2 am and I can’t get back to sleep.  I’ve moved from the bedroom to the den. Slowly sipped a cup of hot milk with honey. Repeated the Serenity Prayer a hundred times. Tried meditating and mindfulness. And still, I’m awake.

So, here I sit. Writing it out in the hopes it will leave me ready and able to fall back to sleep.

Challenge is, I don’t even feel tired. I just feel normal. Like it’s 7 am and I am getting ready to go to work. Except, it’s pitch black outside and Marley is sleeping on the bed with C.C. while snores emanate from Ellie where she sleeps on her rug at the foot of the bed. The house is quiet as is the street outside my window.

The quiet of mid-night. The inky blackness of the dead of night.

Some time ago I gave myself the challenge of letting go of my fear of the dark. The book I was reading recommended taking walks in the dead of night were a good way to reclaim my feminine power. Begin with a walk around your backyard the author suggested. And so, for a week, every night sometime after midnight, I would get up and go outside and stand in the back yard.

From the backyard, the author recommended walking down the street. Around the block.

Her premise:  there’s not really anything to fear out there. It’s just media, society, our imaginations that have created this fear of the dark. Women needed to overcome their fear of the dark by taking back the night. Only then would we be truly free to live within our own power.

I tried. I really did. I’d stand in the backyard at night, under the apple tree that spread its branches like a giant canopy protecting me from the dark. I’d stand there without any lights on in the house and look up through the leaves at the sky far above. I’d listen to the night sounds. The leaves rustling. The whisper of a mouse crossing the lawn. In the distance the sound of a car driving along the road. I even imagined I heard an owl hooting.

And then, I moved to the back gate. Nope. Too scary to go down the lane. I moved to the side gate leading to the front yard. The rasp of the clasp was loud in the night. It felt like I was announcing my intention to walk the streets, alone, in the dark. It didn’t matter that the whole point of the exercise was to prove to myself there was no one and nothing to fear in the dark, I still thought someone was listening and would know I was out there, in the dark, on my own.

I moved away from the gate and back into the house. I went to the front door. Maybe I would feel better if  I just walked down the steps, along the sidewalk to the road. I got to the edge of the walkway, that space where it joined the main sidewalk and stopped.

What was I thinking?  3am is no time for a woman to be wandering the streets alone, even in suburbia.

I turned and walked (very quickly) back to the house. As I fumbled with the key I wondered what had possessed me to lock it in the first place. Nobody was around at 3am anyway to try the front door and break in. That thought sequence kind of made me laugh. If no one was around, what was I doing being afraid of walking the street at that hour of the night?

After trying to go out for a few nights I decided it wasn’t worth it. Some fears are good to live with. And fear of walking alone on the street at 3am is a healthy fear — it’s self-preservation.

And still, I wonder.

Is there really anything to fear out there in the dark or is it all in my head?

Gavin deBecker, in his fabulous book, The Gift of Fear, suggests that we know when to fear and when not to fear. We are intuitive beings, but he believes we have forgotten to listen to it, to hear it, to heed it. And it is in the not hearing it that our fear arises. It is in the not heeding it that danger stalks us.

Perhaps, walking in the dark is a good place to learn to hear my intuition, but I think I’ll heed my common sense that says, it’s not a good idea walk down my street alone at 3am.

Then again, if I was listening to common sense, I wouldn’t be typing my blog at 3am in the first place!

Night all! Going back to bed to dream of starlit nights where fear has no room to grow because even in the dark, the world is a wonder-lit landscape of blue skies and rainbows streaming across the sky. And in my dreams, I don’t fear walking down the street in the dark, because I can fly!

The forest or the trees

Satisfaction.

The word drifts into my mind as I drive home from the studio space where TZ and I have been spending several hours over the past few days immersed in the creative process.

Satisfaction. Satisfied. Suffice.

I am all of this and more.

I am at peace, my creative spirit dancing with joy and elation. I have been playing with texture, colour, tone. I have been slapping on paint, smearing, merging, layering. I have been having fun!

It has been awhile since I painted. In fact, since my art show in May I have not picked up a brush.

Work In Progress – not finished

I know. Scary.

And it is. Scary. To think that I have let go of doing something that brings me such joy, such peace, such satisfaction.

