Monthly Archives: June 2020

Out Of The Box

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Boxes are useful. They pack things up. Keep them tidy. Make it easy to move. Keep things in place. Make carrying easier. Shipping too.

Boxes are also not so useful. When it comes to habits. Thinking. Doing. Boxes can be constricting.

Yesterday, I stepped out of my creative box of ‘anything goes’ to stretch my, ‘Be Mindful’ practice of art-making.

Be mindful.

Of clutter. Busy. Over-working. Over-layering. Over-doing.

Be mindful.

Of colour. Form. Shape. White space. Relationships.

Be mindful.

And in my practice, I discovered doing something I tell myself I don’t do easily, is not that hard.

I have been enjoying the online classes of Laura Horn, an Australian mixed-media/abstract artist whose style I really like.

One of her online offerings is called, Minimal Magic.

Me and ‘minimal in my art’ are not very familiar with each other.

I like colour. Lots of it. I like layers. Many of them. And I like flinging paint at the canvas until its story emerges.

In Minimal Magic, Laura invites me to explore how “limitations can bring clarity and confidence to our art-making.”

Seriously?

Think before I paint?

Have a plan?

Hmmm… okay. I love a challenge.

And so I dove in. But with a difference.

Where normally, I would paint along with the instructor, or skip through sections at random, seeking the essence of the teaching through experiencing it as I go. This time, I watched the complete series of the course videos before picking up my paint brush.

It was freeing to be so structured. I got both the essence and the substance of what Laura was doing — creating beauty with just a handful of colours and a few tools. Seeing what could happen through using less.

Most of the afternoon was spent creating backgrounds by tearing out pages from a few old books and using them as the foundational blocks for the pieces I wanted to create.

I kept my colour palette neutral. Mixing and combining colours to create different shades and tints and tones.

I even let the pages dry. Completely. Before applying marks and design to some of their surfaces.

Believe me. Letting things dry is not my forte. Usually, I have a hairdryer in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. Both compete valiantly (and perhaps blindly) for air time as I work.

Yesterday, I let the backgrounds dry naturally before I moved onto the composition of the pieces themselves.

It was a lesson in patience.

It was also a lesson in how my mind’s craving for ‘more’ is a habit founded in fearing ‘less’ will leave me feeling empty.

Working in a new style yesterday, I felt excited. Energized. Hopeful. Full. Potent. Mindful.

I found myself at home with less yesterday.

It was a wonderful, joyful, calming experience. It was mindful.

Promises. Promises. Promises.

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Promises. Promises. Promises. Mixed media on canvas. 40 x 40″

When my beloved arrived home from his golfgame and saw the painting I was working on, he asked, “What kind of flowers are those?”

“I think they’re daisies,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said. “To me they look like dandelion puffs about to take flight.

It’s all in our perspective.

The original painting. Getting ready to pry off the letters.

The painting above is painted on top of an old painting that used to hang in our living room. Originally, it was reds and darks and golds. A many-layered thing, a reflection of the word that formed my intention for that year (2014) encompassed in the words I’d affixed to it – “At Onement”.

On Monday, I sliced and peeled off the letters. Sanded down what remained and then painted over the original to create a background of yellows and greens.

Yesterday, I dove in.

The outcome is not at all what I had envisioned. Yet, in the end, it doesn’t matter. The outcome pleases me.

The title, however, surprises me. Promises. Promises. Promises.

Where did that come from?

And memory immediately opens me up to thoughts of the past.

I remember as a child not trusting my father’s promises. He’d say we were going to do something. Go somewhere. And his promises seldom came to be.

I know now, my father never meant to make promises and then break them. He was mostly only repeating behaviours he’d learned when he was a young boy and struggling to make sense of a chaotic world. When he was nine, his parents divorced and shipped him off from London, England to boarding school in the wilds of the Saskatchewan prairies. A long and lonely journey for a 9-year-old boy to take on his own.

I don’t know what messages my father took as his ‘truth’ when all of that transpired. I do know that the disappointments and broken promises of his young life carried through into his adulthood.

He had a temper he often expressed with angry words and he made promises he seldom kept.

I loved him anyway. Because, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his flaws, he was very, very human. And I knew, no matter what, he loved me. He just struggled to express Love through all the layers of pain and regret and anger that clouded his vision of the world.

Which is why the title of this painting makes sense.

Work in progress… I want to quit.

As I worked on it, I had many moments where I thought… ‘this is going nowhere’… ‘Ugh. Quit now while you’re ahead.’ ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ ‘Give it up. You’re not an artist.’

