Growth.

I've been up and down, back and forth recently. Hearts a little heavier again. Carly Simon's beautiful voice sung these words to me during a particularly low moment, "so don't mind if I fall apart, there's more room in a broken heart". I needed those words.

So rarely does one hear a 'broken heart' being talked of as a positive thing. When in fact, nothing in this life has not the potential for goodness. So, what if we were to see heartbreak as an incredible chance for growth? The granting of an opening up to a new magnified level of appreciation and feeling?
Choosing good to come from heartbreak does not, of course, vanish the hurt... but it has the ability to make the suffering one experiences lighter, for one knows they are gaining from it.

Before it is broken, a heart feels complete and wholesome. It is much more restrictive of what it allows inside... much more decisive and controlled. Though its capacity is still huge, you can regulate what infiltrates your heart, the love you give and receive, much easier.

A broken heart is a total life transformation.
 

The immediate connotations we make when we think of 'to break' are naturally bad things. To break apart... to break down... but how about to break open? When a heart breaks, it breaks open.

Openness.

When you find your heart is broken, the channels that flow into and out of it become all of a sudden vastly exposed, for your heart is more open and vulnerable than ever.
In our heartbreak, we can choose to respond in two ways.

One way, the most common, is to respond to this hurt by putting an extra guard up. To defend your vulnerable hurt against all that it is newly exposed to. To cling desperately to these opened, exposed, wounded parts and to try protect what you feel you have left. This is a response of fear. This person feels the pain that the brokenness has created and considers the heartbreak to be destructive.

They in turn let it become damaging.

So hurt are they that they see all the world to be as vultures circling them like scraps. They no longer see kindness and beauty.
They allow this experience of brokenness to become one of fending off, fighting against, clinging onto, grasping at... desperate attempts to somehow return their heart to what is had once been.

These are useless and unnecessary attempts. You will struggle continuously to regain what you had because you have, in fact, lost nothing.

Heartbreak is not the result of someone taking away from you... be it your joy, peace or innocence... heartbreak is a process of re-shaping and alteration.
Nothing has been lost and there is nothing you can try to 'get back'.

Let's face it, relationships change us, we know that is part of the deal before we enter them, so be prepared to feel greatly changed when their impact upon you is as strong as heartbreak.

Those who recognise their brokenness and see their vulnerability as an okay thing, not something to fear, respond through love.

They come to embrace this broken openness. They take advantage of this easier heart flow. They succumb to their vulnerability. And what flows out is love, and flows gratitude, honesty, kindness, confusion, sadness even... all feelings that our hearts contain find themselves free to be carried by this pure and unhindered flow.

A broken heart is the perfect vessel for the pouring out of and into, for it is fully open.

All that the heart is now so freely pouring out, will in turn, flow back. Open hearts act this way.









Those who turn their vulnerabilities into openness experience such greater connection in life. A river of a flow exists between open hearts.

So know that your hurt can help you. It is giving you this opportunity to be more ready to gain than ever before

There truly is more room in a broken heart, a heart that has broke open.


- Love from Bambi x


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Grudges.

They are ugly to wear and are of absolutely no benefit to your life. They do you no good thing.

To hold a grudge is ultimately to foster a constant illness inside of you, a negativity. Your life can never be one of true liberation and joy if you allow this darkness a permanent inhabitance within you. Even in moments when you are not immediately entertaining the feeling, you possess it. It is a feature in your life.

Whatever wrong another's done to you, leading you to feel this “chip on your shoulder”, it is the most counter-productive and self destructive thing to allow their wrong to stumble you. And yes, it is up to you whether you allow it to effect you or not.

This is where the power of perspective is key.

You and your ultimate inner peace is the single most important thing in your life.

To have ill feeling towards someone is to disturb that peace. 

This grudge you hold can feel totally justifiable, and depending on your perspective, it is justifiable.

However, when you believe this, you might also believe that to let the grudge go is a sign of weakness, of not 'standing up for oneself'.

...but if that is the case, ask yourself, what is this 'self' you stand up for? A self that harbours such feelings that produce frustration towards a person, anger, bitterness and hurt.

None of these are feelings belonging to a person at total peace with themselves because such feelings do not produce peace and contentment.

