. I agree Gabrielle and Rebecca. This has certainly been my experience. As women we have a responsibility to surrender to our bodies and allow for our playfulness, exquisiteness and sweetness to be seen, and felt.

        2. I agree – we are constantly asking guys to be more sensitive and talk about their feelings, perhaps us women connecting to our innate qualities will give men the space to drop the hard facade.

        3. So true Rebecca. I was one of those who championed keeping up with the boys and over taking them. Not very cool and my body constantly told me so in many painful ways. Johanna’s return to her grace and sweetness is a journey every woman should be encouraged to take, it is truly delicious feeling one’s sweetness and delicacy again and we bring so much love to the world when we connect to and express these exquisite qualities.

        4. I agree rowenakstewart – I am still learning what my own sweetness feel like, as all my life I have been described as sweet and cute, and I always rebelled against those words, wanting to be strong and never realising that strength can be measured in many ways.

        5. I felt that too Rebecca, how toughened up we become as women in order to ‘cut it’ in the work sphere in particular. I saw something on a show the other day, which was set around the time men came back from WW2 only to find women had taken up their roles. The women were so masculine! Somehow they had assumed this stance in their absence, perhaps thinking this was how work should been done. I feel like we’ve been doing that ever since. Though probably well before then too… women have been soldiers, for instance, for centuries.

        6. I agree Victoria, the point is not for women to sit round and do nothing all day – but simply to go about what we do with a respect for our bodies and to our innate qualities of fragility – then perhaps it would not be about what we can do, but the quality in which we do it

137. Before moving to get up and out of bed,this morning, I stopped and reflected on children and how they moved, with lightness, delicateness and ease. I felt to move in that same way and then read your blog. Your beautiful sharing brings us back to the body, quality of our movements and beingness. We can always re- connect to our deeper qualities, like the sweetness you describe, it is always there, if only we allowed ourselves to feel it.

     1. Reflecting on the way children move is perfect as it is tangible, easy to see and it’s proof we all have all experienced moving fluidly.

138. Beautiful to feel your sweetness Johanna and a great reminder, inspiring me to connect more deeply to mine. Thank you for sharing your experience.

139. I sit here in wonderment of the walk. For the humble walk is not only something we use for exercise or to get from A to B but is a time of great revelation, and the unfoldment of the magic of God. I’m off for a walk in about 15 minutes, I almost can’t wait.

     1. Beautiful kevmchardy, you make a great point a walk is so much more than exercise it is a form of good medicine 🙂

140. Sometimes it takes others to highlight our amazing qualities for us to even consider we actually have them. In the end we are all reflecting back to each other. Everyone has the possibility to be our shadow.

     1. That is lovely, lukeyokota!

141. It feels so great to allow the sweetness come out more and more, life becomes so playful and fun. Yesterday I was sitting in the tram with my dear friend Evi (5) and she asked for sweet popcorn. I told her there is no need for sweet popcorn because she herself is already soooo sweet. She gave me this big smile and we were just sitting there together, being sweet and with a big smile on our faces.

     1. Brilliant Mariette – pure Joy!

142. Loved reading your reconnection to your inner sweetness Johanna.
     It make me ponder on how I too was naturally sweet in my nature as a child.
     But then as I got older in order to not get hurt from other people’s comments and break down and cry, I learnt to harden my body and say nothing, and pretend it didn’t affect me and that I was ok. Like Jade I also substituted lack of sweetness that I felt for me by craving for sweetness in foods.

     1. I can relate to using the sweetness of foods as a medication to combat the hurt and lack of connection to my deep sweetness and the lack of sweetness I felt in life and from those around me. Now I know the sweetness in me, it’s in every step, every look, every gesture and it is delicious. It is and has always been there and I am now choosing to reconnect to it.

143. Wow! Reading that blog, I felt an expansion in me, that its OK to feel sweet and delicate as a man, and that I should never let it be something just for me, but something that others can feel when they walk past me (: Thank you

144. How lovely to reconnect to your natural sweetness Johanna. As I feel into this for myself, what I feel reflected back is that I too have denied my natural sweetness. I find I substitute with indulging in sweet foods, but what is underneath is that I truly miss the beautiful, sweet person I am. I feel we can hide our sweetness as it is often not considered a desirable quality. But what I feel is that we do all hold a sweetness within that is so worth bringing out and letting shine in the world.

     1. Your comment has brought me to a pause to ponder upon and feel the wisdom in your words. It had not occurred to me before that when there is a craving for sweet foods, there is something much deeper to feel underneath any exhaustion – “reflected back is that I too have denied my natural sweetness. I find I substitute with indulging in sweet foods, but what is underneath is that I truly miss the beautiful, sweet person I am”.

     2. Your comment about denying your natural sweetness and indulging in sweet foods reminds me of a common saying when people don’t take sugar in their tea -the say ‘no thanks, I’m sweet enough already!’.

     3. Hi Jade what you have pointed out here is a great one to consider deny natural sweetness and substituting by indulging with sweet foods.

145. Interesting you felt resistance to accepting your sweetness as if you could not possibly really be sweet. I deny feeling my sweetness as I had decided that to be sweet had condescending connotations.Thanks for sharing as it has connected me to a hardness and harshness that is keeping the sweetness within withheld, and, as you found Johanna, it gets in the way of connecting with the sweetness within others.

     1. This is so true Deanne, ‘it gets in the way of connecting with the sweetness within others.’
        I notice how I can only see the qualities in others that I can see and feel in myself, now that I can feel my own beauty and tenderness I see this quality in others, my sweetness is something that I have protected for a long time and allowed some people to see and not others, so its great to be aware of this and to begin to let go of the protection and allow my natural sweetness to be there for me and all to see all of the time.

     2. Yes ….I have experienced that sense of condescension around the word sweetness, too, Deanne. Wonder what the source of that is? Adults looking down on us as children, perhaps?

146. Thank you Johanna for reminding me to connect back to my sweetness. I have felt this before but I don’t express it all of the time. The way you have described it is very beautiful and joyful to read. I see this sweetness in my children, the way they move, hug and play. Children are also a beautiful reminder for me to connect back to my sweetness that has never left even though I am an adult. When I witness this sweetness in adults I also find them mesmerizing.

147. This blog is an awesome reminder for us to reignite the beautiful quality of feeling, recognizing and appreciating the sweetness that is part of all of us. Johanna you have re-defined my understanding of what ‘being called sweet’ is – and it feels so right to claim this feeling and honour it in my body as I go about my daily living 24/7. What a joy this brings to me and my body!

