Creative Infusions – Malhar Jam by Agam, Coke Studio MTV Season 2

Sometimes taking something old and current, and infusing creativity and freshness into it, is all it takes to make it exciting all over again. Relationships, work, travel, clothing…finding a new way to approach the same thing can make the world more exciting and inspire the playful child that is always there deep inside each and every one of us.

In today’s post we’re featuring the music of a band called Agam all the way from soulful India. Agam’s style is classified by the original and inspiring blend of Indian classical music and rock. In Malhar Jam , Agam breathes new life into an old Indian raga called Malhar which, according to the stories of the ancients , was so powerful as to bring down rains from the heavens when sung .This one together with my freshly brewed coffee made my day…..hope it makes yours too :-)…and yeah it did rain for a while for me..joyously and thunderously!

The Business of Being Beautiful

Today, I would like to share a truly inspirational story about a young girl who at one time , on YouTube, was called the Ugliest Woman in the World.  Lizzie Velasquez  has been suffering from a disorder so rare, that only 3 people in the world including herself have it currently. As a consequence of this disorder, she is unable to gain weight. At age 23,  she only weighs about 60 lbs and has an overall body fat percentage of zero. She is blind in one eye and also has limited vision in the other. Doctors think Velasquez has neonatal progeroid syndrome, a condition that causes fat loss in the face and body, aged facial appearance, sparse hair, and a prominent scalp amongst other things. Yet despite being saddled with a label that would scar and dehumanise the rest of us for possibly an entire lifetime, Lizzie has gone on to become a motivational speaker and writer. She has become someone that we can all admire, respect and emulate for the grace with which she has conducted herself, and for the way, through her story, she informs the rest of the world, what the concept of real beauty is all about. To read Lizzie’s story, please refer to the link http://shine.yahoo.com/beauty/lessons-worlds-ugliest-woman-stop-staring-start-learning-184400606.html as featured in today’s Shine From Yahoo.

What do you feel when you look at Lizzie’s picture in this post. Do you feel she deserved to be called The World’s Ugliest Woman. Is it right for anyone to be making a judgement on someone just because in their eyes she looks unacceptable. What kind of person would go so far as to call someone ugly, especially someone whose looks are a result of a rare illness. How would you feel if someone called you the Ugliest Person in the World.

The truth is that our concepts of beauty are not really our own. From the time we are young we are bombarded with images of cosmetic beauty which most of the men and women living in the real world do not really match up to. We see on the television, in the movies, and in the magazines perfect compositions of demi god like males and females with impossibly perfect bodies and made for the camera good looks. In actuality, many of these models really do not look as perfect in real life. With similar lighting, and airbrushing even we’d look like stars. Beauty apparently means confirming to certain size specifications and aesthetic qualities and a lot of us find ourselves disappointed when we do not look remotely “beautiful” in this sense of the word. In addition to this, the cosmetic beauty industry, where most of our concepts of perfection come from, operates a multi billion dollar empire feeding off of our desire to emulate what they purport as beauty perfection.

Think about it.

We are fed constantly streaming images of what we should look like. Then we are fed images of products that can help us achieve the advertised look. And for maximum impact, it is implied that should we buy xxx product and become truly beautiful, we really can be happy, find the perfect man, get rich and be successful forever.

What kind of world have we created where beauty is all about looking a certain way. Should we be spending all our time priming and primping ourselves to fit a notion of aesthetic beauty that aside from making a lot of people with vested interests rich, really does nothing to elevate us as human beings. Beauty is more that skin deep. It is a reflection of all that is true and beautiful in a person. When we can really look at someone and see the qualities of humanity that shine out from them and love them for who they are, that’s when we’ve truly arrived as a race. And when we can step out into the world , truly respecting our bodies for they way they serve us and for the way they look in the here and the now, that’s when we can really say we are truly beautiful.

Far from cowering with shame at being called the World’s Ugliest Woman, Lizzie has made it her life’s mission to spread the important messages of developing your self esteem, overcoming obstacles and finding and realising the beauty that is inside of you. If you’re the one, amongst many, struggling with body confidence issues today, know this.

You are an incredible creation wrought by the hands of God. If you only knew how truly beautiful you are in the eyes of the One who made you , you will never have reason to call yourself anything but beautiful ever again.  When God loves you just the way you are, you deserve to love yourself and others too.

God bless.

© Irene Lopez  and An Urban Mystic’s Blog, 2012.

Space Clearing – Declutter Your Life Now, Part I

Sometimes clearing the spaces that we inhabit, whether it is our home or our office, is all it takes to kickstart our life and give it some much needed energy and vitality. The places that we dwell in and what we make of them are reflective of who we are and how we live our lives.

