SHINE! I stands for Igniting

To put it poetically, with this pillar of my SHINE system we ignite an ever lasting, durable and sustainable flame within the icon oil lamp of your dreams, a candle that will help you restore the faith every time it tends to fade.

To put it bluntly, I from SHINE puts the fire under your sweet buttocks. :-)

Even though it's million light years ago, I can perfectly recall the times when the deadline for the delivery of a construction project that I'd supervised would come. By then I would've measured the space, I would've made the first sketches, drawn the plans and furthered the materials, colors and details, made the perspective drawings, gave instructions to the builders and supervised the whole process of bringing my project from 2d to 3d. In the last days and hours there would be crisis after crisis, working 24/7, fires to be put off (sometimes more than literal!) or floods to be stopped. I would literally sleep on the building site, (more than once!), or under the computer for the last details of the project.. I would drive on adrenaline for days on end and not eat and all of a sudden the project would be delivered and then.... Silence. 

Realistically, because the projects were mostly very close to each other and overlapped, the silence would last for about a few minutes or, in the best case, a few hours...

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My life was like this for years and years.
Until I burned out. Then worked like that for a while more.. And then I had a child.

And running on adrenaline became a non-option.
Suddenly I had to teach myself to run on a different, more sustainable rhythm and on another kind of fuel.

The thing is, adrenaline is addictive. And very very attractive.
Right now, for example, a few of my favorite projects are failing and falling. People and circumstances I counted on are disappearing or changing direction. I also have to change plans every day, it feels.  It feels like I have to reset the whole internal computer system. EVERY. DAY. 

My tendency? Going on the adrenaline tour, kick it in and start the engine with a kerosene explosion. 
Depression seems to be the  only other alternative in the moment and that is totally NOT acceptable, especially as a single mother.

my lucky break is that I am a mother

My lucky break - that I am immensely grateful for every second of my life - is that I have a immensely wise child next to me, that comes seemingly out of nowhere with obvious metaphors to keep me sane, to the point and grounded. 
(grounded = something I have never felt or had a concept of before he came into my life).

Today, while I had a little melt down, he asked me: "Mammie, what is a lamp made of?".. After I kinda explained it, going around to Edison and Tesla and the components of a lamp and how they now invented a new one based on gravity and how that is so ah-mah-zing.... (can you tell I've got carried away?) he asked: "..and why does a lamp SHINE light?"..... 

Well.. while this would normally be one of those questions that I'd want to answer with "it gives light because it's a lamp" - today, in the middle of my melt down and being utterly disappointed, fighting between giving in to adrenaline or depression, I thought about this question much much more...

To me, giving light is one of the essential vital things. 
To me, it's not about burning the candle at both ends. 
To me, it's not about exploding in a flash and burning out. 
To me, It is about shining a sustainable flame, about being there, shining my light as brightly as I can so that the people I can support or show the way to, the people who need me to stand there shining light, can find me and see me.

It is also about always standing here shining light for him, for my son. It is about being the sun or a star, the moon or a lamp, the candle and the headlamp. And being able to charge all of them in turn, with suitable energy.

And that is also what I from SHINE does.
To have an oil lamp burning one has to put oil in it. 
I from SHINE puts oil in your icon oil lamp of your dreams and supports you to change it slowly and surely into a sun charged lamp - so that you can recharge forever.
With love.

Tell me: Do YOU shine your light? Do you feel that you could SHINE more? How do you charge and recharge your flame? 

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