Category Archives: Essential Journey

Conquering The Great Divide

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I had steeled myself for the shock of arrival. I had mentally prepared myself for the cold.

And it still hit me!

After three days in the moist, relatively warm air of the coast, coming home felt like a rude awakening — even though it was after midnight.

My plane was a couple of hours late. C.C., who was originally going to pick me up at 10, had long gone to bed. I walked out of the terminal, grabbed a cab and then proceeded to say a whole bunch of prayers as we slipped and slid our way down the Deerfoot, navigating icy patches and drifted snow until climbing up Bow Trail towards the condo in which we’re temporarily living while the renovations on our new home are underway.

The cab driver’s car had really bad tires.

Note to self, before climbing into a cab, check to ensure its tires have appropriate tread to navigate snowy roads!

And now I’m home.

Back from a delightful weekend with my sisters and daughters.

On Saturday night, my youngest daughter who had flown out Thursday to spend a week with her sister, organized a ‘baby soiree’ at the home of Alexis’ husband’s mother and stepdad. With the help of Alexis’ dear friend VW and her mother and father-in-law, they created a sense of ‘one big family’ coming together to celebrate the imminent arrival of baby bean, or as he’s affectionately known in utero, Garfield.

There was laughter and teasing, friendly games of pool in the basement and lots of good food and wine upstairs.

One of the hardest things about Garfield’s pending arrival is the distance between us. Alexis and her husband live in Vancouver, on the other side of The Great Divide, almost a thousand kilometers away.

And while between our hearts there is no distance too far to travel, in physical space we are an 11 hour drive (not always advisable in the winter) or a 1 and a half hour flight.

Knowing she is surrounded by a family who loves her, knowing her friends are supportive and caring and kind, and that many of them are just a short drive away and some are also in the ‘family way’, helps ease my heart’s yearning to be closer.

As we stood and chatted at the party on Saturday night, someone suggested guessing the actual date of baby Garfield’s arrival. I laughingly told the story of Alexis’ 19 days of holding out on coming into this world beyond her due date. “I used to think it was because she knew it was the last and only time she would be 100% in control,” I said.

Truth is, I actually think it was because I didn’t want to share her with the world yet. I knew it was the last time it would be 100% just her and me.

I’ve grown since June 19th, 1986 when she came into this world.

I’ve learned to share her. To be supportive and happy in knowing she has created a world around her filled with people who love her and want the best for her in her life. People who care deeply about her well-being. Who want to share their stories with her, and share in her stories too.

As I watched both my daughters at the party on Saturday night I was reminded once again, of how incredibly loving and kind they both are. I was struck by not just their physical beauty, but the beauty of their hearts. The aura of kindness that surrounds them both.

I am so incredibly blessed. And grateful.

I may have been the carrier of the miracle that became their lives, but it is the incredible support of family and friends that have helped shape and guide and form them into the truly magnificent young women they are today.

Baby Garfield is set to arrive within the next two weeks.

In the world around us there is much happening that does not make sense, that causes me distress and unease.

But here, no matter which side of the Great Divide I stand, no matter how icy the roads or far the distance, there is only one truth to hold onto, one prayer to repeat, “May Love surround us always.”

In Love’s embrace, I know Baby Garfield will be safe, no matter how fiercely the winds may blow around him.

In Love, he and his parents are immersed in beauty, kindness, joy, harmony. And though there may be moments of tears, of strife, of discomfort, Love will carry them through.

For this grandmother’s heart to conquer The Great Divide, the only place I need to stand is In Love.

Across the Universe. All You Need is Love

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I read the news today. Oh Boy.

This morning, after reading the news about a Neo-Nazis group in the US, a holocaust denial article published on a Calgary muslim website and a story about fentanyl deaths in British Columia, I felt angry. Confused. Upset.

Really? What are we thinking? How can one Neo-Nazi group be responsible for 5 murders in the US in the last 8 months? How can young men be joining Neo-Nazi groups, waving Swatsika’s and raising arms, killing their girlfriend’s parents because they convinced her to break up with him because of his neo-nazi leanings? How is it that 4 of 5 fentanyl deaths in BC are men, mostly young, mostly alone at home?

We can do better.

And I use the ‘we’ on purpose.