Do you find that you are unable to move forward in your career despite trying as hard as you could. You despair that opportunities do not come to you easily. Maybe your relationships need work. Or you’re forever running over budget, and money just seems to walk out the same door it came walking in through. Your love life could do with a rehaul. Check that. Maybe your entire life could do with a rehaul.

Look closely at your home today for it holds vital clues to the state of your current existence. Making simple and effective changes to your living spaces in turn produces equally effective changes in your existence and how you move forward in your day to day living.

Decluttering Your Life

Does your home have piles and piles of clutter in the form of old mouldy papers, magazines and files you no longer need. Are there vast expanses of cds, books, clothes,stretching to as endless as the sea. Are you afraid to let them go. Maybe you’re a hoarder. You desperately cling to what was past and gone before. When you hold onto things in your living spaces which are old and have outrun their use, you broadcast a message out into the Universe saying you are not prepared to receive new opportunities. Simply because all the space that you have in your life is currently occupied by the past. You hesitate to let go and you do not trust the Universe to provide for you. This is especially true with the things that we keep “just in case”. Look closely into your home and your office. Go through it with a fine toothed comb. What are the things that you are clinging to. That old worn out t-shirt of sentimental value. The gift presented to you by your ex-boyfriend. Rows and rows of books which you hesitate to give away or throw away. Make a decision to dedicate one or several weekends to go through your home and your office. Cover every nook and cranny, whether it’s under the bed, the long forgotten corners, or under the stairways. Get rid of all the clutter that you no longer need. Emptying your life of  all your old, unwanted and unnecessary things, frees up your energy to receive new people and opportunities.

Keep Your life In Running Order

Stop for a moment to think about all the things that need work in your home. Are your faucets leaky. Are you door knobs in order. Maybe your equipment needs fixing. How about that broken light bulb. Did you ever get around to pulling the weeds from your garden like you’ve been meaning to. Make the time to tend to all the things that need fixing in your home as soon it is possible for you. Things that are long pending to be repaired in your home are reflective of the fact that you are not paying attention to things that need repairing in your life. Start to work on them today so that your thought processes whether consciously or otherwise no longer dwell on things that need to be repaired. Free up your to-do list this way, and you will find that your life starts to flow more smoothly in keeping with the orderly way your house now runs.

Clear And Energise Your Entrance

If all the most beautiful, properous, vital and happiest energies in the Universe decided one day to go prospecting some blessed souls today, would your house be one of their top picks. Think about it. How does the entrance to your home look. Does it look bright and inviting, clear and well lit. Or does it look unkempt, untidy, dull and blocked with things that should not have been there in the first place. If opportunities do not flow into your life as freely as you wish they would, take the time to also clear your entrance way. The entrance to your home should always be clean and well maintained and free from clutter. There should be enough lighting for it to be warm and welcoming. When you enter the hearth of your home the first thing that you see should be something that gladdens your heart. Whether it’s a picture or a painting or a beautiful almirah. When your home is beautifully kept and inviting, the Universe will not hesitate for a moment in gifting you with even more light and beauty.

Facelift With Positivity

The colors, images, and objects that you surround yourself with resonant deeply with the technicolor motion picture of your life. Surround yourself with positive images. Choose pictures of smiling, happy people, over sad dour-faced ones. Color your walls with uplifting colors in light warming or cooling shades. Avoid starkness, and extremely bright or dark colors. Your objects d’art should make you smile inwardly or outwardly when you see them. Ensure your homes are bright and well lit with appropriate lighting schemes. Stock your fridge with wholesome, natural produce. Invite natural beauty into the home with plants, flowers and pretty shrubs. Your life starts to look brighter and more positive with the increasing positivity of your home.

Love the Space You Are In

Do you feel an emotional connection with your home. Most people surprisingly don’t and this reflects in the disconnect they feel in their own lives. Learn to love and respect the home that you’ve made for yourself. Change the things about it that you do not like and fill it with more of the things that you do. The more you care for you dwelling spaces, the more you learn to appreciate and be grateful for the things that you already have in your life. An attitude of happiness and gratefulness in the things that you have now is the chief means to receiving even greater abundance and joy right now. Our lives are not in the future or what might be. They are here in this moment which is always and abdundantly full of infinite possibility.

Opening Up To Freshness And vitality

Bring freshness and vitality into your homes by regularly opening out the doors and windows. Allow natural light to lift the energy in your spaces. Spring clean and detox regularly. Maintaining our homes is equivalent to maintaining our lives. The energy and enthusiasm that we put into bringing fresh energy into our homes will eventually show up in the optimistic and happy changes that we are more easily able to make in our own lives.

Shifting the energies of our homes and offices pays rich dividends in the way the energy shifts in our lives. The more you follow these practices, the more you will start to see the changes in your life. And all of them will be positive and uplifting.

In Part II of this series, we will explore a Space Clearing Ceremony which you can perform to turbo-charge the energy in your home.