Despite the critter chatter messing with my head, I kept going.

My father taught me that. Do not give up. “I promise you,” he’d say. “There is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Never stop looking. Never stop believing. And even if you never find the pot of gold, look at all the beauty you’ll discover along the way.”

My father may have messed up on keeping his promises, but he never messed up on seeing beauty in this world. And he always believed in our humanity. No matter who you were. Your story. Faith. Colour. Title. He always accepted human beings as just that. Human beings. Beautiful. Magnificent. Flawed and Flawless.

He saw the magnificence of our humanity and he always promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I didn’t find a pot of gold as I painted yesterday. I did find joy. Peace. Contentment and the beauty of being immersed in the creative process.

And in that richness, a promise my father made me long ago came true.

“If you do what you love with all your heart, I promise you, you’ll be richer for the experience.”

He was right.

Namaste

The Butterfly Tamer (a story)

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Once there was a man who loved the beauty of butterflies but disliked their disorder. “Why do they have to flit about without a pattern,” he would ask anyone who’d listen. And, because he did not like the unpredictable, he was mostly talking to himself because, his need for order and discipline pushed the one’s who loved him away.

One day, the man who loved butterflies’ beauty but disliked their disorder decided he would teach them how to fly in formation. “Yes!” he cried to the sky. He had to close his eyes to the clouds floating by. They were so very disorganized he wished he could paint the sky and teach the clouds to form orderly patterns too. But first, he had to teach the butterflies how to fly. “I will tame them and teach them not to fly so free!”

He tried everything.

Scents deposited only on certain flowers.

Webbing that held the butterflies within a flight path of his design.

Sticky goop on flowers meant to entice the butterflies to land and at least stay in formation on the flowers.

It was the goop that was his undoing, and the end of many butterflies too.

One morning he came outside and saw all the butterflies lying in random, flightless beauty on the flowers. Furious that they had defied him again, he lost his temper, stormed into his garage, which was very neat and tidy, got on his ride-em’ mower and headed out to the garden. With meticulous care, making sure each pass of the mower was straight and even, he mowed down all the flowers. He mowed and mowed never once stopping to smell the roses until all that was left was a scrub of green where once a beautiful garden full of flitting butterflies had thrived.

And as he mowed, the butterflies struggled to gain release from the sticky goop that held them in place. Most were unsuccessful and fell beneath the man’s destructive passes of the lawn mower.

After several hours, the man stopped mowing. His work was done. Sitting atop his mower, sweat dripping off his brow, he surveyed his handiwork and yelled, even though there was no one around, “Take that you disobedient, chaotic butterflies. Take that!”

And he turned his mower around and headed back to the garage.

Just then, a butterfly went flitting by. He swatted at it but it easily avoided his hand. And then, there was another and another flitting about randomly on the soft, gentle breeze of the morning. He watched, the anger growing inside his heart with every butterfly that flitted past.

“No!” he screamed at the flock of butterflies who danced in the morning light. “Get out! Get out!”

The butterflies, oblivious to his entreaties, kept frolicking in the sun.

The man, consumed with rage at their disorderly conduct, flew into a fury. He jumped off his ride-em’ mower and began to chase the butterflies, darting this way and that, in totally disordered conduct, in a vain attempt to catch them or at least send them away.

But the butterflies flew just beyond his reach as if laughing at his chaotic antics.

Suddenly, realizing he was racing about his garden putting footprints all over the grass without any thought for pattern or symmetry, the man stopped leaping after the butterflies and walked slowly back into his house.

Slamming the door shut behind him, he shut out the beautiful morning and began his normal disciplined pattern through his day.

And that is where he remains today. Safe behind closed doors, living his orderly and disciplined life without any interference from the world outside, especially butterflies who fly free.

_______________________________

I have no idea where this story came from. It just wrote itself in my head as I lay in the space between awake and dreaming.

It is what I appreciate about the muse the most. She doesn’t wait for an invitation. She arrives in glorious, random swoops of inspiration, darting hither and fro like a butterfly, inviting me to let go of orderly thinking and fall with joyful abandon into creative expression.

And sometimes, to keep her flowing, I must capture the ideas and give them words to remember them by.

What to do with them next is all part of the wonderful mystery that is creativity.

Life Is The Art of Finding Joy In Everything

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Being in the kitchen is one of my happy places. I play music. Dance around and fling ingredients into pots and pans, stirring and swirling as I go.

