Overcoming all Obstacles and Opening to Oneness... Ooooh to the yeah.

As some of you know, and many of you do not, that my life as an Earthling has not always been easy... I'm sure that you too have had many challenges on your pathway towards this moment, but I would like to share a few of mine here, and not so as to repeat my 'story' for the hundredth time, but hopefully as an inspiration to you, beautiful you, who have made it through your own struggle and overcome your own obstacles in order to be here right now, connected through these words.....

Growing up, I was sure that I must have been dropped off here from another planet... I just couldn't understand these 'grown-ups' around me. They said one thing, but I felt a different vibe, they contradicted each other, they lied, a LOT, and usually were unaware that they had even done so. It is hard when you are young, and have no framework with which to justify the strong feelings that you are aware of within yourself, especially when there is no one around to comfort and explain that you are not just being 'oversensitive' and 'naive' when you believe that there is a love and a magic in this world, that could end all war, hatred, pain & suffering.

I was acutely aware of many things as a young girl, and with an emotionally closed mother and a dictator for a father, I arrived in this world pretty freaked out by the whole shebang. Where to start? School was a bloody nightmare... "What the f%*k are you teaching me this for?!" and home was just a house full of shouting. At aged 12 I was given my first 'treatment' for the growing sense of panic and anxiety that was building up with each passing day. Valium. I remember crying and crying, unable to be comforted until this little white pill arrived in my mothers hand, waiting to bring me the warmth and peace that I wished could come from her instead. The fear turned into Obsessive-Compulsive behaviour, which led to a creepy psychiatric hospital on a hill in North London, pages of ink blot tests + a few more vague prescriptions... Except that the side-effects were not so vague, and it turns out that I was one of those first few kids who were trialled with the new Serotonin-Reuptake Inhibitors, including the one which was banned for causing teenagers to jump out of windows (the windows at boarding school didn't open that far, so I bit all the skin off my hands instead...) And with each subsequent visit to the school sanitarium, I was greeted once again with blank stares and mechanical care.

Who sends their kids away at the age of 11? Who does that? Especially if you have more than enough time and money to enjoy their company at home? I don't get it. So, here I find myself at a large grey coloured compound that is supposed to be my surrogate home for the next seven years. With 500 other girls who mostly seem equally bewildered and afraid and quickly learned that achievement and ambition were everything.  I didn't want to die... but I was so tired of screaming... and screaming... and screaming... and not being heard... so I started to disappear. One gram at a time. Until there was almost nothing left... I couldn't even whisper the words 'help'. Hospital number three and the eating disorders unit. Seven months living alone in a facility surrounded by drug addicts and schizophrenics, and incidentally some of the smartest and most intuitive people I had ever met. Not that I spent much time hanging around there though... no. I used to tie my sheets to the balcony and escape out the back window to walk the streets of London for hours alone with my headphones. Occasionally frequenting Camden market to sample some of the magic mushrooms they had to offer...

I went home for Christmas, making sure I cooked my own dinner so that I could spend an hour weighing everything out perfectly to make sure that not one extra calorie could sneak it's way into my body. My dad would poke me in the ribs and yell 'hey Chuck'. This was his clever joke. Chuck being another word for puke. Bulimia is hilarious. On my return to the hospital, I discovered that I was no longer registered. I had not 'followed the program' properly and they had decided to discharge me. Back home, my parents rushed to find a school that would take me so that I could catch up on my school work. Because that really was the most important thing to do... I lost it. I couldn't take it anymore. One evening, I begged my mother to find help for me or I'd kill myself. The options were another hospital in England, or a special clinic in Canada. I chose North America, seeing as it was about as far away from home as I could possibly get, and at that point, it was what I chose...

