by janine | Nov 6, 2019 | Blog
There is a certain grief that comes in the wake of a breakup.
It can often surprise you how lost and heartbroken you feel, especially if things were already heading down hill, or deep down you knew you wanted out.
The thing about grief is, it almost always comes on the heels of any sort of change, whether we chose it or not.
Grief and change are not just experiences we can intellectualize our way out of, there is a deep emotional component connected.
You can logically know something to be true for you, such as:
“I’m better off without them” or
“this is for the best”, or
“we were radically incompatible” or
“better things are coming (with evidence!)”
and still have a ridiculously hard time coming to terms with it,
Because you have yet to deal with the emotional component of the relationships shift.
Intellectually knowing something is for the best for you, and actually accepting and implementing what that means for your reality are not one in the same.
In order for the grief to ease as you move through the trenches of your heartbreak, you have to go beyond intellect.
You must recognize and heal the thoughts, beliefs, attachments and expectations you had for the relationship, the other person involved, and yourself.
When you grieve the end or change of something you are not just grieving the particular reality.
You are grieving what once was, what never will be again, and what never was that you deeply wanted.
Knowing someone is no longer in alignment for you is an important step on coming back home to your self and doing what’s best for you, and ultimately them. But that doesn’t always make it feel good or ok.
You can leave or be left by someone who truly felt awful for you and still deeply ache for what you imagined or wanted it to be.
You may also be grieving for the version of you that you know you must leave behind in order to be and have what your heart truly desires.
Letting go of an old identity can be painful and hard and grief inducing causing waves of emotions you hardly saw coming.
Allow yourself to acknowledge, accept, and grieve the components of the relationship and of yourself that need healing and peace.
Allow yourself to know you want and are worthy of more, while still allowing yourself the grace to grieve the version of you that once wanted different.
Grieving is not a linear, step by step process assigned only to physical death, we grieve change and loss in many forms, the process is accelerated or transformed only by your willingness to move through it, instead of avoiding or bypassing it.
by janine | Mar 5, 2018 | Blog
Heart’s are breaking and it’s killing people.
I used to believe that heart’s couldn’t break.
But I’ve changed my mind…
Sort of.
I still believe no one else can break our hearts, a million percent I believe that.
What I believe now though is that people are indeed breaking their own hearts and it’s literally killing them.
I have become aware of more heart attacks in young people lately than I have ever heard of before.
Heart disease is on the rise and according to one study published just last year, “researchers have found a significant increase in the number of patients having heart attacks who have no obvious risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity or smoking.”
We can no longer look at heart disease – or any disease for that matter simply just from a nutritional or fitness perspective.
Its deeper, so much deeper and it needs to come to the surface asap if we are going to change this statistic, or not become one of them.
It’s no secret that our society has become SO increasingly disconnected.
People are making more eye contact with their technology than they are with their peers, scrolling mindlessly through social media, comparing themselves, judging and criticizing themselves and others, feeling not good enough, stalking their ex’s therefore not moving on and staying stuck in the same dead end cycles.
People are building walls around their hearts to keep pain and feelings at bay because no one has taught them how to connect with, feel and work through their emotions so they’ve become so terrified of feeling anything that they literally shut their feelings off not realizing that doing so is actually creating a clog in the pipeline of their life force and vitality.
People are clinging to the past, afraid to move forward, holding onto old feelings and memories of heartbreak and keeping their bodies stuck in the same cycles by way of their unevolving mindset.
We have become a “too busy”, “too tired”, “too focused”, “too driven”, “too sensitive” to the outside world to pay attention to our own inner world – the world that really matters.
Here is what you need to know: what you suppress/ignore will find a way to express itself one way or another and when it does you can almost certainly be prepared for an explosion either internally or externally.
This can work both ways. If there is a constant belief that other people, the world etc can hurt us we allow injury to our hearts this way too.
If you are not paying attention to what your body is telling you, the message will find another way to reach you which sometimes comes from the outside world but is a direct messenger from your internal guidance system.