148. Thank you Johanna for sharing your experience. I never looked at my shadow in a way that it is a reflection of how I am in that moment. It has inspired me to connect more to the sweetness that is inside of me.

149. What a beautiful reflection you got from your shadow & now bringing it forth into your everyday life. Thank you for sharing this, it’s allowed me to connect to my sweetness within me..

150. I can totally relate to getting so hard I forget how sweet I am. We are all so naturally sweet and we all can forget this so easily. Looking at ways to deepen our sweetness during everyday tasks is a great idea!

151. Genuine sweetness and sensitivity is powerful, I know I’ve toughened up in the past, thinking that it just wasn’t practical to let those qualities out but I appreciate them much more today and can see how loving they are.

152. Many of my friends call me sweet. At first I couldn’t understand or claim it. Now as I let go of the hardness within me I understand that that quality of sweetness lives within me. It feels very fresh, playful and childlike. Thanks for your article to ponder on this.

153. Imagine if we appreciated qualities such as delicateness and sweetness in our selves as much as we champion being ‘strong’ and tough, which often is the protection we mask our gentle sweet nature with? As you say Johanna,”I was not able to really see or appreciate the sweetness in others due to my hardening.”

154. Walking is so powerful, which is amazing considering we all do it all the time. I guess the difference is if we walk with presence and awareness or not. I have noticed how I am being on my morning walks, it is a reflection of how I am living, such a valuable opportunity to honestly feel how much of me I am bringing to the world. Thanks Johanna, feeling your sweetness reminds me of my own.

     1. Walking is VERY powerful – you’re right Mark. Whenever I’m feeling emotional, or am having a bad day, often the way I walk around is heavy, and every step I take feels as if I’m cementing the issue into both the ground and my body… The other day I experimented with doing the opposite; something came up, and I decided to go for a walk and make nature my focus – I looked at the trees, the wildlife, heard the birds, and also paid attention to how my feet and toes felt. It made a huge difference!

155. Thank you Johanna for such a beautiful article on your tenderness and delicacy and sweetness. I know these qualities are within me/us all. Letting go of the hardness and allowing my sweet self to shine is certainly a delight.

156. It is lovely to read the appreciation and confirming of your own sweetness Johanna. We are often great at focusing on all the so-called imperfections that we miss the simply beautiful qualities in ourselves.

157. This is total gold Johanna, as it is incredible how much can come simply out of going for a walk,I do find it amazing how much wisdom can be reflected to us from nature on a walk. Similarly to you, on walks I often find myself questioning the way I am living; the way I am interacting with others, and with myself, I find that I cannot hide from the way that my body feels on a walk, and thus when I listen to it I end up finding myself changing my life in so many areas

158. Thank you for this. Last year I began a relationship with my own sweetness too. I began to accept my own sweetness and even appreciate it. I feel though that I put this on the shelf and have left it unrecognised recently. It is beautiful to be reminded of this and to allow the sweetness more space.

159. Johanna I have book-ended my day with this beautiful blog and it has enriched me. I have spent much of my life layering on a carefully crafted hard veneer of capability, which masked my sweetness and I am out of touch with it. However, the word ‘sweetness’ rang through me like a bell reading your blog and my body recognises it. Someone recently described my voice as sweet after a moment of connection and I felt that in my body so clearly. You have inspired me to seek this out and to embrace it. Thank you.

160. Thank you for sharing this sweet and playful observation Johanna. It is amazing what can be revealed on a walk when you are connected to how you feel.

     1. When going for a walk I am often reminded of how sweet I am in the way I respond to nature, it is a very practical and lovely way to reconnect to that quality in me.

161. When I was little I was fascinated with my shadow, perhaps because it was reflecting back how sweet and gorgeous I was. Your experience with your shadow is a lovely sharing I can so relate to how you felt the sweetness and delicateness of your shadow but when it came to you you found it harder to accept and I loved your choice to confirm the feeling within you. A timely read for me, thank you.

162. Thanks Johanna for sharing how your shadow reflected your sweetness to you on your morning walk but when your shadow was behind you it didn’t and great that you fully appreciate yourself now.
     We all need to get the hardness out of out bodies and allow in the tenderness and love

163. It was really beautiful reading how in the simple form of your shadow, you were able to connect to your sweetness.

164. I agree Alison, to me sweetness did not equate with survival in this world, you had to be rough and tumble, quick, sharp, or at least very good at disappearing.. but to allow your own delicacy and fragility seemed to be asking for it. Maybe one day the world can embrace those qualities in all… and how great would that world be.

165. And…..
     ‘The ripple effect of my allowing this quality to be expressed would be a reflection and an opportunity for my daughter to allow her natural sweetness to be there too.’
     This is true parenting ✨

166. It is beautiful to read your connection to sweetness- I know very well, from what you are talking about- being sweet wasn´t on my agenda very much, although inside and when people got to know me closely they could see how sweet I was. Now, I am not holding back anymore, only sometimes, then I am so used to put on the strong face that I really have to focus on my sweetness. Great inspiritation to integrate this focus into your walk. I´ll try it out 🙂

167. What a beautiful dance…* I love what you’ve expressed. I just reminded me to look into my eyes with love and appreciation when I mirror myself – and appreciate the sweetness I can see in there as part of my power and endless love…*

168. Johanna I can feel so much sweetness in you which comes through your blog and when you share your sweetness with the world, the world will reflect this back. You offer others an opportunity to let go of the hardness and simply be real.
     This is so lovely and very powerful.

169. As women, we have strayed so far away from our innate sweetness, sensitivity, tenderness and delicateness, and even consider these strengths as weaknesses. As you say, “…being in true connection with this sweetness and allowing myself to be sensitive has an amazing strength and power”. How inspiring for the young girls / women that you teach, Johanna, that they get your reflection of sweetness and have the opportunity to see that they don’t have to harden up to fit in or survive.

     1. I love your comment Carmen. That is so true for many many years words like innate sweetness, sensitivity, tenderness and delicateness were not even in my vocabulary I would have considered myself weak to even use such words let alone to consider they may be qualities I carry in my body.
        These days I love to connect with my true power and strength through my innate sweetness, sensitivity, tenderness and delicateness..

170. Johanna, I just love how something as simple as a walk became such a moment of revelation for you. I can feel how you were walking with all of your awareness, not just day dreaming, as it is so easy to slip into while walking. I can so relate to the hardness that we often use to use to block out our inherent beautiful qualities. And as to the question you pose; “ Does self-doubt, self-sabotage and being hard prevent me from even recognising this quality that has always lain deep within me?” Absolutely, but I have found over the last few years, that as a result of the self love and care that I am now bringing to my body that self-doubt and self-sabotage is slowly disappearing, and in turn revealing those beautiful qualities that have been there all along.