It is not ‘them’ doing this to themselves, or to ‘us’. It is all of us. We are all on this earth together. Breathing the same air. Drinking the same water. Walking the same planet.

But here’s the problem. I want it to be ‘them’. I do not want this crazy-making, deadly part of our humanity to be part of my humanity.

And I can’t cut it out.

This part of me that is connected to you. Connected to them. Connected to all of us. It is all part of our world.

Perhaps that is what makes me feel so angry. And sad.

We are doing this to one another, and I feel helpless.

I know where feeling helpless goes. I’ve been there before when I was in a relationship that was killing me and trying to pretend my life was not on a downward spiral to hell.

I am not helpless. We are not helpless.

But I am silent. Mostly.

What about you? Are you silent too?

Silent no more, I choose to speak up. Not against what is being done in the name of hatred and violence but in the name of Love.

I choose to speak up for Love, with Love, in Love.

With all of it.

The sorrow and joy. The grief and jubilation. The darkness and the brilliance of our humanity when we step out from behind the shadows and claim our place under the sun. Together. A place where all of us belong, not because I say so or you decree it, but because in this place of belonging, we do not hide in the shadows, fearing the darkness and the light. In this place, we know darkness and light, grief and joy, hate and Love are all part of our humanity. All belong in our human journey.

In this place, we do not shame those who disagree with us, or who battle addiction, or hold a flag that makes our blood boil. In this place we hold space for light to get into the darkness so that through understanding, tolerance, compassion, we can speak up for all humanity, not just those who see it our way.

In this place, I don’t feel so helpless, so lost, so alone. I feel empowered, emboldened, fearless in my belief that when I face hatred, anger, violence with a soft heart and strong back, no matter the news or our human condition, Love will always be my answer.

And in Love, sadness fades and I am reminded once again of the power I possess to be the change I want to see in my world.

I read the news today. Oh Boy.

All you need is Love!

Namaste.

In need of balance.

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In my post yesterday on A Grandmother’s Code, I mentioned in one of my comments that I was feeling unsettled without access to my studio.

It was packed up on December 12th and is not likely to get set up again for at least a couple of more months. We are still in the throes of renovating our new home, and my studio will be the last piece in the puzzle of putting our home together.

As I lay in bed this morning thinking about not having a place to create with abandon (because that’s what the studio gives me — a place to paint without worrying about splashing, spills or slip-ups), I realized I need to come up with an alternative plan. A way to create without a studio.

People do it all the time. What am I waiting for?

Fundamentally, my studio represents more than a creating space. It is my home base. My sanctuary. My centering place.

Without it, I have been letting myself off the hook of being committed to my practice of centering, meditating and finding balance.

I have been slacking off.

And that’s not good for me.

Even my meditation practice has been impacted by this move. I am erratic in creating space for meditation and even when I do, I find myself wandering both mentally and physically.

All of which are signs of my inner imbalance.

Moving is not easy. And when the move takes three months, it becomes more about learning to live in transition than just being in transition.

I have not done a great job of learning to live in this new order of things. No matter how transitory, I am in it and need to be conscious of how I go through it.

So, today, I commit to starting a new awareness for myself of what it means to live in transition — while keeping myself balanced and centered with grace and ease.

To begin, I created a ‘path’ for myself to ensure I give myself room for assessment, alignment and action. My steps, as they currently appear in first blush are:

  1. Be conscious of where I’m at — physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
  2. Make an assessment of my ‘Balance wheel’.
  3. Decide on the priority areas to address.
  4. Make a commitment to do 1 – 3 things within each area to bring myself back into balance.
  5. Identify the 1 – 3 things for each.
  6. Commit to beginning and when necessary, begin again.
  7. Be gentle with myself.

It’s a new beginning, a new space, a new attitude.

I wonder what I can create?

 

 

A Grandmother’s Code for her Grandchild

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Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash

In September of last year, I wrote about the Fierce Love that consumed me when I learned that I would be becoming a grandmother this March.

Our grandson’s arrival is fast approaching.

And my fierce love grows stronger.

I know that there is nothing I can do to alter the course of her pregnancy. I know that the medical team guiding her through this last trimester is competent and professional. And, I know that along with their midwife, Dula and Obstetrician, my daughter, son-in-love and grandson are in excellent hands and are well-cared-for on this journey.