Everything in this universe is energy and energy is constantly moving and when energy cannot flow it finds other ways to grow. This can show up in people as tumours, cysts, inflammation, hardened or clogged arteries and so on.
The epidemic of our time right now is not cancer and not heart disease – it’s stress and a severe emotional disconnect.
What is not expressed emotionally and energetically will find a way to express itself physically, and believe me, it doesn’t look pretty.
Rejecting any parts of yourself automatically starts to shut you down.
If you reject your emotions which are your body and souls internal guidance system you lack direction, clarity, focus, consciousness, life force.
Turning emotions off, building heart walls, tuning the world out, isolating yourself, disconnecting from human interaction these are the new risk factors for heart and other body diseases.
Our nutrition plays a role, our physical fitness plays a role, but neither of those matter if our energetic and emotional health is not nurtured and well balanced.
It doesn’t matter how many smoothies you drink or how many apples you eat. It does not matter how many steps your fitbit tells you you took each day if you are completely tuned out from the center of your system that literally keeps you alive then your heart is not completely healthy.
How do you nurture and balance your energetic and emotional health?
-You tune in.
-You ask yourself questions.
-You turn off your mobile devices and start to connect to the world around you.
-You take off your shoes sometimes and put your feet on the earth that sustains you
-You talk to someone about your emotional/mental well-being.
-You write about how you feel.
-You talk about how you feel
-You get to know your body beneath your reflection.
-You stop holding things in and find outlets to express yourself.
-You love and accept yourself.
Our world is shifting and although more and more everyday tasks are being handed over to technology aka Robots – we are still spiritual beings on a human journey and a robotic existence does not and will not work for us. It is time to fully wake up, tune in and turn on your own inner technology if you want to truly thrive in your short time here.
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by janine | Mar 2, 2018 | Blog
I often likened heartbreak to having the flu.
They both have a pretty sudden onset, both can bring you right to your knees hugging a questionable portion of porcelain or marble, curled up with your arms holding your gut, tears that you didn’t invite streaming down your face, expelled from your body in waves of pain you can hardly take. Food either loses all of it’s appeal or you want to eat it all just to make the emptiness go away, but no matter what you eat nothing fills the space and sometimes it comes right back up because your body is too busy trying to keep you alive to worry about digesting whatever it is you thought you needed.
You feel weak, weaker than you ever have and there are moments when thoughts of “am I going to die?” run through your mind as the ache reverberating from inside takes over your entire being and you feel something you’ve never felt before and you wonder if this is how it all ends and a part of you almost wishes that it was just for the sake of relief, you never knew it was possible to feel so incredibly weak.
Exhaustion consumes you and yet when you try to sleep you’re jolted awake with another round of either nausea or heaving sobs that make you wonder if maybe theres another being entirely taking over your body, you lose all control and you barely even recognize who you are anymore.
You look in the mirror and your eyes are empty and sunken in, framed in dark circles telling you and anyone who might look your way that right now, you’re not okay.
Your shoulders hunch forward and your chest is concave, the physical manifestation of trying to keep yourself safe.
You’re not sure you’re going to make it through this heartbreak.
Days pass by and little by little you start to gain your strength again, get out of bed on purpose again, take showers and participate in society again.
But something is different this time.
It’s impossible to go through the most painful experience of your life and not come out different on the other side.
A little more wiser, more aware of your surroundings, more tuned into your senses, more aware of every square inch of your being since you felt it ache down to your very core.
You’re a little more careful about the steps you take next.
Maybe you start with soup, not sure if your body is ready for a whole meal yet.
Maybe you start with a deep clean, removing anything that reminds you of the hell you just crawled back from.
When you emerge from the depths of a crippling heartbreak, you’re a little reluctant to trust anything right away.
Was it love?
Was it true?
Was it healthy?
Was that my last chance?
Will I ever love again?
Life after heartbreak changes you.
When you let it, it changes you for the better.
But things become different.
Dating again brings up old memories and old beliefs and you have to trek slowly so you can make sense of what’s true and what’s just an old story you have to change.
