Kimberley Tiong - Kimberley Tiong

Breathing into our womb (lower belly)

You can listen to this journal post here, or watch the video or read below…

Many of us go through life being not quite in our bodies – we’re often rushing, we’re overwhelmed with all the sensory input coming our way, we’re overwhelmed with all the things we have to do.

Sometimes we can even think that spirituality is about transcending our body to get to a “higher level” of being above (or outside of) our body (I certainly did for many years!). When in reality, spirituality is about being more embodied – i.e. more IN our bodies.

The more of us – our energy, our spirit, our being, that is in our body, the less room and space there is for other people and external influences to influence and impact us.

We’re also here to have a physical experience. While we may be these incredibly powerful spiritual beings, we are here to have a PHYSICAL experience. That involves having to actually be here physically in our bodies.

If we can’t fully be in our physical bodies, we can’t fully be here in our physical life.

One thing that can help us get more embodied (in our bodies)

So the question is, how can we be more in our bodies?

One thing that can help with this is to breathe into our womb.

Why our womb/lower belly?

Many teachers talk about breathing into our heart space. But, that’s not our actual centre of gravity. Our centre of gravity is actually lower down in our body, in our lower belly. When we can be more in our womb or lower belly, we can be more in our centre, more grounded and more connected with our body and our life.

Further, as women, the egg that became us, actually developed in our grandmother’s womb. Because our mother developed all of the eggs she would have in her whole life by the time she was 4 months in gestation, she was a foteus in her mother’s womb(!). This means we all spent at least 5 months in our grandmother’s wombs. And likewise, our grandmother spent at least 5 months in her grandmother’s womb, going back through the generations.

And so, when we can connect with our womb, we can connect with all the women in our lineage who came before us.

And even more than that, when a baby is in the womb and they are seemingly making random movements, they are actually make sacred geometric shapes and connecting in with the divine wisdom of the universe, and getting information about Who am I? Why am I here? and Where do I belong?

So, when we can connect to our wombs, we:

Connect with our centre of gravity and we’re more stable and balanced
We connect more with our bodies, and more of US is in our bodies (we are more embodied) and so there is less room for other people and external influences to impact us
We connect with the women who came before us in our lineage, and
We connect back in with the divine universal wisdom about Who am I? Where do I belong? and Why am I here?

What about guys?

Guys can breathe into their lower bellies too, and this is called the lower dantian which is 2-3 finger widths’ below your belly button. Likewise, this helps you become more centered and more in your body, and can also help connect you with your personal power and vital energy.

No matter where we go, there we are…

Kimberley Tiong Musings, reflections, Personal growth Personal development, personal growth, reflections, self love, self rapport, Spiritual growth, turn towards yourself 0 Comment

A conversation with a friend reminded me that no matter where we go, there we are.

This friend is worth $50m ($100m before he divorced his ex-wife). He could spend $112k a day for the rest of his life and still not get through the *interest* he earns on his investments. That’s just the *interest*, and not even touch the principal.

He is in a relationship with an amazing woman, has a very successful business and has set up another 2 companies that are already starting to fly.

He is surrounded by a great team of people who support him. Has friends and a good relationship with his 2 children and ex-wife.

He could go anywhere in the world (covid restrictions pending), do anything he wanted. He could stop working and go live anywhere he wanted. He could do things most of us can only dream of.

And yet, he’s still unhappy and feels empty and unfulfilled.

As he said to me, “Life is too easy.”

It’s ironic. Most of us want life to be easier. We want money, cars, dream homes, endless holidays, a great relationship, a beautiful family…

And yet it seems at the end of the day, even if you have all of those things, that aching loneliness and the feeling of being unfulfilled can still remain.

No matter where we go, there we are.

No matter what we have, we’re still us.

We constantly look to external things, other people and different places to fill the aching empty void we feel inside ourselves.

But we are looking in all the wrong places. Those external things don’t give us lasting meaning, fulfillment and purpose. They don’t give us lasting connection. We have to find that connection within ourselves.

When I told my friend that one day he might have to stop and face himself. His response was, “I don’t want to have to do that shit. I don’t want to go through that.”