It happens. Life gets busy. Time and circumstances shift. My focus wanders and I forget about the things that bring me peace.

Like meditating in the morning.

I’ve been slacking off. Letting go of that which grounds me every morning. Using the excuse of ‘not enough time’ as a means to deny myself that which brings me strength, courage, joy.

What gives?

In the other light

Philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wrote, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

And that’s the challenge. In my human experience I gave into my human nature’s call to check out. Avoid. Redirect. Detour and deke, dip and dive away from staying present. I got humanly lazy in my spiritual connections. I took a physical break from my psychic self.

Hello! I’m back. I’m here. I’m connected.

And I am reminded. When I lose the path, all it takes is to come back and begin again.

Emergent Women

Always begin again.

And in my beginning again I am not thrust to the back of the line. I am not in a queue or on the line waiting for a service rep to come on the line and answer my question. There is no voice exhorting me to ‘Stay on the Line. Your call will be answered in the order it is received.”

I am the giver and the receiver of my connection to the Universe. It’s not that the universe cares, or not, whether I turn up. I do. And when I take a break, beginning again where I’m at, is the only way to reclaim my balance, to restore my equilibrium.

I begin again.

I painted this weekend. I dripped and poured and splashed and daubed. I let colours run. I let my imagination flow free. And in the process, I found myself again, exactly where I am, in the place I’ve always been.

At home in my heart. At One with the One. At peace with it all.

I found myself in the embrace of the muse, my spirit running free, my soul stirring and jiving and dancing for joy. I found myself and begin again.

What a wonderful gift.

Sunday. A rainy day that didn’t happen, at least not until much later. A road that called us to explore and C.C. and I were off on an adventure.

We travelled south, the verdant hills rolling out on either side of the grey strip of tarmac we followed without thought for destination, other than to know we had to circle back towards home in time to make dinner at friends at 6:30.

Cityscape gave way to ranchlands. Concrete and wooden structures morphed into wooden barns and rambling ranchers.

Just past deWinton, we spied a sign to The Saskatoon Farm. “Have you ever been?” I asked C.C. and upon his negative response we turned left, off the highway, down a winding road, through the enormous cast-iron gates where two identical, larger than life, cast-iron sculptures of an Indian Brave riding his mighty horse stands watch on either side of the gateposts.

The place was busy. Families strolled back to their cars, their arms heavy with a sleeping child or white pails filled with ‘U-pick’ Saskatoon berries. A mother and her three young children pulled a metal wagon piled high with the last of the summer flowers being sold off at drastic discount. A group of women, their Indian sari shimmering in the light, giggled and took photos of each other against the backdrop of the rolling hills and the river valley below.

We parked in a field of golden grain ripening in the afternoon sun and walked up to the main compound of the Farm. Families, singles, couples, every nationality wandered through the greenhouses and displays, taking photos of each other sitting on the brightly covered Adirondack chairs and loungers. Grabbing a shot of the rooster. The enormous pot-bellied pig who slept in the sun, oblivious to the commotion around him.

We checked out the native grasses for sale, storing ideas on how to transform our front yard’s manicured lawn to prairie oasis. We laughed and chatted and stood at the edge of the ridge the sun warm against our skin. Below, the Sheep River lay at the valley bottom, a dark ribbon of water sparkling in the afternoon sun. It lazily wend its way through the hills, no sign of the anger and wrath that had swelled its banks and  caused such devastation to High River and other towns along its course just over a month ago.

A delicious saskatoon tart consumed, we drove southward. “Shall we stop by High River?” C.C. asked, and I declined. I didn’t want to feel like a voyeur, looking in on the town-people’s pain as they continue to measure the toll of the flood, clearing out treasured belongings, tearing down homes that sat for three weeks in the flood-waters that had consumed them and turned basements and first floor living spaces into uninhabitable bacteria and mold riddled swamps.

At Nanton, we pulled into the Air Force museum and wandered amidst the memorabilia and photographs and re-constructed Mosquitoes and Lancaster Bombers and other WW2 planes that gleamed beneath their new paint jobs and polished up propellers. I briefly watched a circa 1940 film on women in the war, but left when the announcer described their work as freeing the men to ‘go off and do the more important jobs.’

