Category Archives: Essential Journey

Who do you think you are?

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#ShePersisted Series No 49
Mixed Media
11 x 14″
2019 Louise Gallagher

Yesterday, as I was cleaning out some files in preparation for my transition from the office to rejuvenation spaces, I found my Performance Review from February 2018.

When I had first joined the organization it was with the intent of staying for one year to help establish their communications and government relations strategy. One year would have been May 2018. When I did my Performance Review, the one year mark was approaching and the ED at the time had asked me to consider staying a bit longer in order to support him in achieving a couple of critical strategic directions. I was enjoying the work, the people and the challenges and agreed. In my Performance Review under “Goals”, I wrote that my goal was to create a succession plan that would allow me to transition from workplace to retirement by…. (wait for it)…. end of May 2019.

Ha!

I was prescient without even realizing it. I’m fulfilling on a goal I’d given a specific date to, and forgotten!

Don’t you love serendipity?

On May 31 I shall be transitioning out of my daytime job to step into the as of yet undefined spaces of retirement/rejuvenation. In March, when the Board announced the selection of the new Executive Director who is taking on the role on April 15, I met with her to discuss my transition. We agreed that six weeks would be ample time for me to transfer any needed knowledge and to assist her with a couple of specific tasks. At the time, I truly hadn’t remembered the goal from my Performance Review. At the time, we set the date as May 31.

I felt light-headed when I saw my note in my Performance Review. I felt calm and filled with a sense of satisfaction and peace.

Yesterday, after I’d spent an hour and a half meeting with the incoming ED, I left feeling uplifted, inspired, free. The agency will be in great hands.

As I move towards April 15 and then May 31, I am beginning the process of releasing my sense of ‘belonging’ to the organization. With each day, as I clear out old files and create a folder for the new ED of issues/ideas/projects in process that need her attention, I am also working on my release of needing/wanting to be engaged in everything.

It is an expansive place this releasing of my sense of belonging. And while I shall always feel a deep admiration and respect for the amazing people who work there and the incredible work they do and the vitalness of that work to our communities and the families served, I shall be pulling away from ‘the work’ itself to create space for my own work to evolve.

Last night, as I sat down at the work table in my studio and began to create, the #ShePersisted Series muse awoke and invited me to explore my creative essence through her voice.

As I splashed paint and moved through that grungy space of ‘Ugh. Nothing is looking right,” which is an inevitable part of my creative process, I was reminded of how when I first started at the agency almost two years ago, I knew little about its inner workings and needs and the imperatives of ending child and family homelessness.  There have been moments over the past two years when I wondered if I was ‘doing it right’, getting it?’.

Those wonderings are integral parts of every creative endeavour, of everything I do. They keep me open to change. Keep me listening for inner truth, other’s truths and connected to possibility in every truth. As I move beyond ‘the workforce’ to being a force of my creative change, I carry with me all I’ve learned, experienced, heard and seen. I carry with me the incredible passion of so many people to create better in the world for those whose voices have been stifled and those whose dreams have been lost beneath the struggles of poverty and homelessness.

I carry with me my own inate desire to create better in the world so that everyone, no matter their status, colour of skin, faith or riches can experience the wonder and awe of being who they are, exactly as they are right now.

No 49 in the #ShePersisted Series came into being last night. I’m excited to explore the more of what can happen when I let go of ‘9 to 5’and step into the uncharted spaces of rejuventation where I am wild and free. I am woman. I am me. . .

Namaste

Rock the Boat

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No 5. #ShePersisted Series
Mixed Media
2017 Louise Gallagher
“Rock the Boat”

When I began the #ShePersisted series in the spring of 2017 I had no idea what this process would awaken within me. I didn’t know the possibilities.

I created 1, then 2 and a 3rd and then the muse reminded me that I am not in control. She kept flowing and I kept creating, until I’d painted and created quotes for 47 paintings.

And then I stopped. We bought a new home, my studio was put into boxes, we lived in a rented apartment while we renovated. After four months, we moved into our home along the river but my studio space was not complete. I let it go. I was busy. Work was taxing and engrossing. I didn’t need a ‘space’. Or so I told myself.