We can achieve everything we set out to in life. We can climb mountains, create super successful companies, speak on stages, have any number of accolades. And yet, the thing we often fear most, the thing we most don’t want to face, is ourselves.

But, it’s us – ourselves, that is the ONLY thing we are guaranteed to have for the rest of our lives.

We have a choice. We could spend our whole life running from ourselves, keep ourselves busy and distracted with the next thing until we’re maybe exhausted and depleted and still unhappy; or we could start to turn towards ourselves, face our fears and perhaps realise we’re not as scary as we thought.

Be kind to yourself – see yourself as others see you

Kimberley Tiong Musings, reflections 0 Comment

I was telling a friend how someone I had recently met triggered my “I’m not good enough” belief. She asked how I thought I wasn’t good enough.

I said because this person was physically fit, intelligent, emotionally aware and vulnerable, spiritually evolved and had done a lot of personal development work on themselves.

She said, “But that’s how I see you.”

It made me remember that we rarely see ourselves (at least I rarely see myself) as others see us.

We can be incredibly hard on ourselves. I judge myself far more harshly than others do.

So for today, or at least in this moment, I choose to see myself as others see me. And I choose to let that be enough.

Even if I can’t sustain it for more than a moment, I choose to let that be enough too.

It’s a nice reminder that as we grow and are challenged, our insecurities can come up because we’re playing at a different level; we’re playing a bigger game.

It’s not a bad thing, or a reason to think we’ve regressed; it’s more that we’re no longer in grade 6 at Primary School, we’re now in year 7 at Secondary School. It’s growth, it’s development, it’s exciting, and scary too.

So as “I’m not good enough” comes up, think, “Yay, I’m moving forward; I’m growing and progressing!”.

And be kind to yourself, no matter what your experience is.

Reflection: Include it all; it is all divine

Kimberley Tiong Musings, reflections consciousness, personal growth, Relections, Spiritual growth 0 Comment

Healing- Kimberley Tiong - Transformational coaching

We are here to live life to the fullest and include it all – include all of life so we can include all of ourselves.

When we can include all of ourselves, we can bring all of ourselves into the light and experience all of ourselves. And in doing so, we can recognise our divinity in all of who we are.

And when we can recognise our divinity all of who we are, we can recognise the divinity in others, regardless of the form or shape or manifestation they may take.

And when we can recognise the divinity in others, regardless of their form or shape or manifestation, we can recognise the divinity in all of God’s (life, spirit, God, universe, divine – whatever your choice of word or belief or faith or spirituality) and our creations, and in our co-creations with God – whether animal, vegetable, mineral, rock, tree, bacteria, germ or virus.

Include it all, for it is all divine.

If we are divine, everything we create is also divine.

The divine, God, life, spirit, universe, whatever you wish to call it, can only experience itself to the FULLEST through us. AND it wants to experience itself to the FULLEST – to recognise its magnificence, its gloriousness, its wonder and its power – the FULL SPECTRUM.

The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the shame and guilt, the laughter and joy and love.

The FULL SPECTRUM.

When we deem things as good or bad, included or not included, we are shunning a part of the divine, and ultimately a part of ourselves.

And that in itself is an experience the divine wants to have – it is all included and all part of the divine.

As Terence said, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”, translated by Maya Angelou as: I am a human being – nothing human can be alien to me.

If you truly get that you are part of the divine, and more than that, the divine in human form; if you truly get that you are divine, then you truly get that all others – people and all other beings, are also divine.

If you truly get that, then you can recognise that Hitler was divine. That Pol Pot was divine. That Donald Trump is divine. That the coronavirus is divine.

AND, Mozart and Brahms were divine, Shakespeare was divine, Mother Teresa was divine, Botticelli and Michelangelo were divine, Maya Angelou was divine, Marianne Williamson is divine.

The divine is in me. I am the divine, having a human experience. Trying and wanting to experience myself to the FULLEST through my human creations here on physical earth.

I am a human being -nothing human can be alien to me – the light and the dark. If a human being did it, I can too. I am capable of it all.