And I wondered, which is more important? To make the bombs or drop the bombs? And if either is so important, how do we ever make peace?

And Pete Seeger’s iconic, Where have all the flowers gone drifted through my mind. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Peace cannot be made in the killing of another.

We drove on. This time westward, up and over the Porcupine Hills where rolling hillside gave way to the Foothills of the Rockies. Dark storm clouds gathered overhead, the sky turned from brilliant blue to threatening black.

And the skies opened up and the rain poured down, pelting the land.

We drove across the bridge between Turner Valley and Black Diamond. The bridge that just a few short weeks ago had stood like an island in a sea of rushing waters, the roadway washed away in the violence of the flood, has now been rebuilt. It once again serves its purpose of connecting townspeople and travellers.

A glance down-river was all it took to understand the enormity of the flood-damage. The shoreline that once gently rose up from the river bank is now starkly etched, a straight band of earth exposed to weather and time. Along its spine, giant tree trunks lay piled up in disarray, their roots festooned with the debris that surged into them in the passing of the raging waters.

Home again home again jig-a-dee-jig. A quick nap. Pets fed and we were off to join friends for an evening of delightful conversation, a delicious meal and time spent exploring life and what it means to be human in the 21st Century.

There is a time and place for everything, and now is the time to find a new path. To discover new ways to be amongst one another without resorting to the loss of human life going off to do the important jobs of making war.

Now is the time to rebuild bridges, to reconnect human life to the wonder and awe of one another. To celebrate what makes us different, and to embrace what we share in being human.

Now is the time to make peace with our nature to destroy one another and claim our right to live in harmony with all humankind.

My daughter, Alexis, writes  on her blog today, about taking her first pregnancy test. Now, I must clarify, I am not a grandmother and have not been pestering my daughters about making me one. I leave that decision and the timing of it, or not, completely up to them. But, when I read the first line of her blog, my little mind quickly jumped to that place of “What! Really? Oh my! I’m going to be a….” Only to have whatever excitement, hope, anticipation that had arisen dashed when she said there was no second blue line.

And then, I read the last two paragraphs of her post.

What I do know is that if a second blue line had appeared, I would be doing everything in my power to nourish and protect the life inside me now. I would be eating clean and eating well. I’d be sleeping lots and fostering my happiness.

So maybe the lesson here (aside from the fact that I need to get my hypochondria checked out) is that the person I am giving birth to is myself. And if I’m going to come out healthy and happy and strong, it is time I began nourishing my body and feeding my soul.

I gave birth to this brilliance? I gave birth to this young woman who sees so deeply into our human angst, who is so fearless in her capacity to be vulnerable, open and real about not only her recovery from an eating disorder, but also her struggle to be vulnerable, open and real in life.

Wow!

Twenty-seven and twenty-five years ago when I gave birth to my two amazing daughters I had no idea that they would become my greatest teachers. I had no clue that to become a mother meant having to allow my children to teach me what it means to ‘trust in love’ and to be vulnerable, open and real.

Sure, in the haze of newborn love and the days of sleepless nights, it feels at first as if it’s about changing diapers, mid-night feedings and trying to scrape a few moments together to wash your face or even sneak a nap. And yes, there are the countless firsts to treasure. First smiles, steps, words, pictures drawn and stories told. There are the first days of school, sleep-overs, ears pierced and dating. There are the first times they drove, the first pair of high heels, stockings, first days of high school, first time their heart was broken, the first time they broke a heart and the first time they swore they’d never love again.

But more than all the firsts and all the sleepless nights spent worrying about where they are, or how they’re doing, or what will they do, or not do, there are the lessons learned. The teachings embraced. The moments that simply take my breath away because they are so amazing, incredible, wise and beautiful and absolutely right.

Last night, my youngest daughter and I had our weekly dinner together. We sat and chatted and laughed and shared stories and talked about life and love and being real. “Thank you for always leaping at the opportunity to have dinner together,” I told her.  And she smiled and replied, “I love our dinners together.”

And my heart melted and I was reminded, again, how blessed and precious each moment is that I can spend with these two young women who have taught me so much about loving, living and letting go.