Untill then, God bless. Much love and happiness.

© Irene Lopez  and An Urban Mystic’s Blog, 2012.

In Search of Love

The greatest feeling in the world is that of being loved.  We long for it and dream of it. Some of us yearn for it with an all encompassing passion reminiscent of the thirst for a drop of water in a hot barren desert with only sun and sand in sight for miles around.

Rumi, one of the world’s most revered mystical poets had something to say about love. He said “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

In other words, there are things that you think and do that stop you from receiving an abundance of love in your life. Awareness is the key to identifying and releasing these barriers that we carry in our hearts. So today, let’s look at these barriers within yourself that you have built against love and let go of them one by one.

Loving yourself

Loving yourself is a very important and crucial part of receiving love. If you do not love yourself, all the situations that you draw into your life will reflect the way you actually feel about yourself. In other words, if you constantly tell yourself you are ugly and that nobody loves you, guess what!, you will attract people and situations into your life that affirm these thoughts that you have about yourself, whether it’s the boyfriend who keeps picking on your looks or whether it’s you being the butt of jokes wherever you go.

Lesson Nbr 1: Make up your mind from this very moment that you are a beautiful, incredible being, deserving and worthy of love. Look at yourself in the mirror every morning , peer deeply into you eyes with immense love and compassion, and say to yourself “I am an incredibly beautiful person. I deserve the best that life has to give me. I am worthy and deserving of love. I am deeply loved and I am surrounded by love always” It may be difficult in the beginning , especially after a life time of self bashing thoughts, but persevere and slowly but surely you will start to see the changes in your life.

Barriers to receiving Love

If I were to tell you that right now your Soulmate is waiting for you just outside your door longing to see you , what would be your first reaction. What is the first thought that comes into you mind. No cheating, and you have 10 seconds to respond!

You’d be surprised at some of the answers people have to give to this question. “Oh I’m tooo fat. I need to lose 10 kilos” or “I’m not sure if this person is the one for me, let’s see” or ” So soon?.. I’m not ready!” etc. If your reaction was any of  these,  is it any surprise you have yet to find your Soulmate.

Think about it. “So soon?..I’m not ready yet”. In other words you expect your Soul mate to come into life in some future time, but you don’t expect it to happen now. You think this will happen some time later and you’re not ready for it if it comes into your life straightaway. If you constantly go through life with this expectation, would it be any surprise that your soulmate hasn’t arrived, when all you do is think that it’s something that’s going to happen in the future. Allow yourself to expect that your soulmate is available now and that you are happy and excited about his presence now. The more you think in terms of having you soulmate now, the more you will actually have him or her now.

Another example ” Oh.. I’m not skinny yet. I need to lose 10 kilos”. Accept yourself the way you are. Find the joy and beauty of who you are in this moment. Make a plan to lose your weight, but affirm in this moment and forever more that you are worthy of receiving your mate now, that your mate loves you the way you are now.

So Lesson Nbr 2: Look at the thoughts that you have in your mind that stop you from receiving love, and decide from now on , you will give those thoughts a positive slant with the expectation that you are already in receipt of love, and above all, incredibly worthy and deserving of it.

Gratefulness

We often bump into people that constantly carp about the things that are wrong in their life. They are cranky , irritable and miserable and drag everybody else down with them into their cesspool of negativity. Do not expect the Universe to reward you with the things you want if you are not grateful for what you already have.You will attract things into your life that are a reflection of what you believe. If you constantly go through life thinking, ” I hate my life”, your situation will continue to be the same. It is not going to get better when your soul mate arrives, when you have a new job or when you have a new house. You will still continue to find reasons to hate life. Instead of looking at life this way, think in terms of ” I love my life, I have everything I need.I am grateful and happy for all the things that are there in my world. Life is beautiful” When you think in this manner,  you will constantly be amazed . An attitude of gratefulness creates expectancy of good things to come and a joyfulness in things already received. The Universe will shower you with blessings that support your new found positive state of mind.

So Lesson Nbr 3: Thing in terms of gratefulness for all love that you are receiving now, and you will continue to receive more of the same in leaps and bounds.

It’s true that many of us have gone through an incredible amount of pain and trauma in our past relationships which makes us wonder whether we could ever be capable of giving or receiving love again. To this I say, Time is a great healer, but it is more important to learn to release your pent up feelings of pain and sadness to return to your natural state of joy . We cannnot go through the rest of our lives feeling hurt, bitter or angry. You deserve the best in life and you are incredibly deserving to receive all the wonderful things that life has to offer. Hang in there , it will get better.

In future pages and blog posts I will be looking at how to heal from past hurts in more detail. For now, know this.

Love surrounds you always. Align your thoughts towards positivity and the expectancy of great things to come, because The Universe is waiting on the outskirts to shower you with more blessings than you ever dreamed possible.

Much love.