We arrived on the other side of the world to a clinic that had been shut down by the Canadian government, namely because it's founder had not a single qualification to her name, and that she hired ex-patients of hers to look after the new ones (and charged a ridiculous amount of money for their cure...) She took me to live in her house, and for the next four years, we moved country, yes country, every three or four months. To this day I still don't know why. My brain hurts trying to remember what happened during those years... but all I can say, is that I ended up in a far worse condition than I had been when I started. The culmination of this adventure came in the form of an LSD tab, which made me fly high enough out of my body to realise that the threat of interpol picking me up from the airport if I tried to run away was actually a lie, and that I could leave. Which I did. And seeing as my teenage logic was mostly limited to music and philosophy books, I decided to go live in Finland, since my favourite rock bands seemed to come from there... I arrived in the middle of winter in a howling snowstorm. Frightened, alone and still tripping from the drugs. And as I flopped onto the bathroom floor in my tiny one bedroom flat, I cried out to the universe in small, silent sobs, surrendering... "Ok, I'm ready for your help now... if you can hear me... please... I'm begging you..." And then it began. Ask and you shall receive...

I was becoming increasingly worried about my stomach and oesophagus after all the abuse that I had laid upon my poor body for the last few years and I asked a friend if she could help me find a doctor... We met outside a building with a large spiral staircase. "What is this place?" I asked her, as I saw a sign on the door which simply said 'Painters Therapy' "What the f%*k is this hippie shit?!" That is, until I walked through the door and met eyes with a man that I will NEVER forget... "hmmmmm..... cynical!" he chuckled..... And for the first time in my life I felt seen... seen to the very core... understood... welcomed... and LOVED! I had never felt this safe before. I just stared at him, as he stared back and looked through me as if I was made of glass... "I don't know what you know, but you KNOW!" I said. And he just smiled back at me and replied "Just be... and then YOU will know....."

Amen to this and to that and to all of you for reading this. I believe that everything that I have gone through has led me here to this moment, and if we can overcome these obstacles then we can get though anything... I feel strong. I feel empowered. I love myself (although it has taken a while to regain true confidence...) and I feel a strong sense of faith that all is working out well, and that if you need help in your life, you need only ask with deep and meaningful yearning and it will be given to you in miraculous ways... I thank all of the people and angels that I have met since that turning point in my life for all their healing, support and unconditional love, and I hope that one day, through music, writing, speaking and sharing, that I will be able to inspire another lost and lonely kid to keep going no matter what. You will get though it and you will shine... thank you so much for reading this through right to the very end! Love and lightness of being to you and namaste... I bow to the indwelling & indestructible spirit that dwells within you. Isabella <3

Make up or Break up?

Today I would like to talk about make-up... you know... the stuff that you squeeze out of a tube in exactly the same shade as your skin, to put on your skin, so that it looks like, er, skin... except only it blocks up your pores so that your face can't breathe and you feel like you're walking around with cling-film on your head... Then there comes the blusher, so that you look pleasantly flushed and ever so slightly aroused... along with the gluey, sticky plastic lip gloss to make you look like you've just been snogged by a giant slimy, sea snail... I mean come on... really. I'm glad that the one girl I did fall in love with was a nature-loving hippie kinda gal, cause I'm not sure I could handle the lip glue, I mean, gloss... but it's radioactive raspberry flavour, what's not to like? Then comes the eyeshadow (in just the right shade to make your eyes 'POP!')  then the eyeliner (to make them really 'POOOP!!') and finally the mascara ('POOOOOP!!!'...) yeah, poop. Top that all off with a few quick spritzes of Eau de Chinese factory à la Synthetic Musk (mmmmm... fake deer's testicle smell...) and enjoy the feeling of your aura shrinking like a beautiful flower that has just been sprayed with weed killer. But wait... you are still naked (shhhhh!) and oh what an awful sight in the mirror... I really shouldn't have eaten that banana slim-fast for breakfast... where are my skinny jeans? Let me see if I can squeeze my feminine shape into a polyester cut out of a twelve year old boy... hmmm... this hurts my stomach... oh well. Suck it up. Ladies... Gentlemen... (and everyone inside out and in between...) what is it that we really want? Don't we all just wish that someone out there in the world could really see us?... and by see I really mean see... (you'll know the difference...) because if our eyes are the windows to our souls, then we are hurling them wide open, adorning them with flashing neon lights and 24hour 'OPEN' signs and screaming, please, please... connect with me on a deep level... see me... love me... and I mean really love me... (without my short skirt... my skinny jeans... my sky high shoes and my super sweet sugary slimy sea snail smooched smile... Seriously. When did submissive = sexy? Now, I think I better point out here, that I like make-up... (what?) yeah... I actually do. I think it can be an art form, a way of creative expression, and even a spiritual ritual... but, the intention is everything (as it always is...) and if you are covering yourself in cheap, synthetic, chemical-based products because you feel that your face is unworthy of appreciation, that your body is not yet good enough to be loved and that your soul should not yet be allowed to shine through the thin covering of skin that seemingly separates you from the rest of the universe... then take it all off. Go fill a sink with warm water, a few drops of essential rose oil and find a soft, clean face cloth. You are beautiful just as you are. No matter what anyone has ever told you, no matter what your mind continues to playback to you and no matter what you fear that other's will say in the future. Go outside, and if the sun is shining, let it soak into your skin and your spirit, or if the rain is pouring, let it freshen and enliven you... If you feel like morphing into a pretty glittering fairy, or a wild, fearless lioness, or a bright blue, beaded, braided Na'vi... by all means, whip out the make-up bag and go ape... but try to use natural products that nourish your skin and the planet (it's what Neytiri would use anyway...) and know that you are already all of these things. You are already a glittering lioness of immeasurable beauty... and your face reflects your inner peace, happiness, strength, self-acceptance and love, so let yourself shine from within. You will find that when you follow your truth, take your power back and love yourself as much as you wish another to love you, then your eyes will glisten and shine with joy, wide and open like a curious child trying to take in all the world's beauty, your face will be naturally flushed by the life force flowing strongly within you and your lips will be full and sensuous because your blood will be rich with ecstasy... (and Maybelline will go out of business... nah nah.) Have a beautiful day everybody and give me some feedback if you meet your soulmate at the bus stop wearing nothing but your gorgeous, natural smile... ;)  PEACE and LOVE............................ <3