My eldest daughter lives in Vancouver now. We don’t get as much time together and I miss just being able to go for coffee, or a walk, or sit over a leisurely meal to chat and share. My youngest daughter is planning a year abroad to take her Masters. Next fall, she’ll be gone, and who knows where she’ll end up. “I might meet a nice Scottish boy and never come back to Canada,” she jokingly told me last night. (She knows how to push my buttons that young one! 🙂 )

But again, I am reminded of one of the greatest lessons in Love my daughters have taught me. My job as their mother isn’t to hold them close, it’s to watch them and celebrate them and cheer them on as they fly free.

Love doesn’t need physical presence to grow. It already is. Everywhere. What I need to know its essence is an open heart. Love doesn’t need a new car, or pretty dress or sparkly jewellery, it simply requires space to grow wild and passionate. It needs space to expand into and around and under and over. And in my heart is all the space love needs to know that no matter where my daughters are in the world, they are always at home in my heart.

Now, about those grandchildren….  🙂

Sometime ago I went for a Native Sweat Lodge ceremony and as each of us entered and left the sweat lodge we were asked to repeat, “And all my relations.”

On one level, that refers to my family, today and yesteryear.

On a deeper, more spiritually connected level, it resonated within me from that place that knows, I am a relational being and in all my relations, for there to be peace, I must measure everything I do and say from the perspective of how it affects, ‘all my relations’ with the world around me.

Inside of me is a little girl who likes to play peek-a-boo with my world. She comes out in moments of fear. She peeks out in moments of confusion and when I see her peeking out, when I feel her fear, I run back to gather her up so that she won’t have to deal with whatever it is that has triggered her to come forward. I tell myself I must protect her and shield her from the harsh realities that sometimes appear too grim and dismal on my horizon today. And in my haste to avoid whatever the confrontation is in front of me, I sweep her up and race back into the darkness believing that if I can just get her away from whatever is distressing me today, she’ll be okay, and thus, so will I.

My heart knows the truth.

What my little girl needs to feel safe and secure is for me to stand true in my world today. To feel safe, she needs me to turn up in all my authenticity, integrity and truth today and be my true self so that she doesn’t have to peek out from the shadows of the past looking for reassurance in today.

Not always easy when a five-year old is controlling my thinking and my doing!

Healing that little girl inside of me has been a lifelong journey. It is part of the road of self-development of self-discovery and exploration. Part of my mission to understand me ahs been to create a safe and courageous space for my little girl to be happy, where ever I am in the world.

Knowing who I am and how I am in the world is important.

But it is not an end unto itself.

The bigger picture, the greater goal is to understand how I relate to the big world all around me. It’s about doing, being, playing, seeing my part in healing, supporting, loving all my relations with the world around me. If I am to be of service to the world, I must come from a place within me that loves all my relations. If I am to create a world of beauty, wonder and awe for all the world to be free, I must know who I am and how I am in  relation to the world.

It isn’t all about me.

It is all about me AND what I do in the world that ripples out to touch you and you and you and you. It’s all about my relations.

Like a child in a game of peek-a-boo who believes when she closes her eyes the everything and everyone outside vanishes, when I close my eyes, even though I think the beauty and the wonder of the world is all gone, it continues to exist. It continues to shine.  It is just in that moment of closing my eyes I cannot see it.  my mind would have me believe in that moment of darkness there is nothing for me to connect to. It would have me believe there is a world of danger, fear, angst for me to run away from.

My heart knows.

There is nothing for me to fear when I am not trying to stand as an island. There is nothing to run away from when I accept with a loving and knowing heart, I am not Alone.

I am connected. My life is lived in relation to the world around me. My ripple touches yours and yours touches theirs and in those connections we create the lives we live and the world around us.

And in the lives we live, we create relationships that cause our hearts to beat in fear or sing out in joy.

I open the eyes of my heart and see the beauty and the wonder of the world all around me and my heart sings.

My heart knows the truth. My heart is wise. Beauty. Love. Wonder. Joy. Awe. They are everywhere. Infinite. Forever. Powerful beyond my wildest imaginings. My heart knows.

And that little girl within knows too. She knows she is safe when I stand in the wisdom of my heart and sing out for joy that All My Relations are founded in Love.

Show me someone who doesn’t play to win and I’ll show you a loser.  It’s not quite how Vince Lombardi said it but you get the gist. We play to win. We must. Or so we’re told.

