Nest.

What a silly, sad world we both fabricated and inhabited.

A totally isolated world, just the two of us.

So, of course, it was an utterly damned one. As if two young fools could ever maintain an entire world just the two of them.

But it wasn't necessarily a bad world. It did start with love.

Only that it was such a poor and unready love. One which carried us away.

It began as a nest.

We began to nest though we weren't ready to nest yet.

We were young, head-strong, ambitious, growing birds. 

We needed still to spread our wings and fly.

Not fall in love and nest.

Not yet.

It is not of course physical youth, one's age, that proclaims one to be too young to nest. To settle into such a love. All one must ask is... have I ever known myself? Have I given myself time alone? Enough time alone to uncover all things occurring, surfacing, driving, searching, desiring, motivating and stirring within oneself, such things that are not products of response but have been born purely of you.

A person must know flight. You must fly freely.

You should know what it feels like to roam and rule your own sky. 

To not compromise your direction, even if the compromise too is appealing.

To nest is for those whose wings have both, for the present moment, felt fully exercised. Tired and content from the pleasure of adventure. These wings will rest together, bodies will relax as one. They will come to breathe slow and in harmony, encouraging each other, for both know the strength that they will require if and when the time comes to fly again.

To fly with another is, too, for those already acquainted with flying free. Not only will they come to cherish rightly the shared exploring but they will not fall victim to developing a need for companionship. Need will serve only to narrow one's experience in the world.

To fly whilst in search and want of companionship can be done alone but it can never be free. Though too often it is mistaken as free. 

Not only by those spectating but also by oneself. Yet your eyes are scouring, your thoughts consumed, your heart yearning. 

Such restlessness confines you.

You must know a life, for a time, that you not only led alone but that you loved alone.

A life which showed you the power that exists within you, that proved to you that you are bigger than your mistakes, that you, and only you, define yourself. A life which taught you to recognise that your alone is your greatest strength and not a sign of lack.

Your time to nest will come and you will enjoy much companionship too, but please, fly freely first.

-Love from Bambi x

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My Choice.

A darling and kindred soul gave me a gift one day, and though the gift was small, its meaning, relevance, sentiment and importance to me was not.

To describe her, she is my soul in another. I feel peace with her. A love and attachment like no other. She nourishes me every day to think of her, of our friendship, to remember that there is such purity and beauty and care existing in this world. That is what my relationship with her is.

寂. She chose this character for me.

A stamp from a vintage Chinese typewriter. Of all the characters to choose, this was it. I do not believe at that moment she knew exactly why she had decided this one out of so many... but she saw me in it... or it in me.

With her I feel that even without words, in our quiet moments together, our hearts are very much open. Freely flowing. Even our differing native tongues do not confuse the closeness our hearts share. She chose a character of her tongue that had value for me. On receiving it, I understood more of myself than I had been able to put into words previously. I had not, until this moment, realised how unhindered my heart had been at expressing itself. How unhindered hers had been to understand.

寂. Alone. Solitude. Lonely. Quiet.

No more than a year ago, each of these words were not my allies in life.

Indeed, these were all, to me, sources of deep discomfort and unrest. I was not a peaceful creature and my aloneness was my greatest fear.

My solitude, I had none.

My loneliness, a weakness.

Quiet moments I would avoid.

Distractions and ignorance were my broken armour in life.

Separating from the Christian faith, I have battled with the idea that I could be of any possible value, could possess any sense of worth, could amount to anything of any importance on my own. Born into sin, after all, born from the very start to love I was told I did not deserve, my first perspective of the world was one where I was unworthy. I was to learn that I could only ever feel fulfilled and completed by the grace of god alone.

There was in fact no such thing as ever being alone or finding solitude within myself since both would be acts of my abandoning god. By doing so only emptiness and damage would ensue.

Not all that long ago, I found that I could not live the lifestyle my family's faith demanded of me. I ran away from their god. But I found I had nowhere to go. Like the confused, scared child I was, I hid. I never found freedom.

Entering into moments of quietness was disaster for me. Turmoil within that I could not face. My reason for being alone, for my loneliness, was my punishment from god for my inability to honour my family's faith and for my decision to shut myself off. My alone was a prison. I had run but I still remained stuck within the structure of my upbringing. The structure I could not escape. The mindset shaped me. 

Though I found myself many wonderful distractions, I, in my deepest being, was caged. I lived a life where I continued to neglect myself, my needs were too great and my insecurities too violent.

So, as any creature, neglected, would do, I grew desperately unhappy.

