self

Hally’s Hints

Hally Rhiannon Nammu May, 2012

The Picture of Your True Self

The only black and white that exists is within the conscious interpretation. Outside of this the essence of the right from wrong and the equality of karma is all about balance; harmony.

What goes up must come down but this does not make it black or white. Magic, spiritualism, and everything in between is not defined by colour but rather, by intention. What may seem one thing on the surface does not necessarily define the colour; intention of the energetic self. Consider the analogy of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

When being true to oneself the sheep is the sheep internally and externally. The wolf is internal as well as external. It provides connection and power; unity and most of all balance. The wolf then is not coming from a place of evil or bad and the lamb is no longer vulnerable and gullible. It is then that the balance of strength and weakness to create synergy between the two within the one.

When there is imbalance and loss of connection to self it is then that the two opposites become forced to create a pseudo balance. Naturally at some point this conflict will amplify the obvious requirement for organic harmony to occur.

This can occur through various forms of pain until the individual actions this imbalance. However, when this is suppressed or ignored it is common for the negative, unresourceful strategy to surface. Over a time this then becomes fundamental to that individual seeming that this strategy is the natural balance however, this insatiable unhappiness, yearning and even a level of pain and loneliness never dissipates. This is reflective of this imbalance.

Another way to view this is that the true self is not necessarily the same as the energetic self. When they are it creates a stronger energetic vibration and the auric layers increase in intensity. When the two are separate, or rather disconnected what someone looks like on the surface, often referred to as physically, may not necessarily be the same as what they look like energetically.

The added benefit of being aligned and true to oneself is that it provides the ability to resonate and connect to others that of the same vibration. These commonly will be more comfortable and as such, they too can be viewed in their energetic, pure form.

What this means on a greater scale is that it is connecting to the collective and ultimately source. It is the natural and intended evolution on the path to fulfilling the individual purpose. This is compounded through the connection to benefit from the fulfillment when it is gained.

It is said that no one individual can make a difference and whilst in essence this may hold validity it however, is not completely accurate. It all starts from a simple place… aligning and to be one with Self. This will allow for true connection to the collective, empowerment and fulfillment with the individual and overall purpose. It is the evolution of the energetic being. The balance of alignment will affect and be for the benefit of the greater good.

The picture of one’s true self is reflective of their energetic self. Without this there is no balance… consider it a picture that is out of focus.

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Hally’s Hints

Hally Rhiannon Nammu December, 2010

Self Knowledge to Create Balance

I had the unique experience of completing my accreditation in behavioural profiling. Whilst this may be all good and well from a behavioural perspective what does this mean on an energetic level?

It is interesting to consider how each of us are “wired” I remember a time where personality profiling was the latest and greatest providing us with an analysis of ourselves from the conscious. We ended up endeavouring to fit into a perfect box that somehow was supposed to be the answer to all of our questions. I wonder how many of us decided to amend ourselves to reflect these results, and even more interestingly, how long did it last?

Now the latest and greatest is behavioural profiling, which is taken from the unconscious level. This is a reflection from a natural and core state in a specific time. After I had my analysis done I could feel myself decide to take on even more of the key traits. It reminded me of when seeing a psychic and manifesting the positive results irrelevant of their validity.

Whilst we all endeavour to fit in, be part of something greater and ultimately feel understood mechanistically we have a tendency to put things, items as well as ourselves, in a box – nice, simple, and black and white. However, the problem in doing this is that it creates limits around our individual potential and it diminishes our unique energetic signature.

Whilst I was undertaking this course I noticed a change occur within me that I had not noticed before. I noticed myself become more present in the physical realm. Whilst this may seem an expected state the more my energetic awareness evolves the more the physical becomes a chosen state rather than being automatic. At times this can be difficult in switching between the two and the term “keeping it real” can come into play. This got me thinking.

We are energetic beings within physical matter. For us to exist in harmony the two must align. This can become a challenge when working with energies as this strangely enough is our most natural state.

On the path to discovering the specifics of who you are, the attributes that allow you to be unique and the constant need to connect through belonging to something bigger, this is determined by the amount of people as opposed to being superior; all the while within our energetic self encompasses the unfolding layers of evolution and transformation.

Behavioural profiling gave me a gift I had not expected. It gave me the awareness and lucidity to know that which I already know. It is this familiar resonance that has left me feeling as though I have come home to me. The simple knowledge and awareness of clarity can be extremely grounding.

We all aspire to be better than what we already are. Imagine the sensation to know that through being open to you, it allows your energetic self to align on a higher vibrational level through the physical.

We often believe we must keep the two separate however, when integrated the result is so calming it provides a sense of peace and bliss.

