Challenge can breed fear.
Fear fosters insecurity.
Insecurity inhibits growth.
Growth is a fundamental quality of living.
With growth we can overcome fear.
With every little bit of fear we face
We grow and that growth produces wider bands of safety
Making the next challenge a little easier to face,
Until more and more often the challenges yield directly to growth over fear,
And growth becomes the natural next step closer to joy.
They say it’s the rainy season,
But this sweet hibiscus might disagree.
Roots reach out for a hint of moisture
Only to find dry fissures.
Body wilting,
Edges curling
Under the heat of the
Unrelenting sun.
Is it possible to need less?
To hold out for the rain?
Leaves start to yellow and fall to the ground.
It may be unrecoverable.
The sky grays,
The wind picks up
Tugging on every branch.
Pounding rain bounces off the parched ground
Smacking the undersides of the few remaining leaves.
The clouds break.
The ground is soft.
The leaves are green.
Out pops a blossom.
No ties to suffering.
No lingering struggle.
Just strong, vibrant.
Resilient.
Like begets like.
Peace leads to peace.
Kindness breeds kindness.
Suffering can lead to ease.
Mistakes become opportunities for growth.
Loss makes room for freedom.
Fear dissolves in faith.
Whatever I cultivate as my experience, I have the ultimate power to accept or shift the paradigm. Every experience serves me even when on the surface it may look grim. When I align an experience with the goal of knowing love, the love that is there always – not between people but that creates people – everything comes into balance, harmony prevails.
I no longer need to label my experiences as good or bad when I know that all experiences unfold before me so that I can explore what it is like to be my best self.
This is the process of trust.
I am experimenting more and more with loving myself these days…not being safe or shoring up relationships to develop a sense of connection but authentic appreciation for who and where I am. I am showing up in the knowing that I have my intuition (that I will call Self) as a guide and while connection with community is an important element of the human experience, connection with my Self is just as crucial.
As I am learning to love myself, I am maneuvering through the awkward balance between selfish and selfless to find the sustainable space between…where ego informs, intuition guides, and I hold onto no preconceptions of what that will look and feel like as I determine what best serves.
The chain that secured the familiar is rattling. Full of insecurities, yours and mine, it informs as I release its grip on my heart, rusty links untangling for all of us to see that freedom is possible.
As I am rattling the chain around my heart I ask that you consider letting your chain rattle too to make room for a new way of showing up for you and for me.
Either way, I will be free but it might be more fun to conspire in the unchaining together.
My body is a temple, golden and glowing.
My heart is a treasure chest bedazzled and sacred.
My mind is a granite stone vault protecting all that is known.
Ease, kindness, and clarity are the keys that unlock each one,
The breath the foundation on which all are secure.
It is my job to keep them all sacred and shimmering, accessible and strong.
Awake and aware, I guide myself with each breath through the healing and care needed to nurture and polish every surface, every corner,
So that every bit of me shines
Confidently,
Joyfully,
Magnificently,
And every bit of me knows it.
Standing on the precipice, mountains before me and behind me, I contemplate briefly the ascent or decent into the unknown.
No worries that the fog hinders my view because I feel my feet. I know that each moment, step by attuned step, I will find the earth and the sure footing that only comes with internal clarity.
Like the goat that climbs the rocks and edges of the cliffs with certainty, I approach the present, with the same attention to which I have all too often focused on my future and my past.
Looking back and looking forward the fog distorts the view. The lack of clarity forces me to see here, only that which is right in front of me.
In this moment, I put my hooves to the ground. I see the steps I need to take right here and now. I do not need to see the mountains in the foreground to know my way.
This morning, just as dawn broke in the sky, my eyes fluttered open.
Immediately my body tensed as I filled my head with to-do items, remaining self-criticism of all my failures and missed deadlines and opportunities of the day before, and doubts about whether I could make anything worthwhile out of today.
And just before I peeled back the covers and dashed off to start another arduous day, I wondered what was it like when I would just wake up happy?
There must have been a time in life when my first thoughts weren’t of the past or future but of noticing right now,
Where I simply noticed the cool of the morning air on my cheeks, the stillness of my body, the comfort of my bed.
A time when I felt whole, complete and not in a rush to hurry on or recoil into hiding.
I felt my way back into my body with a kind reacquaintance as if welcoming back an old and dear friend.
I noticed little sounds and followed them rhythmically in my mind sometimes as they travelled to me and sometimes back to their source.
I made no plan for what was next.
And on the voice that travels through the cells of my body softly said
This is love,
This is joy,
This is who I am.
I waited and waited there until that one memory resurfaced of that time when I awoke like this…or at least it conjured the feeling I had awoken like this.
I felt into that fully…waking up as enough, waking up with my heart open, waking up in love with myself and knowing that anything is possible when I wake up happy.
I am never quite sure what challenges lie ahead.
I reach out, spreading my branches despite the fog.
I do not know what I will touch or be touched by.
I cannot help but feel a darkness lurking there, fear ever present in knowing there may be hurt or pain in the unknowns and unkinds that secretly swirl around me.
The fog fuels my insecurity as the branches of other trees press against me further threatening my place in the sun.
It is then that I remember that I am made to bend and sway.
I reach not with my branches but deep down through my roots.
I extend my roots for both of us, steadying me and gently holding you so that together we can face the fog and darkness with greater certainty.
I am grateful to feel your roots hold me in return.
Under the pressure to withstand, when I feel and share my roots I need not push away those that cast shadows.
We need not struggle to find our way alone.
As I lend strength, I find security.
As I steady others, we stand together,
equally thriving,
despite the fog.
Someone reminded me this week that I am a grown up. As such, I have the capacity to care for myself, even survive on my own, and I have the luxury of absolute choice.
Sure, I know I am a grown up and can make choices but I still have the fear of a child. I fear making choices that will be wrong, cause suffering, or result in bad consequences.
As I further consider my power of choice, I am just now realizing that perhaps there are no right or wrong consequences. There really is no good versus bad. I do not need to avoid a choice because the outcome is not crystal clear or safe enough to follow through on.
I can chose to do or not do anything. Yes it comes with consequences but it also cultivates freedom.
Each consequence is simply another opportunity for choice, an opportunity to play more confidently and creatively with my power to choose.
Karma, choice in action, is not the punishment that results from my choices but the next actions available to me as a result of my choosing.
I do not need to avoid choices or fear consequences any more. I am a grown up. I just need to be ready to make the next choice.
To cross the stream, I search for stones that seem fixed despite the moving waters.
These stones suggest a level of safety in my crossing as they seen unmoved by the current,
stronger than I could be on my own.
Is the stream really too deep and forceful that I need the stones or
can I make the crossing?
I question my capacity to carry myself,
despite the quiet flash of reassurance in my belly suggesting I could navigate the waters just fine on my own.
I turn instead to the stones’ promise to hold me.
Without hesitation, I step wildly, quickly, with hope that they will be what they appear to be.
I put my trust completely in the stones
Only to find them unbalanced, slippery, unable to hold me, and
Depositing me completely and fully into the water.
My trust in the stones vanishes into the darkness.
I fight the current…the message…trust no one.
Suddenly the flash returns…trust…trust yourself.
It doesn’t have to be steady, clear, easy, or look a certain way.
I dive into the self-reliance that holds me, guides me, connects me with the edge of safety.
There in that moment I find trust on the inside that inspires more reliable trust on the outside.
Monday Mindfulness 