thehappinessretreat

༄ Belonging ༄

Apostolia — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 11:34:12 +0000

༄ Belonging ༄

Apostolia Tue, 02/06/2020 - 14:34

It happens all the time in heaven,

And someday

It will begin to happen

Again on earth -

That men and women

Often will get down on their knees

With tears in their eyes,

Will sincerely speak, saying,

My dear,

How can I be more loving to you;

How can I be more kind?

Hafez ( excerpt)

Beloved friends, June is here marking the beginning of sweet summer and the Moon is coming to full this Thursday. I am sure you are aware of what is happening around the world right now. I am in deep concern as you are, about where we stand as conscious human beings.

The call for awareness and personal responsibility is urgent and very challenging. Identifying what it means to be "human" today is the clearest call I hear.

All parts of me are craving to stop the inner war between me and my soul and asking me to take responsibility, as what is happening now on our planet is deeply affecting me.

Just after the lockdown of Covid19 humanity proved collectively that can obey to authority control. Just after the death of George Floyd, riots all over the US claim for justice and human rights as racism has been a virus amongst humans for centuries now. A possible scenario of what's coming after this is more authority control so we can be "safe".

At the same time, in different countries, (Greece is one amongst them) crowds gather and protest against the new “Modernized Environmental Legislation” that gives easy permissions to private companies to develop businesses in protected Nature areas.

How can we still believe that invading a planet like earth and turn the entire Nature into business, as usual, will lead to progress? How can we still support that consuming more goods and working harder (so we can have a "fake' safe future) will lead to our prosperity?

None of the above is convincing our soul anymore as we feel it in all our parts of our selves. We feel more isolated than ever, more separated than ever.

WE ARE SUFFERING FROM DISCONNECTION WITH OUR TRUE NATURE.
WE ARE SUFFERING FROM SEPARATION FROM MOTHER NATURE.

Life itself is about belonging. Our Human DNA holds the remembrance that we are able to live in perfect harmony when we embody the divine love that created us, that created all life.

The secret of interconnection between species lies in the self-love and self-respect first and above all, so fear and isolation don't control our existence.

To reach a greater understanding of who we are and make conscious choices we need to repair our true belonging within and this can happen only by recognizing Nature as higher consciousness.

What would happen if all the people all over the planet feel this disconnection and decide to leave the cities now, starting a new life, living in harmony with nature, working from their green home, forming supportive communities, connecting with the divine that is inside each one and all of us, recognizing each other's gifts, creating art, listening, giving, receiving, understanding our light and our shadow, together?

Nature holds this immense power of helping us remember LOVE even in the form of thunder. Even in the form of an Earthquake. For we become humble for a millisecond, we step our of Ego and we remember in our cells, in our breath, in our senses, what the ancients knew:

Nature is our home. Nature grounds our being and belonging. Nature brings us home to ourselves. Peace, Presence, Belonging, Creativity, Community, Solidarity are values of our innate wisdom that can be ignited in our collective consciousness when each one of us invests in cultivating a reconnection with Nature.

This is my dream, my dearest friends, to remember our sacredness of body, mind, and spirit, as a collective and to embody that being in Nature is already being in the divine presence.

Oceans Love & Rivers of Light
Stay healthy, stay safe, stay kind

Apostolia

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༄ November Blues - Truthfulness ༄

Apostolia — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 09:32:48 +0000

༄ November Blues - Truthfulness ༄

Apostolia Sun, 17/11/2019 - 11:32

༄ Truthfulness ༄

True Presence
True Connection
True Belonging

At the end of the day who am I? Who am I when nobody is watching?

These are my deepest self journeys at this time of my life, my dear beautiful friends. When I decide to write to you my heart beats faster as I am preparing to share my true presence with you.

Working with so many people from around the world, giving my self fully to each and everyone in every retreat, performance or workshop, makes me realize that most of us face the same concern.

Who am I truly? Deep down at the core of my being what is my deepest truth?

When our defense system is down when we ask ourselves "what do I really need to be happy", we all long to be free from fear, to be accepted, to be respected, to be seen, and most of all to be loved.

༄༄༄༄༄

Since my childhood, I have been "taught" to seek approval in others, to feel happy when I get a reward, to base my relations in co-dependence. Nobody taught me how to have an honest, deep and loving relationship with myself. Nobody told me that fulfillment is my responsibility and I am not a victim of any system if I don't consent. Sounds familiar?

Our human "evolution" has disconnected us from nature, has silenced our emotional voice, has buried our creativity as something useless.....We have become anxious, restless, isolated, separated from the one and only truth, the abundant love that exists inside each one of us, the interconnectedness, the true belonging within us and with all living beings.