By now, so locked away deep inside was my Self, that my doings, thoughts and feelings all became as a stranger's to me. In time, my destructive ways finally did their very worst and I hurt the person I had come to care for the very most. 

I had lost myself to the point where I was either faced with guaranteed and ultimate self destruction... or with, at last, real, deep and foundational change. This was to be, albeit gradual, the turning point where I stopped hiding and freed myself entirely. To remove the structure of my life that had defined and confined me. And though I was, at this time, my own very worst enemy... I realised that I was, at the same time, my only saviour.

It is as though darkness and light met that day within me. That day I found strength from within my brokenness... why? Because I stopped seeing myself as a hopeless sinner (this, I had in fact been hiding behind, pitying myself for) and saw myself as a young girl, like any other, with a lot to learn. A girl wanting to learn and who deserved to learn but needed support, understanding, love and forgiveness to do so.

That day I found that I had the power to provide these things for myself by myself. Things that had always been free. That day my family's god returned power over my life to its rightful owner, to me.

None of this was easy. It has taken a long time and many moments of doubt and of feeling terrified in order to reach a place in my life where my alone was to become my strength. Now, I, alone, form the foundation upon which I stand in my life. My loneliness has empowered, grounded, shaped and refined me. It is now my closest ally. Embracing my alone has given me an assuredness and stability like I have never known. In my solitude can I now rest and feel safe, knowing that there is nothing to fear from those quiet moments any longer. There is nothing to fear because I now know the person I am faced with when I am alone... not a stranger any longer but a friend.

I cherish the moments I can spend with myself, developing a bond ever greater and an understanding ever deeper.

I place this character on a finger which symbolises commitment, love, trust and intimacy. 

A reminder. Wherever my future loves may wander, whoever I might welcome into my intimate moments, my first love is to myself.

No one can ever be more deserving and needing of your love and commitment than you. This is the hardest love to establish, maintain and uphold, but from this love all your other loves grow. They are given strong roots to flourish from and a steadfast shelter to call home.

Thank you, Cathy, for feeling my heart the way that you do. Thank you for your friendship which never ceases to inspire and better me. This character, from your mother tongue, is to forever remind me of the self reflection and analysis your gift prompted. To remember this year living in your country, hearing your language, every lesson I have learnt, the person I am becoming. To remember the love we share that knows no bounds. To remember you. To remember my choice.

Love from Bambi x

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Photos by Ray Han.

Rotten Blossom.

You wrongfully treat your past like dirty rags. Soiled, bitter memory that you strive to escape, to bury and discard. But it is in this moment your recent past has its deepest roots within you.

You want to hack at the sore remaining evidence. Stamp down those roots, break off those branches, throw away the fruit. Your life is a constant battle in secrecy. A case of futile, dishonest newness.

You are a conspiracy. A past becomes a sinner. A crime in your eyes.
You cannot dismantle your past, nor can you uproot it, unearth it, destroy it. Your own feet are stood firmly upon the earth that you curse. This earth is not to blame but your ability to use it well or to use it wrongly.

Your past is not a cause for shame.
And you, by trying to hide it, are not letting it grow naturally out of you. Bad deeds and doings, the fruits of a poorly cultivated tree.

Whilst they can be painful to display, they are but a sure sign and promise of progression. The potential of progression. This old tree, this old self that you grew, has blossomed.


Do not be hasty.
Do not be so blinded and ruled by shame to attack this tree. No. For it is on its natural life cycle. Growing and outgrowing, producing and losing. This offering it has produced has sprung, yes, but it will also grow old. A time of new cultivation is approaching. This is promised. Whether you will change your ways to encourage better fruit or continue this old path is all that remains uncertain.

 In life, you will year after year, grow, blossom, fruit and flower, weaken and fall, ready to begin once again.

 
Now, there are times when your life appears to have brought forth an ugly, unwanted display and offering.




Your fruit rotten and of no nutrient, your branches limp and leaves dull. Your state is so poor that you would rather no one see. You would wish to hack away at your poor self instead of baring it. To seek your own destruction is to never see it outgrow.

You will forever bare such offering if you do not consider new cultivation, your need of nurture and of care.

Do not be so fickle to forget that all things exist in such a cycle.
We blossom in the Spring, then are faced with the long hot and heavy Summer, the challenging and changing Autumn, and a Winter of letting go and of abandonment. Though it is hard to suffer so long in your weary state, do not fear these seasons.

Your blossom can be beautiful if you but allow these seasons to weather you, challenge and alter you in the way they are intended to. And although the change is never gentle, especially for you, the weakened, they are preparing you. They are teaching you the importance of better nurture and cultivation so that you may, in time, withstand them better.