My husband calls it ‘free stylin’. I call it, ‘Love in Action’.

I love to cook. I love to dance. And, I love to create.

It’s the same thing in the studio.

I play music. I dance around. I fling paint. I flirt with the muse.

Because, for me, that is what creativity is all about. It’s not the outcome or output. The outcome is simply the visual expression of the joy I find immersed in the creative process.

Focaccia Garden art

Yesterday, I created in the kitchen. Foccacia and yummy tasting, but not so pretty to look at, lemon poppy seed loaves – with olive oil instead of butter.

The poppy seed loaf was not so pretty to look at as I decided to use these pretty paper cupcake holders I’d bought some time ago — a lovely idea, except, they were wide and not very deep. The batter overflowed the tops and made one big cake! Not what I wanted to take to the birthday party we were going to, but good enough to eat. So, I think I’ll freeze them and use them later for a trifle.

See, that’s the thing about creativity. It lets go fo judgement and moves with ease into possibility. It adapts. Transforms. Evolves. It sees beyond ‘the box’ or in this case, ‘the cupcake’ for ways to create another path when the path you’re on is not unfolding with life’s natural grace and ease.

It is when I am immersed in the creative process that I experience life’s natural grace and ease most. There is no tension. No strife. No feelings of less than, or worry about being good enough. There is only the joy of being in ‘the flow’. Or, as my friend John McMahon calls it, PHLOW (Power. Harmony. Love. Order. Wisdom.)

In the PHLOW, I become all that I am. I stop paying attention to the whisperings of my limiting beliefs and fall with grace into my belief in the wonder and magic of this great big world in which we live. In the PHLOW, I am my creative expression. I am joy. I am Love. I am me.

Yes. There is dire news in this world. Yes. A lethal virus is still running rampant. And, injustices and violence still abound.

And amidst it all, Love still flows freely. Creative moments still arise. And life continues to evolve with its naturally grace-filled ease.

May we all find joy in creating a world of Love, beauty, harmony and grace.

May we all know the joy of living fearlessly immersed in Love.

Love Will Always Find You

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Lost and Found

Lost in the darkness of my fear
there was no hope for me,
I could not see the light
beckoning me to surrender
and fall fearlessly into Love.

All hope is gone, I cried
and Hope whispered back softly,
its breath gentle as a lover
kissing my eyelids awake. Come,
Hope promised, there is light
beyond the darkness
and joy beyond the sorrow
and Love beyond the fear.

Trusting in nothing but hoping it was true,
I opened my eyes.

And there was Hope waiting to greet me
with arms full of possibility and a heart full of Love.

And so I fell into Hope’s embrace
and that’s where Love finds me still. Always and forever.

_______________________________________

I saw an acronym for H.O.P.E. the other day. Hold. On. Pain. Ends.

My mind immediately thought, Love doesn’t. End. Love Endures. Love Captivates. Love Overcomes.

Hope is a gateway to Love. Hope holds onto truth in darkness, light in fear, possibility in despair – even when we feel like all hope is lost. Hope is holding on to us.

Thoughts of hope drifted into my mind this morning as I read the quote by Fenton Johnson that David Kanigan shares on his blog, Live & Learn.

I remember a time when I felt like all hope was lost. Hope of ever getting my life back. Of ever getting free of an abusive relationship. Of ever walking in the sunshine and feeling its warmth against my skin without feeling the fear stalking my every step. Of ever seeing my daughters again. Of ever being free to Love fearlessly.

And then, one beautiful May morning, there was hope. Shimmering in the sunlight. Beckoning me from the shadows. Encouraging me to step away from the darkness into the light. To choose Love.

I have been choosing Love ever since that morning 17 years ago when I had given up on hope and fallen into the darkness.

I have chosen Love in my despair. Love in my fear. Love in my every day.

It is one of the most inspiring aspects of life I experienced working in the homeless serving sector for so many years. No matter how dark, or grim, or chaotic life was for those experiencing the harshness and pain of homelessness, every morning people woke up, rose out of their makeshift beds in large rooms filled with others sleeping in the same space, breathing the same air, and they felt HOPE. They had survived another night of homelessness and could take another step today.

There was always hope.

I remember a couple who wanted to get married at the shelter. One day, the soon to be bride came to me and said, “Tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

I told them I couldn’t tell them that. It wasn’t my place. What I could tell them was, “Love prevails. Always. It doesn’t care about titles or the number of degrees or recognition you’ve gained or the colour of your skin or your address. Love prevails. It will find you no matter who you are or where you are.”

