Turn Up Your Radiance
Turn Up Your Radiance
‘Turn up your radiance. Let it illuminate your path before you as you take the next steps to light up your world.’
~ Hiro Boga
As I navigate this adventure with ‘Simple Sacred Everyday’, planning and developing offerings that I hope to share with you in the coming months, I am beginning to realise that this is, and will continue to be, a very personal and cyclical journey of shedding and renewal.
I have had to let go of beliefs and ways of being that kept me looking outside of myself, which have kept me unconsciously limited for most of my life. These beliefs have led me down dead ends, kept me questioning my worth, and undermined my self-belief.
It has also been a process of getting familiar with and nurturing that part of me that ‘knows’ what matters to me and what I am here to do in this life. This ‘knowing’ is found within me – she is my inner life, my internal light, and it is her deepest wish that I listen to and honour her.
But to meaningfully connect with this inner knowing, I have had to cultivate and nurture a balance between my external and internal worlds. I have also needed to attune to the higher order that governs the cycles, seasons and rhythms within and around me so I feel supported to move forward with less force and more flow.
Sutra’s 1.30 to 1.39 of the ancient texts, the Yoga Sutras, highlight the importance of looking within to a balanced, meaningful and healthy life. In particular, Sutra 1.36 reveals the importance of nurturing a connection with our inner life to restore and preserve this balance:
Yoga Sutra 1.36: viśokā vā jyotiṣmatī[1]
Cultivate devotion to the supreme, ever blissful Light within
viśokā= devoid of sorrow, pain
vā= also
jyotiṣmatī = luminosity of the mind
To live this truth, I have had to completely re-orient the way I relate to the world. I have realised if I am to honour and nurture ‘me’ and find the balance that I need, then I have to let go of constantly looking outside of myself for external affirmation, guidance and reassurance. In our modern society, this is not an easy task, particularly when much of our personal conditioning, societal expectations and collective consciousness is focussed upon external things, circumstances and people as integral to validating our ‘enough-ness’.
I have realised my balance is found by turning inwards and looking to the heart for the way forward.
It is trusting in my own judgement regardless what others may believe.
It is listening to the voice that assures me it knows the way, and taking the leap and trusting I will land where I need to.
It is gifting myself the joy of creating, rather feeling weighed down by how things ‘should’ be done.
It is allowing myself to share what I love with others from a place of truth, tenderness and vulnerability, and not looking for validation in return.
It is encouraging myself to focus on what makes me feel good so the child within feels heard, safe and honoured.
It is tapping into an infinite wellspring of life energy that reminds me that I am loved, that I have the capacity to give others the love that they are seeking, and be an example of how they can access it for themselves.
And my home practice has been integral in revealing these insights and understandings to me.
It has shown me that the world outside of me is a moving feast, it is changeable and unreliable. But if I devote time each day to connecting with my inner life, through movement, breath, meditation and reflection, I rediscover an innate strength, power and clarity that holds me steady through all of my days.
Always hold true to your inner light my friend, it knows the way forward.
With love,
Sharon
xxx
[1] https://www.yogapradipika.com/yoga-sutra-1-36