And in our desire to win big, we revere sports players, make icons of everyday people whose faces appear bigger than life in a darkened theatre and raise up to god-like heights those whose earnings put them in the stratosphere of success.

We like winners. In a world where winning counts, what about those who don’t win? Are they, we, all losers? Do they, we, not count?

These thoughts were swimming around in my head as I awoke this morning from a dream that shifted into memory as my eyes opened and greeted the day. With gratitude I thanked the angels for their presence, took a deep breath and committed to write on the subject of winning and losing when my fingers hit the keyboard this morning.

But… I don’t remember the dream. And the rest of the words that felt so clear and true when I awoke have vanished. They seem to have disappeared, become lost in the morning light I stopped to admire out the kitchen window before walking into my office to sit down and type.

The light was beautiful. It cast a soft golden hue on just one arm of the crab apple tree in my backyard, turning the leaves a vibrant, orangey yellow colour that shimmered in the morning light. For a moment, I thought the leaves had turned to fall colours overnight, and then, the light moved and the shadows shifted and I saw it was just the sun kissing the leaves good morning.

It was beautiful.

I made coffee. Let Ellie the wonder pooch out and Marley the great cat in. Steamed my milk. Poured the milk and coffee into my favourite mug, walked down the hallway, (past the piano that still sits along one side forcing me to turn slightly sideways to get past), into my office and sat down to type.

And those are the only words I remember of the thoughts I had awoken to. The rest are lost.

Does that make me a loser?

The online Free Dictionary has many definitions for loser — one of them being — 2. a person or thing that seems destined to be taken advantage of, fail, etc. a born loser

In stopping to breathe into the beauty of the sun upon the crab apple tree was I destined to be taken advantage of by nature’s wonder and thus, in losing my early morning thoughts, become a loser born of morning’s bliss?

Or, in thinking about what makes a ‘winner’ versus a loser — and why is it important — am I given a gift to be explored that may require a few days, and a whole lot of trust in this process of filling a blog with my thoughts every morning.

And in the process of trusting the process of my morning writes, do I automatically win — even when the words I started to type are lost?

Yesterday I wrote about a space where C.C. and I stood in disagreement. In the writing it out, I was given the gift of clarity to see how my actions contributed to my unease, and to the dis-ease of our conversation. In writing it out, I was reminded of the importance of staying present, speaking my truth and not being attached to the outcome. Because agree or disagree, the answer to how to win, an argument, a fight, at life and relationship is always the same — Love one another.

Even when it feels like the hardest thing to do, Love one another.

Even when it seems impossible, Love one another.

Even when all appears lost, Love one another.

And in that Love, do the loving thing. Be it walking away, stepping closer, turning in another direction, calling an end to war, putting an end to pain, creating a new beginning, do the loving thing.

No matter what, no matter the circumstances, do the loving thing.

And don’t back down.

Because that’s what creates winners. That’s what turns losing into a win. Doing the loving thing, in all kinds of circumstances. At all times. In all places. Being the voice of Love in all kinds of weather.

I am 100% responsible for my 50% of all my relationships. I hold the key to my feeling like a winner, or a loser, in my own life — 100% of the time.

No one else can make feel like a loser. No one else gives me the power to be a winner, except me.

And how I feel is 100% up to me. How I act, is 100% up to me. What I do, say, create is 100% mine. And in my 100% may I always act, say, think, do and create in Love. May I always know the answer to every question, the one that will always create winners out of me and everyone around me is, Love.

I have a prayer I whisper every morning when I awaken.

As I come into the awareness of the day, as my mind begins to stir and I begin to feel each heart beat calling me to arise, I close my eyes, open my heart and whisper, “Dear Universe. Open a new road to me today and keep me open to the gifts of the  unexpected.”

And then I take a breath. In. Out. And move with joy into my day.

At least, that’s how I like to enter my day every day, and on most days, it is. But there are, those days…

You know the ones. You wake up on the wrong side of happy. In the down side of blue. And the day just doesn’t look so sparkly.

It’s on those days I have to ‘act my way into a feeling’. It’s on those days I have to convince myself, not knowing what the day will bring is all part of the adventure.

I like adventure. I like mystery and magic but I do not like mayhem. And I do not like not knowing.

