Yesterday, a beautiful man wrote a note to tell me how my words had moved him. (Thank you M) (Thank you also to several others who commented) and then, this morning, I received a note from a woman in New Zealand asking to use one of my poems on her blog.

My writer’s soul and human heart gave a deep sigh of contentment.

There is no greater gift as a writer than to hear that something I wrote has resonated, with another and created space for our heart awareness to connect. In that connection, we both feel less alone, less unseen, less unheard.

I write because I must. It is as much a part of me as breathing.

Many years ago, when I was lost in a relationship that was killing me, I didn’t write. I couldn’t.

Writing for me is about speaking my truth. And I had no truth left in that relationship other than what he told me was true, I was worthless and deserved to die.

The morning after he was arrested and I got the miracle of my life back, I pulled out a lined notebook and began to write. About healing. Broken heartedness. Broken spiritedness, Broken places. One of the first sentences I wrote about healing was, “Now for the hard part.”

I remember writing that sentence and then stopping. My pen poised above the page, I took a breath and wrote next, “Wait. Going through that relationship was the hard part. What if I choose to simply heal without judging how difficult it will be? What if I simply choose to stand in the brokenness of my heart and give myself room to breathe and heal and grow through the pain into Love?”

I’d love to tell you the healing from that relationship was ‘easy’. It wasn’t. But, it also wasn’t hard, though it definitely had its very hard, jagged places. Healing was the best thing, in fact the only thing, I could do. And so I chose to do it with what I now see as ‘grace’.

In my healing, I could have chosen to continue to beat myself up or love myself in all my brokeneness.

It is a choice I get to make every day.

To love myself as I am, all of me, beauty and the beast, exquisiteness and flaws, yin and yang, light and dark. Or, I can shine my light on the dark places forgetting that the light shines brightest in the dark as I focus on finding ‘the beast’ within, bemoaning the existence of my flaws and beating myself up for being so human.

It is a choice we all get to make, every moment of every day.

To see ourselves as exquisitely human or as damaged goods, flotsam floating on the dark and murky waters of a life not lived in grace.

It is our choice. To love ourselves with grace, celebrating our being so beautifully perfect in all our human imperfections, or, to treat ourselves with inhumane disregard for being so human we make mistakes, forgetting mistakes are our pathway to change and growth.

Change and growth are inevitable. How we navigate them is our choice.

What will you choose for yourself today?

Will you forgive yourself for your mistakes? Will you step into the broken places with grace? Will you give yourself the grace of being human?

Will you love yourself for all your worth knowing you are worth Love?

It is your choice.

Namaste.