Last fall I reconnected with my creative expressions when I took an Alcohol Ink course with the amazingly talented Allyson Thain.

…And I was reminded — creative expression is vital to my well-being.

I’ve reactivated my studio space and now, I once again feel myself shifting, changing, emerging like each painting in the series emerged from the mists of creative expression.

This series is a journey in self-discovery and expression.

One of my desires with this series is to create a set of divination cards that women and men can use to inspire courage and grace in their daily living.

Over the next weeks, I shall be diving deeper into what is at the essence of each paintings message. These ‘messages’ will be the foundation of the card deck I’ll be creating and selling.

I hope you journey along with me. I hope these messages open space for you to find your true self calling out to your heart, your voice and your entire being to rise up and shine!

Namaste.

_______________________

Painting No 5.
Rock the Boat

If you’ve never swam in the ocean or don’t know how to swim, it can be scary to rock the boat.
It’s okay, as long as you wear a life jacket, you’ll find yourself swimming in the open waters of limitless possibilities.

The Rock the Boat card is an invitation to speak up in those places where you feel silenced. Where you feel like your voice doesn’t matter
or where you are worrying about what others might think of you if you carve your own path.

We are each responsible to turn up in our lives, to pay attention and to speak our truth
without being attached to the outcome. If you fear speaking up because you’re worried about what others might think of you
or doing what you believe is best for you, even if it’s different than what others say, ask yourself,
“What is worse? To carry the anger of silence and inaction within me or to let go of my fear of speaking my truth and living my life my way?”

Dare to be bold. Dare to be brave. Rock the Boat. Just carry a life jacket if you don’t know how to swim because
sometimes, when we rock the boat we fall into the deep end of life. Happy swimming!

Rēˌjo͞ovəˈnāSH(ə)n is vital

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Alcohol Ink on Yupo Paper
11 x 14″
2019 Louise Gallagher

My dear friend Iwona writes to remind me, retirement is a misnomer. The real word to describe this expansive and expanding space in my life is ‘rejuvenation’.

I like it. The Wild Woman Within likes it too. Especially as it’s spelt in its phoentics Rēˌjo͞ovəˈnāSH(ə)n  —  In brief, to make someone or something more vital.

Iwona’s reminder was timely. I was taking myself way too seriously. Telling myself this ‘job’ I do during the day is Über important and all that jazz. In my estimation of its importance I was letting the frustrations and weight of leadership eat away at my peace of mind.

I have been blessed. For the past almost 15 years, I have been engaged in work that fulfills on my need to feel like I make a difference in the world. It’s work that is vital and yes, important. But it is not the all of my being present and purpose-driven in this world. Beyond creating better for those experiencing homelessness and poverty, is my soul-inspired intention to ‘create a world where all people are free to dance in the light of grace, joy and love.’

A few weeks ago, my eldest daughter wrote a powerful poem to her maternal ancestors. My mother’s mothers.

In it she wrote,

There is no record of my great-great-grandmothers.
.
But like gold threads winding their way through silk
their secrets are embroidered below the surface of my skin.
Molecular chains dancing around each other.
Woven into the fabric of my being.
.
They call out to me
in the tongues of their mothers.
I can hear them in the stillness of mourning.
.
“They took our names.
Our pasts.
Our clothes.
Our bodies.
But they could not take everything
.
We cannot be erased so easily.”

She was writing of “those Dravidian girls” of India who form our maternal bloodline. Those young, teenage girls of darkened skin and darker eyes, who long ago were given to white men to serve as slaves, as consorts, and in some cases, wives.

They were seldom accepted, those Dravidian girls who became wives to men whose skin was paler than theirs. Over the decades, with time and thinning out of DNA strands, many of their descendants’ skin took on the paler hues of their paternal ancestors. With time, they became more acceptable, more desireable. More white.

I remember my cousins in Paris often bemoaning the fact their skin was so much darker than mine. That I was ‘the lucky one’. No one mistook me for some foreign chick looking to meet some fair-haired boy to gain acceptance into ‘normal society’.

