I do this breath a lot at work. I've been doing customer service for a while and there are days that I gets reaaaally overwhelming, so when I feel like I'm becoming reactive, I ask my teammate to take charge of the counter for a bit while I do something else and I do this breathing. It brings me back down to Earth and slows down the mind. Lifesaver this one 😊 and when I feel like nothing works and I feel too much tension, running will do it. It frees my mind from everything!

I struggle with this a little bit (or more than a little bit 🤣). Because I'm working on the integration of my masculine and feminine energies, learning how to hold myself, to be my safe space, when the emotions need to flow, I find difficult to rely that part of me in someone else. I can do this with trusted male friends (only a couple that I do really trust to get to know that part of me), but in the journey of finding a partner... How do I show up at the beginning without giving away hyper-independence energy? I do wanna soften and be open to be held, but, until I get to know the person, my masculine energy would be maybe over protecting my feminine. Does anyone struggle with the same? Any tips to get to balance this in a healthier way? I'm using meditation and journalling to reflect on it and trying to define boundaries that still allow me to flow more freely, but yeah, still in the middle of the process.

@Annette Verhaar as I understand it, when you try to balance masculine and feminine within yourself it doesn't mean that you have to reach a 50-50 amount of each, but that you manage to make them both work together in a harmonious way, so you get what you need from both. So for me, as a woman, I feel my feminine is quite higher than my masculine, but for a another woman it might feel different and they are more in touch with their masculine. So in a woman to woman situation, what I observe is that there is always one of them that is more "feminine" and the other more "masculine". It sounds very superficial, but I think it might have something to do with those divine energies within themselves, so I guess they can balance each other (same with two men). But yeah, I find it a tricky matter when you are working on balancing them to letting someone else do it for you, or to "split" roles. For example, in leading. The idea of allowing someone else to lead sounds beautiful to me if it is about allowing them to be gentlemen and plan dates and stuff like that. But then, when it comes to important decisions, I feel like I want a King who stands besides my Queen so they can lead together, but it would be not natural for me to allow someone to make decisions for me, or for me to take them by myself in that sense.

@Andrea G glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing this video, I'll give it a go as well 😊

@Chelsea Ellington how did you go with the meditation? Have you had the chance to try it since then?

When people push my boundaries. I am learning to be more assertive, but the fact that I'm usually in a cheerful mood and enjoy being playful makes people not understand when I'm being serious (or so it seems). I'm literally voicing out "this is a boundary, so respect it", cause otherwise it feels like I'm talking to the wall. Just yesterday I was feeling quite off, and trying to find the reason I realised that I was angry. And I thought "why?". And it was because a boundary had been crossed just a few days after a serious conversation with the person. I think I just need to be more clear when I express them 😅 but yes, I did need to pause and breathe to stop myself from sending the ego-driven message that would have made it worse.

@Justin Peters thank so much, Justin! I am really happy to be here, this is the first time that I join a community and I'm actually active in it! ☺️ I really appreciate how welcoming everyone is and how they actually spend time reading, answering, supporting each other... It is so good to be in a place where people not only listen but also understand your healing language because they are on a similar path. Looooving it ☺️✨💙

@Nour Mohieddine Hi there! 🤩 of course I can! 😊 I actually need to think about it haha so, to give some context, the way I go about my learning is not really linear. I can start reading something about psychology and then, reflecting about something they say, I end up researching about astrology cause an idea popped up in my mind. So I feel it's a lot as if I'm back at uni and I am my own research project, so I wander around the library looking for books that might help but not always finish them, just read the parts that kinda "call me". So, as I said, A New Earth was the start. Then I jumped into a book called Attached; I was really struggling in the way I approached relationships and dating, I always lost myself in the process, like the only thing I had in my mind was them, so this book helped me understanding the "why", and knowing a little about my attachment (or attachments) styles started the change. Then there is a book by Matthew Hussey called Love Life, if anyone is interested in finding love. I haven't finished cause at some point it didn't feel aligned with my beliefs anymore (he has a very logical way of thinking, where to me feelings and intuition have a huge weight in my choices), but he is really good and it helps a lot with making choices that serve your true standards. Then for anyone interested in astrology (I absolutely love it), there is a book that I use as a guide called All Signs Point to You. It helps a lot understanding how every season of the year affects our energy and how you can use it to evolve. Each chapter comes with A LOT of journal prompts. They relate to each zodiac sign's qualities and challenges, but even if you don't believe in it, you can use them to reflect on how you go about those things in life. It's an awesome tool to learn about yourself psychologically speaking. Those have been quite big for me, but then I also research a lot online and watch videos on YouTube about topics that I enjoy. I'll be happy to keep talking about it if anyone is curious! 😊