171. Such a beautiful way to fully claim something, that is and has always been true – for all of us.

172. “Does self-doubt, self-sabotage and being hard prevent me from even recognising this quality that has always lain deep within me?” The answer for me is undoubtedly yes I notice how I can keep myself small and contracted and make myself lesser to fit in! It is crazy really when whats inside is so amazing!

173. Thanks Johanna for this post and talking about the sweetness that is naturally within all of us. In the past this word made me cringe and it sounded new age, airy fairy and hippie-ish
     Now I realise that it is within me and when I feel my true sweetness the sugary stuff does not need to be consumed – this sounds strange but its true.
     Could it be possible that we have lost our connection to our own sweetness and then look for it outside of us with sugar foods? Possible?

     1. I’m with you Bina. I too had the same connotations of the word ‘sweet’. It is a much over used word and it’s true meaning is very, very lost. And yes, I am with you 100% with the connection to our yearning for our true sweetness and our consumption of the sugary stuff. I know this to be true because when I really feel my own sweetness, I’m full. No food needed.

        1. So true Otto and Bina. When true sweetness is tasted, our tongues never yearn for poor substitutes for our bodies and our beings are full to the brim of the ‘good stuff’ and we simply have no want nor need for anything less.

        2. Hmmm…that feels true: that we have negative associations with sweetness because of the false association with sugar. That makes sense to me.

     2. Very possible and totally true in my experience. I have also noticed that if I cut out all sugar for a couple of days I start to feel everything way more. And then as soon as I eat it againI I am less able to discern what I am feeling in the fine detail like I could when I wasn’t having sugar. Its quite remarkable and this says a lot about what sugar has been doing to my body for so, so many years.

174. Sweetness is not a word I have used to describe myself and you have certainly prompted me to feel this word in a different way, Johanna. I feel that I may have buried this away as well and maybe it is time for me to start feeling this again. Thank you.

175. Thank you for your blog Johanna. After reading it I realized that due to a protective hardening I feel uncomfortable using the word ‘sweet’ to describe qualities in myself, eventhough ‘sweetness’ is such a lovely word. I will now start appreciating the sweetness in me more so that I can truly appreciate the sweetness in others.

176. A great reflection Johanna! It would be so easy to overlook precious revelations such as these. Thank you for sharing your sweetness.

     1. I agree Rebecca. Johanna’s piece here is a beautiful invitation to reconnect with our own sweetness in all that we do.

177. Your reflection is reflecting you back to you! Isn’t it amazing that this is the reflection of sweetness others may actually see in us yet we ourselves are the ones reluctant to embrace it? We truly are our harshest critics!

178. Your blog Johanna Smith reminded me of when I watch my children play or walk sometimes and I observe and admire their gorgeous innocence, delicateness and sweetness and then I wonder why I don’t see adults in the same way, including my own body? It is interesting how we seem to lose touch with this feeling as we grow up.

179. I recently realised that why I hardened and became very manly looking was so as to not stand out and thus no one would be jealous of me. When I was little and being the gorgeous, delicate, sweet young girl that I naturally am I felt the force of this jealousy, did not like it, so changed me to not have it directed at me. I am now re-connecting to who I naturally am and it feels so good. I daily discover more of my-self I have changed so as to avoid jealousy and am realising more and more how much I allowed jealousy to change me….it is huge.

     1. That’s an interesting perspective on why we suppress this quality and refuse to acknowledge and accept it within ourselves: that it was suppressed to avoid the onslaught of jealousy. Thank you for this insight you share, marylouisemyers.

180. “Does self-doubt, self-sabotage and being hard prevent me from even recognising this quality that has always lain deep within me?” The answer to this question is a definite resounding yes. I can say this from absolute lived experience. when I choose to be hard, go into self-doubt. self sabotage etc this hurts deeply, and I can get caught in assuming that this is me – and on the cycle continues, until I choose to stop and connect. It may be through the Gentle Breath meditation, reading a blog like this, or book or Audio presentation from Universal Medicine, or even simply saying no, stop, these thoughts and behaviours are not you. When I do and connect to my essence, the real me, that very beautiful, sweet, delicate and so deeply loving woman I am, I know for a fact this is the real me. And we all have this within us too. Thank you Johanna for writing this blog.

181. it’s funny as until very recently I reacted to being called sweet, ‘I’m not sweet’ I would say, but something has changed. As I am sweet, I say I am sweet, I feel sweet, this makes me smile and I can feel this sweetness from inside my body, it’s not a thought. I love being sweet.

182. Dear Johanna, thank you so much for writing this blog, every word resonates deeply within me, it brought tears to my eyes, and allowed me to let go of the self beating stick I have been carrying around today. It allowed me to stop, let go of the hardness and drive, and feel how sweet and gentle I am, and that I want to take care of me. I can feel how physically exhausting it is on my body and my being, as in that sweet, gentle, tender woman I am, to be hard on myself and hard with my body.

     1. ‘If anyone had truly asked how I felt, I probably would have cried’. You describe my feelings as a child exactly Johanna. I was quite imaginative, and would invent all sorts of scenarios in my bed at night, perhaps from a book I’d read, or something happening in the world, and often ended up having a good cry. Looking at old photos, I see that I was such a sweet child, but the pain and striving to fit in was there even then.

183. How amazing is the world? Nature has always shown us its conformations to confirm the truth that feel…If we will but pause and read what is presented.

184. I love the way the sweetness is so clearly there in your writing Johanna – what a blessing that I get to feel this now that you don’t hold it back or feel that you need to hide it anymore. I am often told that I am sweet – and now that I take a moment to feel that – it does actually make me cringe – as if being sweet is something terrible! I have associated it with being weak or even boring. After reading this, I am feeling the power and strength and even how light and playful being sweet is! Thank you for sharing the true energetic meaning of the word sweet Johanna as you are living it.

     1. Yes Simone I always felt ambivalent about the word sweet. I used to associate it with blandness, lack of commitment, indulging oneself. Johanna has turned its meaning on its head and sweetness is undeniably part of who we are.

        1. Well said Patricia. Funny that you said “indulging oneself” as that is another thing that I was feeling – how the word sweet is used to describe food containing sugar. It feels like using it in this way contaminates and poisons the word and takes away from the true meaning that Johanna has shared here. Even more important to this truth and live it.

     2. When I see sweetness in children or adults they are so beautiful to look at and powerful. The playfulness and flow is mesmerising to watch.

