Ask Others, Trust Yourself by Elisa Balabram

For almost two years, I’ve had an accountability partner, Lara Simmons. We speak every Friday for about 20 minutes, though sometimes we have longer conversations and sometimes shorter ones. Through the support from each other, we’ve worked on our books, arts, blogs, challenges, and successes. On the first day of Chanukah, I opened my apartment door, to find an envelope from her. She lives in Seattle and we have yet to meet in person. Inside the envelope, there were eight carefully wrapped gifts to be opened one a day. I was filled with joy and love. Lara put so much effort and love into the gifts that made me overcome with emotions. I was on my way out, and when I got back I sent her an email, unsure if words could represent what I was feeling, and how much her gesture touched my heart.

Each day I waited for the evening with anticipation to open the next gift, trying to guess what was inside based on what she wrote in each numbered note. For example, gift 4 said “Because it always helps”, and I figured it was a chocolate bar, and it was! The last one, though, I had assumed it was a writing notepad for new creative projects, but it was a sketch pad, and it made me giggle. All of them had a deeper meaning, which can only come from someone who listens, who is present during conversations, who recognizes the essence of being, and who takes the time to care and appreciate someone’s truth and essence. I felt seen and heard.

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As the end of the year approaches, what can you change, transform and achieve before December 31^st that will enhance your life’s experience?

I’ve started a creative project about a month ago, working on designs, which will possibly be in T-shirts, mugs or journal covers. Although I’m not sure on the format, I can tell you that working on it, playing with colors, backgrounds, papers, texture, and tools have brought me great joy. And even if I don’t launch it this year, or ever, when I shared the first design with a few people who got it, and felt inspired by it, I received and felt their Love.

How about you? If you didn’t have to wait for the new year, and you could experience a personal transformation in the next 21 days, what would you like to focus on?

Before you continue reading, I invite you to sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and breathe. Place your hands on your heart. Then, breathe into your heart’s space and ask you heart what it needs this month. What does your heart and soul want to experience?

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After Hay House promoted Dr. Wayne Dyer’s books (R.I.P) a few weeks ago, I purchased and read his memoir I Can See Clearly Now. I recommend it, as he shared his incredible journey to become all that he was in life, the synchronicities, the lessons learned, the roadblocks and challenges, the inspiration, and his life’s purpose. One thing he mentioned right from the start was that he knew from a young age that he had to become self-reliant. Then, he shared that he always told himself “I’m a teacher”, and how he went on to teach others about self-reliance.

Dr. Wayne Dyer encourages his readers to consider what they can see clearly now. I’m taking my time to come up with my list. In the meantime, while reading his book, I resonated with his journey, as I’ve always felt like I was a teacher in my soul. Most of my life, every time I learned something new/interesting/revealing, I've shared it with anyone who would listen. That’s probably one of the reasons I became a coach, writer, speaker and also a lecturer. In terms of self-development, my life’s main area of focus for some time has been to practice self-love. If you’ve been a reader of my blog, you know that towards the end of 2013 I hosted the first 30-day self-love challenge, which ended up spreading to 45 days. Each day I came up with a practice worth sharing, wrote a blog post* and shared the link on Facebook.  A few months ago I decided to do it again, and came up with some new practices.

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On Sunday night I left my home at around 9:30pm to see the moon eclipse. As I was walking towards the shore, I could see the eclipse starting to cover the moon and it was fascinating. When I got to the shore, I watched until the moon was fully covered and had the reddish look. My attempts to capture the moment, the moon and the pinkish clouds with my phone’s camera, didn’t work out so well.

After a brief meditation and grounding exercise, I asked if there were any messages to share with my readers from the moon, and this is what I wrote in my notepad. If you were trying to see it from NYC, you may have gotten frustrated as I did, that the clouds kept covering the moon. It turns out that there was a lesson from the clouds as well. Here is the message I wrote:

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After writing about my childhood and teenage years attending ballet classes, I had no idea what would unfold next. Over the years, much healing took place but I never thought I’d attend another ballet class in my life.