I remember my brother being stripped searched at an airport because he appeared to the customs officials as a Middle Eastern man at a time when terrorism was just taking flight and a jetliner had been blown up in an African desert and men of Middle Eastern looks were deemed suspicious.

And I remember wondering why we spend so much time defining people by the colour of their skin. Why we couldn’t just see into everyone’s eyes and recognize their human magnificence, their beauty, their soulful essence?

It is those Dravidian girls who form my consciousness today. Those memories of conversations with my cousins where we compared skin colour and envied another’s fairness because it made the world feel more fair, more easy.

We live in a world of colour. Of hues and tones and vibrancy. A world of contradictions. A world of ineffable sadness and horrific happenings that we, the humans of this world, enact on one another in the name of our right to have it all because our god is greater or our skin colour is deemed better than another’s by some inexplicable measuring stick driven into the sands of time.

We live in a world of beauty. A world of possibilities that defy the imagination. Of beauty that rises with every sun and sets upon moonlit nights that take the breath away.

We live in a world of colour.

I want to create Rēˌjo͞ovəˈnāSH(ə)n In my world where every colour is vital, where every colour is celebrated and needed to create this magnificent, stunningly beautiful tapestry of life where we do not compare our skintones nor our assets. We only compare the beauty and vitality we experience every day.

The Wild Woman Within is stirring. I am heeding her call and the call of my ancestors who could not be easily erased. I am painting my world in the many colours of the rainbow. I am entering Rēˌjo͞ovəˈnāSH(ə)n and becoming more vital in all my ways and all the colours I paint my world.

 

 

Hail The Wild Woman Within!

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No. 48 #ShePersisted
Mixed Media on watercolour paper
2019 Louise Gallagher
“I Am Worthy”

Yesterday, I painted and breathed into the truth of art as Pablo Picasso once described it, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

After four days of grandson time, my heart-felt light and breezy. My senses alive.

I’d given myself a day of relaxation before returning to my office. A day to breathe into the open spaces of time unplanned. When the muse called and invited me to explore my creative essence, I stepped into my studio, picked up a paintbrush and began to express myself freely.

In March 2017, I began a series of paintings titled, “The #ShePersisted” Series. Inspired by the events in the US congress that lead to Senator Mitch McConnell stating, “She was warned… Nevertheless, she persisted,” about fellow Senator Elizabeth Warren, I heard the call of the wild woman within me; the one who stands tall when told to sit down, who speaks up when told to be quiet. I began to paint the series, got to No. 47 and then… we moved, my studio was packed up and the series went into hibernation with the wild woman’s silence.

Yesterday, the wild woman within returned. This painting is No. 48 in the series. “I am worthy.”

In everyone’s life there is a place where we fear or believe someone else determines our worth.

As a teenager, I remember desperately wanting to fit in while fearing the price of doing so. I bought the latest styles. Danced the latest steps and gushed over the latest Hollywood heart-throb, juggling school and extracurricular activities and a parttime job while struggling to figure out what to do with my future. University. Job. What next?

In my twenties, I railed against conforming as I donned the wardrobe of a working woman. I wore suits and carried a briefcase and told myself my worth was made up in the things I carried and the height of the ladder I climbed.

In my thirties I became a mother. I was struggling in the ‘wife’ role, but I could do the mother thing to perfection. Or so I thought. The pressure to do it all, have it all, be it all became a daily treadmill of workdays spent rushing from meeting to meeting and weekends chasing my husband up rocky screeslopes and glacial expanses or hurrying my daughters from birthday party to dance class to sleepovers and playdates. And did I mention I was always training for half and full marathons, throwing elegant dinner parties and learning to cook in the latest craze?

My forties brought an abrupt end to much of my life as I knew it. I failed completely (or at least that’s what I called it) as a wife and became a single mother of two pre-teen girls. Briefcase in one hand, dance outfits and bobbypins in the other, the treadmill picked up speed until I ran full tilt into a man who professed he would love me until death do us part, and wound up taking the death part way too seriously.