So, if this 'self' you wish to stand up for, is in fact, a self that is peaceful, joyful and contented, then you will have no desire to entertain such a thing as a grudge.

This self knows that it is the letting go of negative outside influences and greater inner focus that create the stability that is so fruitful for their life.

This self is endlessly more strong than the self that succumbs to negativity and gives others control over their peace. They accept such a hindrance to their own happiness.

This hindrance cannot enhance you, build you or nourish you.

This you should avoid.

Decide to live for yourself. Decide to be at peace in this life. We have but only a short time to enjoy it, do not limit your own capacity for joy.

The moving away from what is negative in your life naturally frees space for that which is positive.

You at this very moment are in full control of the amount of positivity and negativity you have in your life. Choose positivity, you have the power to.

What others may call a 'shame', a 'disaster' or a 'hardship', put purpose and meaning to it, create good that can come from it.

Of course, you are not immune to being hurt, but you have the capability to let that hurt become something that makes you realise your strength in life and your ultimate loyalty to yourself. You show yourself the love you deserve by choosing not to let the actions of others damage you, by this you come to live a wholesome life without regrets or limitations on joy.

Amend your past before you concern yourself with your future.

It is the past that builds, shapes and creates you after all. So if any negativity toward a person, place or thing still remains in your past, change it.

Change it so that your past no longer holds anything undesirable.

And now may it provide you with the perfect clean slate, the good and pure foundation to build your future upon.

- Love from Bambi x


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5am.

This beautiful song has totally gripped me...

Amber Run - 5am (Music Video)

“And you don't know what you've got until it's gone.

And you don't know who to love until you're lost.

And you don't know how to feel until the moment's lost.

I wish you would live like you were made of glass.”

Made of glass.

Imagine if you really were though… really made of glass.

Think how careful with yourself you would be. How kind and how gentle and how loving to yourself you would be. You would be so aware of your needs, your need for protection and maintenance. If you were made of glass you would not act recklessly or put yourself at risk of  unnecessary hurt. You would show yourself better respect.

But how far from the truth even is this?

Indeed, you are a beautiful but delicate thing. We all are.

Yet we forget this about ourselves. Because we cannot directly see the damage we are putting ourselves in danger of, we forget how easy we are to damage.

You so desperately need to be caring, kind, gentle and loving to yourself. First and foremost. Always. The only way to do so is to know yourself better, to recognise your fragility.

If you do not, you live all aspects of your life with nowhere near the amount of awareness and understanding that you could.

As a consequence you let such precious things pass you by, you lose things that need not have been lost, not at that time. You do not appreciate the things that life gifted you.

By not showing ourselves the care we need, we live carelessly.

Because you have not shown yourself goodness, you do not know how to be good to and for others…

And now, these good things are gone, those you should have loved you never valued, the most pure feelings you could have felt, had you known your capacity, have passed.

And because you are, like glass, perfectly breakable, you find yourself shattered. Heart broken.

And suddenly you know what you had, and you know who to love, and you know what to feel.

Because never before have you been so aware of yourself. Self awareness is the first step to life awareness.

I was so self-unaware. My entire life.

Never did I realise that to be good for others I needed to teach my own self what this goodness was, I needed to show it to myself first. To learn and respect that I was too delicate to live for pleasing others, that if I did not first please myself, I would end up falling apart.

It is unhealthy to be in a relationship with someone, to put the stress of stretching forth love to that person, when your own heart is going without. 

It is not right to burden another with the responsibility of maintaining and nurturing us. This is utterly impossible as a matter of fact and the longer we do it, the stronger our pain will be. It was not them and their lack of love, care and kindness that broke us, it was ourselves.

Some find themselves at this point of brokenness and they succumb to it. This can only lead to further damage, more days, months or even years of total ignorance to the fact that only we can save ourselves. We need to show ourselves the love that we wish to see in our lives. And no matter how low one may feel, that love is always in us.

You deserve to be whole. You have everything in you to make yourself whole again and you deserve to know it, to feel and experience it.

“Is this really what we envisaged? We won't be 21 again.”

Continue to live without awareness and you will let those good things, those pure moments, pass you by. If you live life with no mindfulness of their value, you live a life of half the riches.

This is not what you should envisage for your life. Do not accept this life for yourself.

