Outlaws and cake!

Today my wonderous mother in law turned up with a home made cake that I argue is actually proof that heaven exists and we spent a family day dog walking down the local Caswell Beach. It's a lovely little beach and the beautiful rocks and twists and turns are the perfect setting for dreamy conversations and big thoughts.

I thought a lot about the ridiculous nature of pressure and the need to be defined by success. It's been something of an undercurrent in my life for so long that I am having trouble shaking the remainder of it. What if I am enough, as I am? What if I can truly value myself as a success, as I am, right here in this moment? When I think about the bigger picture I see how insane my mental garbage truly is. Of course I am already a success! I am in bliss and five years ago I opened my heart just enough to allow peace. Because of that action I am incrementally becoming a silent observer as this unrelenting wave of peace takes over my life. But there are times when I am very human and I judge myself. I think about what others are doing and play the dangerous game of stacking their “accomplishments” next to mine. I am grateful that these moments are now extremely rare in my life but they do still show themselves. They serve as a reminder for me that I must reconnect with peace. That I must remind myself that I am good enough and complete enough and loved enough and whole enough right here, right in this moment.

On the beach today surrounded by family and love I became so immersed in the bigger picture that I could see my small concerns for what they were. They were fragments of memories of who I used to be. I remembered that success is the feeling place of life itself and there I was feet in the water, boyfriend chatting away, dog chasing the ball, I felt SO loved. How can success be defined as anything else? No amount of money, cultural approval or external observation could have improved that moment or created it. It is life and loving and being loved, that is the nature of success.

Big Love

 

Ryan James

x

 

 

Sharing your privilege.

Sharing your privilege.

I love you when I get up in the morning and I love you when I go to bed. I love you whether we are friends or even if we haven't met. I love you for no other reason than to enjoy loving you. I love you even if you hate me or have gone out of your way to hurt me, my love will never be defined or diminished by your pain. I love you even if you have spread rumours about me and thought hateful things about me because I deserve to feel good about you even if you can't feel good about yourself. I love you no matter what and that will never change. Sometimes I might need a little help getting to that space but I will love myself on my journey there and love myself when I am there too.

Love cures you and uplifts you and changes you. Loving people who love you is easy, it's play time for the soul. Loving people who are only able to show you their pain right now is more challenging but it can be done and more importantly you deserve to love them. It is sometimes a privilege they cant give themselves.

I woke this morning thinking of the incredible journey I have been on. My dog woke me up to feed him by hitting me in the face with his nose and the love of my life snoozed dreamily next to me. I woke in a bed inside a house I love, in a city I love, in a job I love and with friends and family I love and I am so grateful to be here. I did spare a small thought for those that couldn't join me where I am and I am glad that I can now look back with an open and honest heart and see only the good memories that we shared. I walked passed my old flat yesterday and thought about the good times I had there, the times I partied and laughed and shared and healed in those four walls will forever be a defining chapter in my life. That time rooted me in who I am and the time I am living in now is allowing it to flourish.

I discovered the power and privilege of unconditional love. I have discovered peace. These are now the undercurrents of everything that takes place in my life. This doesn't mean I don't get angry, sad or confused at times but it does mean I can get back to my centre a lot quicker than I used to. When you learn to love and to practice unconditional love your life will unravel to a state of true authenticity which is something I think everyone has the ability to do. With that in mind, begin.

Big Love

Ryan James

www.psychicswansea.co.uk

www.facebook.com/psychicswansea

How to live through grief.

 

How to live through grief.

We all grieve. We grieve for people that have transitioned to spirit, we grieve for who we were, we grieve for our innocence and we grieve for the living we have had to let go. We are all on some level in a state of grief because we are all on some level surrendering something. Grief is not simply missing someone, it is an acute and extremely tangible pain that demands healing and attention. It is generally not something that can be put on the back burner. The passing of time can help you to learn to live with it but what can we do to actually heal it?

When a dramatic change has entered your life and grief takes over there is one truth that we need to accept. You will never be the same again. You are different now and will be for the rest of your life. It is completely in your hands whether that can instigate a move towards becoming a stronger more loving version of yourself or whether the grief takes over and you cease to move forward. You will not only mourn for whatever has left your life but you will also mourn for the person YOU were during that interaction.