You’re outside of your comfort zone and it makes you want to go back, back to before it got so bad, back to the moments when you thought you had everything you needed, back to a time when you didn’t have to wonder what was real and what wasn’t.
You want arms that betrayed you to come back and save you, you want to crawl into a chest and lean into a heart that had no room left for you, you want to take it all back and change your mind and try again just one more time.
But there is no salvation in the past, in going back to what didn’t last.
So you must keep moving forward.
So acutely aware of yourself and your surroundings.
You tell yourself things like ‘never again’, or ‘not for a long time’ and you inadvertently start to build little walls around your heart and tell yourself it’s safer this way not realizing that you’re slowly cutting off your heart’s supply and it will only take longer to heal when you suffocate a wound who’s only remedy is love and oxygen.
And it’s scary sometimes and you just want to hide, remembering the tidal wave of pain that came from opening your heart and taking a chance.
But you understand this is all a part of this whole life thing and there will be highs and some low, but the lowest lows set you up to higher highs .
But you slowly move forward, getting back into the world and you start to trust yourself again, you start to believe again, you start to see the beauty again, you start to feel again.
You look in the mirror and you see a glimmer of hope in eyes that once only reflected darkness, your shoulders are wider and your chest has lifted and you see a side of you that you had no idea ever existed.
After coming back from the trenches of crippling heartbreak you learn a new way of being
You learn not everything is what it seems.
But you also learn to trust your body in a whole new way.
You look back at the broken, frail, undigestible version of you that felt like all hope was lost and you celebrate your comeback, your rising, your unbreakable resilience and you learn to love and accept the person it turned you into and you understand that all of this happened for you, not to you.
———————————————————————————————Having a hard time letting go? Moving on? Healing your heart?
Schedule a call to chat about my 1:1 coaching that will help you transform your experience from one of pain to one of power and purpose.
by janine | Feb 3, 2018 | Blog
I did something a couple months ago that I swore I wouldn’t do.
Something I felt I was beyond.
Something, I believed, no ‘self love guru’ would do.
We say we won’t or that we don’t but on some level, one time or another, we end up getting sucked into the rabbit hole of comparison syndrome here on the world wide web.
Whether it’s on our own social media pages seeing friends or mentors succeed in their careers at rates that seemed to sky rocket over night, or who seem to have found the loves of their lives, or people who we see while mind numbingly scrolling Instagram who have the body, the hair, the looks, the life, that suddenly triggers a deep longing inside of us making us feel less than, lacking or simply not good enough.
I didn’t know this was still a trigger for me, I didn’t realize that even after all of the personal growth work I had done that I was still, on some level, vulnerable to this.
But as I was aimlessly scrolling one day it hit me, hard, as I compared myself to people I didn’t even know and suddenly I felt so small. This comparisonitis spun out of control, deeper and deeper I went down the rabbit hole.
Such a dangerous place to be.
I doubted every thing about myself.
I threw away every fucking amazing thing I knew about me and replaced it with doubt, criticism, judgement.. and.. the worst..negative self talk.
The words I Googled while I was down in this dark place were
“how do you love yourself when you’re ugly?”
The sad irony of this above question is that I sit in front of a mirror at my desk every day while I work and I see my reflection, often, and I never ever would look at that woman and call her ugly.
But when I started to compare, to look at what others had or just wish I was or looked differently, I suddenly saw a different side of me.
I chose to feel ugly, I chose to feel not good enough, I chose to feel useless, I chose to feel hopeless.
Fast forward a week later sitting in Church in the back pews, at nighttime, and the pastor is talking and I’m not really listening but my eyes are closed and I am half meditating and wanting to heal this ugliness within me that keeps saying I’m not enough, and in that moment, all I saw was a picture of the Beast.. from Beauty and the Beast.
And I didn’t need any other explanation.
Most of my higher self answers come to me in the form of pictures, I am a visual learner, my higher self is so smart and knows this.
With that, I sat there crying and remembering.