Which is what often creates the problems I encounter. Not knowing scares me and when I’m scared, I tend to act out, or withhold, or hold back, or hide, or run around in circles, or all of the above and then some.

Not knowing makes me uncomfortable. And when the not knowing involves another human being, it all just falls apart and mayhem ensues.

And I don’t like that.

Recently, C.C. and I had one of those conversations that got a little bit heated, a little bit testy. (okay — a lot)

Rather than stand in love and simply hear him out and let his truth be his truth, I got all uppity and self-righteous and kinda pissy. How dare he accuse me of doing something I did not do. Even if in his perception what I said and did amounted to what he felt and saw, I didn’t do it the way he perceived it — and I had to set him straight. Problem was, in his anger and hurt, setting him straight was not my job and it definitely wasn’t my best course of action. If what I wanted to create was love and harmony in our relationship, I sure went about it in a curious way.

Challenge is, in that moment of telling myself I was being attacked, I forgot all about what I want to create in our relationship and gave into my fears. And in my fear, I chose to defend, desist and disagree.

And what I did compounded what he did which confused what really happened leading up to all hell breaking loose in both of us being unable to hear the heart beat of the other.

When in doubt, choose love over fear.

I didn’t choose love. I chose to listen to my fear.

And my fear of being seen to be less than, unkind, mean, selfish, disruptive, argumentative, and a whole bunch of other adjectives I don’t like to wear, rushed to the forefront of my mind, stirring up all kinds of unrest.

In every disagreement there is a gift. In this instance, the gift was the opportunity to hear my beloved’s pain and sorrow and fear with an open and loving heart. Rather than trying to get him to hear my side of the story when he was all emotional about what he felt had happened, I could have chosen to stay present and thank him for sharing his feelings and thoughts.

I could have thanked him, and let him own his reactions, while I owned mine.

Isn’t that always the challenge when we argue or disagree with another? We desperately want them to see our point of view. Problem is, in our insistence that we are going to set it all straight, we are actively engaged in making them wrong, us right — and I don’t know about you, but I hate being ‘made wrong’. Heck. That’s what started the whole discourse! He had it all wrong and I wanted him to see how and why he had it all wrong! And I was powerful enough to change his mind.

Nope.

I’m not.

Powerful enough to change anyone’s mind.

All I can do is change mine. And rather than listen to the voice that would have me believe he’s got it wrong, I can choose to listen to the voice that whispers quietly in my heart, “Listen up Louise. Listen up and stay open to this new road opening up for you to discover how to create safety even in the darkness of your fear.”

And the best way to do that is…. close my eyes and walk in the dark so that I can hear my heart calling.

I avoided listening to my heart and found myself lost in anger, pain, fear and regret. Opening the eyes of my heart I see where I let my ego override my sense of wonder and awe and Love for my beloved. I see where his truth got lost in my insistence he had it all wrong.

It doesn’t really matter whether our ‘truths’ meet in the darkness. What matter most is our hearts connect in the light and beauty of Love. And the only way for that to happen is for me to close my eyes, open my heart and walk in Love.

One of the things Kerry Parsons asked me the other day was, “When do you feel most connected?”

My answer flowed without hesitation from my heart, “When I am immersed in the creative process. Be it writing, painting, or any type of creative endeavour.” And then, I paused and added, “And when I am coaching at Choices.”

This morning, I shall begin the gift of five amazing days to be immersed in the Choices seminar room. It is a beautiful time of watching hearts break open, minds expand and spirits learn to soar free again. It is a healing time. A time to connect with others in the delicate dance of being a light for others to find their way into their hearts so they can remember their true magnificence. As I said to a friend the other day when we were talking about what it means to live on purpose, “My belief is we come into this world as miracles of life. We are born magnificent and then, we forget. Life happens. Time and space and circumstances intercede and disconnect us to our birthright. We grow up forgetting who we are born to be and then, spend the rest of our lives trying to remember what it is we forgot.”

At Choices, I get to be part of miracles unfolding with every breath. I get to immerse myself in the ultimate of creative experiences of witnessing hopes and dreams and a sense of wonder and awe awakening in every person in the room.

It is an exciting time. A time to pay attention, to be present, to be of service. it is a time of miracles.

And, it is also a time of long days, short nights, fast sleeps.