And it does.

Find us where ever we are.

For always, no matter what is going on, or where we are, or how we are, Love is always there. In everything. Always and forever. Love. Is. Everywhere.

And always, in everything we do. Everything we say. In every way we step into this day, hopeful. Scared. Sad. However we step, we can, and must, choose Love.

Because, while pain and storms and turmoil will end, Love prevails. It has no ending, nor beginning.

Love just is. Love.

Always and forever.

_____________________

Thank you David for the inspiration this morning.

Falling Deeper And Deeper Into Love

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I spent the afternoon in the studio yesterday creating two small paintings.

I had only one purpose in mind. – To immerse myself in the creative process.

When I began, I didn’t know what I was going to create. I knew I wanted to work on canvas and found 2 8″ x 8″ canvas in my supply room. And that was as much as I knew…

It is perhaps one of the greatest joys of painting for me – tosurrender my thinking to the process of letting appear what is calling to become visible that I cannot see.

To release my ‘thinking mind’ to my body’s knowing that this moment is where beauty, truth, and creativity dance together in balance and harmony.

It is meditative. Soul-enriching. Fulfilling. Peace-inducing.

It is bliss.

To begin, I loosen myself up by dancing. Wild. Slow. Sensual. Fluid. Dance.

Keeping my mind free of ‘thought’, I listen to my body and ask it, “What are you feeling?”

Yesterday, the answer was loud and clear. Connected. Mystical. Whimsical.

Feeling in my body, being present within the moment, hearing the emotions calling for expression, I began to play and paint.

With colour. Texture. Shape. Form. Light. Letting my body be my guide. Letting my emotions flow. Letting my intuition be my muse.

I am so blessed.

Dancing in my studio. Swirling colour onto a canvas. I feel. Everything. And in that everything there is beauty. There is calm. There is LIFE.

I painted in the studio yesterday. In the dance, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into Love with all of Life.

Namaste.

What’s Your What?

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It took me all week to figure out how I wanted to finish off the binding on my Sheltered Wonder Art Journal.

I’d finished binding in the 20 pages. I’d even created a little video of the completed journal. Except for the spine, I felt it had come out really well.

But that spine…

There were lots of alternatives on how I could finish it off… the hows were limitless!

The unfinished spine.

Yesterday, the answer came to me. Paint a panel to cover up the messy threads.

So I did. And though the colours were slightly different than the cover itself I knew I could make it work.

But, how to give it a ‘finished’ look when I wouldn’t be able to fold over the panel at the top and bottom edge? (The inside pages came right up to the edge leaving no room for me to fold the page over.)

Plus the threads made a lumpy surface. How to smooth it out?

What about ribbon? The voice of the muse whispered. You have that beautiful blue ribbon with that rolled edge. What if you lay it on top first?

“But that’s not how I planned on doing it,” I hissed back.

Calmly she urged me on. “Let go of the how, Louise. Focus on what you’re trying to create.”

What am I trying to create? A beautiful finished spine for my journal.

I got the ribbon. Tried it out. I liked the look. I glued it down.

And then… well, I was still kind of attached to ‘the how’ that I’d started with. I wanted to affix my painted panel — but when I tested it, it still looked untidy and ‘blah’.

I sat and contemplated ‘the what’ of my project. And that’s when inspiration struck.

In the bottom drawer of the supplies drawer that sits beside me at my work table, I have a collection of tags I’ve made – for a rainy day, or perhaps just this occassion.

I dug through the drawer and found one I’d made a long time ago after seeing something similar at a craft fair.

It was the perfect fit.

I made a few adjustments and glued it in place.

Perfect.

The finished spine.

And here’s the thing — The finished spine is much different than what I’d started out to create. Remember the painted panel? I never did use it!

The lesson? If I had stayed focused on ‘the how’ of what I was doing, I would not have been open to the possibilities that appeared as I worked on the spine.

It’s not the ‘how’ that makes a difference. It’s the ‘what’.

In this case… A finished spine that created a visually appealing finish to the book.

If I had stayed focused on the ‘how’ of finishing off the spine, I would have been disappointed simply because the how was all about doing it the way my mind told me was ‘the right way’.

As long as I stay focused on ‘the what’, the story will always be about creating better. Always. Because the ‘what’ is about listening to my heart. The heart knows. The ‘how’ is an intellectual exercise. The ‘what’ engages the heart in taking action to create better.

