Hope you stay open today to all the world out there has to offer you.
There are no wrong choices…even if you choose to be the object of pain or discomfort for yourself or someone else. There is a lesson in it all… a forward momentum.
Sense when to watch and when to leap. Don’t be afraid to feel – all of it. Know that it is all there for you to experiment with and none of it bigger than you…because it is there as a part of you.
Seek adventure curiously and joyfully…in your heart, in your mind, and in every action or inaction. Take on all that is out there in whatever way will grow and inspire you best.
So many times I have wished for a window into the future, into the consequences of my choices.
Seeking certainty in my decisions, weighing my intuition against the feedback in my environment, just to be sure I am getting the best deal, walking the right path, doing the proper thing.
All along I have sought clarity to fuel my certainty. I thought that clarity would provide assurance as if my choices could ever be right or wrong.
The day I chose acceptance over assurance is the day I began to realize there are no good and bad choices, no right or wrong.
When I seek assurance in my choices, I am doubting my capacity to be flexible, creative, and resilient.
When I seek to accept my choices I engage compassion for myself and confidence that I will be ok no matter what choice I make.
The cool at the edges of my body says retreat…or is it calling me towards it?
The warm in the center of my being spreads outward craving more – warm seeking warm.
The body clenches and contracts in the coolness,
Portions of me are soft from the inner warmth.
I crave the warm.
I find the cool invigorating and awakening.
This tug of warm and cool, of retreat and advance, of contract and expand, plays within and all around me.
Ping-ponging from one as if better than the other or as one instead of the other, appearing as lack or wanting.
Then there is that moment…I recognize I can be warm and cool at the same time.
Where the opposites exist simultaneously within and for me.
Feeling nurtured and grounded, safe and secure in the warmth, and at the same time empowered to expand outward into the bright, crisp air and what lies before me.
How magical it is to be in two experiences simultaneously – like night and day, not opposites or tag-teaming but always there, highlighting one another.
A reminder that my world is not linear or singular.
There is never just one view, one perspective, or one answer.
I can have both but I am not without either. It is just where I happen to focus my attention, where I choose to create the story, and what I chose to feel.
What is regular? Normal? The way things are “supposed to be?”
It seems our nature is to crave stability and consistency, to look around us for the expected.
Can the expected really be a constant pattern of change, redefined based on circumstances?
In the fall every tree chooses a slightly different timing and color and pattern of change based on its relationship with the earth, the air, and its surroundings.
Even the evergreen loses some leaves, changes shape, and becomes something different year after year.
This shifting is considered beautiful, an often awe-inspiring evolution.
No tree taking the exact same steps, no one looking the same, yet all normal, regular, naturally changing.
This change allows the tree to thrive.
I must remember there is no right or wrong in change, simply an opportunity to be unafraid, vulnerable, and resilient.
The harder I rattle the cage, The tighter the confines become.
The more I strive for spaciousness, the more suffocating and unfruitful my actions.
Moved by desire, lofty outcomes in place, I remain caught up in my belief that freedom, success, and wholeness are not attainable…there is always one more sticker to put on the chart before I can experience that reward.
When I put aside the roadblocks of desire and achievement and allow true being to flow, there is still plenty of room for me to thrive and the world to know my magnificence, right here, right now, just the way I am.
Grief…it’s not about the loss as much as creating and being able to access a little warm place in your heart where you hold that connection forever.
I used to think that grief was the act of severing ties and throwing away something special because it was lost.
But now I know that grief is a process of storing the memories of the specialness of every experience regardless of its labels, conditions, and how it came to be or not be.
Grief is experiencing the loss without getting lost.