You are one and when you play as one there can be only one result – harmony and balance.

By Hally Rhiannon-Nammu (copyright 2010)

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Gazing at the Moon

Barefootkitchenwitch March, 2010

Discovering the Self
As a follow up to last month’s piece, I wanted to talk more about taking chances and risks and living life to the fullest.
I tried.
Our family went away recently for a skiing vacation, up in gorgeous Maine, and I signed up for a 3 hour Learn-to-Ski lesson.  I already had a helmet, and I’d rented boots and skis and poles.  I was all set.  I kept the giant ball of fear locked away in a closet in the back of my mind, and I went into the lesson with every intention of skiing out of it at the end of those three hours.
Things started off really great – the instructor was fabulous – really knew how to put the five of us at ease before bringing us out onto the snow.  We all introduced ourselves, learned why each of us had come that day, and learned a bit about the instructor’s history as well.  After that, and a little lesson on stepping into our bindings and getting back out again, we were off.
On the snow, we began with basic things, like balance, and positioning your body and knees where they needed to be…snowplowing…turning…stopping.  The weather was perfect – sunny and relatively warm.  The gently sloping hill where we had our lesson was wide and welcoming.
As the lesson went on, though, a few things happened.  First, my legs – from just above the knees down to my toes – hurt.  My right ankle started to feel like it was occasionally dislocating or something.  My knees were on fire.  Where the tops of the boots encircled my calves hurt.  I couldn’t even just stand still – that hurt, too.  I was getting distracted by all of that.  I fell several times (which is normal, but still – not fun.) and the only way I could get up was to pop my boots out of the bindings.  I felt old.
There were, however, wonderful, all-too-brief times when I felt that wonderful sensation of flying across the snow.  The kid in me shrieked in delight at these moments.  And then the present day ME in me realized that neither of us could stop well, so together we tried to turn the skiis and angle them against the snow…and then just went ahead and fell down because we knew THAT would work.  But together we – kid me and ME me – got back up and tried again.
As we neared the end of those three hours, my store of enthusiasm had been drained considerably.  My knees and ankle were really bothering me, and I felt like I had crashed, and was just waiting for the burning to begin.  The instructor suggested I loosen the boots and take a break – he told me his boots bothered him most of the time as well.  If I’d known that at the beginning, maybe I wouldn’t have been so hyper-aware of my own sore legs.  Who knows.  I also knew that I wasn’t as fit going into the lesson as I could have/should have been.
While I hung out on the deck of a nearby building, rubbing my knees and flexing my ankle every now and then, I did a lot of thinking, a lot of contemplating, a lot of soul-searching.  And I realized that I didn’t really necessarily want to ski.  I wanted to give it a shot, because I wanted to maybe ski with my family…and because I wanted my kids to see that you’re never too old or too anything to try something new.  But had I ever had a burning desire to ski?  Um…no.  Not really.  And I decided that I didn’t HAVE to ski if I didn’t want to.  I’d wanted to ski for my family.  So we could, all four of us, ski together.  But had I wanted to ski for me?  No.  Would any of them – husband, son, daughter – be heartbroken if I didn’t ski?  No.  And with that, I was lighter of heart than I’d been all day.  I spent the next day in the lodge, my laptop plugged into the wall nearby, typing my little fingers off.  And I was perfectly happy.
It is now the end of our vacation week, and last night, while I was making dinner, my husband and I were talking, rehashing the trip, and we got to a point where he was…I don’t know, trying to sort out my portion of the vacation.  He couldn’t fathom how I could possibly be happy to sit and type like that.  For hours.  With just a break for lunch.  “If I had to do that, I’d go crazy,” he told me.  Of course he would.  But, I tried to explain, HE is not ME.  I am not HIM.  Just because something would drive him nuts doesn’t mean it would have the same effect on me.  And vice versa.  We are two different people.
We’ve been together nearly 13 years, married for nearly 10.  This might have been the first time it really sunk in with him that we are, despite some shared similarities, two very different people.  And – that’s just fine.
It was sort of funny, this revelation.  I have my things that I love to do, and they are different from some of the things he loves to do.  Maybe he had a really hard time processing that because there are plenty of things that we both enjoy.  Cooking, for example.  And maybe I’m partly to blame, because in my “keep everyone happy” mentality, I have happily (usually) jumped in to do the things he loves to do.  Even if it wouldn’t have been my first choice.  Because it was more important, at times, for us to be doing something together than it was for me to do MY own thing.  And my own things tend to be rather solitary things anyway.  Reading.  Writing.  Sewing.  But those are also things I can always do later.  I can tuck them into the cracks and crevices of our days, and most of the time, that’s enough.
I told him I’m not even necessarily done with learning to ski.  Next year, maybe I’ll have another go at it.  Maybe I won’t.  Maybe I’ll spend my portion of the winter vacation sitting in a lodge with my laptop and a cup of coffee.  Or with a brand new book to read.  Or meandering around outside, taking pictures of the skiers and the snow and the beauty of winter.

