Well, I haven’t written anything new for a while. Sometimes, you need to stop doing and go into peaceful isolation with your maker and rest your spirit a while. I guess this is what I have been doing. Recharging my batteries, shoring up my meditation routine and developing the spiritual and mental fortitude for the next stage of my life journey, whatever that may involve.

Another aspect would be that sometimes you need to help by helping and giving time in a physical sense rather than just writing about helping in a way that will inspire others to help themselves. I do love writing in the hope that my journey, my learning, will inspire, help, and give hope to others who may be going through similar experiences and feelings. Sometimes, though, people need real-time help and strength that is specific for them and their situation.

If life is a balance between giving and receiving, it also a balance between doing and being. Both are important. During my recent time out from writing I have been working on developing a more regular meditation practise. The ideal, I believe, is 10 – 20 minutes in the morning, and the same again in the evening. This is like a daily snapshot of the bigger picture in life. You start the day in communing with the Divine, this is the receiving part. The being part. You temporarily let go of the perception of separation from all that is, you just are. You are soaked up in the Divine energies and learn to just listen to that still quiet voice within. This then sets you up for a day of doing and giving. Of creating and learning and practising what you have learned. Then, before we go to bed into that unconscious state of dreamland, another stage of just being, communing, receiving, and showing gratitude.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t easy to start with. For ages I have listened to guided meditations because the instructions and the music helped to stop my mind from wondering. I still use them through the day or as I am going to sleep. But if you think about, they still involve doing. You encouraged to use imagination and visualise, which is helpful in itself. But I felt called to breathing meditation. Twenty minutes when you pay attention to the ebb and flow of your breath. You become aware of your heartbeat. You become aware of how many thoughts run through your mind in a dizzying minute, and imagine them as if they are on a stage or on a boat drifting by. You don’t settle on them. You recognise them, let them go and take your next breath. You become more aware of your body, it’s heaviness on the bed. The sensation of sheets or the air in the room on your skin. The birds tweeting outside your window. And you let it go on. Around you. You let it go – you are of it – of the same star-dust, and yet you are not. You may become aware of feelings you didn’t know you had. You feel them bubble up through your heart, through your throat, up into your head. Maybe your eyes release the tear drops, and through it all, you keep your focus on your breath. Every time your mind wonders, you smile lovingly and bring your attention back.

You may find that you have received inspiration and solutions to situations you felt were impossible to resolve, and in gratitude, you release them for the time being, in joy as well, and bring your attention back to your breath.

And then your calming and gentle mobile phone alarm goes off, informing you that you accomplished your intention of twenty minutes of meditation. You say a prayer of gratitude to the Divine for it’s presence, take a final deep breath, and gently, slowly open your eyes. You put your feet to the ground, and imagine roots going deep into the Earth, planting you firmly in the Earthly Mother and her amazing strength. You stretch your arms up over your head to the heavens, and branches go up – way, way up into the sky, connecting you to the Heavenly Father, to Divine guidance through the day.

Now you are all set. The smile on your face is connected to the smile in your heart and the smile in your soul and the smile your eyes.

You affirm: “I am a Child of God. I am His”

And then you have a Blessed day.

Love and blessings,

Lucy Loizou xx