So let yourself, all of you, be seen. To grow as you will. Allow yourself, no matter how rotten and ugly you feel, to survive, to change.






The Summer sun will decay your poor fruit, the Autumn winds will loosen your faded leaves and Winter's bite will strip you down... and you will be ready... as you deserve and as was intended, to blossom beautiful again.

Your old self, unburied, comes to reside and remain as the layers of bark beneath the new. And once you have blossomed brighter than ever before, you no longer see that old bark as a shameful thing. No one does. Now it exists as a source of your strength and character, alongside every other moment, every old past and every old self that you have ever known. Right where it belongs.

 
Love from Bambi x

Sun, Moon and Stars.

Love Like.

My love for him needn't make me irrational.
Oh, he is the sun, the moon and the stars in my eyes.

But the sun, the moon and the stars belong to this world.
Not to me.

That doesn't change how much I love them though.

A human being is, one ought always to remember,
A part of the world,
Never belonging to us.

Learn to love people the way you love this earth.
Be dazzled and drawn to them in the way the moon lulls you,
Admire and venerate them as you would give thanks for the sun,
Believe in them.
Have faith in and wonder for them like you do for the stars
On a silent night.

Love from a distance of those things utterly unattainable
Is as strong a love as any other love.

So remember these things you cannot possess
And love them.
Love them still.


Love from Bambi x



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Speak.

If one is not speaking well of some particular person and is instead speaking poorly of them, the first thing to do is to make that particular person anonymous.

Then, if the story still holds relevance, that is to say, if the point one wished to make is still of importance without shaming that particular person, then it is acceptable to speak it.

One ought only, behind another's back, speak good of them, if they are to be named.

Bringing up bad conduct, choices, words and personality of a person should only be talked of if there is some lesson to be learnt from it and by doing so, no person need be shamed, for such a thing is a shameful act in itself.

Love from Bambi x



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The Lucky One.

Countless times have I been told that I'm the 'lucky one', the one who escaped all the constant reminders and memories... the truth is not so simple.

Thousands of miles away but I have by no means run away.
If anything, I feel the change stronger. So easy is it for them, even surrounded by old haunts, to numb them. So easily can they fall back into old pasts and senses of security, or to ignite old flames.

Instead of forgetting, I have found distance has strengthened my memory. New places challenge and exercise ones brain. So much are you remembering new names and faces, streets and shortcuts, language and culture, that your memory becomes as powerful as ever.

So, you find yourself not running away from your past but knowing it better... better perhaps than you did when it was your present.

I am coming to know myself more.
I don't have those old, familiar comforts to fall back upon. And it has been the very most beneficial thing.

It is natural to desire support and comfort when hurt. It is no bad thing that we readily turn to our friends, family and familiar things we love. But leave this all behind and all you have is yourself. You and all your threads and tatters so openly exposed.

And where else can you look? Who else can you turn to?

You can but watch... and so you do.
With nobody to help fix you, you witness the most incredible thing. Your own Self begins to heal you.

Your body, heart and mind all step in and start their healing process... And you watch and you feel each delicately painful stitch and mend within you.

With nobody to look to,
to offer you the ease of distraction, you come to know your Self more.


You see now that you are made to love. Your own Self is driven by it, by a sheer determination and desire to see you restored. In this realisation, you find release. The healing will by no means be painless but you feel control because the control belongs to your Self.
And you draw closer and ever trusting to your Self. You see him working away, feel her picking up those pieces, holding you together.

We all, in life, will experience such a healing process. But so often do we rely on external things to restore us, that we never witness the level of love our own Selves show us, or the extent to which our Selves will go to to make us whole. Consequently, we never recognise or come to know this loving, strong, driven Self within us.

But within you is a Self of such love. A Self that you can rely on and completely trust with your brokenness and hardships. This Self is your most loyal, kind and loving companion in life but a companion we often neglect to even acknowledge exists.

Distance draws you closer to your Self.
So, in a way, I am the 'lucky one' for I have made very good friends with the one companion whom I may always depend on for assurance, strength, faith and love. And close I shall always remain.

- Love from Bambi x

Twenty-Fifteen.

2015 has been a year of change. It has blessed and broken me, it has stumbled and uplifted me, it has transformed and humbled me.

Looking back at this year rather amazes me. I can honestly say that I will be entering 2016 feeling more 'myself' than ever before. Feeling more hopeful, excited, inspired and fulfilled than I have ever known.