        1. So true chanly88 – it is almost contagious – it takes me out of the busyness of my mind or whatever I may be ‘caught up on’ in my day and bringa me back to the present to enjoy being playful with whatever I am doing in that moment. Thank you for your comment.

     3. That makes me smile Simone. I don’t think I’ve ever been told I am sweet and I think it is a lovely way to be described!

185. This is a very beautiful sharing. Thank you, Johanna. The way you kept connected and observed your self-doubt is very inspiring.

186. It strikes me how little we use the word “sweet” to describe someone yet it is such an obvious way to describe a lot of people. Sweetness is such a lovely quality.

187. Great awareness Johanna at how you weren’t able to see or appreciate the sweetness in others because you’d hardened yourself in an attempt to protect yourself, and therefore couldn’t see or feel your own innate sweetness. This can be applied to other situations where we may go into judgement or criticism of others, to stop and see where in our lives we are doing this to ourselves.

     1. I agree Sandra, I know when I am being hard or judgmental then I am being / treating others in this same way.

188. It’s a big shame that sweetness and sensitivity does not get seen when one is younger…If this was nurtured growing up the world would be a tremendously different place. Loved reading about your shadow walk date Johanna, I love the glimpses we catch of ourselves from our own reflections- super cute and powerful.

189. Thank you for sharing your sweet walking experience Johanna. I love walking too, and feeling my grace and delicateness, and you have inspired me to take those qualities to everything else in my day.

190. Me too Doug. I want to go out for a walk now and be with my shadow, however it’s night time! Thank you Johanna for your inspiration about walking and shadows. All movement of our bodies very revealing if we take the care to observe and listen.

191. Johanna you are absolutely so sweet and it is joy-full to read your playful child like discovery of this with your own shadow.
     You know that phrase “I’m sweet enough already” when referring to having sugar with some sort of drink … I wonder if people would eat less sugar and sweet foods if they could feel the sweetness you have described allowing and accepting in your body.

192. I love an early morning walk for the clarity it offers. Thank you for sharing yours.

193. “but deep down I had many things that if someone had truly asked how I felt, I probably would have cried”….said the whole human race. Really – I think you answered that for everyone because I know that to be true for me and if we really truly asked and were really truly able to respond, a lot of tears would be shed.

     1. That is so true Sarah. The word sweetness – similarly the words tenderness and delicateness, whether we are a man or a woman, how did they ever become words to shun. We have trapped ourselves away from who we are for far too long and until someone reflects these areas to us as Universal Medicine frequently does, and Johanna’s blog has, we sometimes remain numb. But if we connected deep down “and were really truly able to respond, a lot of tears would be shed”.

194. What came to light, was as a younger man and child, remembering how one of my parents would poo-poo sweetness and or my sensitivity to things. I in turn also decided to turn-off these qualities, but have come to understand myself as this in many ways again. May this deepen and deepen until we walk again in the same sweetness and freshness of a child.

195. There is a quality within us that is always present, it’s just that how we have lived, how we walk, how we move has either supported that awareness of that quality or supported an appearance that we have lost it or it doesn’t exist all together. Thank you Johanna.

196. Reading you blog Johanna I can feel the sweetness in your expression. Your sharing has giving me plenty to ponder on, as to why the quality of sweetness is only present in some areas of my life.

197. Ariana,
     I love this, “As I feel my feet and place them consciously down with each step, feel my calves, my legs and arms and my whole body, I connect with myself and feel like I am so worth walking with myself.” Such a simple thing to do, bringing awareness to our body and throughly enjoying it in activities like walking.

198. We have ‘hidden’ our true qualities beneath lifetimes of reactions. It’s interesting how we are surprised by our qualities, yet we have been carrying them with us, always. It is always very lovely to re-discover these qualities and finally let the world see who we really are.

199. It’s amazing how much we fight how wonderful we are. We accept so easily degrading thoughts and poor self worth, yet to accept our true qualities can feel like a struggle, yet if it’s who we truly are one can imagine it should be easy. How different the world would be if we all just accepted very easily how wonderful we are.

200. Johanna, this is an amazing sharing here, how sweet it is! And I can so feel the sweetness in your whole being. This beautiful writing of yours has brought much up for me I need to really sit with this. It is so inspiring and I will be returning to this blog over and over during the next few days.

201. Our body can offer us so much when we simply listen to it – doing something as simple as walking can really show us where we are.
     I absolutely love this infinite possibility and how if we walk not to get from A to B, but to truly connect with ourselves and check how we are feeling, there are always ways to go deeper and allow more tenderness in.

     1. I agree hvmorden, a walk in presence is like an esoteric yoga session and can tell us how our body feels.

202. Thank you Johanna, this blog spoke to me very loudly about how I used to be. Thanks to the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, I too appreciate my sweetness more and more and in doing so I can feel and see the sweetness in others, something that was definitely lacking before.

203. Thank you Joanna. I love how life is constantly presenting opportunities to learn and grow from if we so choose.,I love how you took the opportunity to go deeper with the feeling of sweetness on your walk. By raising awareness of this and placing a focus on it you saw how it was already a part of you that simply needed to be nurtured. So,lovely to feel that everything is already inside of us, we just need to simply let it out. You blog is a beautiful and practical confirmation of this.

204. Beautiful to hear you are embracing your sweetness Johanna, and in such a playful and delicate way. When we stop hiding our sweetness in the shadows, it inspires others to be this way too. Imagine a world where we all savoured this sense of our quality – now that would be super sweet.

205. Lovely Johanna! I love the analogy of your shadow and what it revealed to you. Learning to appreciate my own sweetness has taken some time, but I love that I can connect to it now without seeing it as a weakness or as a tool to be used to get others to like me. It has a gentle, loving open quality and is simply expressed without the need for others to recognise it or respond.

206. This is such a beautiful reflection Johanna, as I read I could feel that sweetness in you, how it was always there, how you hadn’t allowed yourself to feel it – and how this relates to myself and everyone else equally. There is a sweetness there in each and every one of us, this can be more obvious when we are a child, but I am also realising that it is still there no matter what. Thank you for the reminder and for sharing your sweetness.

207. Sweetness is a lovely quality to be claimed in us all – men and women. It reminds me of a lovely smile and glowing pink cheeks, fresh from the feeling of being love from the inside out.

     1. Gorgeous Jo ‘fresh from the feeling of being love from the inside out’

     2. Yes Jo, I smiled when I read your comment because it came with such a lightness and joy and I love that you mention men and women and I will add children. Sweetness in ourselves and others is so adorable, and carries with it a quality of innocence untarnished by any hardening layers of sophistication or protection.

