Shakti Loves Chocolate
I've recently been taken on a bit of a wild ride that I'd love to share with you if you'll indulge me. At the end of summer I was pretty worn out from hanging out with my kids. I love my children - but let's face it, parenting bored kids is pretty tough. So I found great group of books to reward myself for the long hours of parenting.
These books have been a pure guilty pleasure if I've ever had one. They aren't about yoga or self-help, they aren't about personal development, they aren't even incredible prose straight off the NYT bestsellers list. No. These books are about Paris, Chocolate, and Falling in Love. Come on! Who doesn't want to read about that?
Shortly after starting in on these treats I found myself being over taken by the creative impulse... it said: WRITE. Doing my best to honor what work wanted to come through me I picked up my pen and set to it.
What's been surprising with the writing has been both the content - purely fictional with nothing at all about yoga or coaching - and the absolute pleasure I'm taking in sitting down and letting the work come through.
With both the reading and the writing I'm seeing how Shakti (the creative life-force of the universe, also the Goddess) is inviting me into an enjoyable relationship with her. She is inviting me to indulge - in chocolate covered love stories and in allowing my creativity to run wild without a sensor.
If you're like me you may feel like it's hard to allow yourself simple pleasures like this. As this has been working through I've been fighting back all sorts of inner shame and judgement about both the reading and the writing. In fact, it is hard to even write this blog post. I mean, who am I to get to enjoy my life and then to talk about it?
But the reality is that this is one of the ways Shakti has of helping us to Open. And goodness knows, this is way more enjoyable than grief and anger. I mean, if opening can come with pleasure, joy and delight, I will take that any day.
Is this intriguing to you? If so, here are some questions to ask yourself:
How can I build a relationship to pleasures large and small?
What stands in my way?
And how am I going to move beyond the barriers so that I can enjoy my life even more?
Because when you experience pleasure regularly, you are more pleasurable to be around, right?
Oh and if you just want to read the books check out the Amour and Chocolat series by Laura Florand