Tag Archives: accepting what is

Truth is not a weapon.

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Truth is not a weapon I wield like a sword, chopping down those who oppose me.

Truth is where I stand in my heart, allowing all things to be as all things are, without the need to make all things be my truth.

 

So often, we believe to have our truth heard, we must speak above others, drowning out their voices so only ours remains.

That is not truth-speaking.

For our truth to be heard, we must speak it in peace. Using our words kindly to create space for someone else to hear us, and for us to hear them.

Sometimes, truth can hurt. But it hurts much less when we take care to speak our truth with compassion, giving care to how the other will feel when the words we speak stand between us.

Are our words a barrier or a bridge?

Are they a minefield of discord or filled with a desire to find common ground?

Do our words pierce like an arrow or open minds to understanding one another’s hearts?

I was at a meeting yesterday where two years ago, the same people sitting around the table sat on opposite sides of the fence. To find common ground, we had to make room for all truths to stand without judgement. We had to allow space for our opposing views to be heard without fear of being drowned out in the anger and fear of our differing perspectives and understanding of what had happened. We had to listen to what ‘the other’ had to say about what had gone wrong, and what wasn’t working without denying the truth of what was said.

In the process, we found room for all our views to co-exist. We found strength to bridge the gaps between our differing views to create a better everyone could live with and within.

There is truth in everything, yet not all things are true.

It is true, there is war in the world. Yet, the whole world is not engaged in war.

It is true, there is discrimination in the world. Yet, discrimination does not rule the whole world.

It is true, there is poverty. Yet, poverty is not true for everyone.

Until we hear all things without fearing ‘the truth’ of all things, we will not find the path to see and hear and feel what is true without fearing the other’s truth will prevail, take over, overcome what is true in our world.

Until we speak our truth, in peace, allowing love and compassion to soothe our words, our truth will be viewed by someone as untrue or unkind.

“Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”  ― Warren W. Wiersbe

Until our truth becomes the ground upon which we stand in love and harmony, our truth will be the weapon others use to stand apart.

Namaste.

 

 

 

 

Safe journey

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I feel rushed this morning. Hurried. Rain presses down upon morning’s awakening, a sodden blanket of sleep lingering long past the hour of awareness breaking through my dreams.

Lesson 2 of my course material waits in my Inbox. And I lay in bed listening to the rain and the wind chimes in the backyard.

Get up, Louise, my mind encouraged me at 5:30am.

Sleep some more the critter whispered. You don’t have to get up yet.

The critter won. I lingered in bed drifting in and out of wakefulness.

And morning rose and I held my eyes closed.

Time is running. It is time to greet the day, to get busy.

This morning’s lesson included a photo of a spiral staircase. Looking down from above it, looking into the well of its spiral, there is a light at the bottom.

And my mind quickly carries me into the light. I look up and find myself rising. Stepping up through the tiny pinprick of light curving up into the open expanse at the top of the stairwell.

What awaits above is a mystery greater than what lies below, my mind whispers, and I breath deeply into the expansion of this moment right now.

I am not rushed. Hurried. Time does not change because of the slowness of my awakening. it expands out into each breath, opening me up to wonder and awe and mystery.

I stop racing. Stop trying to fit it all in and breathe again into this place where all I am and all I need are all that is present.

Letting go of searching for the light at the end of the tunnel, my heart hears dawn’s breath awakening within me. And my eyes open to the beauty of the rain falling, the wind whispering and the chimes tingling in anticipation of another day opening up in mystery and wonder all around.

My eldest daughter, Alexis, returned to the city where she lives by the ocean last night. She said a final farewell yesterday to her father’s mother, her other grandmother who turned 94 at the end of July. Two days before her birthday she was told of the cancer that would steal her life within a week.

Alexis’ gratitude for her holding on until she got here to see her one last time is palpable. She got to visit every day. To spend time with this woman who was the first ‘other woman’ to care for her on the day I got out of hospital after her birth. She has been there for both my daughters throughout their lives and now, she is in hospice. The end approaches, shrouded in mystery, in finality, in darkness and in eternal rest.

For my daughters, with both their grandmother’s life-breath growing shallower, this has been a time of uncertainty. Of sadness. Of letting go. Of recognizing the delicate hold life has on each of us is only as strong as time’s willingness to hold on to our beating hearts, the deepness of our breath moving in and out.

Time passes and soon this woman who shared so much love and time and care and attention on my daughters will pass away in time’s hands moving beyond her last breath.