208. I can so relate to this blog. I was so sweet as a girl but I sealed it away behind a fortress where no one could hurt it. I became independent and hard and forgot about the sweetness altogether. Lately I have realised that to feel and be sweet, I need to vulnerable, to surrender and let people into my heart to allow them to see the sweetness. This is a work in progress but I know it will come because it is the truth of who I am.

     1. Me too, Fiona, thank you for sharing this.

     2. Me too Fiona. As you say, a work in progress 🙂

209. I can relate to what you write, Johanna. people would say a lot of things about me, but one thing they always said: you are not sweet! I can understand in hindsight what they meant, I walked aroung hardened and with an attitude of I can handle it myself. While inside I felt very fragile. What a facade I was putting up. How can you come close to someone or vice versa with that shield. I am so grateful that I am able to put that shield down and find my sweetness, to be able to have that connection with myself and from there naturally with others. To be sweet is so sweet!

     1. I too, Rachel. Since I recently discovered my own delicateness and fragility, I feel I am ready for my sweetness. I feel a walk with my shadow coming on in the morning.

210. I have a good sweet relationship with my shadow, especially I like dancing and take pictures with it. I never felt uncomfortable in a cloudy day without it because I know it is there (as well as my playfulness and sweetness within me). But you brought so much more meaning to this game, Johanna, I can see how much deeper we can go and how my personal relationship with my shadow can grow to fun, sweet and appreciative relationship with people around. Oh, I am really looking forward to start! Thank you, Johanna

     1. I love interacting and playing with my shadow too. How it changes shape as I stand or walk in certain ways and even taking the odd photo of it too and being thought of as totally crazy by those around me!
        I agree elenalight that there is a whole new depth to explore with my shadow since reading this inspiring blog by Joanna.
        “how my personal relationship with my shadow can grow to fun, sweet and appreciative relationship with people around”.

211. Hi Johanna, reading your blog this morning I can feel lots of joy bubbling up. I relate to everything you have written as I too I have suppressed my natural sweetness somehow thinking it was a weakness and therefore better hidden away. However recently I have come to realise the truth is the opposite – sweetness is immensely powerful and is a very beautiful quality. When we claim this for ourselves and don’t hold back, people simply melt.

212. This is such a great sharing Johanna. Accepting we are a quality even when we are not necessarily behaving that right then and there. Much like our essence is always there and it’s more allowing it to be so in everything we do, accepting we are sweet, gorgeous, balls of love and expressing as such.

213. What an amazing understanding observing your shadow gave you! After all we take the shadow with us everywhere we go. If the shadow is the refection of the real object and this is it’s quality, just how then is the amazing brilliance of the real thing itself? Could it be said that it far exceeds the shadow itself?

214. Divine, Johanna. Bringing your sweetness to everything you do, and appreciating it – wow! I can certainly relate to being quite protected and hard, and over the last few days I had too been experimenting with not walking in a way that is contracted or stiff, instead in a way that allows me to connect with my surroundings and nature.

     1. Yes Susie, and what a marked difference this can make in terms of the relationship between you and the world.

215. What beautiful reflections from you walking and the care and space you have given your self to feel these. This is truly feeling what is being reflected and shows how much we are given to support us and feel from our stillness reflected in nature and walking so clearly The full quality of ourselves when we are in our presence is so sweet and precious as you say and is reflected to be appreciated everywhere. How could we want anything else ! Thank you Johanna for this beautiful inspiration.

216. Beautiful blog Johanna. I really liked how you were able to recognise that even though you thought you were claiming your sweetness you weren’t fully and could then see that and change it

217. I feel sure many of us can relate to the ‘hardness’ as a type of defence to stop ourselves from getting hurt and to not allow others to get too close. To make that choice to connect more deeply with ourselves with whatever movements we make, so much is revealed about the way we truly feel about ourselves and how we express and relate to others. Until attending presentations by Serge Benhayon/Universal Medicine I did not have a clue how revealing my way of walking was to the world and to myself – to introduce this simple activity into our daily lives and truly connect to this (without judgement) what an amazing healing tool (gift) we have. Such a beautiful sharing Johanna thank you.

218. Johanna I really enjoyed reading your blog it confirmed and inspired many things for me. I used to go around being judgemental of others whilst harding up in my body and still find myself doing that at time, yet what you’ve shared is something I recently started to feel in that with that judgement or hardening I am first being that with myself. Therefore with being more tender and less self critical in myself, more accepting so to speak, I am finding the way I relate to, connect with and see other people is changing and I am starting to find a new level of appreciation for others and myself.

219. A beautiful blog Johanna. I have been noticing lately that I do not allow my sweetness to be seen, I have felt how I protect it and do not allow my family or friends to see and feel this in me, I can really relate to; ‘Basically I had worked out from a young age that this sweetness and sensitivity does not get seen, nurtured or even honoured’. So it is great to read how you have accepted that you are sweet and that you now allow it to be there in every part of your day.

220. Thank you Johanna. I like how you have brought the sweetness back to a responsibility that we hold for the relationships that we have.

221. Sweet is also not a word I would ever use to describe my voice, as I had also hardened my body as a form of protection. But very recently as I was singing with the children at school, all of a sudden I got this awareness of how sweet my voice really sounded, which gave me such a pleasant surprise with the realisation, there was not a hint of hardness to be heard….which provided me the confirmation of how much I have let go off and how much I deepened the relationship with my body. It was an awesome moment, as in the past I could not stand the sound that my voice made.

222. Thank you for sharing Johanna, the way we move with our body can quite literally change our thoughts and the way we think about ourselves and others – quite amazing really.

223. Great insights, Johanna, though what strikes me the most as I read this is of the awareness that we can get revelations in the most common everyday occurrences, if we are open, willing and desirous to learn. Thank you.

     1. This is so true Jonathon the simplest of things can bring great revelations. It’s the being connected with myself as I do things that seems to count.

224. What a beautiful appreciation to have Johanna, to be able to connect with and accept that sweetness within you and to see all the ways you had protected that from the world, so it didn’t get crushed. It is such a revelation when we realise that this sweetness can really look after itself, all we need to do is allow it the freedom to express! Thank you.

225. It feels gorgeous to read this this morning Johanna. We are super sweet and when my children or anyone does anything sweet; the way they move, laugh or touch something, say something, I giggle as I’m reminded that that sweetness before me, is in me too. I’m already enjoying taking this into my day, thank you.

226. Love this blog Johanna. Feeling your gorgeous sweetness as a powerful quality is such a joy. I also love the sweetness of me and to express that in all that I do, like typing this comment. Ah… just lovely!

