Altar To Alter

We are free to choose, however, we are not free from the consequences of our choices.

This is a universal paradox none of us can escape. The choices we make in our everyday lives are either fuelled by love or fear.

A good day for us all is when love for ourselves and others drives our waking hours. However, if we are looking for good emotional mileage it just makes sense to fuel up before or after our day’s journey.

So here are a couple of quick questions to check in on your Emotional Fitness self-care refuelling rituals …

1. Where do you emotionally fuel up?

2. How do you emotionally fuel up?

3. When you do take time out to refuel, how often do you emotionally fill up your love tank?

4. Do you look for another person, place or thing to do it for you?

5. Do you spend most of your life running on empty?

If we really want to ALTER our lives we need to create our own love ALTAR so we can fill up not just sometimes, but every day. An ALTAR is like a petrol pump, but instead of diesel or petrol we fill up on love, peace, beauty and hope. This quality blend of fuel will always drive us to our desired destination. Where’s that? The best place to end up no matter what goes down during our day. In my opinion, that’s the sweet little town called Self-respect.

However, too many of us drain our heart’s tank daily with fear, busyness and noise, catastrophising the bad and minimising the good. Guess where this cheap fuel seizes our emotional energy tank, aborting our journey, leaving us stranded? In a shitty little slum called “Chaos.”

Now don’t get me wrong when I suggest we drive our day from a place of love. Some people fear that if they become too loving they will become less effective leaders, parents and partners. The reverse is true. We become more effective. Being internally driven from a place of love means we treat ourselves with the same respect, loyalty, compassion and patience we treat others with. We finish our day less drained and more fulfilled.

So where is the love ALTAR in your home?

As a little girl I lived inside a house where there was sexual abuse, domestic violence and definitely no love ALTAR.

For some kids their love ALTAR at home might be in their bed hearing a bedtime story, or snuggled up between two devoted parents. But unfortunately, like many kids who live in houses that are emotional war zones, the house and my bed were the least safe places. So, I hung out at Mother Nature’s home. She sheltered me under a lemon tree in my back yard and the sparrows would come and visit me to comfort my troubled heart. Every day they showed up, these sparrows like little angel messengers. That place with the sparrows under the lemon tree became my love ALTAR. Under this tree my heart’s empty tank refuelled on her love through respect of Nature’s reliable beauty and gentleness.

That tree, that love ALTAR, truly saved my sanity and my life. Without a doubt.

As an adolescent addict and an active alcoholic I often would wake up under trees, curled up like I used to when I was a frightened child. Under a tree was my safe place, a reliable home when houses and beds with people in them felt unsafe.

These days my entire home is an ALTAR to love. I t’s an old Queenslander draped in flowering vines and filled inside with fairy lights and glittering sparrows. My home is by no means a Vogue showpiece. It is more like a cubbyhouse. I have had people walk into it and say it feels like Mrs Doubtfire’s house, like a nana’s house welcoming in its imperfect, old-fashioned kinda energy. Alternatively it’s been described as Alice in Wonderland’s house on crack. Whatever. For me and Mr Delicious everything in this home has to be here because it is something we love. If it has no story, no love, no beauty, no passion-filled memory we don’t choose it. I am not interested in collecting art, even though every wall of our home is chockablock with framed pictures. They are all photographs of those I love, that is my favorite kinda art.

However, next to my bed (that is a glorious four-poster bliss zone also draped in flower garlands, fairy lights and golden sparrows) is my special little secret squirrel ALTAR. There live my books, fresh flowers, candles, drawers filled with handwritten cards from my sons since they were aged four and many other treasures. On the floor next to my ALTAR is a thick, soft, lush carpet I drop to my knees on and pray before I start my day.

For those who do not believe in a God, don’t worry; you don’t need a formal God to create your own love ALTAR at home. The words God and Love are interchangeable as far as I can see. You just need to gather the things you love the most and create your heart’s ALTAR with them.

So I invite you to review where your love ALTAR currently is, or create one if you don’t have a place where your heart fills up with calmness, love, beauty, hope and gratitude.

We of course can choose a few different ALTARS, some inside, some outside of our home. The ocean may be your ALTAR, your garden, a daybed, sitting under a beautiful grand tree, on your back step or on top of a rock on a mountaintop.

The world is full of beautiful ALTARS just awaiting us to access them, offering us love in abundance.

Our ALTAR is that place where our ego surrenders to love, quietness and beauty so our happy tank can fill up on calmness, self-respect and peace.

We can choose to self-neglect and run our day and our whole lives on empty, filling up on chemical stimulants or superficial shiny people, places and things to keep us going. Or we can choose to increase our self-care and come home to our own heart, kick our shoes off, relax and stay a while.

All of the troubles our chaotic minds become burdened by as we finally surrender our woes to our heart’s ALTAR of love; our perspective can then be gently ALTERED.

Lotsa love Cynthia xxx