But it doesn’t change my desire to do something to make a difference.

Which is why I awoke early this morning thinking about what I could do.

“Get conscious of what it is you want to teach your grandson and how you plan on going about doing it,” the quiet voice within whispered.

What do I want to teach my grandson?

I want to teach him that who and how he is in the world makes a difference because his being in this world makes a difference.

I want him to know that this world is a place of awe and wonder. That amidst the turmoil, pain and chaos, that kindness, beauty, creativity, compassion are essential. And that in all things, all places, all situations, Love is always the answer.

And I can only do that by showing him through everything I do and say and am:

The power of kindness.

The beauty of honesty.

The gift of creativity.

The exquisiteness of compassion.

The grace of Love.

By living through these tenets, I want him to know that he doesn’t have to do anything to make a difference because his presence in this world makes our world so exquisitely and lovingly different.

 

 

Look at me! I’m so human!

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Imagine you are building a fence. You need to get the fence post into the earth. You dig a hole, grab a great big mallet, stick the fence post in the hole and begin pounding on the top of it.

It moves deeper and deeper into the earth until it becomes so tightly lodged you cannot pull it out.

Good start to building your fence.

Now, imagine that fence post is your self-worth. Imagine that every time you make a mistake or mess something up, you berate yourself for it. Again and again.

Think about it. Pounding away at your self-worth, pushing it deeper and deeper into the ground until you are so firmly lodged in the earth, you cannot pull it out, does not make for flourishing human potential.

It makes you stuck in the ground with your treasures and possibilities buried deep.

And here’s the thing. Fence building requires firmly planted fence posts. So, once you finish pounding on the first fence post, you need to start on the next one in order to have two posts to build your fence.

Building your human potential does not need a fence, nor does it respond well to pounding your worth into the ground.

That behaviour does not inspire greatness. And when you keep doing it to yourself, again and again, all you do is build a fence around yourself made of self-doubt, insecurity, limiting-beliefs and condemnation. And fences made of those things don’t leave much room for your imagination, dreams or spirit to fly free!

Here’s a bonus exercise as a follow-up to yesterday’s What’s in your bank account.

Catch yourself pounding yourself into the earth — As you go about your day, have a small note pad on hand and put an ‘x’ on the page every time you catch yourself judging yourself harshly, calling yourself names, self-criticizing yourself or mocking yourself for something you’ve done.

On the same page, put a check-mark for every time you take a moment to congratulate yourself for doing something well, handling a situation in an effective manner or simply feel good about yourself.

At the end of the day, see which mark you have more of — the checks or the x’s.

It can be telling.

Now, imagine those x’s are pounding your self-worth into the ground.

Yup. It’s time to stop beating yourself down and instead, start lifting yourself up by celebrating you!

LIfting yourself up can be as simple as stopping your self-criticism mid-thought and saying to yourself, “Oh, look at me! I’m so human!” (Smiling while you say it helps too!)

There’s no judgement in acknowledging your humanness. There’s only acceptance.

With acceptance comes the acknowledgement that we are all… human.

And we are all … doing our best being perfectly human in all our human imperfections.

Namaste.

 

What’s in your bank account? (Action 4 – How to build well-being and balance)

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Think of your ‘self’ as a bank and your life as an ‘economy of self‘. Everyday you deposit goodies (love, joy, laughter, smiles, happy thoughts,), you eat good food, consume or create good ideas, take positive actions, make healthy lifestyle choices, and a myriad of good decisions into your bank account. Your investment in your economy of self pays off with a positive bank balance that can weather any storm, any crisis you encounter, including every day withdrawals that deplete your resources of energy, time and money.

Withdrawals come in the form of everyday occurrences such as how you handle traffic jams that make you late, bank machines that are ‘out of service’ when you need them most, an angry partner, a run in your stocking, a soiled shirt, an empty bottle of shampoo when you are half-way through your shower.

Withdrawals are part of the yin/yang of living. How we handle them is what creates our positive or negative balance. Withdrawals deplete our account when we make negative choices. Unhealthy food choices, binges of anger, jealousy, envy, regret, and a host of other emotions — unforgiveness, non-repentance, uncompromising positions that undermine our peace of mind.

