Our hearts yearn for peace and our souls desire for us to find the Love that exists in every moment, in every interaction and every cell of every being on Earth. Yet there are an awful lot of ways we could be convinced to live a life aligned with fear instead.

If we listen to the mainstream media, for instance, we might find out that there is a World-wide financial crisis that is devastating global economies; we might learn that terror lurks behind every closed door or in the minds of all foreigners; we might hear that everyone is out to get our stuff, the stuff we’ve acquired because we were told it would make us ‘better’ people.

If we listen to our Family of Origin, there are any number of messages we might be hearing, from religious doctrine, to patterns of abuse and dysfunction that are written in the very cells of our genetic make-up through experiences and attitudes of previous generations. We might learn to normalise any number of behaviours or beliefs that don’t serve our highest and best visions for ourselves.

If we listen to teachers or gurus, even well-intentioned ones, we might learn that all we have to do is rid ourselves of everything we’ve believed to be true and sit in stillness; we might learn that our true salvation lies in giving portions of our income to worthy, spiritual causes; we might learn that the information we need is somewhere, anywhere outside of ourselves.

Whose picture paints your reality? Do you create your own life based on perceptions that have come about through your own experience and understanding of the world? Do you put aside your inner knowing in favour of the reality painted by someone else?

If at any moment you find yourself heading towards feelings of fear, ask yourself what has taken you away from the calm inner centre at the core of who you are. Ask yourself if the ‘reality’ you are seeing has been designed by someone else’s version of events or someone else’s understandings of who and how to be in the world. If it has, find a way to redesign it to your own liking. It involves letting go of caring what others might think of you, letting go of what is normal, proper or ‘the way things are done.’ It involves following the road you know is right for you, even if it makes others uncomfortable.

Keep asking yourself, ‘whose picture paints my reality?’ and if you ever find yourself answering that it’s anyone but you, get out your canvas and start a new painting. By the time you leave this planet, make sure you can fill a gallery with the art you’ve created from the act of living in full, vivid colour.

Jenny Griffin
Also known as 'The Catharsis Coach,' Jenny loves exploring life's twists and turns through the lens of transformation. Her own journey through catharsis, a deep, deep letting go of ingrained patterns and beliefs, resulted in a feeling of connectedness, with the world around her and with that wise and wonderful voice within. Jenny has learned to engage with her life and experiences in a way that allows her to use the knowledge gained through them to serve others. When she's not writing, she's coming up with new ways to help people move through change with grace and ease.

You can find her at: The Power of Change, on Facebook and on Twitter