And I breathe and take time to honour this woman who has meant so much to me and to my daughters. This woman who has given so much time and love and care.

Fare-thee-well Jill. Safe journey to the other side.

May we all travel safe today. May we all be held in loving hands, our hearts beating freely in the knowing, we are loved. We are loving. We are love.

Ubuntu – I am what I am because of who we all are

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DIFFERENCES ARE NOT INTENDED TO SEPARATE, TO ALIENATE. WE ARE DIFFERENT PRECISELY IN ORDER TO REALIZE OUR NEED OF ONE ANOTHER.
~ DESMOND TUTU ~

When I first see them, they are just two men walking down the street in opposite directions on the same sidewalk.

The moment transcends ‘normal’ in one instant. As the two men pass eachother, one of the men strikes out and shoves the other man off the sidewalk onto the roadway. He falls to the ground and the other man continues to walk away.

The man on the ground jumps up. His hands are balled into fists. For one moment, he takes a belligerent stance, and then it’s gone. He’s standing facing the retreating back of the other man, his shoulders slumped forward, his arms hang loosely by his side.

I am sitting in my car, about to drive down the lane, away from the shelter where I used to work when this scene unfolded in front of me.

I am stunned. Bewildered.

I stop my car. Get out and approach the man who is still standing in the laneway. “Are you okay?” I ask.

He turns towards me. He is in his 50s, maybe 40s but it can be hard to tell sometimes how old someone who has lived the ‘streetlife’ really is, ‘the street’ can make you appear ten to fifteen years older.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” And he shrugs his shoulders and starts to walk towards the shelter.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

He sighs. “No. I just got off work. I don’t wanna make no trouble. I just wanna lay down.”

I leave him, get back in my car and turn around back to the shelter. I follow him into the building. I want to make sure he’s okay.

At the security desk I wait until he’s checked in. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” I say. And I touch his shoulder with one hand.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Tears form in his eyes. I wonder when someone last spoke to him kindly when he’s been hurt. Offered comfort. A gentle voice.

“Can I give you a hug?” I ask.

He looks at me surprised. “Sure. That would be nice.”

Later, at my meditation class I am deeply relaxed when our guide instructs us to ‘walk into the desert.’

“Walk with no intention,” says our guide. “There’s a figure walking towards you. Welcome them. See who it is.”

It is the man. Not the one who was thrown to the ground. It is the perpetrator.

He is a dark shadow. Dark clothes. Dark hair. Shrouded.

As he walks towards me I want to shake him. Rattle him. Ask him why he did it. Do something to ‘make him see’.

And I realize, he cannot see me. His world is too dark. Too shadowed to see there is light all around. He is beaten down in the darkness.

I stand and hold the light around him. It is all that I can do.

It was a powerful realization. To know that there was nothing I could do to ‘make him see’, or hear or be anyone or anywhere other than that moment right there.

In that realization I knew – he didn’t see the man he shoved. He saw — his past, the pain and anger of the moment, his powerlessness to change the past, his anger at the moment.

It doesn’t make what he did right. It does make my witnessing of what he did more understandable to me.

Sometimes people do things that hurt others. They strike out — with hands and fists and words and weapons of destruction. They strike out and we rail against the injustice, the inhumanity, the cruelty of what they did believing we would never do the same.

Standing in the desert in front of that man, I knew — I was capable of those same actions. His darkness exists in me because I can see it.

The only difference is — he can not yet see there is light within that darkness.

In Africa there is a word — Ubuntu. It means — ‘human-ness’, Humanity to others — “I am what I am because of who we all are”.

I cannot be me unless you are you and you cannot be you if I am not me.

That man’s darkness cannot exist without my darkness. And my light cannot exist without his light.

For him to see his light, I must be my darkness and light. Hold true to my being, without being pulled into darkness.

May we all be inspired by the power of our ability to inspire others, to be our most incredible selves, even in the face of darkness.

May we all live the truth of Ubuntu so that each of us can live peacefully in the light of knowing, we are all connected in our human-ness.

 

When I shift, everything shifts.

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Day 68 of consciously choosing to notice what it means and what it takes to make a difference in the world.

The lessons are simple.

It begins with me. My I Statement.

I am the difference I want to create in the world.

Making a difference requires Commitment.

Commit to your Be. Do. Have.

Focus on your Intention — how do you want to BE in the world.

Move through Attention — where will you focus your efforts on your DOing — what am I willing to DO to create what I want in the world

Find fulfillment of your vision in No Tension — that state of being where you HAVE balance and harmony in your being and doing what you want more of in the world. That place where you know, the Universe is on your side. The Universe is with you, for you, supporting you because it is in the best interests of the Universe that each of us shine.