227. Why did I not trust the power of this innate quality all along? Because I have been living in a different way for many years, and that had become my normal. This is a much greater normal to feel, which I too am discovering, thank you Johanna.

228. Pingback: The Magic of Walking – A Playful Walk – What My Shadow Reflected to Me |

229. Thank you for sharing your experience Johanna, this realisation will be so supportive of your daughter, to see you claim your sweetness, she will be inspired to as well.

230. Johanna, what came up for me when I read your blog was how easy it is for me to focus on negative thoughts, but how difficult it is to focus on and nurture the loveliness within me that I do feel from time to time but don’t continue to support on a regular basis. You have inspired me to make it a focus and nurture that feeling of connection. Your ideas about doing it when you are brushing your teeth or sitting down or hugging your daughter make it very simple and practical.

231. What a yummy blog Johanna, I am reconnected with my own sweetness simply by reading it and feeling your quality. I choose the protection of being strong and hard and sweetness was not something i would name as one of my qualities. Yet looking at a childhood picture the openness and sweetness is so clearly there. And as you share it is not something we lose, we just do not express it anymore and hide it behind our protections. So by being reminded of our sweetness we can reclaim this and bring it back into expression.

232. Thank you Johanna. Your article has made me pause to consider why we bury our innocence and sweetness of childhood under a hardened layer of protection. When I feel that delightful sweetness in a child it triggers in me a memory of my own childhood sweetness that I have lost and perhaps it is this unconscious jealousy that is felt by the child that starts the process of hiding our sweetness. But our natural sweetness is always there hidden in the shadows of who we truly are.

233. What a sweet blog Johanna! I can so relate to your blog in that I have felt a hardness in my body all my life, and this of course, is then reflected in my relationships, as this hardness and protection kept me from truly connecting to people. I would never have considered myself as “sweet”, but recently I came across some photographs of me as a young child and I saw the sweetness there and I wanted to re-connect to that. Since choosing to be more loving with myself and connecting to the stillness within me I am just beginning to feel my own sweetness and it takes some getting used to! But it feels lovely, and I love the support of your words in allowing yourself to connect to your sweetness by being aware of your every choices such as filling the kettle. I have found that with sweetness comes a certain delicateness too, and feeling delicate is so delicious and light and something to hold onto, gently of course.
     Your shadow, in its reflection, has given you a gift and one that has inspired me further to hold on to my sweetness and delicateness, thank-you Johanna.

234. Johanna, your blog is so SWEET! I love it and what you share here is something that I am only now realising too. I am naturally sweet but have like you, “used this hardness as a type of defence to protect me from getting hurt and to not allow others to get too close.”
     This point that you make is also true to me. “The ripple effect of my allowing this quality to be expressed would be a reflection and an opportunity for my daughter to allow her natural sweetness to be there too.”
     For some time, I had championed how tough and strong my daughter is, but now notice that the more sweetness I allow myself to be, the sweetness is now showing in her too, and from this, she does not have to build a big strong barrier of protection anymore.

     1. What power we have to either encourage contraction and hardness in others or to encourage them to naturally be themselves! This places true understanding around the word “responsibility”. Giving permission for ourselves to express our natural innate sweetness is so healing not just for us but for all those around us who haven’t dared do the same. When we let go we give others permission to let go too, feeling safe to reveal their own gentleness.

235. It just goes to show that if we become more aware, we can even learn an important lesson from our shadow, this makes me smile.

     1. Me too kevmchardy 🙂 Reflections are bouncing messages to us from everyone, everything and everywhere. We just need to learn to feel, see and read them more frequently than we do.

     2. I agree Kevmchardy, and it can be fun along the way.

236. Beautiful Johanna, you have inspired me to build this for myself too, feeling my sweetness in different moments in the day, connecting and allowing.

237. It is amazing to feel the level of sweetness you have allowed into your body Johanna Smith. I am inspired by the dedication and commitment you show for building this aspect of your being into your life. It is important to take this serious, in the playful way as you have showed me, as these are the true aspects of our being compared to making ourselves hard and closed off to the world.

238. Thank you Johanna, returning to the sweetness we all carry inside. Yesterday I was walking on the street and I felt like the three year old girl I once was but I realized she has never left me, for that sweetness is still there. I have just created layers of protection so I won’t get hurt or in order to let people out. It’s beautiful to take off all our coats of protection, realizing that there is nothing to protect anyway.

     1. What you say Mariette about creating layers of protection so you won’t get hurt, resonated with me. I remember the fun of playing with my shadow as a young child and the sweetness of being me. A lovely blog Johanna.

     2. Thank you Marietta, your comment has reminded me to connect again with the little girl with in me, she is so playful and joyful and I needed a little tickle to let myself feel this today. Already I feel much more settled with where I am actually at today and more able to let the day flow.

239. Thanks Johanna for your blog and beautiful reminder that there is a sweetness in us all. I really enjoyed reading the play that you had with your shadow as you walked and what this reflected to you. As I was reading your blog, I realised that sweetness isn’t a quality that I have had much reflection on and a quality that I haven’t really connected to within myself. Thanks for sharing your adventure with your shadow for reflecting my shadows!

240. I can relate to so much of what you have written Johanna, I can feel my own sweetness more and more, and I am committed to unfolding this inner quality in full so that what is on the outside is a True reflection of me!
     Such a Joyous ‘work’ this is 😊💗

241. “I was not able to really see or appreciate the sweetness in others due to my hardening.” – This is a big and true statement that is worthy of some deep reflection… thanks for calling it Johanna.

242. Johanna I am sometimes surprised by my own power and gentleness. But have been sweetly reminded here that this is innately true for us all. It’s not a surprise but a well hidden gem that is now starting to glisten more radiantly now from making more loving choices. Thank you.

243. A great reminder that these qualities naturally reside within – be it sweetness, sensitivity, gentleness etc – and that it is simply for us to connect to this, accept and then appreciate!

244. What a ‘sweet’ revelation this is, I love how you share your experience with the shadow and the questions this raised. Accepting and really letting the sweetness that is there in us all, ‘just be’ is huge. Yesterday I had a similar experience that reading your blog just supported me to understand and question more. I was feeling a bit poopy and tired in the midst of moving house, forgetting to appreciate the delicate flow I move in…and in putting a mirror up was quite caught up in the practicalities of wall fixings when I suddenly saw my reflection looking back at me with such sweetness, that I somehow had not considered to be there, or that it could be so visible, it stopped me in my tracks. Thanks to your blog I can now re-enjoy what is undeniable in the mirror, being known and celebrated (and taken care of!) in all the moments in-between. Thank you for the sweet insight.

