Sometimes we have to trust our way through the darkness to find the light again

So often it is in our darkest hours, when we are ready to give up and throw in the towel, that our faith in something greater is the weakest. When we need our faith the most, we abandon it and we abandon ourselves. Yet it is precisely when we are at our lowest point that we have the greatest potential to leap forward.

Just as a seed’s roots grow downwards before its shoot reaches skyward, we must root into the darkness to be able to grow upwards. Just as the seed knows where to go to find the sun, we must learn to trust our ability to find the light.

Namaste

May 31, 2017 3

Opening the Capacity to Love

Each of us has an infinite capacity to love.
Yet we put rocks, sand and baubles in our jars
Out of fear, out of pain
Blocking our ability to fully receive
And acknowledge the vastness of our own greatness

Allowing the stories we’ve told ourselves
about why we cannot love
Gives them further solidity
Occluding from within the flow of love.

This truly is a labor of love,
Literally and figuratively.
For to clear the congestion,
these objections to love
Is to remove them, to inspect them,
To feel them, and allow them simply
To be, this is the lesson of love they were
Meant to be.

It is always our choice to see.

Namaste

images: Google

May 31, 2017 6

The Epiphany of Allowing

It is on this day that I met the elegant, beautiful and delicately strong lotus flower named Epiphany. She was captivating to watch as she morphed into different shapes and colors as her awareness of herself grew. She was open, she was vulnerable and she knew who she was. She could be anything that she wanted; by allowing it to be. In her presence, I felt light and airy, even as I sat upon a large, solid rock.

We each have a calling within our hearts, our DNA. Yet we allow the external circumstances of our lives to dictate which path we will take. This is not love, this is fear. Because I fear being seen as crazy, I have continually hidden behind my fears. At times, when the words of my heart want to burst forth I hold them back constricting the neck muscles around my throat; choking out my own words. This hurts me and, worse, it serves no one.

The path away from fear and towards love is found in giving ourselves permission to be our true selves. It does not require me to change you, nor for me to require change within myself. By forcing or resisting changes we are not in a state of allowing.

The most important lesson is having faith in the unseen. Seeds sprout out of sight. Just as the farmer plants the seed in the soil, he does not later pull up the soil to see what is happening. Instead, he waters and he trusts the seed to do its job. Allowing is having faith in the unknown and not deserting a vision just because it has “taken too long” to bear fruit.

Allowing begins on the inside and is developed through our inner feminine and masculine. This strength is symbolized by the lotus and the rock. The lotus does not ask permission to be beautiful, she just is. Out of the muck she rises and reaches for the sun. Once in the sun, she blooms and opens her petals, revealing herself openly; transparently. She represents feminine strength. The rock also serves its duty by being who he is, being present, solid and still. He represents masculine strength. We need both types of strength to make our way to the pinnacle of our own life’s purpose.

It is within our heart spaces that we strengthen our intuition, which is a combination of trusting and listening. The time has come for us to trust ourselves and to truly listen to what is being said; to see the truth beyond the physical by looking and living from within. It is here that we experience our truth more fully. It is here that we no longer feel burdened by fears.

All that we need to accomplish our missions can be found within. Through stillness, meditation, faith and visualization, we can access everything we need through allowing instead of resisting or forcing. It is by allowing and going within that we have the strongest connection with The Creator and we can complete our missions. Now just to give ourselves that permission.

Namaste

Images: Google & Calm

May 27, 2017 3

Trailblazer on Fire

The fire in my soul is back on. You’ve been warned. I will not be held responsible if your ass catches on fire, so you might just want to don your asbestos underwear right meow.

Namaste

Images: Google

May 23, 2017 8

Forgiveness

When we hold onto anger against someone else we only hurt ourselves. The anger seeps into our daily interactions and causes more wounds. Often the hardest person to forgive is ourselves as we hold ourselves in contempt for wrongs done by ourselves and others. Forgiveness opens our hearts and frees us from the binds of anger. Forgiveness does not mean we condone. Instead, forgiveness is freedom. Even if for a moment, allowing ourselves to feel the grace of forgiveness gives us another degree of freedom.

Images: Google

May 22, 2017 7

Using the Imagination to Cope with Emotions

Her fingers shook as she raised the black clove cigarette to her cracked lips. The golden light as she lit the clove created a patchwork of dancing light and shadows, revealing deep wrinkles in the skin of her face.