...But at the same time, I cannot neglect to think back on the things that brought me to this place. The extent to which I lost myself, neglected and hurt myself to the point where I became destructive even to those I loved.

This beautiful article got me re-assessing this past year. I highly recommend you read it HERE. No. 3 had a particularly strong meaning for me:"Say goodbye to all the moments you were not so proud of; forget them and remember that you are a human being who is still learning how to live."

Many, I am sure, will tonight be looking back at a year with a few less than desireable memories. Regretful moments where we let ourselves and others down. I would imagine too, that many will see the start of this new year as a chance of escape from the past we're not so proud of, an opportunity to abandon the old you for someone different, someone better.

But there is no such thing as abandoning one's past, your past is the very thing that defines you. The only thing you can change is the way in which you perceive your past. We can change how we understand and accept our old selves. Through this we put reason and meaning to even our worst moments and give ourselves new hope.

Without understanding our own wrong-doings, how can we hope to prevent repeating them? As a human, you are capable of the greatest love but also, i'm afraid, of the utter most wrong. There will be times in your life where you will slip toward such darkness.

I know the most monstrous in me.
I've danced with my darkest shades, painted the very worst image of myself, the kind I never thought possible. I know how terrifying it is to know this inhabits you. I also know how much more terrifying it is to question it. To pull that thread and unravel yourself, to leave yourself exposed and vulnerable.

Who truly wants to know themselves as their own worst nightmare? To know the capacity that they have for inflicting such hurt? For what I did, I never thought it possible to experience full forgiveness within.

However hurtful, spiteful, inconsiderate, or out-right evil this wrong that you committed, it is only through your own forgiveness that you can change. If you feel that you cannot, then you are not understanding yourself and not accepting yourself.
 
To hurt oneself, and often, consequently hurt others, is but a clear sign of a person not knowing themself fully. No person who knows complete peace, contentment or acceptence inflicts hurt, for our actions in life are a reflection of our inner most being. Through experience do we learn what we do and do not want to see in our lives. It is by greater understanding and knowing and accepting and forgiving of our past that we can grow from it.

So strong was my desire to never know that piece of me again, that I soon realised I needed to know what it was, what caused it, in order to prevent it.

From this moment of realisation did my desire in life dramatically change, my perspective alter entirely. I now know myself to be that which I love and that which I hate, to be that which enhances others and that which cripples them, to be that which is growing and that which is lost.

With such new understanding of the reflections of myself that I am capable of showing, I can choose that which serves me best. It is such an encouragement to us all at this turning point of another year, that no bad thing has the power to hold you back. Your growth is in your own hands.

So I welcome this new year with such strength in assurance that it is indeed possible to inhabit the very best vision of myself I can imagine. Through forgiveness I can really be free... And I must say, I've never been more excited.

- Love from Bambi x

P.S. Please do read the ARTICLE, it's worth every minute of your time.

Gratitude.

A thankful heart this Christmas, please.

If I could have but this and this alone, nothing else, I would truly be the richest of people. From a thankful heart such abundance flows. For a thankful heart is the single most Self benefiting and building thing one can possess.

A thankful heart is grateful no matter what. Gratitude is an act before it is even a feeling and the choice to be thankful is made within your heart.

Gratitude is thus in each and every person's grasp... it is resulting not of our circumstance or situation but from our choosing.

It is the sad case that people have become blind to their own access to such gratitude. We've become shaped by the world's decision, by such societal deviations from truth's purity, that we have let ourselves be told what is deserving of gratitude. What we should value in life, what makes a person rich, what we should strive to achieve, own, be. We are constantly fed standards that we begin to apply in our lives.

But you are as rich and as valuable and as blessed as you choose to be.
You choose to be thankful in life, or you choose not to be.

If you just take your focus away from what you're told makes you fortunate or rich in life, be this how many friends you have, how many things you possess, your physical appearance, how many opportunies are open to you... you would find that you are rich in yourself. You are worth being grateful for. 

You are worth it because you have the innate ability to enjoy and experience great pleasure.

Start by being thankful for the littlest things. A colour that you love. A smell that attracts you. Warmth and the feeling of it on your skin. A sound that is beautiful to your ears. A melody that draws you in and comforts you. Be thankful in the knowing that there is no knowledge in this world you are incapable of understanding, in the knowing that every day is a new opportunity to be the best version of yourself that you can imagine.

A simple act, each and every day, of being thankful for such things, the things that please you which you did not make or achieve or determine and nor did anyone else. This kind of gratitude for the things unexplainable that you enjoy, the things so personal to your inner being, is the very root of gratitude in all aspects of life.