It was that painful encounter that opened the doors to my freedom from believing my worth was determined somewhere ‘out there’. Healing from the devestation of that relationship meant taking a deep dive into my psyche, rotor-rooting into the bedrock of my being to find who I truly am. It was there, in the broken pieces of my feminine soul that I found myself waiting where I’d always been. Grounded in the brilliance and magnificence of my inherent human condition, I discovered, I am worthy. Period. No explanation needed. No caveats. No designer clothes or big titled job to prove it. I am worthy.

We are all worthy. Period. No explanation needed.

As I journey through my sixties towards this place called ‘retirement’, I hold steadfast in my belief of my human worth. It is irrevocable. It is priceless. It is undefeatable.

I may struggle with letting go of my working identity, or rail against falling into the ease of unstructured days, the truth is, nothing and no one can change my worth, my worthiness.

I am worthy.

You are worthy.

We are worthy.

Grounded in that truth, the open fields of possibility planted within the seeds of my creative passions, are calling me to explore what it means to express myself in freedom.

I am excited. It promises to be a fascinating journey. Hail the Wild Woman Within!

Savour the time with those you love.

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I am off to visit my grandson for a few days. Oh. And my daughter and son-in-love too!  🙂

I’m smiling. My heart feels light and though it is dark outside still, the brilliance of this day invades my senses.

I am off and may or may not have time to be here. My grandson and I like to spend the early morning times together as the rest of the household sleeps. It’s my favourite time of day. Just the two of us. Me watching him. Him chattering and playing. We sing and chat and build blocks and I shall treasure every moment.

There is no pklan. No schedule — other than his naps — to conform to. No get here. Get there. There is only this beautiful time to spend with those I love savouring our connection.

I’ll see you sometime soon!

 

How Dare They!

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Recently, I was called a ‘white woman’. It did not feel like a compliment.

Last week, someone suggested some information I provided was not true. In their inference that I was hiding the truth, it felt like I was being called a ‘liar’. Their comments did not sit well with me.

This morning, in meditation, acceptance and surrender opened up into gratitude.

I do not like being called a ‘white woman’ nor a liar. However, when I move into gratitude for the opportunity to grow through the angst of my reactions to these two separate and distinct yet interconnected circumstances, I move beyond anger to a place of calm.

People can only see the world through their own unique lens. Calling another names, or defending against the truth they speak by implying they are lying, is a reflection of where each of us sits in our individual journey towards self-awareness and acceptance.

Feeling angst and anger over what another has done to us is a reflection of where we have tender spots within that need loving care and attention.

I respect where the individual who named me ‘white woman’ was coming from. They are on their own journey in a world of contradictions.

I have struggled to find peace in the situation where someone implied I was lying. This is my reputation they are playing with. My credibility. “How dare they!” I want to cry out, the child within stirring uneasily in memories of the times as a little girl when I was called a liar by my family, even though I desperately wanted them to believe I was telling the truth. And the critter inside my head leaps into action. Hissing wildly, he insists I pay no attention, take no heed of their words. Stamping his tiny little critter-like feet, he echoes my fearful thoughts,  “How dare they!”

Breathing deeply I gently and lovingly remind myself to come home to my heart, to my place of inner truth and grace.

My responsibility is to be accountable for me. My value, my worth is found in how I move through the world, acting with integrity and grace in all things. It isn’t about ‘turning the other cheek. Holding others accountable for their actions is important. Even more important for my sense of self-respect is to recognize where someone else’s words have created angst within me and to address my responses so that I walk in my integrity.

And still, the critter hisses. How dare they!

And my heart responds.

They dare because, like me, they know fear.

They dare because, like me, they have unhealed places inside their hearts and minds.

They dare because, like me, they have known the pain of rejection.

They dare, because, like me, they have known the shame of blaming others and of being wrongfully blamed by others.

They dare because, like me, they have known the angst of trusting the untrustworthy and of acting in untrustworthy ways.

They dare because, like me, they are human.

We are all on this journey of life together, swimming in the waters of our humanity, struggling to find solid ground in being who we are, without fearing who the other is, will somehow diminish or distract from our worth.

