This article came past me again today when someone messaged about it, and it felt like a nudge to share it once more. It’s an article I wrote as a contributing author for http://wild-woman.com/. The title of this article happens to be one of my personal mottos, and the theme heading of my blog. Perhaps it might speak to you in some way.

My life wasn’t always an expression of my heart. Well, not my truest and wildest heart, but rather a tamed one that felt similar to what it might be like receiving a heart transplant – part of me I had accepted, but not naturally of me.

While I did incarnate, as we all do, with my full gifts intact and flowing, it wasn’t long before the naturally expressive, unhindered, and unencumbered me took a back seat in the dark recesses of my human vehicle.

The beautiful innocence we all bask in the glow of from onset tends to diminish, as we soon begin to forget who we are, under the heaviness of all that is not us. These unwelcome, but unquestioned strangers squeeze that little child into the tiniest, deepest part of us we can manage hiding her in, which will prove a courageous journey to recover her from later.

This isn’t always the experience, nor does it have to be. However, the journey of my heart was one that I had chosen to walk in all colorful feeling extremes, in order to come to know my thread of expression within the collective tapestry, and to have a foundation of true understanding and breadth of compassion from which to connect from.

The journey wound through various paths of trials and explorations, as I experimented to find the right balance of elements that when kindled, would ignite the resonant recipe of me.

It hasn’t always been an easy journey, but it has been an invaluable and rich journey – one I wouldn’t change even if you told me I could. I can’t imagine my life any other way and now have only gratitude for every courageous soul that was willing to show up exactly as they did to assist me with my personal evolution.

I believe we contract soul agreements and that the people we have had the most challenge with, are some of the souls who love us enough to know that they may be temporarily resented and despised, as we both move through our journeys.

We have the opportunity in every moment to rigidly close ourselves off like a guarded steel trap, or to gently open ourselves up like wings of a bird taking to flight.

“Right now, and in every now-moment, you are either closing or opening. You are either stressfully waiting for something – more money, security, affection – or you are living from your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting.” ~David Deida

Through the obstacle course of my life I set up to experience, I shared in the wound of fragmentation that we each go through on the journey to unifying the powers of seeing, knowing, feeling, and being. There is a wounded healer in all of us that desires to quench the thirst of self-purification through release of conformity and mediocrity that has held our soul’s true power and magick down.

At every turn we can choose differently. Choose to shift perspective. Choose to feel and believe differently. Choose to take different actions. Choose to be more present. Choose to respond with conscious awareness, unconditional love, and compassion. For we see in others, the shared wounds we both desire freedom from.

It is our sovereign free will that we can exercise to create anew in each now moment. And from this presence of heart, we can activate the powerful vulnerability of our personal integrity to be the voice of change needed, in response to all experiences.

There came a time when I was ready to see, both literally and figuratively. And to be willing to look within is where the journey to wholeness begins.

I actively do my best to practice and remind myself to stand in that wholeness of heart and soul, as I believe it is the bridge that provides the potential for others to do the same. And I gently keep encouraging myself when I move through moments of learning and re-learning, realizing that the journey is more valuable than any idealized destination.

After all, we are here to experience all that life as a human has to offer. We didn’t have a clause going in saying, “Only IF it is exactly like this, will I incarnate.” We chose because of the adventure and the possibilities available. We knew it would come with the ups and downs. And we were celebrated in our courage to come anyway.

As a natural artist of life, I have always danced with healing arts and creative expression as either a childhood tool to escape the pains of the past, or a means to which, as an adult, I could recreate the world I once escaped to, as my now reality. It wasn’t until much later in life, however, that I embraced the gifts that showed up from early on – the arts, imagination, intuition, sensitivity, and connectivity – as the channel for self-expressive service to others.

Yet, everything to me has always been rich in symbolism, which I felt had the power to shift experiences through the potent and fertile doorways they created.

So I developed a knack for the alchemy of transmutation through the vehicle of integrated self-expression from the heart. And I am living more aligned with that true and wild heart of mine and enjoying life more now than ever because of, not in spite of, everything that has been part of my experience.

I invite and welcome others into the dance with self and to align with the way in which speaks to your own heart’s rhythm.

I believe that creativity and heart are not separate. It takes a heart to dream and it takes creativity to love unconditionally. Love and creative energy I believe are the most powerful forces in the Universe. The more creative expression is engaged and supported, the deeper our hearts expand, as they are then also being nurtured to grow.

And it is through love and creativity that we will integrate healing within and without, the more we exercise them.

Everything I share is with intention of supporting an integrated and empowered experience of discovering your own heart wisdom, while activating your creative manifestation abilities that will enhance the quality of your life and in turn, create collective ripple shifts as a reflection of your example of living from that wholeness of you. I hope to inspire and nurture courageous heart explorations that lead to self-empowerment through a return to natural harmony.

You don’t have to be a visionary artist by way of your life’s work, to make your life work as a vision of artistry. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you started living the wonder? Activate the heart of you by cultivating the art of you and within that state of being uniquely you, you will be free.