The first step is to make peace with a new version of who you are. This can feel extremely uneasy and in the cases where the grief is centred around a person transitioning to spirit, it can even feel a little disrespectful but it is a necessary step toward healing. If you are grieving a relationship loss then you can take what you have learned and make it onto something with a positive momentum in your life. If you are grieving a person you can take their love and light and allow it to continue it's work on the planet through you and your actions. There is no right and wrong way to handle grief, I have grieved very differently for different stages in my life. Relationship breakdowns, grandparents transitioning, a friend unexpectedly transitioning, friendships dissolving and generally growing and becoming a new person have required me to grieve in different ways at different times. You learn make peace with who you were within that experience and lovingly say goodbye to that old you and then you allow the new you to fill in the gaps. It can and will be challenging but it can be done.

Whatever your grief is please, be easy on yourself. Don't waste time trying to feel normal again, you have a new normal now, and it will serve you best to look for whatever that is for you. If you need to get things off your chest and no one is about then email me. I can't promise I will be able to answer all of you but I can promise that I will do my best and that I will keep you all in my prayers and my heart.

Big Love

Ryan James

www.psychicswansea.co.uk

www.facebook.com/psychicswansea

Your mask is pain management, nothing more.

 

Which do you choose?

 

We all have, to some degree, an outer mask. We have all at some point in our lives created a “public persona” that we show to the world. We completely internalise our insecurities and wash them over with ideas that we are happier than we really are, more successful than we really are and more popular than we really are. But there comes a point when this mask we have created to protect ourselves becomes a prison of it's own making. I have read so many clients this last year who's “brave face” has been practised so habitually that it's become it's own separate identity. We all know someone who believes in their own lies, but how many are you telling yourself?

 

This mask is a pain management skill. I've done it myself and I know of all the little twists and turns it can take you on. I have pretended to be O.K when I wasn't, I have pretended to be “busy and successful” when I was bored and broke, I have pretended to be peaceful when I was angry and I have stood and told everyone around me that I was fine at the times in my life when the pain in my heart was overwhelming. I learned two things during this time of my life. The first, is that people aren't stupid. It doesn't take much to look beneath someone's mask. A discerning eye can see beyond the words you speak to the words you're actually saying. The mask isn't fooling anyone, not even you, not really. The second thing I learned is that when I put the mask down and spoke about my pain, it was O.K. Nothing exploded and all my limbs remained in tact. It is O.K. To let it all out,find a good friend, get a diary, anything really, just find a space where you can honour your own honesty.

 

Of course your life changes when you speak the truth but it always changes for the better. I learned who my real friends were, who was there for me and gained incredible strength in authenticity.

Your ability to be vulnerable is one of your greatest strengths. A persona designed to protect your wounds only ever eventually creates a place for them to grow. You have a choice in each moment of your life to self promote a false ideal or to speak your truth. Which do you choose?

 

Big Love

 

Ryan James

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

Swansea looks beautiful today as the first taste of spring hits the sea turning it from its usual silver to a shining blue. I am curled up in my creative space writing away, chatting to the dog and he is fearlessly guarding me from his own reflection in the windows. This morning is all about chocolate! I thought I would do a small Easter hunt for my boyfriend and got a whole bunch of chocolate bunnies and hid them around the house. He loved it and it was cute watching him try and reach the things I had put on the higher shelves! Of course I got caught up in all the excitement and have forgotten where I have put one of the bunnies. So, with summer on it's way we are both going to have to wait until something smells before we find the damn thing! Fingers crossed we come across it before it goes green and fluffy...

Our anniversary went brilliantly yesterday and we just spent the whole day doing exactly what we felt like, which to be honest, wasn't much. We have both built a life that celebrates each other constantly so it's awesome doing things we would normally do on a special occasions. We buy each other presents, and go to see things we want to see and it doesn't matter if its an occasion or not. It was just another awesome day for us.