Withdrawals can be balanced with ‘goody’ deposits such as love, joy, laughter, sharing a good time with a friend, acts of kindness, volunteering, etc.

As long as deposits outweigh withdrawals, your bank account is healthy and happy. Your economy of self is balanced.

Big picture, when your deposits build resilience, good-will, contentment, balance, you have the resources to trust yourself to weather any momentary blips in the economy of self.

 

Today’s exercise:

Write down the dollar figure $1,000.00 in the middle of the top of a blank page in your notebook.

Beneath it, draw a line to the bottom of the page dividing the page in half.

On the top left side write: Withdrawals On the top right side write: Deposits

Throughout the day, remind yourself to write down a value for every emotion you experience during the day.

Every emotion has a value of $1.00. Doesn’t matter if the emotion is love or anger — it has a value of $1.00 on the Deposit side of the ledger.

Now, if you notice that the anger lasts longer than the momentary ‘noticing’ of it, make a withdrawal. Every withdrawal is valued at $2.00.

For example, you are in a meeting and Joe from the corner office is, as always, late. The thought of Joe being late is a positive emotional deposit — lateness lacks integrity. However, the ‘as always’ component is a negative. Have you ever discussed the importance of punctuality? Have you found a respectful way to tell him about your feelings around his lateness? So, in this situation you have a $1.00 deposit and a $2.00 withdrawal.

As the meeting continues, Joe asks a question about something that was discussed before he entered the meeting. You reply, “If you’d been here on time you’d know the answer.”

That’s a $2.00 withdrawal. There’s no deposit because you’ve already given your emotions around his tardiness a say.

Later on, you go for coffee and Joe is standing in line in front of you. As you walk towards him, you smile, but in your head you think, “Ha. He’s never late for coffee.” That’s a $2.00 withdrawal.

Back in your office, the phone rings. It’s a supplier telling you they’ll be late with delivery. It’s the second time this month. You mention that fact and they apologize, explaining that they haven’t received the necessary components because their supplier is late. You agree on a new delivery date and you hang up. You get a $1.00 deposit because you handled the interaction effectively.

Later on, you are explaining to your boss about the late delivery and complain about the supplier, blaming them for the situation, yada yada yada. That’s a $2.00 withdrawal — and more withdrawals for every time you repeat the story about how they are to blame — like when you get home and tell your partner all about it, complaining about the supplier’s lack of responsiveness. Oh, and you also get a $2.00 withdrawal when you talk about Joe’s tardiness.

At the end of the day, add up each column. Are you in the negative or positive? Look through eyes of wonder at your bottom line and ask yourself, What can I learn? What can I do to change my bottom line? Be open, and joyful. Just in doing the exercise you have created positive well-being for your self.

The purpose of this exercise is to bring to your consciousness the impact of your complaints and critical, negative talk on your well-being.

When you invest time and energy into criticizing, condemning and complaining, you are making withdrawals from your economy of self. You are depleting your resources, running your balance down and creating stress — think about your real bank account. When the balance is depleted, do you worry about how you’ll make ends meet. How you’ll pay for the new tires, the furnace repair, that dress you really want for the Christmas party?

Criticizing, condemning and complaining are energy vacuums. They suck the ‘goodies’ right out of you.

Stop it.

Make a commitment to notice how much you criticize, condemn and complain on a daily basis. Offset the negative with positives. Keep focusing on the positive, on the deposits, and ease yourself away from making too many negative withdrawals. Life has its ups and downs. Someone will inevitably do something to hurt, disappoint, disillusion, betray…. you. It is inevitable.

How you handle the ups and downs makes all the difference in the world to your economy of self. Choose to create a bank account of well-being that is continually balanced with positive ‘goodies’ that will sustain you through any situation that may arise. Keep yourself in the black by continually depositing self-sustaining and enhancing well-being.

The question is: What’s in your bank account?

The stories we tell (Action 3)

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We all have a story.

Doesn’t matter which side of the street we walk, where we came from or where we think we’re going. We carry our story(ies) about ourselves and our view of the world with us everywhere.

