The embodied beauty of life

I will start from the end. One day I woke up and realized I was being fully realized, complete.  Sounds good but it didn't happen like that. It was always my imagination that it would be like that. I always waited for the day when I will be enlightened. But something beautiful happened on the way. I started to accept myself, love myself, and feel good in my body. Be at home with me. I never did though when I was younger that I could feel like that while in my body. I always thought I need to die in order to be at home with my Self. And now I know- I am complete. It's not what I imagined...I had an image of some perfection, and it's not that at all, it is way better. It's natural, at ease, grace, at home with myself. The feeling of completion. And a beautiful unfolding of love, inner beauty, life, sensuality.

First I will tell a little bit about my life now, and then I will go back in the past to the beginning of my life and tell my story of this lifetime.

I love my life. For younger Sonja this is a great revelation, she never thought she would be here in this place while in this lifetime. I love what I have created. I love my internal and external home, love my family, my relationships, first of all, the one with myself. I love my everyday life. It is something little Sonja always wanted. To be free, at home, doing what she wanted, when she wanted, to have a safe space. She fought a lot for that, and in the end, the battle was internal. I arrived at that safe place.

You know how they say that what you play when you are 6, 7, 8 years old, symbolic games, that it is something that you would like to do when you are a grown-up, maybe some potential that could be embodied. Well, I always played with Lego, I liked to build houses, beautiful ones that were homes to families. I loved to play family life with the dolls. Later in my twenties, I loved doing Feng shui. I would always do something around the house. Before I felt safe in myself to open to the relationship where I could surrender, feel safe, and at home with myself, I had a lot of bad ones. Just to clarify it is not the perfect relationship as I don't believe in perfection as something rigid. It is a real relationship with ups and downs but it is ongoing, unfolding and it is a great mirror for my relationship with myself. So, my life today, my everyday life turns around my relationship with my kids. I love spending time with them, to watch them evolve in their bodies. I am very interested in the embodiment theme. And those little souls birthing in their bodies...just love to be a witness and a part of that. That is why I became a doula. I was very interested in birthing, and being there for myself and other women during their birth and postpartum. I love that process. It is so magical and unpredictable, and I am in awe of what a woman's body can do. Wow, that bodies. And taking care of that little bodies for their souls to inhabit. It sounds now so beautiful but it is not only that, it can be rough, and tough for a woman and for the little souls. As life itself. Now I know the beauty comes from acceptance of all, good and the bad. Because nothing is good nor bad, it just is, the experience.

Coming to Earth

Ok, now let's go from the beginning. Birthing into this lifetime, my body. I don't remember birthing itself was tough, my mother says one morning while she was at the doctor's appointment he said she was open and going to stay to deliver, a couple of hours later I was born. But I do have some memories in my body of landing into hush reality. That's when I started to escape, or hide from this world. I know my love for life was hidden inside, and it was why I came to this lifetime. To live and love life, finally, while in my body.

The first years of my life were chaotic, beautiful, though, there were feelings of abandonment, unseen, deprivation, hatred, nurturing, and love all in one. I loved my family and they loved me in their way. They had all spectrum of emotions that they showed to each other and me. It was always loud in the house. I felt a little bit like I was raised in a jungle. But there were also those moments of peace and nurture in my mother's arms. I remember that and being loved. I also remember my love for her and how I was sad when she was and wanted to save her. My father was unavailable, but there was great love towards him. I know I definitively was showing his suppressed emotions and cooperating with him in that way. That's why I felt sometimes like he hated me because I was showing him something he wanted to hide. I did that out of love for him. But ended up with feelings of abandonment from him. He couldn't give something he didn't get, didn't let himself feel. Aldo, I knew on a soul level that we know each other and that he loves me. I loved growing up in a big family with two sisters and an aunt, grandparents. I loved my sisters. As I was in the middle I always wanted my space, to find myself somewhere. It was chaotic, fighting for parents, toys, and place. My favorite storybook was Jungle book. I felt like I was in a jungle, searching for my place under the sun. Playing with my sisters was great, they were supportive. I didn't like to play with other kids. I had all I need in my home, and I needed my space and peace. I loved being by myself in a safe space. That is why I never liked going to kindergarten. I shout and screamed until my parents wouldn't leave me at home. Sometimes it worked. And I loved those times, being with my sister at home. That was the best. Grandma would make lunch and we were free to do what we liked. Loved nature and the unseen world, other dimensions, my inner world, fairy world, imaginary world. Loved being creative, make stories, poems, creations...