     1. Lovely Kate that you had a stop moment and got to see the undeniable sweetness that is there. In connecting to my own as I am writing it reminds me to be playful and there is a lightness with it that is joyful. Sweetness is a gentle expression of divinity – to deny it is to deny the divinity within and to dismember something pure.

245. Super sweet Johanna! Thank you for sharing.

246. Your commitment to honouring your most natural way is inspiring Johanna. Your sweetness can definitely be felt here. The point made: ‘I realised that I was not able to really see or appreciate the sweetness in others due to my hardening’, is so important and relevant in our times when it is very healing to be ourselves and feel the reflection of others being themselves, mutual support. Many will feel this delicate nature that you so beautifully express and be inspired to allow themselves the same.

247. I love the way you so playfully used the opportunity provided by the time you had with yourself on your walk, to consider the reflections life had recently offered you and deepen your understanding. This provides a great example of how everyone can do this for themselves in their own life. And it is gorgeous to read how you have turned round from not being able to accept the word ‘sweetness’ to fully appreciating how sweet you are.

248. This is such a lovely blog. The sweetness you talk about feels like such an innate beautiful quality. I feel like so many people have this sweetness that you describe but do not recognise like you that it is there. I am starting to recognise this sweetness in so many people but feel like if I was to share this with them they would deny it. It’s a funny world we live in when we eminate such lovely qualities but do not accept or claim just how lovely and sweet we are.

249. Thanks Johanna. This was a lovely read. I went for a walk yesterday, and I feel I can relate on many levels. I was okay with feeling my sweetness and joy, but I didn’t want to show how much fun I was having just walking down the street if someone were to see me. I thought “I better tone it down now incase someone sees me”.

     1. Harryjwhite, I too have found myself doing this. I live in a small country town and when I walk I often only pass one or two cars, what I have become aware of recently is that I harden a little as the car approaches, so I have begun to simply stay present with where I am and allow myself to remain open as the car passes. This brings up so much in the body for me, the feeling of vulnerability, of letting my fragility be what other people meet, my tenderness and openness. This has revealed that I have been choosing to go into anxiousness and protection, rather than stay present, open, vulnerable and fragile, which is the truth of my body and is the only place that I can respond from with absolute love. What this is actually revealing to me is that I have yet to fully claim that the open, fragile, beauty is the real me. As I begin to at least think of this as a possibility, I am finding it easier to surrender to my body, trusting in what I feel, knowing deeply the truth of who I am, and discerning if I am feeling an old pattern of anxiousness rising, no longer giving myself over to it, the moment that I have realized what is going on, the anxiousness immediately begins to dissipate.

250. So very beautiful to read Johanna, thank-you for sharing your delicateness with us. It is absolutely you.

251. I always thought of sweetness as sacrine ‘a false sweetener’ never trusted it in another as often women would use it to manipulate or soften situations and I could detect it a mile away. Such was my resistance to allow the sweetness in me. Yes Johanna you said “I was not able to really see or appreciate the sweetness in others due to my hardening” well I really shut it down saw it as a weakness. Wow that’s harsh … But now I feel the gentle presence of my own sweetness as I reconnect to my tender loving self. Which as you say ” has an amazing strength and power.”
     Your blog has deepened my appreciation for my reawakening sweetness.

252. I have always seen this beautiful quality in you Johanna. Thankyou for the reminder to allow it within myself.

253. Johanna what an insightful and relatable post of re-discovering your sweetness, and love the way your shadow ‘spoke’ with you to step into this, and now walk with its confidence. Awesome.

254. “Does self-doubt, self-sabotage and being hard prevent me from even recognising this quality that has always lain deep within me?” – sure does, Johanna. You mentioned that “sweetness and sensitivity does not get seen, nurtured or even honoured”, and responded by becoming a hard, independent child. This mirrors my own experience, although I found that my sweetness and sensitivity attracted undesirable attention, so I had to hide it under the armour. But I did keep my connection to it, when I was alone and safe with myself. Of course this set up a pattern of hardness and self-sabotage when around other people that ran on long after I was grown up. Years of dismantling later, I am just beginning to feel my sweetness and sensitivity in my walk once again, and begin to drop the armour and share myself openly with others.

255. Thanks Johanna for writing a simple and powerful point of not seeing the qualities I have within me when choosing to harden the body.

256. There are so many beautiful and innate qualities we have that we overlook in life…they are seen as silly, trivial or they are simply things that do not get us ahead of the pack. Sweetness is one such quality. Innocence is another.
     They get trampled when we make life about getting ahead, getting the edge on another, scoring a win…all of those things that make life seem to be a fight for survival, or a Gladiatorial battle.
     So to re-gather our sense of sweetness, which in fact never goes away, is quite a challenge. There are some swords to put down and some layers of armour to peel away.
     And then we can see our shadow, perhaps for the first time, and we see just how light we truly are, as our arms and hips swing, unburdened by layers we put on for survival. There is the sweetness, abundant and beautiful and it is disarming for others too…they learn that they can put down their swords and bring out their sweetness too.

257. Hello Johanna, I enjoyed reading how you unravel this. That through awareness of one thing or part, you were able to look at things differently. It was almost like a way you were just didn’t make sense to how you felt. Which then lead you to appreciate more something that had been there all along in you but never ‘allowed’ out. Then this flowed on and out to everyone and everything around you and changed your life. This is simple but very profound, thank you.

258. Beautiful, Johanna, allowing myself to feel my sweetness has been a lengthy process, and consequently it is only recently that I have begun to open myself up to feeling the sweetness in others. Sweetness is such a good description of what we naturally have with us, when everything else gets out of the way.

259. Dear Johanna,
     Thank you deeply for reminding me to also appreciate the quality of sweetness that is within me. Like you I too have felt it, the delicateness of who I am, yet when things get a little tough throughout my days, I can feel myself leaving this truth if who I am to deal with the situations at hand. What you have written here is truly supportive for me as it brings to my focus how I too have not fully claimed my sweetness as who I am and invites me to do so.

260. I know I have always reacted when people would call me sweet, I had the belief when someone and especially a man calls you sweet, you are weak and pathetic. So the last thing I wanted to be was sweet and I have chosen to harden myself through out my live. Since a few years I am aware that I am sweet and that it is an innate quality, it is about time I truly appreciate my sweetness. Thank you Johanna for this inspiration to truly claim and live my sweetness.