Soon she began to speak as the smoke poured out from her lips in puffs. “I want to control everything. I do not trust anyone,” she said while her shoulders were drawn forward; bearing the burden of the world and caging her heart.

I understood her fears, I told her as we stood at the entrance to a dark cave. I listened, nodding my understanding as the words poured out of her mouth like acid. I understood deeply, as she was the personification of my anxiety.

After she finished speaking, I experienced a deeper calmness. I had allowed myself to hear, see and experience my anxiety, to where it released the need to gnaw at my gut.

To up the ante, I saw myself sending her love. After all, that’s all my anxiety ever really wanted; to be loved and accepted.

This method of using the imagination to have a conversation with our emotions is based on the book Inner Work: Using Active Imagination and Dreams for Personal Growth by the Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson.

While Johnson uses more dream-like modes in his examples of active imagination, I find that this “personification method” tells me quite a bit. I gain a good deal of information based on what the emotions say, their demeanor and their appearance. By listening to them and also sharing my own perspective, I am able to regain a greater degree of peace.

This process is quite simple. While sitting in a supported position, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, then allow your imagination to take you inward. For some reason, I see myself outside of a cave and maybe another setting would work better for you. Once there, call forth an emotion that has been troubling you. You can name this person. Write down your conversation as it occurs; it helps to further the process. Following the conversation, give the emotion love or at least appreciation.

I’ve personally found this method more effective than riding the emotional wave that I’ve described here. I hope that you find this helpful in your journey.

Namaste

Image: Pintrest, no credit given

May 20, 2017 0

Breaking Relationships

Tapestries frayed with time
don’t hold the same face
held in place
by pure will and strength
afraid to let go
the fear of the unknown:
who? who would replace?

non-severed ties
tug on strings
pulling back together
bumping into things
that smother
where flowers decay
and green shoots wither

it seems like
i’m stuck in “Groundhog’s Day”
where each cycle
leads to the same resolution
just a new revolution
of the clock
circling the same drain

how to break this
circling of caravans,
impending decay,
strings pulling on things,
unwoven tapestries?

Patching broken pieces
back together lovingly
with stitches thrown
from one’s own heart
relinquishing misplaced others,
Knowing another, someone better
indeed does exist.

Main image: google

May 17, 2017 0

What We Resist, We Become

I didn’t want to be bitter

When Marriage vows dissolved

Yet that is exactly what I became

I hid it even from myself

Like a red tide, it was

Just below the surface

And that is my shame

For this, I have no one

But myself to … blame.

Accepting responsibility for
What I’ve created here,

I lift my new eyes to the horizon

Seeing all of life differently;

I can now choose from variety.

I am not my bitterness,

But I own that it is part of me.

The death grip it has had on me,

My emotions, and my nihilistic behaviors

Loosens. Icy tendrils may persist,

But my heart may once again feel its bliss.

Namaste

May 15, 2017 3

Writer’s Block: The Pursuit of Perfection

Words typically flow through my mind like a raging river. Recently, the flow stopped in a way it had never done before. I felt frozen, cold and isolated, as if in a shell. A shell, it turns out, I had imposed upon myself and reinforced.

Breathing through the stagnation, spending more time in meditation and “just writing” were not helping – my usual strategies. My frustration only grew; as did my tendency to catastrophize.

Usually I can walk away from writing if it’s not working. Now that I’ve stepped up my game and started writing a book, I’ve been putting more pressure on myself to produce.

I see how I was pushing against the very thing I desired. The more I pushed myself to write, the less I was able to produce. Much like trying to force yourself to go to sleep; it doesn’t work. Sleep, like creativity, just happens when we allow it to.

In my pursuit of words, they just ran faster. I also see where I was blocking myself by wanting the words to flow perfectly. I froze and isolated myself with the pursuit of perfection.

Our faith is most tested in the darkness, when we cannot see the light.

Feeling stuck, I reached out to friends for help. I asked for them to see me writing in a warm, sunny and free way. Perhaps this was a lesson in surrender as much as it was in asking for help; something I am loathe to do.

The river’s flow has returned, but in a more subtle way. The words are there, but I must surrender further to hear them.

In taking a step back, I see where I do this in many areas of my life. Pushing. Pulling. Pursuing perfection. Today, I am surrendering and trusting a little more deeply.

Namaste

May 14, 2017 0