Because that’s the thing. Staying attached to my first idea of how I was going to finish the spine would have kept me stuck in seeing only one path to getting to my goal, a path that would have resulted in an ‘okay’ finished product.

By focussing on my ‘what’, by letting my heart lead the way, I created something I really like. Something that pleases me. Something that reflects what the journal is all about — an expression of all I’ve learned, experienced and grown through during these months of self-isolation.

_____________________

And… if you want to see the video of the finished product (minus the completed spine) I created of the journal I’ve included it below.

For a first attempt at using Photoshop Premiere video editing software, I’m pleased with what I created. 🙂 The how was easy — learn the software without pulling my hair out! 🙂

Blindspots

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When I first got my car two years ago, I discovered something I’d missed during the test drive – there was a significant blindspot over my left shoulder. Uncomfortably so.

I was paranoid about that blindspot. Changing lanes, I’d twist and turn again and again, fearing I was missing an oncoming car. In all my twisting and turning I was a bit of a road hazard and had to consciously train myself to stop the paranoia and trust that I knew how to use my mirrors as aides.

And then one cloudy day when I wasn’t wearing my sunglasses, I realized the blindspot wasn’t there!

What? That’s when I realized it was the arm of my sunglasses, which was attached midway down the frame, that was blocking the view out of the corner of my left eye, not a blindspot in my car.

I bought new glasses, ones with the arms attached at the top of the frame and Voilá! Problem solved.

Blindspots are like that. We use the same set of eyes, with the frame we’re most comfortable with, to view the world. In our comfort, we cannot see the places where our view of reality is blinding us to the reality of others.

Like racism. It has always been amongst us. It’s just many of us were blind to its pervasive presence as well as our contribution to its presence, until the conversation could not be avoided any longer because it was marching right before our eyes and could not be denied.

For those of us for whom the colour of our skin has seldom given us cause to question or even talk about our privilege, nor our inherent biases, it can feel stressful, uncomfortable, disorienting to face our own, as Robin D’Angelo calls it in her same-named book, “White Fragility“.

What if we change our glasses?

What if instead of seeing our discomfort of our ‘white fragility’ as something to be ignored or pushed away or angrily denied, we decided to embrace it and say, “Bring it on. I’m willing to feel this so others do not feel ‘less than’ around me. I am willing to break open my privilege, along with my mind and heart, and be vulnerable to change because what’s happening in today’s reality for so many is not good for anyone. And I do not want my privilege to undermine the well-being of others any longer.”

As a person who fits within the context of being ‘white skinned’, it is easy for me to say, “I don’t see colour.” I haven’t had to. My life is founded on a cultural belief that has survived centuries of life on earth that insinuates (and at times blatantly states), ‘white has more value than black.’

In the world of colour, white actually has no value. It is the reflection of light and gains value through the reflection of other colours. Like rainbows. Sunlight shines through water molecules in the air after a rain and is refracted so that we can see it dancing in a rainbow of colour arcing across the sky.

Without voices of colour speaking up about their experiences, informing those of us without colour about what it means to be devalued in this world because of the colour of your skin, we would not understand the totality of our whiteness in today’s world.

We have that chance. Right now. To listen. To hear. To understand. To learn. To grow and to see the world in all its beautiful colours.

We have the chance to change our glasses.

For real, lasting change to happen, we must stop seeing racism as ‘someone else’s issue’ and see it as ours too, because our whiteness blinds us to the truth about colour. In that discomforting place of recognizing our own culpability in creating the world in which we live, we have the opportunity to refract light differently.

And when we do that, we get to see the world is not black and white. It is a beautiful dance of colour creating rainbows everywhere. And in that light, the world is a much kinder, equal and just place for everyone to shine for all their worth.

Namaste

This Is Where I Stand: My Credo

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Yesterday, in the comments to my post, The Apology Process, Iwona, wrote out my example of the apology process as a credo for life.

I thought it was brilliant and so, using her suggestions as my foundation I created a Credo for myself in these times in which we live.

My personal credo is an important statement for me to make, to myself and to the world.

It speaks to what I stand for, and against. It provides me a guidepost against which I can measure every action, word and thought. And, it provides me with a safe and courageous container within which to grow and evolve so that I can give my all to creating better in this world.

Years ago, when I began my healing journey after being freed from an abusive relationship, I created a credo for how I wanted to live my life. It included statements like, “I shall turn up for me in all my wounded brokenness and love myself completely”.

It also included a statement on how I wanted to treat the past — as a bludgeon to beat myself up with or as the vehicle that brought me to this moment right now where I was free to heal and fall in love with myself and all my world and celebrate life for all I’m worth.