At that moment it was so clear to me what I needed to do.
I had not been unconditionally loving myself.
I was loving my wins, loving what was valuable about me, my growth, my progress, my better choices, my ascent from rock bottom.
I was my own biggest fan in all of those areas.
But, the beast in me, she needed love too and I cut off the supply.
The part of me I thought I left behind.
The parts of me that made really shitty mistakes.
The parts of me that hurt others, especially the people who loved me the most.
The parts of me that hurt myself, repeatedly.
The parts of me that lied.
The parts of me that gave too much and depleted myself.
The parts of me that still judge sometimes.
The parts of me that are still afraid sometimes.
The parts of me that still has her guard up against being loved.
The parts of me that are still so scared to lose anyone I love too soon.
All of these parts of me, all of this duality demanding to be seen. Showing up in pretty Instagram photos reminding me, theres still work to do.
We are certainly not our past, not our mistakes, not our choices.
But if we deny all of these experiences, if we deny the parts of us that aren’t so pretty, aren’t so desirable, aren’t us being our highest selves, then we essentially deny all of us, our entire existence.
I thought about how until the Beast was seen in his fullness, in his darkness and his light, he was not complete therefore he could not accept complete love therefore he could not rise into the best version of himself.
You see Belle was just his mirror, his reflection, his beauty but until that Beauty could fully integrate with the Beast, fullness was incomplete.
And so, in that moment I realized that my self love was not just about loving the wonderful things about me, but the things I once fully rejected as awful and terrible and unacceptable and.. unlovable.
Sure I had done a lot of work in the area of forgiveness, but I had not stepped into full approval and acceptance.
Yes, we are beings of light, but we wouldn’t understand light without darkness, nor would we appreciate it.
We all have this sort of Beast inside of us, that holds our secrets, our darkness, our pain, our missteps.
We take away the power of the negative when we accept ourselves as whole, perfect and complete as we are.
Not in spite of, not because of, not with or without something more or less.
Just, as we are.
As God created us.
As God/Source loves us.
There is no one on this planet just like you, or me and regardless of what we have done, where we have been or where it is our prerogative to go, we are completely worthy, and good enough as is, right here and right now.
Comparing ourselves, or denying any part of us rejects our entire existence and that is a really really hard place to live.
You are the Beauty, it is safe to Love the Beast within. ❤
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www.janineaf.com/mess2success
by janine | Jan 22, 2018 | Blog
*Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there*
I wrote a post recently about driving into our fears. That same night I ended up driving into a wall of fog – one of my worst driving fears- and then a deer ran in front of me, which was actually a beautiful message. I gripped the wheel, shaking, and drove slowly in complete faith that I would make it to my destination safely, in one piece.. and of course I did.
A few days after that I found myself in this steam sauna.
As the steam started to fill the room I felt that familiar wave of terror wash over me as my visibility quickly decreased into nothing but white fog.
While I knew the door was only a couple feet away it felt like it disappeared and I felt trapped (one of my other worst fears)
I got up a few times to remind myself that there was in fact still a door.
Silly, maybe, of course there was still a door.
But this is the power of our imagination, power we often use against us instead of for us.
What these scenarios reminded me of was that – just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
This is how blind, ridiculously naive, faith works.
Trusting in something that you can’t see with your eyes yet, but knowing in your heart and your mind that it is there.
That is how manifesting our dreams, desires and our ultimate health works.
Knowing it’s there, even if you can’t see it.
If you can see it in your mind, you can have it in your life.
The job, the lover, the relationship, the money, the ridiculously big unrealistic dream, all of it.
But you have to believe it before you can see it.
You must trust in the desire that was planted in your heart was put there for you to water with complete faith until it blooms into the vibrant, fragrant, life force that it is meant to be.
Faith training: Moving through fog knowing that the destination you seek is just up ahead.Trust, feel, believe that what you want is coming/already here.
Believe you are worthy of your desires.
Believe you are worthy of the next step.
Believe you are capable of what seems impossible.