Schooling

Then the war came to my country, and school years at the same time. Very depressing for me. I felt fear in the air, looked at the media of people being hurt, died, running from their homes. Remember us hiding in the basement. And at the same time I felt that all is well, it will turn out ok, there was a safe space in me. There was something I believed in, trust in people and love for them. I liked church where I sang a few times in choir. I felt some peace in there. School, oh no, that was hard for me. I was being sick all the time because I did not want to go. It had no sense for me. No sense at all. Why do parents have to work, and children go to school. Why are we there like in some prison? I needed my freedom of time to do what I wanted when I wanted. Did not understand what the f... we are learning there except how to fit into a weird unnatural system. So I was ill. And then I could stay at home playing with Lego, doing my own talk shows. Loved it. But missed the support. Felt guilty because I was not obeying the system. It was hard to catch up with the school, but I did. Loved only the summer times, freedom, being with family, sea, nature, hiking, trips with family in the forest, playing with my sisters and cousins. I loved building houses, making my own space. And so it went until puberty came. I don't know what actually happened accept that hormones rushed through my body and I was different. All these emotions I felt. Wanted to be in life, of life, explore life. Loved sports and training with my body. I had enough with finding my safe space and being in it, had a lot of time doing it, and never really found my space at home, so I went looking outside, in the world. I was unstoppable. My parents gave me that freedom. Mom out of love and not being able to stop me. Dad, I don't know, I missed his boundaries, and had no respect for him because I missed him a lot already, and didn't care anymore about his authority. The whole world was mine. Went to parties, hang out with different people. Felt the freedom. Did what I wanted. But still, I missed the safe space. Haven't found my inner peace. I knew I couldn't find it in others. After I would skip school, I would feel bad. And I started to learn to see if maybe I would get my peace if I obey to the system and what others did and wanted me to do. Maybe they knew better. It was in my high school. I even liked to read some books, literature, physics, psychology, philosophy. Tried to find there some answers. Didn't. Still,  I loved my own time and space the most. Didn't like the rules others gave me, the authority. My rebellion was hiding from it and doing things in my own time. Thank god for my parents that I could. They didn't make a big deal out of it. My aunt died during that time and it was my first death encounter. I was very sad. Did not know why she died, where she goes, started to ask myself questions.

I spend a lot of time talking to myself and I was able to see my critic and self-sabotage, I felt the difference between my inner and outside world. I knew on some level that I am the creator of my own reality, just couldn't grasp how and why.

Until at the end of my high school day I was done with it. The question came. Who am I? Why am I here? What is this all for, life? The thing about going to school, college, find a job, didn't resonate with me. So my inner search began. What did I want and who I was? I wanted to have a healthy body and started to work out and eat healthily. I was a vegetarian since 13 when I had my first cat and decided that I couldn't kill an animal so I won't eat one. I looked on the outside, searched in a community like yoga, and had a revelation during breathing sessions. They were for the mind to relax, oh, what an experience it was for me. To feel me, finally. I felt myself, much deeper than ever before. Started to do it every day, breathing consciously, feeling myself, inner peace. But there was also the voice of a critic inside. A lot of ugly voices and dark aspects were lurking in the shadows of my inner reality. Some of them I mirrored on the outside, and some I was too afraid at that point to look at.