Stay your path. The Path is the Way.

On Valentine’s Day I gave my beloved the gift of a poem a day for 14 days. I thought it was simple gift that would speak to him of my heart and love. I thought he would enjoy it. No expectations, I said. No need to respond. I’m sending you these poems as a gift. (He is currently living 500 km away and we only see each other every second weekend.)

I lied (didn’t mean to but I did have expectations).

I had lots and lots of expectations! And I let him know it. Even sent him ‘the script’ I’d written on day three about how he should be responding — you know, by my rules and all that. Naturally, his response was not all that ummm, positive.

I regrouped. Took a breath. Acknowledged I did have expectations and my expectations were pushing up against his natural resistance to my expectations. I wanted to quit. To pack up my words in a huff and take to the silent path of poutiness.

I remembered my desire to make a difference in his heart.

I began again where I was.

Always begin again.

I kept sending the poems. Every day. Dipping into that loving place where I write my heart out without expectation of the outcome.

What a difference.

We’re now on Day 30 and the process of writing of love every morning has changed where we are in our relationship. Everything has shifted. Intimacy has deepened. Openness has expanded. Togetherness has aligned.

When I shift, everything shifts.

That simple decision to write a poem a day has made a difference.

Sticking to it, even when the road got muddy, has made a difference.

When I shifted my expectations away from ‘what I want’ to accepting what is, everything was made different.

I’m now working on an online course to inspire others to engage in a similar process.

You make your Difference.

 

Have you told yourself today that ‘it doesn’t matter’. My difference doesn’t count. Nobody cares. Nobody gets ‘me’. Have you asked yourself, “What’s the point?” “Why bother?”

Shift.

Shift your perspective and know, when you shift, everything shifts.

We can all make a difference. It just takes shifting our perspective and opening up to what is without expectation it be any different than what it is.

Sometimes, all it takes to make a difference in the world is to commit to doing something different.

We are each the difference we seek to create in the world. Letting go and flying free of expectations gives us room to explore the space between where we’re at and what is being created in our difference.

Namaste.

 

 

Accepting what is makes a difference

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Day 40 of A Year of Making a Difference and I ask myself — how is the difference expressing itself within and through me.

When I began this process on January 1 I didn’t really think about the longterm impact, or what it would take to ‘make a difference’ everyday. I just knew I wanted to do something concrete, something of substance that would keep me focused on a daily basis to what it means to be conscious of my difference in the world.

Yesterday, when I posted the video link to my TEDxCalgary talk I was humbled and touched by the comments of others on how they experienced my presentation — and that’s the difference. Making a difference isn’t about what I do or say. It’s about how what I do and say resonates in the world. It’s about the conscious choice to make what I do and say come from a place of Love, of healing, of being ‘the more’ I want to create in the world.

Yesterday, I experimented with making my smile the difference I share. At Costco, a glitch with my membership card meant the line-up behind me ground to a halt. As anyone who’s ever shopped at Costco knows — slowing down the cash register line-up is a no-no! Normally, when glitches like this happen, my facile mind leaps to that place of guilt and fear — I’m sooooo sorry. Oh my. What can I do? and I become flustered and anxious and oh so discombobulated with the whole situation that my energy sends out shockwaves of fear.

Knowing there was nothing to do but accept the situation with grace, I smiled at the three people behind me and thanked them for their patience (have you ever noticed how people don’t know they’re patient until you thank them for it?). The cashier looked flustered for a moment and I asked, “What can we do to fix this?” and miraculously, the fix appeared. Now, I have to acknowledge both the cashier and the young man assisting her. They were awesome. Pleasant. Accommodating and kind. While I straightened up the confusion with my card, the cashier and her assistant worked around my groceries so the line-up moved a little bit, albeit not quickly, but it did keep moving.

And I kept smiling, and thanked people again for their patience.

In the end, the cashier’s assistant pushed my buggy all the way over to the Membership desk so that I could get my photo taken for a new card without having to wait in line. We laughed and smiled, I thanked him for his help (and his patience) and we parted ways with a smile.

What a difference than if I’d thrown a hissy fit, focused on ‘the system’ and its defects. By choosing to accept what was, and not bemoaning what wasn’t —  a renewal that should have had my name but lost it as a joint cardholder — a situation that could have resulted in grumpy staff and grouchy patrons ended with smiles.

I like that difference.

Namaste