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE...

ANGER... like many emotions, often seems to be complex combination of feelings and sensations rather than a simple, straight-foward reaction to a current situation... and there are many different ways in which it apparently manifests... I believe that there are two basic emotions, LOVE and FEAR, and that every thought and action arises from either one... but I also believe that anger can come from BOTH of these states. Sometimes, anger is your Spirit's way of saying "NO THANK YOU." Especially for those of us with Indigo characteristics, we may have built up a lot of rage and aggression in our minds and bodies, because when you are basically a walking human lie detector, self-aware to the point where your stomach physically hurts if you speak or act against your inner truth and knowing, and eyes that can see with x-ray vision into the hearts of people, situations and institutions, 'feeling' (yeah we feel a LOT...) instantaneously their level of integrity and alignment with love and Oneness. Many of us grew up with the feeling of being too old for our age, acutely aware of the contradictory answers thrown at us by the adults, and with a growing uneasiness and anger when we began to realise that these people in power, our parents, our teachers, our doctors and our governments, who had often told us to shut up and listen, were talking from fear, from ego and from memory, passed on by their own parents, teachers and leaders. There comes a point where you suddenly wake up and say to yourself "oh shit... if everything I've ever been taught is a lie, what is the truth?" Anger is not considered an appropriate response in our society either. Most probably because the kind of spiritual anger, discussed before, would threaten to disconnect the safety net of the status quo, and shock the system out of it's false security. So much of our anger gets suppressed. This is because we are so afraid to be outcast, abandoned and unloved if we dare to express ourselves. However, there comes a point where the pressure becomes so strong, the spirit craves authenticity so acutely, that aloneness is a risk worth taking... and the truth is, that as soon as you begin to raise your voice, with assertiveness and awareness, you attract angelic assistance and other humans who understand and support you on deep levels, you are not alone... So next time you feel the blood in your veins begin to boil, when you feel like smashing your head (or in extreme situations someone else's...) against a brick wall, remember that the wall is just a symbol of all the times you were told that you were wrong to feel what you were feeling, to say what you were saying, to be what you were being... so be yourself, don't judge yourself or feel guilty for what you feel, let it come and let it go... go smash a drum kit, kick a football, write a song (or a blog...) walk outside, hug a tree, drink some tea, and know that your soul is always free, so... JUST BE................................................................... O:)