Have you ever noticed the calm in movement? A dancer fills the stage with motion and even in the flow of the dance there is a sense of breathlessness, of suspension, and stillness.
Take a moment to sit and watch the falling snow or a drip of water in a faucet. Notice the stillness present in every motion. See the pause of the droplets, the gaps in between the snowflakes, or the steady space that is filled as you watch one flake make its way down, down, down right after another…one drip chase another. The moving object becoming the stillness itself. Feel time pause, honoring the power of stillness in the movement.
Move your body. Move your breath. Move your mind into the deep crevasses of the movement until you find the stillness.
We are woven of a universal thread, patterned and cut in such a way, no stitch exactly the same.
And when we come together, we can compete for the title of most beautiful, richest, warmest, brightest, or boldest.
Or we can weave together in such a way that our beauty, our richness, our warmth are shared. We can accent each other’s best qualities to be the brightest and boldest of all.
For when I stand in the magnificence of you, I realize my magnificence too.
Just because I tolerate your actions does not mean I condone them.
It does not mean they do not wound me, make me bristle or rattle my confidence in my own internal guidance systems.
Tolerance simply means that I am giving you room to be you – to learn and teach us both through your actions – to allow us to explore anger and fear, but also know patience, compassion, and forgiveness.
Tolerance is grace flexing its muscles. Tolerance is the power of my will to know my truth and allow you to explore yours.
My body is a part of me. It tells me when it needs nourishment and rest.
I can manifest the most horrific diseases by ignoring the signs in my body that are saying slow down, ease off, make a change.
There is no way my body can stop being ill until I care for it.
It is time for me to take responsibility for the way I feel. I do not need to be sick to care for myself. Sick is a reminder that I have neglected to care for me.
These are real symptoms – not of some outside force taking over, but a means of communication from the inside – me sending a message to me that something is out of alignment – the schedule, a relationship, nutrition, work…my connection with me.
Each of us has ignored signs that our bodies needed more care until we were really sick, feeling that powering through is a sign of strength. We don’t need to go there.
True strength lies in respecting myself enough to rest, eat well, choose to receive kindness and love from others and to forgive and let go of those who are in a position to diminish my sense of worthiness.
My body should be held and loved by me as a baby bird that has fallen from its nest. Given a chance to be seen, heard, and to heal.
When I carry my body as it carries me, my body allows me to witness the capacity I have for deep love and profound peace and healing.
When I start with the exhale, I start with a release, emptying space so that I can fill it just so. Filling becomes not as urgent when I am no longer grasping for the next inhale but expanding intensionally to receive it.
Emptying allows the filling to happen with less effort, with the simple purpose of fulfillment as opposed to rescuing or catapulting me.
With intensional emptying comes graceful, careful filling.
For it is not the act of filling that carries me on as much as the emptying which provides the space and focus for me to move on more fully.
Slowing down and extending the process of releasing creates more emptiness, more space for nothing that in return leaves me more ready to fill with everything.