Because I am divine. And you are too.

And so is Donald Trump and the cornonavirus.

Include it all.

Because when you include it all, you can include all of yourself, and bring all of yourself into the light. And marvel, wonder, find the fun, the joy, the life and divine in it all. All of you – the light and the dark.

The shadow selves you shun and are ashamed of and push away and don’t want the world to see.

The light, joyous, glorious selves you (secretly) love and are also sometimes too ashamed to show fully in the light for fear of being cut down or seen to be too big for your shoes.

And the you in the middle moderating it all. The one you let the world see. The one who is wanting a fuller, richer, more beautiful, glorious experience of life, but won’t let yourself have.

Because in order to have that fuller, richer, more beautiful, glorious experience of life, means you have to show more of your fuller, richer, more beautiful, glorious you – a fuller, more whole you – in all of your light and in all of your dark (or at least in more of your light and in more of your dark).

It means realising you are wonderful and powerful and creative and good; and that you are wounded and in pain and insecure and hurt. It means realising your anger, realising your joy, realising your shame, realising your preciousness, realising your want and need for connection, and the depths of your loneliness and disconnection and despair.

And you know what? We ALL feel it, whether we let others see it or not. We ALL have similar experiences, because we are ALL human.

That’s what being human is – realising that we have a range and depth of emotions and feelings and experiences of and in life.

Being human is being divine. Because the divine (life, spirit, God, universe, whatever your choice of word or belief or faith or spirituality) created us all.

Created us all so that it could experience ITSELF to the fullest, THROUGH US. It put itself IN US to be here on earth to have a PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE of itself. Because otherwise, that wouldn’t be possible.

Only through us, through our PHYSICAL BODY, is the ONLY way the divine can experience itself to the fullest.

Our physical body is our temple here on earth. Our divine vehicle to interact with the physical world.

And so that is why we have the full range of humans here on earth; the full range of human experiences through others, and the capacity for the full range of human experiences inside ourselves – whether we choose or allow ourselves to see that or not.

Whether we choose or allow ourselves to bring our full selves into the light or not, it is all perfectly ok. Because it is all divine. The full range of our experiences is all divine. Whether we recognise it or not.

And whatever we do, whatever choices we make, whatever experiences we have in life, the divine is having a great and glorious time experiencing itself through us, because it WANTS to experience the FULL range of human and physical experiences. It WANTS to experience the FULLNESS of its DIVINITY. And can only do so through us.

Building (Natural & Lasting) Confidence

Kimberley Tiong Personal growth Confidence, Personal development, Spiritual growth 0 Comment

There are many people with tips on how to build confidence. While much of the advice can help build confidence in the short term, it doesn’t help create lasting confidence. Some of these things can even erode confidence over the long term, because they try to get you be something you are not. This is not only unsustainable, but can also unconsciously add to the shame we feel about who we are.

Here are my 3 tips to building *natural and lasting* confidence.

1. Shine a light on your deep, dark pain – the part of yourself you don’t want to show the world

Part of the reason we are not confident, is because we have this deep, dark part of ourselves that we are too ashamed to show the world. We think if we show this part of ourselves to the others, they will laugh at us, shun us, turn away and reject us.

And, we think we are the only one like this.

This is not the case. EVERYONE has a part of themselves they don’t want to show the world, whether they are consciously aware of it or not (and if someone doesn’t seem to have this part of themselves, it’s likely they have had to work through this to get to where they are).

Why do we have this in the first place? This is a longer conversation for another blog, but suffice to say, it most often comes back to childhood and the pain we experienced there. We had an experience in childhood that we took be our fault – that there was something wrong with us, and in doing so, we shunned and turned away from that part of ourselves.

A tree can only grow as high as its root system will allow.

So, in order to have natural, lasting confidence, we need to turn towards this part of ourselves. The reason we are not confident, is because we invest a lot of time and energy trying to hide this part of ourselves from the world – we can’t fully be ourselves and trust we will be accepted.

Many other people try to get you to assume a “confident façade” – but doing this, is like trying to put a nice manicured layer of grass over a rubbish dump. The foundations are still the same.

