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Essentially Especially You

September 11, 2015 · Leave a Comment

“You are a unique being. It is not in your doing, it is in your being that matters. This is where the magic happens. Your doing is just the last step in the distillation of you.”

I was fortunate enough to visit a lavender distillery this summer in France. There I saw how fields of fragrant flowers are grown, harvested and then distilled into essential oils. Tons of lavender placed in huge vats were subjected to heat and steam so the essence of this marvelous plant could be extracted as it’s most potent expression.

Would it be an absurd leap to consider living as an act of or process by which we distill our lives?  A distillery is simply a vessel (ourselves) in which is collected a large amount of a substance (our unique and highest visions for ourselves) in order to extract the most potent essence of the thing (a magnificent life!) 

Thank you for indulging my fragrant imagination!

In the past just taking what the outside world had given up was my way. Not a wit nor care did I give to the banquet of choice before me. This is just how I was taught it worked.

But what if…what if we have it backwards? What if our experiences could be distilled by carefully cultivating our visions of what we THINK is possible? What if CHOICE mattered more than circumstance to our field of dreams?

What if I start inside myself – with my hopes to give and receive love, with my desire to live in beauty and feel amazed or with my requirement to know I am safe and all is well?

In these past three years, since my husband’s death, I have been actively collecting visions of my highest and most heartfelt desires and consciously choosing to declare them manifest. And you know what – they did indeed become distilled into some mighty potent experiences.

And the more I become aware that the happenings around me are simply the proof of what’s seeded within me I am convinced this is the way of things. This is how we were meant to live – powerfully manifesting that which we can imagine. Not by knowing how, but by simply knowing ourselves and what we want from and for our lives.

For me, unlearning things taught, re-learning what works best and choosing to constantly question the Truth of what I see before me has helped me tap into the sweetest elixir of my lifetime. And it is comprised merely of all that I am and all I desire.

Our experiences are the distillation of our beliefs and self-defined limitations. This is the recipe for the most potent essence of “what is” in a life! Yes – it starts inside. And I expect it will end inside as well. I think this is called “introspection.”

Have you diluted your essence by defining yourself by your external circumstances alone? Are you polluting your essential self with doubts and fears or by simple inattention? What are you putting into the pot that is then purified and extracted as the life you are living? Are you distilling the most potent possibility of you there is? Here’s to finding your own way towards creating the essential you!


How do you include active introspection as part of your daily routine?

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Lani received a B.F.A from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1986 and earned a B.A in Art Education from NCCU in 2000.
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