Thursday 26 February 2015

Heartworks

My favourite time of year, Autumn, is just around the bend, nearly here again, on the weekend.

My heart is filled with anticipation of heartworks of all nature and pleasure that is just about to burst in creative colours and movement in the next season.

May many Heartworks inspire this new turning, of yearning, for all that is burning, bringing great measure of treasure to awesome Autumn again.

Let the heart work it's magic
Let the loving begin
Let the joy fill the heavens
In flowing glowing streams
Let all that is wondrous, fill all your extremes
And bring you to brilliance
and glorious beams
May the sacred bless you
And passion possess you
Laughter lighten you
And adventure brighten you
May your life please you and funny bone tease you
May you be blessed with smiling gleams
May your eyes glisten
And ears listen with wild appreciation at nature's abandon
May you shine from head to toe
The colours that are your own
And bring all that is you
To a warm welcoming world


SaraSwati Shakti

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved.
www.lovingpsyche.com

Heartworks poem and mandala by SaraSwati Shakti © 2015



Sunday 15 February 2015

Travellers of Love

Yesterday I visited North Sydney. I was surprised by it's silence. Unlike the busyness of it's normal business mecca weekdays, it was possible to smell the sea air from the harbour as I walked along the streets there. To my destination. To Sunday slow, in a day out in a city environment.

And the occasion was a visit to Mary McKillop Place. So quiet, and beautiful to sit and contemplate, and listen. In the peacefulness and reverence where her body is now laid to rest.

Churches are lovely places for rest and contemplation. And in that contemplation I was reflecting on her words 'Crois aux paroles que Dieu murmure a ton coueur'. To 'Believe in the whisperings of God in your own heart', she said.

The listening to whisperings of inner wisdom, the Godliness, Source, Universe, Higher Power, Mother, whatever your flavour, undisturbed, inside the pureness of our own hearts, in us. Quietening for the answers as we keep considering our next steps. To help us with attention and reflection. Silencing out the distractions and focussing on the heart's power.

The last time I visited Mary McKillop Place was a few years ago when a friend asked me to accompany her there on her birthday. To spend time with the memory of her mother, who had not long passed away. It was a moving day. The image from the most beautiful stained glass window, of Jesus with his Sacred Heart above the altar, provided welcoming whisperings to my own heart's love path.

This visit was with my own mother, alive and well, to share a Sunday day out together. A peacefulness and playfulness that we both appreciated. A time of bonding and reflecting, separately on our own journeys, and the one we've had together. Reminiscing and spending time quietly on our travels, alone, and together.

And as we sat at the side of Mary McKillop's tomb I read on it the words 'Remember we are but travellers here'.

Indeed. Travelling the travels that matter to us. The decisions we make each day. The actions that our hearts relate to us, and that become the path for us, and those around us. Our travels of love. As travellers of love.

May you too be true to the quieter travels of love within you.


SaraSwati Shakti
Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved.
www.lovingpsyche.com



Saint Mary McKillop was the foundress of the Order of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, and their many works of compassion and action in the world.

Monday 9 February 2015

Different Name. Same Soul.

The last week has been spent changing my name. Progressively. On all of my public profiles. To SaraSwati Shakti, officially.

My friends and newer community colleagues are used to it. The transition that they have been witnessing of my emerging has been a normal aspect of the fabric of our lives evolving. It has been a graceful process with them in the intervening years between Marie Bonney and SaraSwati Shakti.

This marriage to my Spirit self publicly has created many new endeavours that have been fulfilling for me and those around me. I have started to receive increasing requests for articles, and public speaking around my book, my art, and the journey that led to this new name, this new beginning.

And it was time. To make a choice. To draw a clear line in the sand. To adopt one name. And to alleviate any confusion of the path my life was taking. A name accompanying the introduction of Loving Psyche, a suite of services of my trademarked business launched last year, with a renewed energy that it brings with it.

And while it initially challenged me about how I would bridge the distance between those who knew me with a different name, as I re-enter the marketplace among them, I have found that it has been easy.

I have been embraced wholeheartedly.

'Different Name. Same Soul' was a response I received recently.

Indeed. Different name. Same Soul.

I am still doing what I came here for. Making a positive difference in a changing world.

I look forward to doing that with you more.

Attached is my updated profile on my website http://www.lovingpsyche.com/About/index.html for those new among you.

And for those concerned about making a mistake, and how to get used to it, as I say hello again, I have retained Marie as my middle name.

And, it's Sara, for short.

So all is easy and right with the world.

Much Love

SaraSwati Shakti
www.lovingpsyche.com

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved.




Sunday 1 February 2015

True Self Knowledge

All true knowledge is self-knowledge.

How you act, react, feel and function.

How you think, decide, plan and relate.

Your wants, desires, disappointments, and automatic responses.

They each make up a kaliedescope of the who that is you.

And there is no other like you. You are the totality of an individual of remarkable existence and potential.

One of the things I like to do in my work is to help you to unearth what is the trueness of you. 

I have found that as soon as people begin to befriend themselves, it makes a difference, in their self-perception, and with those around them.

It has an enormous impact on them when they discover, and validate parts of themselves, that they have not yet consciously embraced. An identity that is enhanced, and advanced with self-knowledge.

I help you to come home to yourself.

A tool I sometimes use to help do this is the MBTI, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Used extensively for decades by qualified practitioners worldwide.

And while no tool is foolproof in identifying the complexities of you, it has helped me show people the beauty of some of their natural elements, and to normalise those as part of the way they operate.

MBTI focuses on personality, personal preferences innately, as a basis for self-acceptance and self-knowledge. The benefits from which people can operate more wholeheartedly with themselves and others. It's the soulful work of defining the personality in which your soul is operating.

As a qualified MBTI practitioner I  have used it privately in sessions when clients desire it, in workshops for building co-operative, fulfilling and more vibrant teams, as well as for the beginnings of understanding couple differences, and families.

This year I am offering workshops for groups and organisations interested in learning more about who they are, and who their colleagues are, as a way of better understanding themselves and those that work close by. Building awareness, co-operation and a greater appreciation of the nuances of everyone in the group creates an easier flow when people know you, and you know them, more innately and appreciatively.

And for change and improvement in group dynamics to take place in any organisation, it requires the inner power of self-knowledge, inspection and reflection to enhance co-operation and empathy with self and others. It refines the people aspects of the skills set of members of  a team or group.

My colleague Josephine Luna from Helping to Restore Balance and I are joining forces again this year to run MBTI sessions as part of the Loving Work series. Details of the sessions are in the flyer below.

If you are a leader who wishes to get the best from your team, I urge you to consider the benefits it offers as a wonderful opportunity to validate and enhance everyone's contribution to a group, and how the group can operate more brilliantly as a team.

Josephine and I love working together, and have done so on numerous projects over many years. We have had great fun, and success running workshops and helping organisations build more self-awareness and related benefits. We look forward to working with you in relationship too.

Please contact josephine@restorebalance.com.au for further details.

 
 
Loving Work is a registered therapeutic service trademark as part of the Loving Psyche suite of services. http://www.lovingpsyche.com/Services/Service-Offerings/loving-work.html
 
And may you always find a way home to your true self individually and collectively.
 
Much love
 
 
SaraSwati Shakti
 
Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved.