by Tina Greene | Apr 15, 2016 | Lotus Wisdom, Manifesting intentions
Hello everyone! Pete Seeger always said that “harmony is when the person next to you is singing a different note.” I love the image this evokes. A group of people creating something that is more than the sum of its parts. A place where each voice has a place and each person is valued for what they have to contribute. The fact that it also describes my dream for our world is a big added bonus. I’ve just returned from a four-day gathering of creative women and girls who are committed to exploring their own gifts and how they may embody those gifts to help create a world that works for everyone. I listened in awe as the young girls spoke about their vision of the future, about how they can contribute to the change that we all know is needed, about how we can support each other in our own work. This gathering reminded me how precious each voice is. There was a time when I didn’t have a voice to add to the circle. Insecurity, fear, shame and the deep conviction that I had nothing to add kept me bound in silence. Thankfully, the voice inside me would not be silenced. It kept whispering that life wasn’t meant to be like this. That there had to be more. Sometimes those whispers turned into tears. Of longing. Of loneliness. Of outrage and anger. Finally, in in the midst of the darkest night, I started listening. The more I listened, the better I heard. The better I heard, the stronger my own...
by Tina Greene | Mar 6, 2016 | Lotus Wisdom, Manifesting intentions, Overcoming Fear
I’ve been hibernating in the woods next to the ocean for the last two months. I’ve had lots of time to marinate in the silence and isolation that always calls to me when the nights get long and the natural world sleeps. I’ve also learned a lot. From my woodpile, no less. The house I’m in is old and the walls are full of love and life well lived. It’s also cold. And damp, especially in the winter. A wood-burning stove is my primary source of heat. Fortunately, the house comes with its own seemingly endless supply of wood. But the wood is out back and there is no one here to help me move it inside. When I first arrived, I was totally overwhelmed just by the idea of bringing enough wood inside to heat the house. Thinking about it made my back and head hurt. So, for the first few days, I simply turned up the old thermostat and added another layer. I pretended that I was warm enough. But it was January, the temperature was dropping and heavy rains were in the forecast. I knew I had to face the music and bring in wood. So I bundled up, found some work gloves and headed out back, dreading the process and hoping that once I was sitting in front of a warm fire, it would all be worth it. As I rounded the corner of the house, the first thing I saw was a wheelbarrow. AHA!! That will help. I took the wheelbarrow over to the woodpile and started loading...
by Tina Greene | Jul 2, 2015 | Lotus Wisdom, Self Care
I have a confession to make. When I launched my website, I said I would be sending out bi-weekly newsletters. In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t. Ouch! Not exactly how I wanted to start. When I realized that I was going to miss my very first goal, I immediately felt the flush of shame. My inner mean girls took over and they had a heyday! “HaHaHa. We said all along that you couldn’t do this! “ “You BLEW IT, Tina. No one will ever listen or trust you now!” “You’ve never been good with planning ahead, what made you think you could do this anyway?!” “You SUCK!” I know intellectually that I’m probably the only person watching the days tick by and that many others have tripped up in the beginning. But that knowledge didn’t help silence the negative voices screaming inside. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I hadn’t delivered my first official newsletter “on-time.” I struggled with what to do, what to say, how to recover. So, I did nothing. And of course, that just made matters worse. It was a nasty, self-fulfilling prophecy. The more time passed, the more I beat myself up. The more I beat myself up, the more stuck I became. This is not a new pattern for me. It’s something I’ve worked with my whole life. I become so afraid of what others will think or say or do, that I am frozen in my tracks, crippled by my conviction that I will be rejected if I don’t do what I think I’m “supposed” to do...