Sometimes, our stories lift us up. Sometimes, they drag us down with their limiting beliefs and perspectives of what is possible, or not, of what we can or cannot do.

Always, we are the story-teller, the story-keeper, the story-creator. Always, we have the power to decide when and where and to whom we tell our story. How often. How loudly. How softly. We decide if our telling is a rant or a song. A dirge or a symphony of joy, of hope, of love.

We decide.

Once upon a time, I had a story. It was the story of  my life happening through my role of being a man’s leading character. To make my story come true, I painted inside the lines of what I thought a relationship ‘should be’, not what I wanted it to be — partly because I didn’t look outside the box to see what I truly wanted in a relationship, and partly because the story I told myself about needing a man to make me complete was so strong, I couldn’t imagine not having a man to make me complete!

I became so attached to my story that I couldn’t see it was killing me. Dragging me down into the pits of despair. Pushing me under. Drowning me.

See, I’d always held onto the notion, buried deep within me, that I needed a man to complete my story. I needed someone else to make my dreams come true. Convinced that story where I was completed by another was the only one I could ever write, I became lost in the land of make-believe, living my story again and again hoping for a different ending. No matter how many prince charmings came riding through, or how quickly they swept me away, or I was washed away on the tides of happily-ever-after, the story was always founded on my belief I needed ‘his’ kiss to awaken me to life beyond my wildest imaginings.

We all have a story.

I’ve awoken to a different story than that sad tale of a woman who believed she needed another to make her dreams come true she almost died in its telling. My story today is one of possibility. Of love that doesn’t need another to make it real because Love always is and I always am. In Love. Loving. Loveable. Loved.

In my story today, I live true to my belief in me and Love. I live true to my desire to be, me. Just the way I am. Always who I am. In Love — with me and all the world around me. Today I am not seeking a happily-ever-after fairy-tale come true. Today, I seek living in the here and now, awakened to all that is true and real and possible in the here and now. The Good. The Bad. The Ugly. The Miraculous and Mystical.

We can get trapped in our stories.

The secret is to step out of the characters we’ve created with their limiting beliefs and capabilities and ask ourselves:

  1. Is this truth or fiction?
  2. Is this story I am telling creating the more of what I want in my life? Is this story I am living a story of possibility, or, is this story bringing me down, further and further, into seeing the future as a repetition of the sadness, worry, unhappiness etc. I am feeling today?
  3. Am I the passive voyeur committed to watching the story unfold, letting it happen without my direction, always repeating the same limitations of my story today?
  4. Am I the active hero/heroine creating the story of my life as I direct each choice I make towards my goals, creating more and more of what I want in life with every passing day?

The task for today is:

  1. Write out three to five things you want more of in your life.
  2. List the limiting beliefs that could stop you from having the more of what you want.
  3. For each limiting belief, write out what holding onto that belief costs you.
  4. List the beliefs about yourself you need to hold onto to have the more you want.

Just for today. Try it. Get excited about you and your life!

Colour outside the lines. Do something you fear. Step outside your comfort zone and leave yourself exposed to creating a new story of your life unfolding where more is possible. The one where the future isn’t a repetition of the past. The one where, the story of your life is a beautiful journey of you being you, experiencing all that is possible when every day you are surprised and enchanted by the wonder and awe you experience by believing in you and living the life of your dreams!

The question is: Are you willing to colour outside the lines? Are you willing to let go of the stories you tell that hold you down and step into the life of possibility that comes with believing in you, yourself and all your dreams?

All of this, and everything better. Happy New Year!

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Dawn awakens and with it a new year opens up with all its hope, possibilities and promise.

It is a time to flow into, flow with, flow through. Time to hang out, hang ten, hang onto those things which matter the most, and to let go of those things which have no value other than as dusty signposts collected in the past when they held much more meaning than they do today.

It is a New Year. 2018.

A year in which every one of us will grow older. We have no choice in the matter.

Where we do have choice is in the how of our aging. Will we choose to try new things? Explore new ideas? Challenge our assumptions?

Will we choose to grow wiser? Kinder? More vulnerable, open, thoughtful?

Will we choose to expand our thinking? Will we choose to awaken our dreams and take actions to make them real?

Will we choose to live true to ourselves? Will we choose to shine bright? Will we choose Love?

