2023 December 827

A personal note from Sylvia

Consciously breathe…feel your breath in your nostrils, in your bronchioles and lungs and release…now, do it again…it’s the gift of life.

As we come to the close of our 2023 calendar I recall a year of friendship, love, grace, kindness, music, conversations, connecting to nature and remembering…the song of the river doesn’t end at her banks or at the delta… life is a continuum.

All my life I’ve thought a lot about love.

Many of us In childhood experienced mixed and distorted messages that muddied the clear water of love.

“I love you when…you tidy your room”- that’s conditional love.

Statements like this often have a long term outcome. The child grows into a people pleaser, and in their endeavour to be loved, this may lead to acceptance of any behaviour from others (including relationships which are based on mental cruelty and physical violence).

This conditional love is not love - Love is not 'more or less. Love is simple - I LOVE YOU is what it is.

Time taught me, when we feel 'out of love' with those we know we love, it is inappropriate behaviour that has complicated the graceful flow of kindness.

An elegant word for love is grace.

Grace to me is the most beautiful word in the English language.

Grace is holding love in our heart, it is a clarion call to self-refinement and kindness.

Grace is a quality of mind, spirit/soul.

As we step into a new year, with new energy…consider the patterns of the past that were not graceful, kind or necessary. Remember we don’t fix ourself by breaking someone else.

My message is…step into the new year with the memories of love and refinement, grace and kindness, remembering once again, the song of the river doesn’t end at her banks neither does it end at the delta.

Continue to be your most beautiful self, love splendidly, and prosper as you step forward continuing to be all of YOU.

Blessings from my heart to yours..

Sylvia Marina

Principal of Heart Leaders Academy