Deepening the connection
…Softening into who you already are
Each time you
Softening
soften into yourself
(give yourself the time, the nourishment,
the tenderness)
you are valuing yourself.
Each time you soften into yourself
you are embodying the energy of love.
(Stay here.)
A song I’m currently enjoying:
I’m so happy to announce that my new book “Softening” is now available worldwide from Amazon and Barnes and Noble stores!
This book has taken me over a year to write: a year of deep transformational healing that I wasn’t quite expecting. And perhaps that’s the answer – I surrendered to life. I allowed it to take me back to myself.
“Give whatever is arising in your life
the total freedom to unfold fully,
(without attempting to control it, or
manipulate it), and you will discover
how incredibly soft life starts to feel
against your heart.”
Softening – out now!
Giveaway winners!
Congratulations Ronelle, Kyra, and Lori. I will email you, and send you a signed copy of Softening!
One of my favourite pieces from Softening:
“Sometimes, it feels as though there is an everlasting
struggle to become someone, to do something, or to
get somewhere.
But if you could learn how to sink deep into your
being—discover the hidden life, the rain gathered in
your bones, the shape of the pearls—you would get
to know (and accept) the most valuable parts of
yourself. You would find out what living your most
authentic life truly means:
loving who you already are.“
I love my new book – I love the person I returned to whilst writing it.
Softening is about shedding. It is about wilting, revealing, and deepening the connection with who you truly are. It’s about stopping, surrendering, and simply being present with yourself, as yourself. It is a process I have come to experience many times over the last 8 years, but more so this year than ever before.
I have expanded this year – grown by releasing all that no longer serves me. I have become lighter, freer, and at peace with my life, and how I show up in my life. I have allowed myself to be pulled towards nature, and new connections. There is more vibrant aliveness and fullness within each ever-present moment, and I am grateful every waking day. The value I had worked so hard to recognise within myself has re-rooted itself firmly, and unshakably – never to be diminished again.
I now understand that what has taken place has been a slow, indiscernible falling away of any resistance to ‘what is’. In the same way a strong, thick rope gradually erodes over time; the cause of which can never be attributed to one single storm, but rather a build up of many little things over the course of the ever-changing seasons. We only notice how tight the knot was once it’s fallen away.
I have found myself rewilding – a concept I have come to love the more I learn about it – getting closer and closer to the source of life: the breeze, the earth, the taste of rain. I am walking more softly, speaking more softly, wild swimming, shivering, and shedding my story and identity, and simply “being” here: a sentient being welcoming the mess, and the vulnerability with open arms.
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”
—Terence McKenna
Meeting life as an open, loving space
“The depth that you are is soft and quiet; open and empty. It is your space to fill.“
Falling into openness happens as you soften, and surrender. It happens when you fall into life as it presently is without judging, or attempting to control, or find any meaning. You are simply here: living, allowing, inviting. It is a subtle, delicate shift in your inner landscape.
When you meet life openly, without any resistance to whatever is happening, you are standing in your true nature. And your true nature is the stillness which rests beneath the surface appearance of the personality and the walls you build in the hope they will protect you from heartbreak, grief, pain and loss. Your true nature is openness. When you recognise this, you will understand that it is the doorway to feeling whole.
When you meet life openly, you will discover the paradox: openness is where your strength lies. It is not behind the tight wall of tension covering your heart. For this is fear, and it will only serve to attract more of the same.
In openness, you are anchored in strength and authenticity. And in this space, you can still have boundaries, but they will be softer – built from a place of self-love rather than a place of defense.
In openness, you hear your intuition more clearly. You hear the right answer. You become awake to the warning signs of energy feeling out of alignment, and you respond the right way instead of learning the hard way, and then berating yourself.
Over time, you start to embody openness, and you learn one of the greatest gifts of all – trust; in yourself, and a higher self. And, in this space, you start living a more heart centred life, a more soul centred life, and a more meaningful, happier life.
Acceptance creates a tremendous altering
When something doesn’t go our way, we usually try to fix it, deny it, or numb it out. And these patterns are all the same thing: resistance. But there is a better way; a more peaceful, loving, and tender way: acceptance.
The acceptance of life as it truly is (and not how you want it to be) is life altering. And even when you feel uncomfortable with whatever is arising; even if you feel pain and sorrow with whatever is arising, you stand open in the midst of it all because you understand that fighting with it, resisting it, running from it, or numbing it will cause you even more pain and suffering. You allow it to be as it is. You feel it all. You allow the energy to pass so that it doesn’t get stuck and recycle around your body – waiting to be re-activated by something else.
Being open to life as it is does not mean that life becomes perfect. It means that you become unmoved in spite of life being imperfect and complex and messy.
It doesn’t mean you accept any physical or emotional harm. It doesn’t mean you won’t react to danger. It means you allow yourself to feel your internal response to whatever is arising without pushing away or engaging with whatever is arising. Life will lead you to the right response – it always unfolds perfectly when you allow it to.
Life is easier; beautiful, when you remain soft…and open; when you no longer have any desire to engage with the battle within.
“You can live in wholeness and still feel sad. You can
Softening
live in wholeness and still want to experience more.
You can live in wholeness and still let go of the
things that are no longer serving you. You can live
in wholeness and still reach and stretch and grow.
Problems arise when you search for wholeness. For
when you search for wholeness, you are denying
that you are already whole. When you search for
wholeness, you are identifying with the limited self
(ego), which is the part of the mind that will never
know wholeness because it holds an image of you as
broken, unworthy, unlovable, and lacking. You are
not this. You must turn away from this false identity
in order to feel and see who you truly are in the now.
Because the now is quite simply beauty, love, and
perfection appearing in wholeness. And sadness can
arise here. Unhappiness can arise here. Pain can
arise here. But nothing can reach into and affect the
very essence of who you are when you are anchored
in the wisdom that you are already whole, and
already enough.”
Reminder
If there is any part of you that is discordant with life—that is pushing against life, avoiding, or denying life—then you will never be able to truly experience the feeling of wholeness. You will always feel as though something needs to be found, or fixed, or searched for.
You have to give up the fight. You have to surrender and soften into whatever is arising and allow it to be there; to move, and breathe, and be free.
The poetry and notes in my next book are an invitation for you to observe yourself. To learn more about yourself. And to see that your power lies in becoming who you already are, and then nurturing yourself from there.
Released 1 December 2022
“Softening
Poetry and notes on becoming who you already are”
Release date: 1 December 2022
A snippet of my life:
A quote I really resonate with:
“Those who find beauty in all of nature will find themselves at one with the secrets of life itself.”
— L. Wolfe Gilbert
This week, I’ve been grateful for:
I had a really beautiful, transformational breath session in London with inmi space at the weekend.
We follow each other on Instagram, and I’m so grateful that we connected as we have so much in common. I will be writing my next blog post about the healing session, and why adding breath work into your daily practice is a must.
It’s an honor to be here sharing my words with you, and I am incredibly grateful for the time you have taken to read. I hope you love my new book as much as I loved writing it.
Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to expand and grow into this new space. For following along, for reading my work. Feel free to keep in touch: april@bloomforyourself.co.uk
Sending love and light always, April xxx