It continued to do so during my University years when I studied law. I decided to study law because I wanted to learn about societies and the rules of communities. I wanted to change the world. At that point, I thought the world needs saving and it's not until later I found out it is compassion that is needed more, and that I cannot save anyone but myself. When law school started to be a burden I dropped out. Parallel I went on some workshops, Mother Nature stuff, exploring consciousness, spirituality. How to be enlightened. And I found out it is all in me. I am the creator of my reality and everything outside is just a mere reflection of my inner state. So I went to search what is inside even deeper than before. I did a little bit of lucid dreaming, read new age, self-help books, and spiritual books. I had my first serious relationship and it was great. I felt at home. I finally felt more secure with myself that I could feel safe with someone else. Because now I know that I can have it on the outside only the things I can feel on the inside. I felt so safe in that relationship that I let myself feel all of the emotions I had, be in the drama in that relationship. All my insecurities and fears came up. I was ready for it. Two years after the beginning of that relationship, my partner's mother got cancer and died. It was a very sad moment for the family. I had a revelation about death, and I am so grateful for that, to that soul, his mother for it. I felt that it is not the end, and could not understand why is everyone so depressed because she is better now. I felt her spirit being alive more than ever. The drive for the answers started to be big at that moment, and I left that boyfriend in the search for myself. I changed University, and enroll to be a preschool teacher. I thought I could save the world now by being with kids, learn about them and play all day with them, because they need to be loved, and that the future is in kids and respectful parenting.

Awakening

I would say my awakening started in high school. When I felt myself being more than just this, my mind, my body, Sonja in human form. I started to ask myself the questions. My first realization of being more than a being in the human form was during workshops I went to during my early twenties. I started to feel myself more, felt compassion for everyone, felt aligned with myself, being in nature, and feel other dimensions. The most interesting was feeling my aspects. I understood that a lot was happening in my inner world and that I was the creator of my reality. So after the first excitement of all is well in all of creation, the dark aspects and unintegrated parts of me started to go on the surface. Then I started to go to body-oriented psychotherapy. My mission was to know who I am, to see what is in me, and to integrate lost parts of myself. I was ready to take responsibility for my creations. I loved it. It finally felt so real in my life. It made sense. It was my quest. To see it all. I was like a warrior, bold and courageous. I went deep, deep. I loved it. Loved the highs and the lows, hidden, dark, light potentials that came to reality. Loved it. The relationship between my male and female aspects, archetypes. It was all going on inside. The outer reality was just a reflection. Whatever happened outside I looked inside, to see how I feel in my body, where does that feeling take me. For me, the future was the past healed. And I did all I could to heal it. I started to take care of myself, my inner child, past life aspects, whatever came up. Dealing with trauma from this life or beyond. I lived like this for almost a decade. It was the only thing making sense for me. That and loving the world through parenting, learning about kids, developmental phases, the early life of a child. While studying I went deep into therapy with myself and my early childhood memories in my body and mind. I did that to recreate my reality and to learn about the early development of a child from my own experience. And finally one day, I stopped. I saw I went round and round in that moment searching for my enlightenment. I thought if I became perfect, deal with all the dark aspects in myself I will become enlightened.

Birthing my kids and myself as a mother into this world

I was working on myself and on my inner partnership with my Animus and Anima, Adam and Isis, male and female aspect. I went through a lot of outside experiences matching my inner reality, and finally falling in love with myself first, and not searching it on the outside. I was ready to have an outside experience that matched my inner love. I met my husband. It felt like being at home, safe, free. I let go of my guard and became a wife. I loved the experience. Being feminine in my body. We wanted to have a baby. Everything felt in a place for me. I was starting my own family. Feelings of excitement, falling in love with myself more, with life and my creations. We had a lovely home and a garden. Everything I played when I was little was becoming true. Home, the family, feeling of being safe, belonging. But I always knew the reality was coming from within me.