No one need tell you, nor could they, what enjoyment you should experience from the feeling of the sun warming your face or why you love to stretch your arm out the window to feel the pouring rain.
You just enjoy. So you see, you are a naturally thankful creature. We all are.

Choosing to be thankful is choosing to be you in your most natural Self.
It is but the letting go of the norms and constructed values of an unhappy, ungrateful and out-of-touch society that will reveal this Self buried within you.

So know that this Christmas time, the very best gift you could possibly receive comes from yourself. Give gratitude this Christmas time and know the endless blessing and joy that forever follows.

-Love from Bambi x


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Love.

We have manipulated love so much.

We have turned it into some kind of ownership, where we believe that when we love and are loved in return, we must give a name to this. We feel something and we want something to show for it, to create something that our mind's can comprehend.

You cannot grasp love.
Love is a feeling too grand to be interpreted, summarised or encapsulated. Any attempt to do so is to immediately limit it.

Yet we so readily turn the love we feel into a partnership that we are committed to and expect commitment from. Consistent, long-term, even indefinite commitment.

But love is free.

We even tell ourselves that it is free - we know it is - that we would never dream of being caged or of caging another... but the very idea of perceiving love as a form of greater or lesser ownership of another, and expecting their commitment in return, is not allowing love its full freedom.


We are trying to define love. To explain it. Love exceeds our small concept of relationship.


People find themselves struggling and striving for their love. Sacrificing themselves for their love. It appears as though we place such importance in our relationship with this significant other, that we pay our relationship with our own life less attention and care.

You ought to follow your desires in life. To go where you want, to take the opportunities so appealing to you, the experiences that you crave. Your first love in life is to yourself and it is therefore betraying love to sacrifice your desires for the sake of another.

Perhaps we have forgotten the very reason we are with someone?
We personify our love. We believe our love is the person that is stirring it within us... but they are not love. They are the channel that love, the pure feeling itself, is using to pass through to you. So even when that person ceases to be that channel, you have not lost love. Love chooses many channels and you are one too.

There is a chance that love may channel through one person all of your life. The likelihood however, because of Love's free nature, is it will change its path.

People are so different. This is a good thing. We have such vastly differing wants and desires, hopes and dreams. There are times where we share the same wants and dreams as others. It is at these times when love can flow naturally between the two. In this instance, people may choose to be in a relationship together, to give their love a name so that they, and perhaps more importantly, others, can comprehend what they are experiencing. And as long as both people harbour the same pursuits, or at least their differing pursuits are fitting of each others, their love is still flowing freely.

But people's wants and aspirations do change.
When thoughts of sacrificing genuine, good and natural desires appear, this is not how love was intended. Now, for love to flow, it must be stimulated, worked at, forced even. This relationship becomes one of commitment and no longer of simply being.

It is as if we believe our relationship IS love. When in reality, we have become more concerned with our relationship and we no longer listen to love.

Many sacrifices are made in the name of love. Yet love does not ask for sacrifice. People ask for sacrifices to be made.

Love is not a contract but a feeling to be shared freely between two people both knowing that love can never be tied down.

Yet people put aside their desire for new experience in order to maintain their love, even though love will flow with us along new life paths, we are so fixed on our love in another.
We are scared to lose our love, but there is no loss in love. There is only changing flows and transitions.

Love is a feeling, not a person.

You open your heart to let love flow through, this should not be mistaken for giving your heart away.
When people feel they've lost their heart, or left it behind with some special someone, they've simply lost touch with themselves and feel so lacking and numb that they are unaware of their own heart. It is there still. Your heart is forever loyal to you, so be loyal to it in return.

Learn to listen to love once again. Learn to be close to love itself, and then, no matter how often the channels love chooses may change, you will feel love close to you always.

So love openly, wildly, wholeheartedly, but most importantly, love freely.

Know that your love may wander, that the channel for your love can change. Know that this is Love's nature and no bad thing. Love goes beyond relationship and beyond a person, for these are but the tools and channels that love possesses.




 
Let your love for yourself be the love you nurture most. Be true to what your love in life is telling you to follow and chase. Out of all the hearts in this world, yours is the only one you will truly keep forever so invest in it fiercely. Let your love be free and let it be yours so you will one day look back at your life knowing you were loyal and faithful to your one true first love, yourself.

Allow love its freedom and it will breeze through your heart like an open window. And it is true, for some, love may last only a short sweet while, and for others their love will be so entwined it can last a lifetime. But all love shared, no matter how long for, is the very same love.


- Love from Bambi x


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Photo credit: Diana Llorens Vicente

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.