261. Throughout my life I’ve held myself back from my sweetness as a form of protection because I mistakenly confused ‘sweetness’ with ‘vulnerability’. Johanna, your delightful line that resonated with me was: “allowing myself to be sensitive has an amazing strength and power.” In recent times, by becoming more open and accepting of my natural sweet self, I’ve been able to gradually emerge from behind my ‘shield’ to indeed experience the power that accompanies my natural sweetness and gentleness.

262. Thank you for sharing the deepening quality of your sweetness. Reflecting on your question – ‘Why did I not trust the power of this innate quality all along?’. There is the beautiful quality of ‘Grace’ that is with me every moment of everyday but I hold back from fully surrendering, appreciating and accepting that. I feel I have allowed the outside world to influence me by allowing self doubt and denial of this beautiful quality. We all know innately the amazing and beautiful beings we are and ‘That special quality’ we bring – it is time to truly claim it. Thank you for sharing the discovery of your beautiful quality of ‘Sweetness’, which has been claimed by you and now shared in its fullness with others.

263. Johanna, your blog is lovely, I love the way you play with how you move and how you express the sweetness that is you, and how you explored based With an open curiosity. You’ve got me considering new ways to play with how I walk!

264. Johanna, I love how you practise that which you have noticed in yourself. That in itself is already sweetness and delicateness in expression.

265. Thank you Johanna, this clearly marks out the difference between a sweetness that is supportive and welcome rather than the sweetness of ‘sugary sweet niceness’ which always comes with a cloying edge to it.
     I feel I will notice more now, if and when this arises in me, and take loving steps with my shadow in front of me as a reminder.

266. As I’m delightfully reading your blog Joanna, I am reminded once again to appreciate the ripple affect your sweetness reflects back to me and to everyone who we share these moments with as we go about our daily life.

267. Thank you Johanna. It is amazing what a morning walk can reveal. There are profound messages all around us if we are willing to read them and so it is no surprise that your shadow reflected your sweetness back to you. This blog reminds me to connect to my sweetness, especially when I am dealing with difficult situations.

268. I love all the different ways we receive what is needed to go deeper with our self love, self acceptance and self appreciation. What a lovely honouring of you to play with your shadow on your walk. I see so many walkers in so much seriousness, belting out the momentum – the picture of you Johanna playfully walking is a delight.

269. The experience of innate tender, precious, innocent quality feels timeless. Learning to be in that quality consistently seems to be the purpose of this life. Your blog brought me back to that quality. Thank you for Sharing!

270. Thank you Johanna, as I read your blog I went back to my own childhood and to the children I see now, where so often I see and hear tumbling praised for doing something, for swimming all the way to the end, getting a good grade, but not it seems for the sweetness that they — that is ‘we’ — naturally are. Is it any wonder then that it’s difficult for us to accept this sweetness within us, to hold it and walk with it everyday? But of course it’s always there underneath whatever we’ve taken on to cover it up and guard it away from a world that we haven’t felt can meet us in this precious sweetness that we all are.
     I’ve also been inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon to rekindle a deep and true relationship with myself, and now that I have reconnected to this sweet quality I know is me, I won’t hide away from it again. It’s what I know resides in everyone, and just as you share here, the more I cherish and enjoy it in myself, the more I see it in everybody else as well.

     1. For sure Katerina: “it’s always there underneath whatever we’ve taken on to cover it up”, but just a little flip in attitude and we can fully feel and express that sweetness instead of the hardness of our guard.

271. Thanks for your honesty Johanna. It’s easy to be fooled by conditional self appreciation. Awesome how you came to identify the pattern and then kick it to the curb!

272. Claiming back the sweetness that is you, the sweetness which has always been there that you’re now choosing to apply to every part of your day and all from enjoying and being playful on your early morning walk. Gorgeous.

273. A lovely blog Johanna, as my day begins I will be very aware of my own and other’s sweetness.

274. Johanna, sweetness is not something I would have considered that was in me, but while reading your blog I could feel an absolute sweetness in me. It was there in me all the time even if I was trying to hide it.

275. Beautiful. Reading this blog reminded me of my own sweetness.

276. Johanna, I can feel the sweetness in this as you have written and shared so openly about what being sweet feels to you. There is something very divinely natured and naturally strong about the sweetness you are speaking of, and to claim it in full for the truth that it also brings with it is deeply touching and inspirational. Thank you.

277. I feel such similarities with myself Johanna. I noticed that as I read the second sentence, “…Through the reflection of my shadow, I watched how my body moved without any imposition, with true flow and freedom.” I had started to ‘speed read’, i.e. read much faster than normal, kind of skim read. It wasn’t because I wanted to know more and devour what you have written, but rather it felt like my mind wasn’t wanting my body to read this properly and take it in. And why? Because I have this same struggle, that I often feel quite sweet too, but not always. And so I know too that I need to ask myself the same question, “….have I truly claimed and accepted how deeply sweet and still I am?…” Thank you for giving me a headstart on many more questions I can ask myself to find out why and make it my permanent way.

278. Wow, Johanna you have just redefined the meaning of the words ‘power walk’! When I read your words ‘feeling the sweetness of your voice’ I stopped in my tracks as I have never come close to considering myself ‘sweet’ so hence the idea of sweetness in my voice is definitely an unexplored aspect of my being. But as I read on, I can also see how in my case pushing aside connection to my inate sweetness is such a massive cop out. It allows me to hide behind the comfort of a massive wall of protection and to engage with the struggle, rather than choosing simplicity and the sweetness lying underneath. Thank you – obviously you have given me lots to reflect on.

279. Thank you Johanna. I realise too that the more I accept and appreciate my own sweetness, the more easily I can feel and appreciate it in others.

280. Johanna I really enjoyed reading about your embracing of your sweetness (such a lovely word when used to describe a person not a sweet). It has got be pondering where do I hold back my own sweetness to protect myself. That’s what I will take into my day today so thank you for the inspiration with this.

281. How amazing that you were able to see and feel your sweetness when seeing your shadow. I have often heard a sweetness in music which is not about tone or tune and I can feel that comes from the body of the singer not from the voice just like you observed yours from within.

282. As you describe here Johanna, and I feel this too, it is easy to feel our own sweetness when those in front of us are reflecting this same quality but when we face difficult times or tensions within relationships, where the reflection of this loveliness diminishes or goes out of site, we are left with the ultimate choice – to continue to feel and stay connected to our loveliness … or not.

283. This is a very beautiful and so so sweet sharing Johanna. I can feel the simplicity in how this has unfolded for you and how lovingly you have embraced the awareness to deepen your sweetness with-in your self. Such a powerful yet gentle message to connect to what is within and not be looking outside for a confirmation. Thank you

284. Thank you Johanna, your sweetness is palpable ~ I loved reading every word 🙂

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