While visiting my hometown in Brazil, and since I was going to stay there awhile, I managed to sign up for the gym where I took dance classes as an adult, before moving to NY. They informed me that they had a dance class similar to the one I used to take, being offered twice a week in the evenings, and twice a week at 10:30am. I attended the Monday evening rhythms dance class and although it wasn’t great, it felt good to be dancing again.

The next day I showed up for the morning class as it was going to be with a different teacher. When I realized that the classroom was occupied with a different class passed the starting time, I went back to the front desk. I then learned that the morning dance class had been cancelled. Needless to say that I got disappointed, I had after all signed up the previous Friday to attend that specific class. The lady at the front desk said that the class had been replaced with an 11am class called Ballet Fit.

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During my childhood, if someone would have asked what I wanted to be, I would have said a ballerina. It wasn’t meant to be. It’s likely that even if I hadn’t experienced the negative feedback I did, as you will read in this article, I still wouldn’t have done it. I was five years old when I participated in a few dance performances, and the above pictures were taken.

A few years later, when a dance company opened a ballet studio three blocks from my parents' home, I signed up for their modern ballet yearly program. Every year, we would perform at the theater for family and friends, and I loved it. Towards the end of my third year, the teacher approached me and said that she was recommending that I repeated the year. I didn't say a word. I've always been shy and had no idea how to speak up for myself. What hurt the most was that, throughout the year, she never said anything about my performance or how I could have improved.

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On Friday I attended another Paint Nite event. I wrote about my first experience here. I had planned to arrive 15 minutes early, but the 6:19pm bus I was going to take never came. The next bus arrived at 6:43pm and I ended up getting to the bar 12 minutes late. On my way there I was dealing with my feelings, trying not to cry and negotiating my options. I asked that I could mend time and arrive on time. When it became clearly impossible that it would happen, I asked that the instructor would start after I arrived.

I got there, and as soon as I gave my name to get a blank canvas, the instructor started the class. I didn’t miss a thing! I sat down and started painting with everyone else. I briefly thanked this miracle and moved on. I didn’t take time to breathe though, or to ground myself. Perhaps the painting would have been nicer if I had done so. It was a very humid evening, and I chose to have my hair in a ponytail and wear a headband. The painter’s assistant asked to take my picture while I was painting it and I said sure, even though I was self-conscious about my hair, and my smile was as fake as it can be, as I remained emotionally charged throughout the evening.

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I spent a weekend in a healing workshop in Cape May. During the weekend, I was able to notice how I was experiencing it all. How at times I felt confused, while other times I felt as clear as ever. I also made a decision beforehand that I would find joy in the little things, and I took the time to enjoy the paintings around the house where we were staying, and to be present with the group.

On Saturday evening I saw a warning note on the bathroom door (this blog post’s image) that started with Sand… I thought the note was a poem about sand, and I decided to read it carefully, imagining I’d be inspired with a cool message, perhaps something like:

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Writing and publishing my new ebook has been quite an experience. I wrote the first draft not long after I experienced a heartbreak a few years ago. I wrote about the heartbreak here. Writing “Mending a Broken Heart: Lili’s Magic Journey” was a healing tool for myself.

I consider the ebook a labor of love, my way of going through my feelings, my way of making sense of what had happened, my way of potentially giving light to someone else who could be having similar experiences. Publishing it also had a deep meaning, the ability to transform something that once was so painful, into something that could become a source of inspiration for others to focus on self-love as they heal.

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I launched the 30-day Self-Love challenge on November 5^th 2013, and over a hundred people joined me on this journey of focusing on self-love at least once daily.

My personal self-love practice did not end after the 30 or 45 days the challenge lasted last year – and I’m still committed to self-love, although sometimes I need a little reminders. I created a reminder on my cell phone, and I also got a little white board magnet (seen on this post’s image) for my fridge, and wrote to myself: “I love you”.

It made sense to have a daily reminder that I’m loved, especially by me. Pretty soon, as in many things in life, I stopped reading it or paying attention to it. Until one of my sisters visited this summer, and she wrote “I love you too”.  A few weeks ago, a friend spent the weekend at my house, and although she didn’t know the board's story, she also wrote “I love you too”. When I saw it I smiled, and told her who had written the previous messages. Now, my little reminder got even more special.

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