Who is your ChakraBabe?

What is the meaning of Valentine’s Day? Someone asked that question in response to our Facebook post of a picture of cupcakes last night. My daughter was at her best, destroying my kitchen and making some people very happy today as they indulged in her hot pink Capezzoli Di Venere delights.

My answer is heart shaped pizza. At least that’s what we are having for dinner tonight. Which, in turn, makes my girls happy. But I’ve thought about it all day. What is the point of all the candy, flowers and the general hub bub?

Obviously the answer is love, but that’s a broad statement. My Valentine ‘s version of love is the kind most often lacking. Think about it, the deliverables, the deadlines, the time spent taking care of the kids… The love most often lacking is the type you show yourself. Thirty minutes with a book, a yoga class – a little self care. Who will do those things for you if you fail to do them for yourself?

A very wise friend once told me, “love is what you do.” As you are are out there today, showing love for the world, don’t forget you.

Be happy… and be your own ChakraBabe!

Take a Deep Breath and Balance

In this average American life – frenetic from first light to the sigh as your head, last bill paid, last dish washed and offspring asleep, hits the pillow at night – what is balance? Enough resources to go around? Or the art of partnering with the Universe to manage those resources with grace, presence and gratitude, knowing there will always be enough…

Any type of balance starts with intent. I came out of such an epically unbalanced environment that it took time to find mine. And even then, layering the tools of energetic management over my intent to lead a more balanced life, I found my footing shaky.

Just the blessing of a peaceful household was enough at first as I took my tools, meditation, mindfulness, stones, color, breath, and put them to work trying to balance my chakras and my life. Did it work – was it a magic formula for bliss? No. I still have ungrounded days and a cluttered mind. But I find myself setting my intent more often, I see more grace, take more walks with my dogs and I have dedicated myself to love in a new way.

This intent to balance has been a catalyst for greater beauty in my life. For that I am incredibly grateful and my heart chakra spins in perfect rotation. One down…

Move or be Still

The minute I made the decision to move – from my marriage, from my typical work experience, from the day to day hamster wheel of suburban survival – I was overwhelmed.

Too much to do. I moved out of my former home in seven hours. I found a job to pay the mortgage and started a company at the same time. Single mom, bread winner, entrepreneur and housekeeper.

Like so many independent, creative women I know, some inching their way forward, some losing ground, I find myself sitting at the stoplight five minutes behind schedule, divorce rash burning a hole in my skin, a Rolodex of to-do’s spinning through my head  (this analogy dates me, I know). Ten tasks on every card, no way to catch up, no way to stop the constant lists of deliverables from flashing through my thoughts. The discomfort on my  skin is a metaphor for the avalanche of change, the rattling in my head a persistent distraction from the moment.

How to balance?

How do I get myself to remember that this stoplight is exactly where I should be – where I need to be?

Settling my Estate

Pushing forward on product, business and web development, I am also in the midst of wresting a divorce decree from my (now ex-) husband, the attorneys and the court. I can’t imagine a better third chakra school. Affirmations like, I stand up for myself, I direct my own life, I am worthy of kindness and respect – barely suffice to steel me for the rigors of legal combat.

And still I make my way through the subject material. As I often tell my daughter, failure is not an option.

I chose the marriage I just undid for a reason. I see the need I had for emotional support and the hope which compelled me to exchange vows to this end. I understand only I can support my emotional needs, whether they are rooted in past experience, a negated inner child or simply an inherent need for love. My marriage was a unequal energetic experience I opted to see through so I could learn these things.

Smart girl and experiential learner that I am, I got it, and I got moving.

ChakraBabe is Born

ChakraBabe was born on the road between Albuquerque and Denver.

It came in the form of an “eighth chakra download”, to use the words of  Carolyn Myss, medical intuitive and energetics wonder. Divine inspiration. The gestation period from idea to action took some time and the project did not see delivery into the physical world until my dissolution in divorce.

My husband, struggling with his own second chakra issues, had the unscripted, raw honesty to tell me he was choosing his personal indulgences over our marriage. And that was it, ChakraBabe travelled through my energetic being, from inspiration and idea to words, feelings and action, then into the physical realm, becoming grounded in my reality.

 I spent eight years in my marriage. I learned to run a million dollar per year small business by doing it. I worked for my husband and for myself. For the Greater Good. It was as if, that January day last year, the Universe was telling me it was time to create something of my own.

So divorce proclamation, skills and a ridiculously symbolic amount of seed money in hand, I have marched forth. Onward and upward through my energetic system, carrying this labor of love.

I have incorporated, spent my seed money, made choices on product and design. Into my fourth chakra, I have committed to this endeavor and now, in my fifth, I am writing about it to the world.

 ChakraBabe incarnates – the birth announcements are out.

God is in me or else is not at all.

Wallace Stevens

Seventh chakra affirmation:

All is well in my world because

I am a part of the divine.

We have all a better guide in ourselves,

if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

Jane Austen.

Sixth chakra affirmation:

My mind, body, and emotions are quiet – I am connected to the wisdom of the Universe.

Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.

Albert Einstein

Fifth chakra affirmation:

I communicate with ease, I am creative

and I speak my truth.

When your heart speaks, take good notes. 

Judith Campbell

Fourth chakra affirmation:

I am love, grace and gratitude.

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

Tom Stoppard 

 

Third chakra affirmation:

I accept myself and choose love, light and healing.