Or will we keep hiding?

For the next four days, I shall be writing about four simple actions we can each take to move beyond the darkness of hiding from our light so that we can shine brightly for all the world to see — there is always possibility. always Love. always a better way.

Day 1:  Make a list

What you’ll need for today’s exercise is a notebook and pen, and a willing mind. Find a comfortable place to sit without any distractions. Light a candle if you like, burn your favourite incense, put on soft music and sit quietly for a few moments sinking into the silence. Imagine you are a leaf drifting to the ground. Slowly. Softly. Gently.

Think about one area of your life where you feel unhappy, dissatisfied, that you’d like to change. Sit with those feelings for a moment and let them really weigh heavily on you. Now, in your mind, move yourself forward one year. Imagine you’re feeling exactly the same. Move another year forward. Feeling the same. Do it, until you can’t move forward any more with those feelings. (You may go three, five, eight, ten years forward. There is no right nor wrong place to get to.)

When you get to that place where the weight of your feelings just won’t let you move forward any more…

Open your eyes.

Open your notebook to two blank pages (left side/right side) and write down, on the left page, how you were feeling at the end of your mental pathway when you got to that point where you could go no further.

Write down everything. Be honest with yourself. Be open.

When you’ve finished writing, draw a line down the middle of the facing right page making two equal columns.

At the top of the left column, write the title:  I don’t want to feel

Below it, write down the words describing your emotions around whatever it is that is making you feel unhappy, dissatisfied, etc. Angry. Sad. Frustrated. Pissed off…

Now, at the tope of the right side of the column, write the title:  I want to feel

And write out the emotions that describe how you’d like to be feeling about your life in that area. Happy. Fulfilled. Energized. Fabulous. Content…

At the bottom of the right column, in big bold letters, write: All of this and everything better!

For the rest of the day, focus on All of this and everything better. Tomorrow, we’ll explore what is holding you to the I don’t want to feel side of the page.

The question for today is: Are you willing to shine some light on what ails you? Are you willing to step into the darkness to find your light?

 

Are you willing to practice being magnificent?

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Years ago, while teaching a self-esteem course at a homeless shelter, I asked the 12 or so men gathered in the room ‘what kind of man do you want to be?’.

Across from me, at the far end of the boardroom table sat a tall, handsome man who had once been forced to become a child soldier in his homeland. “I want to be a proud man,” he said. “But how can that be possible when I have done so many horrible things?” he asked.

“Do you want to keep doing those things or things of which you’re proud?” I asked him.

And he replied, “Of course I want to do things I’m proud of. But I see me only as that bad man.”

“What if I told you I see you as a magnificent human being?”

He flashed me a big smile and said, “I’d say you need better glasses.”

I laughed at his joke and I told him my glasses were okay. What if, it was just the lens through which he was looking at himself that needed adjusting?

The whole class listened intently to our conversation, with several others chiming in that there was no hope that anyone would ever see them as magnificent.

What if the first step isn’t for others to see you as magnificent but rather that you do? I asked.

I invited everyone around the table to close their eyes, for just a moment, and imagine that they truly were magnificent. Sit tall, I encouraged. Breathe into being and feeling and knowing you are magnificent. Be that.

And for a moment, 12 men closed their eyes, sat tall and breathed into their magnificence.

It was trans-formative.

Facial features relaxed. Their breathing slowed. Small smiles of recognition appeared on some of their faces.

After a moment, I invited them to open their eyes and asked, “Could you feel it? Could you feel your magnificence?”

And everyone in that room agreed. Yes they could.

Then it exists within you, I told them.

Now, imagine that we connect through our magnificence. Imagine that our magnificence is the thing we carry out into the world and share.

Would your world be different?

Yes, they all murmured.

Magnificence exists within each of us. It is who we are born as, and to be.

And then, life happens, we forget our birthright and start living in the narrow corridors of the hurtful things we’ve experienced, done, and seen that we tell ourselves define us. Limit us. Are us.

It’s not true.

The things that happened, including the past, does not define us. We do. In the here and now.

And in the here and now is where we can begin to practice letting go of our limiting beliefs and breathing into celebrating our magnificence.