We are all worthy. Sometimes, in our fear we are not, we search for our worthiness by daring to express our humanity in ways that harm or hurt or confuse others.

To know our true worth we must dare to confront our own humanity; contradictions and truths, beauty and the beast, ying and yan, dark and light. In our seeing into the darkness that is present in the light, we must embrace unequivocally the truth of who we are. We are human.

Moving into gratitude for my human condition, grace finds me where I’m at, embracing me in the healing waters of forgiveness and acceptance.

Namaste.

 

 

 

Play. Work. Fun.

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My beautiful workspace

I am a ‘nester’. I like to create spaces around me that feel like me, that speak to my essence.

Last night, I entered my new studio space and began to play.

It felt right. Good. Peaceful.

This morning, I pulled my Artist’s Way Creativity Card and for the second time in a week, pulled, Self-Expression.

And the same phrase at the end of it made my cringe. The card reads:

“Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows.”

It’s the ‘from which work flows’ that causes me confusion.

Art-making is fun, my mind whispers, and I can’t tell whether it’s my higher good or the nasty little critter who likes to trip me up. I know it’s him when I hear, “If it’s not fun, don’t do it.”

Sometimes, art-making isn’t all fun. It’s sweat and tears and fears and trials and errors too.

“There are no boundaries” Alcohol ink on Yupo Paper. 11 x 14″ – 2019 Louise Gallagher

Like last night.

I wanted to create a seascape.

Forgetting that the plastic sheet beneath me often finds its colours running into my work, I set to work to create a serene, tranquil scene of ocean meeting sea.

Except, purple and fuschia ran onto the page. Purple and fuschia are hard to hide when working with ocean blues and sky. The painting morphed into a mountain scene by a lake. Slightly abstract. Slightly surrealistic.

I decided to experiment.

I reached for the black marker and began outlining some of the spaces. ‘Some’ led to most and the end result became much more grounded and lively.

Play. Work. Fun.

And still, the critter wants me to escape ‘the work’ and stick with the fun.

My higher good flows in with its quiet graceful ways and asks, “If you don’t consider your art and creativity work, what is it?”

My thinking mind immediately leaps to an answer. “It’s nothing.”

“In the Garden of my Mind”. Alcohol ink on Yupo Paper. 9 x 12″ — 2019 Louise Gallagher

And that’s when I realize the truth.  That mountain scene with its many colours and bold outlines is like my brain. There are many compartments, all of them connected, all of them flowing together with each area having a specific and original way of being part of me. There are specific, functioning areas within my brain that comprise its whole. Where I put my attention, where I spend my energy is important.

I can allow myself to be hijacked to the amygdala, the place of fear and primitive responses, or I can consciously raise myself up to my frontal cortex, the higher functioning center of proactive and creative self-expression and executive directionality.

I painted last night. I painted in my new space, savouring the joy of light streaming in through the french doors and Yo-Yo Ma’s cello playing in the background.

I painted and found myself in that place of clarity where I know, who I am is a creative expression of my unique essence.  In my self-expression, definitions of ‘work’ that made it hard for me to let go of my ‘work’ identity flow away, and I become immersed in the joyful work of letting my creativity flow free.

Play. Work. Fun.

It’s a beautiful balance of joy and laughter, creativity and curiousity flowing freely as my fear of my self-expression runs wild with the truth that who I am is an original.

Who you are is original too.

Express yourself. Set yourself free to be. Savour your self-expression and dive in to Play. Work. Fun. Make it part of everything you do.

Namaste.

Wide open spaces of possibility and other vistas

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Alcohol Ink on Yupo 11 x 14″ 2019 Louise Gallagher

I played yesterday. I set aside my list of ‘todo’s’ and immersed myself in the pure joy of spreading colour and texture upon a canvas. Well, Yupo paper to be exact.

Yupo paper is a synthetic sheet of plastic that alcohol inks do not soak into but instead, float on the surface until they dry. It’s what gives them such vibrancy and unpredictability. That, and their chemical make-up.