The tour is all a go and after putting it all up on the website it has become scarily real. I'm keeping myself centred throughout it and making sure I don't fall back onto old obsessive habits. I think that's going to be part of the healing this tour is going to give me. Finally laying to rest old wounds and allowing me a space just to enjoy my music and being creative within it. I think as with all healing curves there will be a lot to learn for me this time around. It's just a matter of learning the logistics of it and keeping myself centred. Weirdly I am not actually nervous about the tour itself, or about audience sizes, or about how it is viewed externally. I am more focussed on keeping myself where I am emotionally and spiritually and there's plenty of time between now and then to do a little work on myself.

With it being Easter I guess it's time for me to follow the magic in the air and give a little re birth to myself. See which parts I want to take forward and which ones to leave behind.

Big Love and Chocolate!

Ryan James

A day to chillax....

     Today was spent mostly in recovery of "TakeAway Tuesdays" and my first trial of a chinease beancurd curry! I woke this morning to find my poor little woofit had barfed on the new rug ( typical ) after he had decided it was a good idea to chomp on the freshly piled manure in the local park yesterday. So two sore bellies in our house!  And for some reason known only to me and God I thought a milkshake might help my belly... and yes, many boys did turn up to my yard. If only to be repelled again by what the milkshake did to an already uneasy stomach. Thankfully the woofit and I are sat in my creative room sharing a blanket and both snoozing and watching films.

     With it being the equinox today I wanted to take the theme of balance and apply it to some of the projects and business' I am interested in. I can almost feel a conclusion or solution forming in the back of my head somewhere to some of the bits and pieces I wanted resolving recently. I went to an animation open day to explore doing another degree in the subject but I also really want to develope another business idea I have. I'm really deciding whether I can do both effectively at the moment and I feel the solution is close. I know I CAN do both, it's just whether I can do both well, especially with the books, art and music all coming together too. I may need another Virgo List-Fest Brainstorming session soon ( you have no idea how much that excites me, I may even buy a new pen ).

     Now, thank fully that bloody mercury retrograde has passed and the unhealed wounds that have slapped me in the face over the last few weeks have been healed, transcended and thankfully released I can get to work on the next phaze of my spiritual journey which I know is to definately listen more. I run a class in intuitive coaching every other monday and after the last class I sat and did some "reading" of my own energy and I felt more inconsistencies that I would like, nothing huge, but taking care of the small bits before they slap you on the head has in my experience always been the best thing to do. So, I'm going to practice a little of what I preach and use what I have to centre myself for the next month or two. I think it's going to be interesting.

     I think I'll sign out for now as this is the third blog I've written in today. I have had a mild internet snoop to see if there are any other bloggers out there I can connect to but nothing as of yet. I shall keep looking though.

   
Big Loves

Ryan James
    

Happy New Year!

I feel so much more myself these days. This year has truly taught me about my centre and being authentic and how to express LOVE and PEACE more fluidly. I began the year feverish and trying everything I could to fix my life from the outside in. I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted things to look like and I was hell bent on making it happen. My spirit, the Universe and everything In between had other ideas. One small sleepless night in March started a sequence of events that has brought me to a place I thought I had let go of a long time ago.

This year taught me to truly respect myself and those around me. Some people have joined me on that journey this year and some have fallen away, I love them all non the less. It has been trying at times to draw that circle around myself, to treat myself and my environment as sacred. I have learned the real gift of being myself and finding my authenticity again. I had lost it, given parts of myself away to people who I thought knew better and in claiming it back I realised it's strength. When you truly stand in your own shoes, with your own voice in your own head you are unstoppable. You see where your energy has been leaking out and where you have been giving it away.

I have well and truly let go of the image of my life and have surrendered to it's substance. I no longer judge myself through other people's eyes or live by others standards. Believe me I was shocked to find out that I was still doing that. My creativity collapsed around me only to be rebuilt. I reawoke the dream I had as a seven year old to become a writer and finally let myself create in that way again. I learned to love art in a new way and built a community to share it. I even learned to love music again, this time with complete respect for myself and those within and around it.

This year has been a beginning for me. A lot of things have been set into motion, the fruit of which I might not see for a little while yet. The new house, going on holiday, meeting new people, starting a book, setting up an exhibition, cancelling a tour, starting an album, creating new partnerships, this whole process has been a rebirth and sharing it with you has been incredible. I finally live in reverance for my life and I am excited to see where it takes me.

Big Loves

Ry x