That sounds like a perfect vacation – to me.

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The Warrior Goddess

Administrator July, 2006

Positive Self Image

Before you can really learn anything about improving yourself, you have to truly believe that you can do it. Every time the words “I can’t” or “that’s impossible” enter into your vocabulary, you are setting yourself up for failure. Even worse, I have discovered, are the words “I’m trying”. It is ok to try in the original sense of the word… for instance, you can try food to see what it tastes like, but in the end there is either “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. In the sense of trying to do something, still, in the end, there is either “I did it” or “I didn’t do it”. Somehow I am reminded of Yoda here (thank you George Lucas)… there is either ‘do’ or ‘do not’; there is no ‘try’.


In the case of positive self image there really needs to be a quick change over from trying all the time to actually having one… because frankly, this is not a situation where you can try for a long time. If you are trying, you simply don’t have one. If you do not have a positive self image, if you do not believe you can do what you set out to do, then you will not accomplish all that you are capable of in life. If you want to be a Warrior Goddess, you must have confidence in yourself that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. You must also not let your self confidence fail when what you set your mind to do does not work out.


So what is the biggest challenge presented to us that works against a positive self image? I bet most of you reading this will have the thought of “beauty” or something similar come into your head. Did the word “weight” come in there? Well… you would be among the majority. Body image is a huge challenge for us. So many women do not feel desirable if they are not model thin or action movie star muscular; so many of us associate our beauty and desirability with weight. It is truly a challenge not to; since most of what we see on television (there’s that dirty word again) and in magazines tells us that this is what desirable and beautiful women look like. It is true that even sometimes our own mates tell us that we need to lose weight; many times because they are worried about our health and are under the mistaken impression that weight is equal to good health; but unfortunately, many times because they are shallow asses.


Let me give you an experience from my own life that will give you an example of how pressured women are by society at large to be thin so that they feel beautiful, desirable and/or successful. In high school I exercised all the time. I would walk 6 to 10 miles a day. I would play racquetball. I was in marching band which is no small feat in the hot Florida sun. I am 5’4” tall and I weighed, at the time, 170 pounds. I wanted to go into the Navy to play in the Navy band. I auditioned and made it into the band hands down… but they told me I had to lose weight before I graduated high school or I could not get in. This only confirmed to me what the students of the school had already been telling me… I was fat and therefore, I was ugly.


I had such a low self image in high school, despite the fact that I was first chair in band, playing in televised music broadcasts for Disney, playing with a college band while still in high school and one of the best musicians in the state… I thought I was a loser and good for nothing. Why? Because I was fat and therefore ugly. I could not get a date and when I did, they would not admit they dated me. I let myself be treated like dirt.


So I sought to lose weight. I started eating only one meal a day, maybe two, and I began to exercise more. I lost 5 pounds. When I went to the entrance exam area for the Navy, I was still considered over weight at 165 pounds, so they did a measure test and passed me just barely at 33% body fat. I was considered, by their measurements, obese. So now I went back and exercised more and ate only salads. I ran in sauna suits and did things that endangered my health. I graduated high school and then I went back to the testing area. I weighed 160 pounds, still considered over weight. So they measured me again. According to the measurements this time, I was 36% body fat! So I was not allowed in the Navy.


This made it so I was not allowed to do what I had been trying for a year to accomplish (and planned my future around) because I was fat. How do you think this made me feel? It didn’t help that I was still made fun of for being fat by my school mates. Even my own friends made me feel fat, mostly because they felt fat too and I saw them as beautiful (and if THEY were fat, gods, I must have been behemoth). Well, this took a nuke to my already shell shocked self confidence. I got very depressed. Fortunately, I managed to work myself out of it and develop a positive body image from there.


Now, think about my weight that I told you, and my height. Think about how many times I was told I was fat. Think about how heavy I was. With that in mind, listen to this… when I weighed 170 pounds, I was a size 12. When I weighed 160 pounds, I was a size 9. A size 9 is NOT fat. Neither is a size 12, but that is beside the point… It was only later, upon being educated, that I discovered that muscle weighs more than fat. It also makes it really difficult to wear tiny sized clothing since it doesn’t squish in like fat does. Oh yeah, and that body fat test… the measuring test has a margin of error so big I could have been up to 7% higher OR LOWER than they measured me… which explains how I lost 5 pounds and gained 3% body fat in their eyes.


