Beyond the Garden Gate

You have started to learn to let go of worry, stress, control and began to believe and trust that everything will all come together like a beautiful woven work of art. It has not been an easy road but it has helped you to open your eyes to what this life has to offer and what it can be, even while you are surrounded by uncertainty, sadness, or hardship. You have kept giving it your all as you start to see things great and small come together, even in those times when you feel like the things you do are in vain or don’t know what to do. But know that you are constantly surrounded, wrapped, with the grace that is giving you strength that is helping you to breathe every day as you keep going. Remember you are where you are where you are meant to be even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, especially in the season of waiting, and one day you will look back and see how everything came together in beautiful ways that you were not expecting and how many things you would have n...

"This season I am learning to be ok with the unknown, to be at peace with the mystery, to trust that God is leading me right where I need to be, that I will heal the way I need to heal, grow the way I am meant to grow, that I will learn the way I am meant to learn. To surrender and trust that I am taken care of, being watched over and guided by an entity far greater and powerful than I can comprehend, thay it's in charge, it's in control. That I am surrounded by light and love, that there is a plan far greater than I can imagine..." Luz Voehl. Today is 3 months since the unexpected death of my big sister and it feels like it was an eternity ago since we have been dealing with getting hit by viruses and sickness week after week since January. I know  all I can do is trust that there is a purpose to all the things that we go through, theres lessons to be learned, theres growth from every experience including the painful ones, and there are miracles to be found in all. ...

This week I was reminded of a quote that says something along the lines of "there are no chance encounters" and intensified my belief that all relationships are assignments sent our way to show us what we need to heal and get back to love. I sold a book on ebay, a super pretty coffee table book, we'd never used it in perfect condition and not only it got lost in the mail but it got banged up. So the lady kept complaining and asked for a refund. Even though it was not my fault that the mail service banged up the book I offered partial refund because I put myself in her shoes and well it is a sucky situation, so this way I was keeping the money spent on the shipping and she was getting the rest back. But she kept complaining and asking for full refund and the situation kept going and the longer it dragged out the more it kept rising all this negative emotions and thoughts that were taking me down a dark place. When I realized I was getting out of alignment with God, out of ...

this quote resonates with me so much because as you probably know by now my sister passed away in her sleep the night before my nephew, her only son, was to be married. Her sudden and surprising death has left a huge imprint of me. She has been teaching me so much about life though it. I am still making peace with the fact that we had been talking like nothing, being silly, same conversation as always, helping her decide what dress to wear to the wedding, and laughing about silly things without any clue of what was to happen in just a few hours, that our relationship would for change forever, that THAT would be the last time we would hear each other’s voice, talk and laugh about stuff that seemed so stressful and so important at the time and now seems trivial and meaningless. One of the main things her death has taught me is how in the end whatever we are stressing about, in her case the dress she would wear to the wedding, it’s really in the grand scheme of things not t...

As I finish painting my last commission for Valentine's day 😍 I have been pondering of the quote from E.E. Cummings  "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."  And how there was so much fear around my art, what if people don't like it, what if it doesn't sell, what are people going to say? Am I good enough? Do I need to pick a theme and stick to it in order to be successful? etc etc... but what I realized is it's in the end it doesn't really matter, none of those fears really mattered. I realized I paint because it makes me happy, it fills my soul, it gives me joy and if it sells great and if it doesn't thats great too because in the process I had fun, I learned, I explored, I grew. We are here in this world to love, help, and be kind, and to live... not to be kept hostage by our fears and doubts. When I am close to the end of my life I want to be able to look back and feel proud that I didn't let my fears stop me from truly exp...

Today is one month of my world turning upside down, one month of Leticia Palacios Roc my big sister "mom" best friend's unexpected and surprising death. I still can't beleive it's one month of the dreaded phone call that changed everything, of hearing one the worst news I have heard in my life... a challenging and emotional month it has been, between loosing her and missing our weekly phone calls and constant text messages and facetimes, loosing out loved pet "whiskey" run over by a car and celebrating one year of loosing  baby #2 BUT even though it has been an emotional roller-coaster filled with feelings of emptiness, pain and sadness I have gathered enough evidence that I can handle hard things, I can handle the pain, I can handle the stress/emptiness/loss and I am still here, I'm ok. What has made it possible for me to get up in the morning and face my days is my Faith. Relying on my faith, putting myself and my pain at the foot of the cross, th...

As a Cognitive behavioural therapist the main thing we learn and work on is how "thoughts create feelings and feelings create actions".  What ever we think of will create a specic feeling and then we will act on that feeling for example if I jump on the scale and see it went up a few pounds my brain will immediately start creating fear based thoughts (we are human it's our default) and if unchecked they will make me feel down like a failure (you are so fat, here we go again, you can't control yourself with food, etc mean mean things) and then what would I do? Eat a whole packet of oreos giving my brain more evidence and proving it right and that lead me to stay stuck in that cycle... or when I have a dissagreement with someone I used to dig into the Nutella and say it was because they drove me crazy jumping from "A" to "C" but I was skipping the main part of  becomming aware of "B" = what am I telling myself right now? What is the story i...