 I am 21 and with so many years ahead of me, I don't want to let one more go by where I do not appreciate what I have until I have lost it, or I don't openly and freely cherish the people who are best for me, the people I should love, or where I feel so out of tune with myself I cannot feel the magnificent heights I am truly capable of feeling.

Glass does not break easily when the structure that holds and maintains it is strong. So live as though you were made of glass by being aware of yourself, by being good and kind and gentle and loving to yourself. Only when we do this can we offer such goodness to others. Goodness that can be truly benefiting, constructive, pure and eternal.



-Love from Bambi x

P.S. Don't forget to give the song a listen HERE and to check out this wonderful 'Amber Run' on FACEBOOK.

Images...

Although the song reflects sentiments from the moment of broken realisation, I chose to capture the stage before. The stage of limitation and self unawareness.

The surroundings are, naturally, extremely confining. Representative of a life unenlightened. Totally bare surroundings and bare bodied. No decoration or attraction in this half living. What good would they be to the blind?

The flowers, dead, are held dear and treasured. They are the only possession in this box of a life. The flowers are the self offered to others.

They have long since wilted and faded from their original beauty. This person has not nurtured and cared for what they would wish to offer the world. Shown no love to their 'self'. 

Blinded. Totally restricted. 

So unaware are they of their life, their limited surroundings, the condition of their sole possession. 

Until their eyes are open to the condition they are in, they will forever offer the world so little in comparison to what they could. If they were but unblinded, they would become aware of their own neediness and take the time and care to nurture themselves back to full strength and beauty.

Gain.

I was in love. I am in love.

Why do we see loss as a negative thing?
Loss means gain. Loss is gain and gain is loss. This is one of life's many balances. You do not have one without the other. They are one and the same.

So.
Should we then every time we gain, fear loss? No, no, no.
Because loss will soon enough lead to new gaining. It always does.

Holding tight to temporary gains will only make the loss harder, not avoid it, and then the eventual new gain will not be so gratefully and readily received because one is still holding tight to ones past.

Often we are so desperately holding on to past losses, we do not even realise the new gains presented to us! So much are we mourning over the past, we close ourselves from the new opportunities, friendships, and most commonly, new loves, that are ours for the taking - for the experiencing!

It was good. It was right. It was even perfect perhaps.
But it was for then. He was for that time.

If we only look at this natural process of 'loss and gain, and gain and loss' as a positive and progressive thing in life, we can only reap its benefits. Life's benefits as pure as they were intended.

The loss of loves, friendships,  wealth, lives, the loss of anything need not threaten us.
Naturally, we will grieve, please do grieve. But it is such a natural and intrinsic thing in life - to lose - that you will find we are more than capable of processing it.

It is our choice how we allow something to affect us long-term. How we can either grow from something or let it restrict us.

I love him still. My memories with him. But I do not miss him in sorrow, instead I am eternally thankful for the time life gave me with him.
I am thankful for my loss, for only now am I once more fully open to gain from life again.

To gain new experiences, new personality, new approaches, new freedoms, new loves.

- Love from Bambi x


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Photo credit: Louie Syred

Nostalgia.

It is good to miss things.
It is testament to the fact that you enjoyed something in life so worth feeling sad about its absence.

Sadness in loss is not one dimensional. It is the opposite of joy in possession. Part of a balance.

In this sense, even when you feel sad, an element of joy exists. You cannot ever be without joy, not even in your lowest moments. And in this, we can find such hope. Your sadness is a mere tipping of a balance, a balance which can just as easily be tipped back the other way.

Take comfort in the sadness from your losses. Let them humble you, ground you and teach you.

When you have an understanding of this balance and you recognise that joy and sadness are but two ends of the same scale, you can learn how to maintain yourself in the middle. You can find a place of mutual balance in your life.

 
You will be able to rejoice in moments of sorrow - for you appreciate that you would not feel sad over something that had not provided such pleasure.
You will be able to mourn in moments of joy - for you know that it is through personal hurt and hardships that you are able to feel such gratitude for good things.

You come to control your experience of such feelings, you lead them instead of being led by them. You are comfortable with both joy and sadness and can thus live them both in harmony.

- Love from Bambi x

Me.

Here's to new starts and fresh beginnings! 

My name is Bambi.