My chemical make-up has been struggling with the fears, tears, frustrations, angst of imminent retirement. I smile as I read back on what I just wrote. This having an end date without a ‘destination’ is rather daunting! And while I am excited, thrilled, filled with anticipation and joy, this transition time also has its ennui.

Who am I without my title? Who am I without a place to be every day?  People expecting me to turn up, have answers, make decisions, make things happen?

And while I know the answer is “I am all of me and then some”, there is still this place of angst to navigate and cross-over.

It is a threshold. It is part of living because life is filled with thresholds.  Some easier to cross than others. Some harder.

In a workshop I recently took with the incredible Kelly Lee Bennett , she encouraged each of us to create a list of 100 Aspirations.

At lunch last weekend with my beautiful friend Kerry Parsons, she encourged me to leave off determining the ‘how’ of my aspirations until after I’ve spent the summer enjoying life, savouring downtime and alone time and time to play with my grandson and my creativity. “Can you give yourself space to just be present without having to set any goals?” she asked me.

Goals are the ‘how’ of my aspirations. They are the concrete, measurable steps I need to take to create reality to the things to which I aspire.

Aspirations are my ‘why’, my heart-driven, emotional sometimes whimsical thoughts of what I’d love to create in my world if…. my life were ideal, my world perfect. I was living my dreams.

Goals are factual. Aspirations are an expression of my inner self, my feelings and emotions.

Since moving into this home a year ago, I have been planning on having our builder come back to build out my studio space downstairs. One of the deterents has been C.C. and my conversatoins on where to put the studio versus where to put his ‘den’. You know that man cave where he watches sports, drinks beer and throws peanut shells on the floor — okay the throwing peanut shell bit is not true but it paints a true picture of what the space is for.

I need light.

He needs…. whatever light he feels like turning on.

Hence, the debate has been studio in the front end of the downstairs walkout leading to the river or, in the farside where there are no windows.

Not having the studio builtout has resulted in my using the kitchen island as my makeshift studio. It’s 14 feet long so there’s lots of room to paint and cook, but, I do put everything back at the end of every painting session simply becuase I don’t like the mess.

It’s also meant I haven’t had much space to work with anything other than the inks.

Yesterday, I jettison  my ‘to do list’ in favour of creating a space in the walk-out side of the downstairs for me to paint. (You know, the ‘to hell with waiting to make the decision, I’ll just take matters into my own hands’ kind of move that gets one thing done immediately — and leaves the rest of what needs to be decided until later.)

I am grateful. Relieved. Happy.

Something in my heart went click, like the tumblers in a safe’s combination falling into place.

I have a space, a place. To create in. To dream in. To aspire in.

I have an artist’s space.

It is filled with light. Beauty. Possibility.

I threw away my ‘to do’ list yesterday. I played with inks and then, decided to get busy creating for myself a space where I can come home to the canvas, to my art journal pages to find myself at ease, inspired by the sheer joy of letting my creative expressoins flow freely.

Hello retirement!  Or, as Thelma Box, founder of Choices Seminars calls it, ‘Refirement’.  I am all fired up about the wide open terrain before me as I step lightly into the undefined, unmapped possibilities of my life.

Namaste.

Hackers and other threats

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So…. you know when you get one of those emails that makes you go… What on earth are you going on about?  Okay, well maybe stronger language is warranted given that the email I read in my personal account this morning was from a hacker stating that I was to deposit a certain about of bitcoin into an account, otherwise, they would release all my porn watching history to all my followers etc.

Except… I do not have a porn watching history, which means anything they release will be fabricated too. And threatening me with their perverse idea of what will cause me fear is rather ridiculous as, if I did watch porn then I wouldn’t care who knew anyway as I would have to have found a way to love myself for having watched it in the first place – so why would I fall for their threats of doing something that they think would cause me shame or fear others knowing?

Now I get that hackers are adept at creating something that isn’t to look like something that is. But here’s the deal, one thing hackers should do is become more proficient in the English language and more adept at picking threats that work for the individuals to whom they are sending their threats, especially when those threats are filled with technical jargon I do not understand.