And in fact, it can make us even more ashamed of that part of ourselves – we can then (consciously or unconsciously) think that part of us is so abhorrent that we have to cover it up – even the “experts” say so.

But imagine if you could be truly be yourself, and be truly accepted for who you are. How would that affect your confidence? You would likely be more confident.

So, the first step is to start to shine a light on those parts of yourself you don’t want to show the world. In order to show other people, and have a hope of being accepted, you first have to show yourself, and start to accept yourself. If you can truly start to accept yourself, then others will start to accept you too, and if not, you won’t really care what they think.

2. Start doing things that challenge you – start building a sense of achievement

Julie Sparkle, a motivational speaker, says that one of the things that makes us happy is a sense of achievement. Julie’s son is on the spectrum and when her husband died, Julie wanted to give her son everything she could. So she did everything for him so he wouldn’t have to. One day she followed him into school and saw that all the other kids were happier than her son. Why would that be when she had done everything for her son and given him everything she possibly could? That’s when she realised that one of the things that makes us happy in life is a sense of achievement.

Many of us try to stay in our circle of safety and don’t want to venture outside of what is comfortable. But doing this:

a) Makes our world smaller and smaller over time – our creature brains love this and have been designed over thousands of years to keep us safe and to survive, and so will do whatever it can to keep us comfortable and safe (and small) – not because it’s bad, just because that’s its job (human beings would not have physically survived without it)
b) Decreases our happiness, fulfillment and confidence over time – research shows that we need stretch goals to feel fulfilled – goals or tasks that we have a 50% success/fail rate. This is one of the things we NEED in order to thrive as humans.

So, if you are wanting to build natural, lasting confidence, you need to include challenges that stretch you and allow you to step outside your comfort zone. It doesn’t have to be a big thing straight away, and it doesn’t have to be an arduous thing – you can start small and make it fun. Sing karaoke with friends, go dancing (or even just dance in the privacy of your own home), do a ropes challenge course, an exercise class you’ve never tried before, a day trip to a new place, cooking or craft lessons…

Or go along to a Meetup Group and meet some new people.

Which brings us to the last point:

3. Surround yourself with supportive people

Especially when you are trying to bring out another part of yourself and try new things, it’s super important to surround yourself with supportive people. People you can say, “This is new. I’m feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable” and they will get it and cheer you on.

Sometimes, the people we are most familiar with are the ones who are not necessarily the most supportive of us when we go through change.

While that’s not always the case, sometimes we need to practice first with supportive strangers to build our confidence. And then we can start to open up to those closer to us.

Part of this is because our relationships and interactions with others is based on who we are. A bit like jigsaw puzzle pieces fitting together. So if we were jigsaw puzzle pieces, as we start to change, our jigsaw puzzle piece self starts to change shape, and we don’t fit as well into the jigsaw mould. This unconsciously challenges those around us as they feel the changing nature of our relationship and so are given the opportunity to change too, or else can try to have you change back to fit back into the comfortable jigsaw puzzle mould.

It’s not good or bad, right or wrong, it’s just what’s comfortable and familiar – all things that our creature brains (ours and their’s) is wanting. And yet, there is a more conscious and developed part of us that is wanting to change. Our soul is here to grow and develop and so will continuously call us on with opportunities for change.

So this means it’s sometimes easier to find other supportive people you can be around while you change, people who are not as invested in keeping you as you are. At least until you are strong enough in yourself to support and be your newly developing self.

One place to find other people is to look up Meetup Groups – these are in many cities around the world and most of these offer free events and opportunities to meet up based on different interests so you’re sure to find a group that suits you.

(While I run a Meetup Group, I am NOT affiliated with Meetup – I just know that it has helped me through different times of transition in my life and I’m sure it can do the same for you if it resonates).

No matter how you go about building confidence, be kind and compassionate to yourself. Comparing yourself to others and/or beating yourself up for not being where you “should be” or not changing fast enough is not helpful. And neither is beating yourself up for beating yourself up! Wherever you are in your journey be kind to yourself – this is who you are right now. This is where you are. And, okay.