The point of this story is… society is unfair towards people. We are expected to put ourselves into a box to feel successful and beautiful. It is not just in size and shape… it is in everything. We are subconsciously told things such as “body fat is ugly” or “you are not successful unless you make money” or “you are not likable unless you have lots of friends” or “you are not loved unless you have sex”. As pagans we need to break free from this box and start appreciating ourselves for our individuality. As Warrior Goddesses we need to fight this negative conditioning for both ourselves and other women of the world.


How do we do this? Well I will tell you, it isn’t easy. I believe I am beautiful, powerful and successful. I am loved, both by myself and by my friends and family. I know this. I am sure of it. However, I still have days where I feel bad. When do I feel this way? Well, when I am around others who feel this way and I am too tired to fight against it. When it is just me or my husband and me I feel fine. When I am around friends or family who feel fat, ugly, like a loser or otherwise unhappy, it is much more difficult to keep up the energy. However, it is something I keep trying to do. This is why I feel it is important not just to improve my own self image, but to help others improve theirs.


So here is what I challenge you to do on your journey to becoming a Warrior Goddess. Number one, throw out of your life anything you think is causing a negative self image. If you weigh yourself and think “I am so fat”, throw out your damn scale. If you have to weigh yourself for competition sports as I do, then only do it when you absolutely have to. Of course weigh yourself if you must for medications and such, but again don’t think of yourself as ugly because you are “over weight”. If you are in a relationship and your partner tells you that you are fat, ask them not to. If they are degrading to you, either seek counseling or dump them because anyone who degrades you does not deserve you. Do what you must to remove the negative image inducers from your life.


I am not saying dump anyone who is negative; just simply ask them not to be negative around you. Of course, if it were me, if I asked them to stop and they didn’t, I would limit my exposure until I was sure of myself. Remember, pulling yourself out of negative self image is like an oxygen mask on a damaged air plane… take care of you first and then the person who needs help. If you are dying from oxygen deprivation, how can you help the person next to you? It will end up that you both die.


Next step… positive image exercises. First, do what a lot of women dread doing… stand naked in front of a full length mirror. Look at yourself. See your body as it is. Find everything beautiful about it. If you have a low self image, it will take some time, but find something. The first thing I started with was my eyes. I thought my eyes were pretty. So I started there and then noticed that I liked my nose, and then my hands. The more days I spent staring and looking for things, the more I liked how I looked. You need to do the same thing in your emotional and spiritual life as well. Spend time looking at yourself internally and see your positive traits.


Now, if you find negative traits… and you will… do not harp on them. Just accept that you have them and decide if they are actually negative or not. If they are negative, make a plan to change them. Let me give you a hint… wrinkles, fat deposits and moles are not negative traits; neither is getting angry when someone wrongs you (it is how you deal with that anger that is positive or negative). Another rule that I think is an absolute must is that you must find TWO positive things for every negative thing you see about yourself. For instance, if when looking over your body you see your stomach and think it is ugly, then you can look and see that your are still well proportioned to your stomach and that your stomachs skin looks smooth and silky. Or if you think that you lose your temper too quickly you can realize that at least you care enough to get angry and that you are a friendly person most of the time. To be quite honest, if you cannot find two positive things about yourself on a regular basis, then you may want to consider professional counseling because most likely you are depressed.


Practicing for a positive self image is a constant process, but you can at least notice when you become confident enough where you can start fighting for others rather than just yourself. It feels really good to help others and it further boosts your own positive self image. Loving yourself, thinking of yourself as beautiful inside and out, is important for all goddesses. There is not one goddess in all of history who said “I am so ugly, everyone hates me or I can’t find a man because I am fat”. This is not the Goddess nature and since the Goddess is in all of us, it shouldn’t be yours.


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author bio:


Athene


Athene@cfl.rr.com


www.athenestemple.com


Athene comes from a family of Eclectics and has been practicing Paganism from a young age. Athene is an accomplished musician, swimmer, archer, artist, crafter and martial artist. She is active in teaching Pagan spirituality, magick and teaching and learning Judo and Jujitsu. She is also active in promoting equality and balance between genders and races, as well as environmentalism. Athene is well traveled and has been through much of the United States, as well as some traveling in Canada and France.


Athene has faced many challenges in her life, which fortunately she has over come. She tries to use these life experiences as examples to help others grow strong and sure of themselves. Athene’s current life goal is to help women become empowered through pagan spirituality; embracing themselves for who and what they are, overcoming social stigmas such as “thinner is more beautiful” and “women are victims”. She is willing to speak and teach at Pagan events and often will answer questions through email.

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