I chose to treat it as the vehicle that brought me to this moment right now. The past had served its purpose. It was time for me to let it go and find a more loving, caring and roadworthy vehicle within which to continue my journey.

We cannot change the past. We can learn from it and grow deeper in our understanding of its impact on our lives today. And, we can use it as corroboration of what we need to do today to ensure tomorrow is not a repeat of a past we do not want to live again and again.

There is so much good in this world. So much beauty, possibility, hope, joy… And there is grief and sorrow, pain and suffering, violence and abuse.

It is all present. And always, no matter what is present, Love is always there.

To live my credo, fearlessly letting all of my human condition be present, I must accept all is present. Light and dark. Fear and hope. Anger and sorrow. Suffering and joy. And I must love it all, fearlessly. Joyfully. Completely.

I am not powerful enough to change all the darkness in the world. I am powerful enough to determine how bright I want my light to shine. And I am powerful enough to shine as brightly as I can so that others can see in the dark and stand with me in the light.

Today, I am choosing to shine full on. Bright beams blasting.

I am stepping onto this road of life armed with My Credo. It is my map to creating a future where my grandchildren will know, the world into which they are born is not a place in which only they and others like them enjoy its’ privileges. It is a place where all the world enjoys the same privileges.

The Apology Process

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Years ago, when I was released from a relationship that was killing me by the police taking the abuser out of my life, my relationship with my daughters was in shreds.

For the final three months of that journey I cowered in hiding as the abuser tried to find ways to get out of Canada. I was too scared, too lost, too compliant to pick up the phone and let anyone know I was alive. Plus, he’d told me I couldn’t. I did not disobey him.

Healing my relationships, especially with my daughters, took time, and a whole lot of turning up and doing the work.

It was a long road home.

In the beginning, they were angry. They had a right to their anger. The things I’d done throughout that relationship hurt them.

For the sake of all of us, I needed to be strong enough to stand with them in their anger without trying to take it away, push it aside, or manipulate it into something I could tolerate with my insistence, “It wasn’t my fault.”

In the beginning, I was not strong enough to do that. I had to ‘give myself medicine first” so that I could be there to help them find the medicine they needed to heal.

I was willing to accept they might not forgive me. I was not willing to accept that what I had done was a life sentence of misery to which we were all condemned.

It was three years after I began that healing journey that I entered the Choices Seminars training room for the first time.

It changed my life. It changed my daughters’ lives too.

By the time I went through the course, my daughters and I were living together again. I knew they still carried anger, and I was doing my best to simply be present with them when it erupted. But I also knew I wasn’t powerful enough to take away their anger, or their fear of what might happen if the abuser did turn up again.

Choices gave us all the tools to travel those uncharted, and sometimes troubled, waters.

It also gave me The Apology Process.

  • Acknowledge
  • Apologize.
  • Commit.
  • Make amends.

In the months after learning the process, I used it often. I didn’t care if I had to apologize for the rest of my life, I wanted my daughters to know that I was committed to our relationship, committed to being here as their mother, caring, confident, vibrant and alive.

Apologizing never cost me a thing. It gave me everything.

My daughters pain was different than mine. They had a right to express it in their own way, to grow through it and heal from it for themselves.

No matter what that man had done to me, I was the one who did the things I did to harm them.

I was accountable.

The apology process gave me a way to stand in my accountability without having to carry shame, regret, despair.

My job was not to defend against their anger but to love them, and myself, through it.

It was about three years after the three of us had gone through Choices that my eldest daughter told a group of trainees how my apologizing as I did helped fill the river of pain that was once between us with Love. “Every time she said, ‘I apologize’, it felt like a little bit more of the pain washed away leaving room for Love to flow more freely,” she said.

I remember still the moment when she said those words. I started to cry. It felt like a giant boulder of pain had lifted off my heart. I am crying now. Soft, gentle loving tears of gratitude.

It is not unlike these times in which we live right now.

I acknowledge I have seldom questioned the privilege of my white skin. That I have never stopped to say, ‘Hey! This isn’t right! If I can get this so easily why is it so hard for that person over there whose skin colour is different than mine, to experience the same ease?’

I apologize and commit to doing better, to being more awakened, more conscious, more vocal when I encounter racist comments, acts and situations.

To make amends, I shall learn more about white privilege and its impact on people of colour in this world. I shall speak up adding my voice to the voices calling for change. And I shall cede space so voices of colour can be heard.

Namaste