Those beliefs were founded in the past because those were the things we were taught, forced to learn, forced to endure because the world around us didn’t know how to celebrate our magnificence, or its own.

Those are the beliefs that keep us playing into our limitations and living small today.

Just for today, practice breathing into your magnificence. Imagine your entire being is imbued with the beauty and wonder and awe that is you when you let go of living out the learned patterns of mediocrity that have kept you trapped in forgetting the magnificence of who you are born to be.

And in your magnificence, imagine that you are a divine expression of grace. That you are… Love.

Breathe and Be. Breathe and Be.

And so it is.

Can you accept it all?

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When I am finished speaking in front of the audience at Music for a Winter Evening, I want to curl up in a corner, breathe deeply and cry.

I have noticed it before, this space after a presentation where really, talking to people is the last thing I want to do. I’d rather just go off somewhere and cry.

At intermission, after I have finished speaking, I tell my sister and my friend Wendy who have come to the concert with me, how I feel. My sister asks, “Is it because it brings back all those memories?”

It is the logical assumption. Talking about those dark days when I was lost and waiting to die at the hands of an abuser could bring the fear and self-loathing back.

But that is not it. I know how strong I am today. I know how loved and cherished I am by so many. And,  I know that, that was then. This is now. And in the now, my life is a beautiful tapestry of love, friendship, family, community, joy and deep belonging.

No. It is deeper than that this desire to cry.

And then I listen to Steve Bell talk about strength and vulnerability. How we must find a way to allow both to live within the dichotomy of both being present.

I feel it. That is the truth for me in that moment.

I have stood on that stage in front of hundreds of people and allowed myself to be vulnerable. In vulnerability I call upon my strength to rise up and hold me in loving arms.

It’s not easy. It’s not hard. It is not open. It is not closed.

It is vulnerable.

In the vulnerability of being willing to share the times when I was hurt and hurting, desparate and lost, I must allow my strength to carry me over the threshold of my vulnerability.

And that can feel scary. To be seen. Deeply.

The tears come because in that sacred space of being vulnerable, I know how truly human I am. And I feel blessed.

And the tears come, because the critter is also present. It wants to remind me what I forgot. Where I messed up. It wants to tell me who’s judging, for what and how. It wants to measure my sharing against others and say, “See, you are lacking.”

And that is when I must breathe. Deeply.

In. Out.

In. Out.

Yes, I want to cry. But my tears are not because I am sad or feeling the pain of the past. They are because in my human condition, no matter what I share, I still want people to see, ‘the perfect me.’ And I’ve just told them all the ways in which I’m not perfect.

How can I then walk into the crowd and be present when they come up to thank me, to tell me how my story impacted them. To tell me how they admire my courage, when deep within me, the critter is hissing, “It’s not true! It’s all a lie!”

And I smile.

The critter is who the critter is. He is not all of me. He is just the insecure part of me to which I must turn, step into his fears and whisper into the darkness, “I love you. We’re okay. We are safe in Love’s embrace.”

It was a magical, awe-inspiring evening.

Malcolm Guite opened the evening with his poem, “Begin the song exactly where you are/ Remain within the world of which you are made/ Call nothing common in the earth or air/ Accept it all…”

To accept it all, I must accept all of me. To accept all of me, I must love all of me.

Can you do that?

Can you accept your ‘woundedness’ and your wisdom? The broken places and the whole? The beast and the beauty?

Can you Accept it All?

Last night, I stood in front of several hundred people and shared a story of a time when I was lost.

In its telling, I found my heart break open in Love.

And while I cannot control how others receive that story or me, I can stand in the vulnerability and strength of knowing, in its sharing, other hearts were touched with all that I wanted to give. All I had to give. Love.

Listening to Steve and Malcolm, hearing Malcolm’s melodious voice share words of poems that resonated within my heart striking chords of awe and recognition, listening to Steve ask, “Why do we hunger for beauty” and feeling my heart break even wider open, I felt the presence of the Divine. I felt the wonder of Love shimmering in the darkened corners of that theatre as it struck a chord with every beating heart.

My heart beat in time last night. And in that time, I felt the truth of Steve Bell’s words ring within my heart.

In my vulnerability is my strength.

It is there in all of us. All we need to do to know it is to begin the song, exactly where we are.

Namaste.