This week, we will focus on respect. You can’t enjoy your inner journey if you don’t express and feel and live respect.

The first thing to understand and to do is to respect yourself. Respect your rhythm, respect your needs, respect your self, body, mind and soul. This is different for each of us, but it starts by taking care of yourself. And accept yourself. Love yourself. Be aware of your strengths as well as your weaknesses and embrace them all. Look for what makes you vibrate and dive into it. Try to spend even a few minutes a day doing what you love, what you need, what makes you happy. We all have those simple things that bring us joy, peace, laughter. Those are the ones you need to reach. And enjoy. Then go on to self affirmation. Be proud of who you are, be proud of what you lived. Look at past errors as the most valuable lessons you received. Thank them and go on. You don’t need to remind them anymore. They were true for the one you were then. You are not the same person now. So they became irrelevant in your life. You learned your lesson well, you moved on, you grew, you assimilate what needed to be. It’s time to part. Let them on the side of your path, and go on, without the burden they represent. Forgive the one you were then. Whatever was done, it belongs to the past, to the one you were then. You are entitled, now that you evolved to a better version of your self, to forgive the one you were. Be gentle with yourself. There is enough adversity out there, you don’t need to be your inner enemy. Treat yourself with respect, acknowledge your errors and stop being your own tormentor. Be your best friend. Don’t elude your defaults, but accept them as part of who you are, someone evolving and dealing with what needs to be dealt with, step by step. If perfection is an illusion, improvement is not, though. So as long as you improve the way you live your life, your vision of it, your way of walking on your own personal path, you are doing what you are supposed to do. People will always be judgmental, but you don’t need to be, especially with yourself. Be gentle. Set boundaries and goals. And do your best, with what you have on hands, to reach them. Enjoy your life, honor it by truly living and learning. Honor the one you are, because you worth it. Each of us worth it. And we owe to ourselves to honor the luck we have to experiment a meaningful life, whether we are aware of it or not. Open your eyes on who you are, who you truly are. And straighten this crown on your head, keep it up high.

Respect others. This is the second step on our journey to respect. Honoring and affirming yourself doesn’t mean denying others. You are the sovereign of your own personal kingdom as they are of theirs. And it’s something to honor, truly. We are all walking on our paths, at our own pace. When I meet people who are only at the beginning of their journey, I tend to share some of my own experience, or hints. But I accept that they choose to do whatever they need to do their own way. This is a learning process. And I respect that. I made the choice to open my eyes, mind and whole self to what was my life. And my vision of it switched from a meaningless existence to a meaningful one. But life gave me the opportunity to do so. Not everyone has this luck. I also went through hell several times, so i understand the value of life, of existence itself. And i chose to honor it. But not everyone had this opportunity, at least not yet. Who am I to judge people on their choices, or the way they live their life? Compassion is something I often feel… well, not really compassion, because I don’t need to suffer as they do to sense what they are going through. But I can recognize their pain, and put them in link with my own, those I used to feel… those that are part of me now. So I tend to respect people, no matter what they are living… I even surprise myself to feel sorry for those who are playing games… they don’t have a clue of what they will have to face when time has come for them to grow… it’s not my business, I can only give hints to escape to those they play with… if needed they know where I am and will reach me when they are ready to go on their own path. I also have a huge respect for those who have walk further and became wonderful teachers… Those we can spend hours sharing life experiences with. Those who make us grow by sharing their ways, their own vision of life. Those who live in their own truth and find peace within, peace they usually share with enthusiasm. The beauty in those, is that some of them ignore what wonderful teachers they are. They just are themselves, walking their own path. Some of them are old and wise, others are so young you wouldn’t believe what they can bring you. As a matter of fact, anyone can be your teacher. And you can miss a valuable lesson by not respecting the teacher life sent you to teach it to you. Then you will have to go through a whole new process to change in order to be able to learn it.

Which leads me to my last point: respect the process. We are so lucky to be able to take our own inner journey, to grow, to share, to live it. This is something we have to honor. If we make the choice to walk on our path, what it will be made of doesn’t entirely depend on us. We will have choices to make, and they will lead to other crossroads where other choices will be offered to us. And those choices will make us take paths we never thought we would take, those exact paths we need to grow and evolve. So respect the process, even if you feel lost and stuck. Be aware of what surrounds you. You may have miss to notice something you need in order to go on… the little things, those we are so used to live with that they become ignored while their value goes far beyond their actual worth. It’s only when you look at them with an open mind that they will reveal the secret they always concealed to be found by you when time has come. When you feel stuck or lost, take time to care for yourself, to rest. We sometimes need to focus on our self care, on enjoying life as it is, before going back on our journey, stronger, more in peace, ready to face whatever may come. And when it happens, we are ready to enjoy each and every piece of it. Trust in the journey, respect the process. And live, truly, fully live!

So this week, I wish you the joy of feeling and receiving respect.

Yep, lazy me is enjoying the fact that for once I only had to make one, as the english and french words are spelled the same way… and mean the same too! Not something that happens a lot!

And it was a perfect time to be so as I have a new computer, that will allow me to go further in what I want to explore. So this week end, I really was happy to just take the time I needed to set it up exactly like I wanted it to be… Now I am ready to see what I can do with it… it will be fun, for sure! It’s also the perfect example of what I live for a few weeks now: everything is falling into place as I let myself go with the flow… Keeping an open mind, open eyes and open arms… You never know what may come, but you can be sure it will be exactly what you need when you need it to do what you need to do… I am grateful to be able to experiment this… And I wish you to feel the same!