I became pregnant for the first time. It did not last for long, the baby's heart stopped beating. I was sad and I needed time to recover from that experience, and I gave myself that. Next pregnancy was great, I loved it. I had back problems and money issues, but I loved being pregnant. Making that connection to the soul that was coming was great. I knew him before he was born. I wanted to go into the birth process. I can only say it was a great experience. It was a shock for my body to went through medicalized birth but the love, support of my husband, family, and falling in love with the baby made the most beautiful postpartum. It was an experience of so much openness and vulnerability with strength I never experienced before and I loved it. It was a connection on a soul level, and the first months went smoothly. It was hard to be there for someone all the time, not sleep when I wanted, I was tired, but deep inside I was satisfied. I loved my family life. And so came another pregnancy. In the meantime, I wanted to know more about birthing and I was ready for another. I wanted to have a home birth. I knew my body could do it naturally and with pleasure. I believed in it. Pregnancy was also something I enjoyed very much. Still, it was hard having a toddler, not sleeping...It is about being present in all, good and bad, and to be able not to label it even. It just is an experience. That is compassion and love for me. The deep feelings were the feelings of the beauty of life. I enjoyed life even more. Homebirth ended up in a hospital, and in the end, was beautiful. It was a very empowering birth, where my body did everything by itself. I was moving, eating, in a pool for a while, had doula and midwife massaging me. So when I ended up in a hospital (because the cord was in front of the baby's head) Hana just came out, in two pushes. Magic happened on my way to a hospital, and I knew it was all alright that I was going there. I allowed, and let myself go, was ready for the experience. In that birth, I felt strong, especially in my body. It was easier to take care of Hana because I went through it with Boris. And at the same time, it was harder because I had Boris beside me who also needed me. Deep inside I felt completely in love with the bodily experience this time, skin to skin, breastfeeding, I loved it. I felt it more in my body. I started to love my body experience on earth. I became grateful for all I had, family, home, house. But the most important thing is that I started to lean on my own support in my body, in deep levels of my soul. As I was the creator of my reality, I knew every experience had meaning. So my quest was to find it all.

Allowing

I started to believe then that I can contribute to others, the world only by first looking into myself. Again the question came up: Who am I? As I have done a lot of realizing in the last ten years of my life, I saw my perfectionist who wanted to be perfect. And at that time I knew that I cannot be. The only thing I can is to accept myself. So I let go of processing stuff and started to allow all that was happening. Allow my I am, my soul to meld with me. And then the dragon came, the dragon meaning the clarity. The guilt and shame I felt of even being a human, of having a human experience. And I allowed. Mom guilt was in front. I am not good enough, I am not perfect whatever that meant. The unintegrated aspects came up front that were deeply forgotten. And I felt at home with myself. All parts of my soul were coming home, to me, in this lifetime, in this body, now. Great experience. I was waiting for it for lifetimes. And it was not what I imagined to be. It was natural. I started to enjoy everyday life, being with kids, in nature, drinking coffee, talking to my sister, small things and ultimately being with myself.

Changing countries

On my way to accepting myself, even more, I released a lot of ancestral stuff but knew I have to go to another country to free myself of it. With gratitude towards my lineage, I moved with my family. Now I am here, living in a totally new country, hanging with different people. Feeling different. My identity of being Sonja from Croatia is starting to fade because I am that I am, all I am, beyond the names, lineage, countries. I am outside of the time and in time at the same time, human and divine, the magician. And it all doesn't matter. I don't ask myself who am I, because I am.

Aspects

One may ask what happened with the dark aspects. First I became aware of them, then I took responsibility for them, and then I found out I don't need to change them or punish myself for them. They are me, the parts of me being away from home because I didn't invite them home, or didn't want them, didn't want to acknowledge them as me. They are parts of me that are actually the ones that took the part in a duality of the dark side out of love. They are the one that showed me that side. In my completion there isn't light or dark, masculine or feminine, there isn't duality, only wholeness. And it is not one, but many. Feeling complete isn't the end, it is an ever-going unfolding of life and love to myself and the world around me. It is not perfect love but real. It is compassion and grace. It is letting the beauty being unfold and seeing serving me in any way.

There are so many aspects in me. They all just wanted to come home. They all waited for me to invite them in, to say I am ready, and come home. It is my choice. I am so many things at once. I am all that I am.

Never-ending story

This story is the remembering from the point of view of the realization of the embodied beauty in my life. At that time some things were maybe seen differently, but when the time passed, and when I realized the embodied beauty in me, this story of my life came upfront. The time doesn't matter. I am going now beyond the time and time patterns themselves. As I change in one form of reality and time, the other parts of me in other times and realities follow. And all is well, in me and outside of me. It is as it is. I may ask myself how come it seems so easy now, this story and my life...I remember it wasn't easy at that point, but as now that changed, I also have remembrance of it being easy. It is both at the same time. And it is timeless-Aeterna (thank you to Adamus and Keahakers X for the invention of that word).

And it is all that it is, as it is.