To be fair, I should confess that the email did cause my heart to flutter wildly for a few moments, and for confusion to cloud my thinking.

Which is unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, given that my meditation this morning was particularly soul-inspiring and enlightening.

In my meditation I was a leaf floating on the surface of a gentle river. I felt peace. Calmness. And then, I became a shimmering body of water that lifted up out of the water, not quite human in its dimensions and form, a radiant stream of water that rose higher and higher above the earth, at peace with all it saw and witnessed as it rose into the deep silence of space.

And as the body of shimmering water rose, the voice of reason within whispered, “There is beauty in all things. Even problems. The secret is to rise above until the problem appears as an integral part of the exquisite mosaic of life on earth.”

And so, having risen above this problem of the hacker’s threats, I settle once again into that place where I am at peace with all that is in my world, including a hacker’s threats.

I cannot change what others do to create value in their lives. I can feel sad for their need to create havoc in other’s lives and I can wish for them a miracle of enlightenment as I am not powerful enough to change the course of those with evil intent. I can also breathe into forgiveness and repeat, as I must when I feel cornered or like I have given way to fear or bad behaviour/thoughts/words concerning another:

Bless them.

Forgive me.

Forgive them.

Bless me.

Finding peace in forgiveness, and gratitude for my many blessings, I remind myself that, “The rest is all just stuff.”

Lovingly, I raise myself up out of the mire of my fears into soulful living and lovingly invite the soul of the ‘other’ to rise with me,

_____________

PS.  Yes. I will still do what is necessary to safeguard my email by taking my computer to an expert (someone who understands both the technology and the lingo is helpful) what I don’t have to do is fret about the outcome. It shall be whatever it shall be and I shall always be me.

Namaste

How to let go of resistance to surrendering control

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Alcohol Ink on Yupo Paper
9 x 12″ (unframed)
Louise Gallagher 2019

I knew it was there. Could feel it. Sense it. Perceive it.

I seldom have to go looking for it. It’s always there. Always lurking, pulling me back, stopping me up, pushing me away from my desire to live life fully in the rapture of now.

It doesn’t have to sneak up, slink in, or crawl under my defences. It just is. There. Here. Present. Even in times like last this morning, when I am deep into meditation, it turns up. I’d say it’s uninvited but seriously, it’s so accustomed to being present, it doesn’t need an invitation.

It just is. My resistance.

And there it was, as I tripped the light fantastic of a guided meditation focused on releasing to surrender, resistance turned up to pull me back from its believe I was at the edge of danger, of falling over the edge of holding on..

I wanted to give it a kick, but seriously, I was deep in meditation. Violent responses are not appropriate!

Resisting the pull of my resistance, I breathed deeply.

Surrender thy will, the voice of knowing whispered. Surrender thy will.

I didn’t want to. Surrender. Surrender means to give in. To let go. To release my control.

I don’t like giving up control.

Surrender thy will, the voice whispered in a loving stream of consciousness that floated out all around me into the star lit morning sky. Surrender thy will.

I resisted.

And tears flooded my eyes.

Surrender thy will.

I breathed. And surrendered and was bathed in the beautiful light of Love that radiated out from my heart into the night. And in that light I was One with the One. I was immersed in the power of the moment where I was completely, totally, at peace, right where I was, exactly as I was born to be. In that light I was the One I was waiting for. I was the reflection of Love that flowed in and all around me. And I knew, without fear, without hesitation, without question, we are all the beauty and the magnificence of our being who we are meant to be when we let go of resisting our magnificence, our beauty, our Love.

In the radiant light of knowing nothing other than to surrender, I felt my heart break open, my soul shift in delight, my spirit spread its wings. In its beauty, I found myself surrendering my will to let Love be all that I am, all that I know, all that I become when I release my resistance to Love.

Softly, the voice within whispered, “There is no need to resist. No need to hold onto control. To hold back on surrender. There is no need. There is nothing unmet, nothing unknown. There is no need to need. Breathe into the light and surrender Thy will to Love.”

Namaste.

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My word for this year is ‘Surrender”.

It continues to be an enlightening exploration.