It is unlikely I will be posting here in the next few days — unless of course I get home and am so excited by all that I’ve witnessed through the day I can’t sleep and decide the only way to get it out is write it out!

In the event that happens, I’ll see you here!  If not, I’ll see you Monday morning.

May you remember your magnificence. May you know you are a miracle. May you feel the wonder and awe of life expressing itself through your beauty and grace with every breath you take.

Namaste.

For much of my life, I have not been at comfort with speaking my truth. Getting better, but it’s still not a comfortable place for me to stand.

Which is why, whenever I’m faced with the opportunity to speak up, I do my best to do it.

Which is why, whenever I’m faced with the opportunity to speak up, and don’t, the angst of the lost opportunity to be fearless sticks deep within me, rubbing against my peace of mind, creating angst in my inner world.

Thankfully, I have friends like Kerry Parsons who, when I reach out for guidance, reach back with kindness and love, illuminating the path for me to see into the darkness of my fears.

Yesterday, as I drove Ellie to the park for her walk, tears started flowing from my eyes. Unbidden, they blurred my vision and, let’s be truthful here, made me a tad dangerous on the road. Now, I am not prone to driving and crying so when the tears started, I got a wee bit anxious about their presence. But, since the flood, I have been noticing a tendency to be teary, for no apparent reason, enveloping me.

What the….?

I put it down to the connection between the aftermath of that relationship that was killing me and the angst of people losing so many things.

But I knew it went deeper. I just didn’t now how deep she’d go.

Thank goodness for my friend Kerry. One call and I was welcomed into her cozy living room where I spent an enlightening hour seated in my favourite comfy love-seat, chatting about ‘What’s going on with Louise.”

In her deep-hearted listening, I found my answers.

I was moving through a trigger point. A deeply seated space of learning from the past that was triggered even before the floods. In our exploration of what was going on, I discovered the trigger point began earlier in June when I stood in front of a crowd of angry community members — and fell under the spell of their onslaught. I didn’t realize it at the time, in fact, I thought I’d handled it all pretty well. And I had. But, the aftershock of those events left me reeling in the muck of a childhood belief that would have me believe, I am helpless in the face of chaos. In my childhood adapted responses to anger and fear and confusion, I believed I had few possibilities to affect change, to be heard, to be seen. I either had to: 1) protect myself, or 2) fix everything around me. And, if all else failed, run away and hide.

I am an intuitive being. I listen and watch and feel from deep within me the energies around me. When I am aligned, when I am moving and being from my essential self, my world moves in harmony with me. When I run into fear, when I allow myself to fall into confusion and helplessness, my world tilts off-kilter, my peace of mind spins out of control and I become despondent and disconnected.

In my altered state, it doesn’t matter what peppy talk I give myself about “getting over it”, I can’t hear the voice of reason, I only hear the voices of the past, whispering that I must run to safe ground, get away from what I’m feeling to wallow in the sands of time drifting through my mind.

I am blessed.

I know me. And I have people in my life who are willing to know me too. And in their knowing ‘of me’, they don’t offer advice and pithy comments about what to do to get over myself, they offer a safe and courageous space for me to explore my demons, for me to walk fearlessly into ‘what’s going on within me’, so that I can once again get out of my own way and live from that place of authenticity and powerfulness that resides in each and every one of us, but too often gets over-shadowed by the past masquerading as the present.

I found myself running from the darkness yesterday. I found myself careening out of control in the byways and alleyways of the past where once upon a time, I felt helpless. In my finding myself there, I found the light I need to move through my angst and carry on, bravely, peacefully and lovingly into the present.

In every situation there are gifts. The gift I found yesterday is that where once I believed I must either protect, fix or runaway, I know the truth of who I am is not in fixing or disappearing. The truth is, there is nothing to fear. There is nothing to defend against, hide from or run away from. I do not have to stand against anything to know peace. All I have to do is turn up, pay attention, speak my truth and stay unattached to the outcome.

When I stand up, speak up and make space for all truth to be known, I create a world of wonder, a world of possibility, a world where no matter what is going on, I matter enough to me to stay true to who I am without fearing that who I am is helpless.

I’m not helpless. I am powerful beyond my wildest imaginings. I am free. And I am grateful.

Namaste.