Believe that even when everything looks foggy, there is a bright, clear, resolution on the other side.
Be wiling to see things differently.
Be willing to ride out the murky, muddiness until clarity comes into view.
Be willing to accept that you are a powerful creator and any thing you dream you can have.
Know that what you want is there and do not give up, do not quit, do not turn back just because you can’t see it yet.
Keep your heart on your vision, but keep your eyes on the space right in front of you. Presence is what will get you to the next step. XO
If you are ready to take action on the desires of your heart to create the life you know you are meant to live schedule a complimentary call with me here: http://bit.ly/2y1hnFS
XO
by janine | Nov 14, 2017 | Blog
Why do we want what we can’t have.. and then no longer want it when we can have it?
Tired of the cat and mouse chase game yet?
You want him, he doesn’t want you.
He wants you, you don’t want him.
This game can be fun for a little while, I mean it especially feeds the ego when the tables turn, but is this what you truly desire? Ego stroking?
Or are you looking for something deeper? Something more meaningful? Something that feels good to both of you? Something that touches your soul.
I assume if you’re reading this then you’re just about fed up with the merry-go-round that is catch and release dating.
The good news is, you can get off the ride at any time, you just have to decide.
Knowing why you do this can help too, that’s why you’re here, right?
I could let you read on before giving you the answer to the above question.
But I am going to give it up right away.
The reason you want what you can’t have, and then don’t want it when you can have it is, VALUE.
It’s the same reason that big businesses do “seasonal” products, limited time offers and limited edition products.
You see something you think you cant have and it suddenly has some added value to it.
I used to be marketing companies best example of how this works.
“Oh, it’s limited time? I have to have it. Oh it’s pink and there’s limited quantities? I must buy it now! Oh, only a few other people will also have this, which means I’ll have a rare, special, item therefore making me Rare and special? SOLD!”
See what happens?
Suddenly the thing becomes about who we are instead of remaining what it is and you want it because you think it’s going to mean something about you if you have it. Maybe you will feel special ,like you got something no one else can have. Maybe you feel validated by your efforts finally paying off. Maybe you feel validated by someone else’s significant other choosing you over them.
This also speak to the rewards centres in our brains that get ticked off when we try hard for something and finally get it, or get a taste of it and we feel that rush of dopamine and we get hooked on reaching for more. No matter how it feels in the in between, there is a striving for that rush at the end, that victory feeling.
This causes people to naturally keep reaching for someonthing that is unreachable or seems unreachable, or is not healthy or serving their highest good.
There are times when this is beneficial, when training for competitions, when growing a business.
It becomes dangerous when you make another person your challenge.
When you want someone else who is not available or is not interested in you.
This also becomes more clear when you finally get what you want and suddenly you don’t want it as much anymore. Because you got your reward, you’re satisfied, for now and you realize the value you placed on the person isn’t as great as you thought it was.
Humans have a way of idealizing people, placing them on a pedestal forgetting that they are only human too, and finding themselves very disappointed when they don’t turn out how they expected.
The person, while of course still of value, no longer feels as unattainable to you therefore, their value decreases in your eyes.
This is because you weren’t really going for who they are, and were more interested in who you believed they would make you become or make you feel.
You have to ask yourself when you are pushing hard to have someone that isn’t available to you whether or not it is the person, their values, their benefits, their entire body, mind and soul that you actually want, or is it just the payoff from getting what you thought you couldn’t have?
No one is going to make you the person you long to become, only you can do that. So if you find yourself constantly wanting what you can’t have, ask yourself what the reward is here? “What is the value of always feeling not good enough so I find something that I think I can’t have and try to make it mine so I can feel good enough?”
If this is a perpetual cycle for you and you’re tired of the games and you’ve had enough of attracting unavailable partners, clinging to those who don’t want you and sabotaging a good thing when it comes along, then you are a great candidate for my Love Recovery 1:1 Program. Send me an email if you are interested in learning more <3
And remember, you are enough! You never need anyone to validate that for you. XO
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