I am often asked, “How did you do it? How did you go from such a broken place to seeing the world with such joy and wonder today?”

It was my choice, I reply.

And it was. My choice to heal in Love. To not allow anger, fear, regret – anything-  steal from me the awe I felt at having the miracle of my life in that moment of release from the relationship that was killing me.

It wasn’t that it was hard, or easy. It was what it was. It is what it is.

What is true for me today is that going through that relationship was not my life. It was a time in my life. A period of time. It was not my whole life.

I am blessed.

I wanted to awaken. And was struggling to find my truth.

I found a path that forced me to wake up. It wasn’t the easiest path I could have chosen — abuse is not easy. But it is the path I took.

I cannot change the path I took. I can change how I see it from my vantage point today.

And today, I see it as the gift of awakening.

Awakened, I step fearlessly into being all of me without hesitating on the edge of fear that I will never be all of me.

I can only be all of me — whether I am fearful, joyful, sad or happy. I can only be all of me. It is in my denial of all that I am, beauty and the beast, that I run into trouble. When I deny my light, and my darkness or my shadow, I am resisting all that I am.

And as I type, I watch a squirrel trying to run across the street in front of my window.

It can be a busy street at this time of the morning. There are two schools in the next block and the bell is about to ring.

The squirrel leaps out into the street only to dart back when a vehicle approaches.

He tries again.  Runs out. Darts back.

Again.

Again.

And then finally, there is a break in the traffic.

I watch him run across the road to the nieghbour’s lawn. He races over to the base of a tree, runs up the tree and disappears into its branches.

Mission accomplished.

And I think about my life. How so often I saw what I wanted on the other side, would move towards it, grow afraid and then dart back into the shadows, fearful of the path to where I wanted to go.

things appeared on the path. Obstacles rose up. Craters opened. I darted and leaped and raced and circled and dove into and under and around, continually wanting to reach the other side.

And then, one day, I had to make the choice. Get there, or stay stuck.

I crossed. Breathed. Accepted I was where I wanted to be and began to adjust to being there. It didn’t matter the obstacles I’d overcome in my journey to there. what mattered was I was there. Being there, what was I willing to do?

Being there/being here is not a static place. It is fluid. Filled with possibility. Filled with opportunity. Filled with all that I want, all that I need as long as I accept that it is here that I am all that I need, all that I want, all that I can be when I let go of the fear — I am not where I want to be.

If this is not where I want to be, why am I here? Why am I holding onto this place. What is it that is keeping me here? What is it that is keeping me from letting go?

If this is not where I want to be, why am I holding onto being here with such ferocity?

There are always places to go, things to see, to do, to have, to get.

But there is only one place I can be where I am always enough. And that is within me. It is all of me. It is who I am when I let go of running to, away, into anywhere other than who I am when I breathe and accept I Love all of me, warts and all, Beauty and the Beast.