The " superiority " of being a human being has been working against our souls. In our collective consciousness, we have "wars" between parents and children, men and women, rich and poor, countries, nations....but the worse war, the most dangerous one happens inside our mind.

Our mind keeps on creating story after story about our traumas, the things we miss, the relationships we don't like, the job that takes our time away. We are not our mind patterns, we are not victims of our traumas, we are not our judgmental thoughts, we are not the ones that say yes to an unfulfilled meaningless life waiting for the days, months and years to pass.

We are creative, free, loving beings and we can take responsibility for our actions, for our lives.

Only by silencing this monkey -mind we can look deeply in our selves, love our selves unconditionally and forgive 'us" for what we are not, for what we have not. Only by loving our selves unconditionally we can see our truth. And if what we see is a bit scary, self-love is the only medicine that can hold space for any change we want to make without abusing ourselves.

How do we take action towards a more truthful and loving relationship with ourselves?

By doing less and breathing more. By dropping multitasking even for one hour per day, by taking a slow pace at work. Leave your mobile phone on the table and take an aimless walk. Cook an improvised meal without any recipe just using your intuition. Wash your dishes dancing your favorite song. See a friend and just listen to his voice and words without thinking about what you will reply to while he/she is talking. In other words, we are responsible to create quality time and space so we can be in a loving relationship with our existence every single second.
And most of all...

We have this amazing gift to breathe, to sing, to dance, to flow...

Take a deep breath and feel how precious this moment is. Sigh and let your voice be heard by you, you are the most precious human in this room.
Dance and feel this miraculous body of yours no matter if you feel incompetent if your mind tells you you are not talented or if you had a divorce or an accident. This moment that you read my words you are still alive, I am still alive and that's a unique opportunity of this moment, to fall in love with the gift of life. Life is the greatest mystery that we humans can only feel and never explain. Life is the most spiritual concept I know.

November Blessings
Remember you are born a creative being.
Remember that you have infinite possibilities.
Remember you are a beloved member of the soul family.
Remember you are not alone.
Remember to fall in love with you.

Oceans and Rivers of Love.
༄ Apostolia ༄

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༄Adaptation-How we create Happiness༄

Apostolia — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 12:22:00 +0000

༄Adaptation-How we create Happiness༄

Apostolia Sun, 02/06/2019 - 15:22

My dear friends and happiness circle members!

Here we are welcoming the month of June with a very positive New Moon on Gemini bringing magic and creativity and calling us for the quality of
ADAPTATION

Adaptation is represented by the water element and its ability to flow continuously, to see no obstacles, to find another path, to go around them, over or under them.

Adaptation teaches is to step out of the trap of our ego and remember our higher purpose. Instead of staying fixed in our ideas or plans which means we expect a certain FORM of results, we can be fluid, ready to flow purposeful and motivated in staying connected with deeper feelings. Curiosity and playfulness are great allies so we can achieve adaptation.

Let me give you an example.

Back at the beginning of May, I guided my Spring Happiness Retreat participants into a forest path to reach a beautiful waterfall and meditate. (Some of you were there!)
But due to severe rains, all winter long, this path was full of obstacles. Trees had fallen down, streams were overflooded, misplaced stones were blocking the way.

Most of our tribe members were disappointed, they thought that we could never make it reach the Waterfall, but what I saw was an amazing opportunity to practice adaptation, to create a transformational experience that could change our mindset and teach us that we create our own reality.

I called the group to see other ways to overcome the obstacles by being inventive, uniting forces and helping each other. Amazing ideas came instantly, the "no way" feeling became a "wow we can make it" feeling and suddenly we all saw a playground of infinite possibilities instead of an impossible task. When we reached the waterfall we were all content, proud and happy.

We all have the potential for more water qualities in our life, especially in the areas that we feel a bit "stagnant". Maybe it's our relationships, certain emotions or our physical body.

Let's invite gracefully the water element into our lives this month by honoring the water wherever we find it even when we drink a glass of water, we expose our selves in the rain or we swim in the sea.

Let's nourish our magical organism, the body with emotional fluidity by saying Yes even for a day in whatever obstacle comes on our "way", by thanking the obstacle and just moving around it!

And if our "sea "today is too cold or too hot or too calm or too wild, forget about having the perfect conditions to jump in and allow your playfulness to teach you the gift of adaptation!

June Blessings
With Love and Light
༄ Apostolia ༄

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༄ Belonging ༄

༄ November Blues - Truthfulness ༄

༄ Truthfulness ༄True Presence True Connection True Belonging

༄Adaptation-How we create Happiness༄

༄ Truthfulness ༄

True Presence
True Connection
True Belonging