Love everyone and everything around you as if it were an arm, a leg, an extension of you.
We are all formed of the same chemicals and the same energy as everything around us. In that way we are all connected – we are one.
So, when we love beyond the perimeter of what we perceive as our structure and identity, we exist in a pure space of love…of ease…of freedom.
Oh, but wait…that would require pure love for oneself! Perhaps the true challenge lies in forming a steady stream of love for ourselves in order to feel pure connection through love beyond us.
Love requires truth. Truth requires fearless looking. Looking requires unconditional feeling. Feeling requires objective knowing.
So what if we open our eyes to see without fear, our mouths to speak authentically and empathetically, our hearts to feel without labels and judgement, and our minds to accept unlimited possibilities?
What if we can each find the “coeur”age to unconditionally love ourselves, to bathe ourselves in love?
Creativity is a river always running through us…a river that sources imagination.
Imagination gives rise to widening pools of contemplation and greater depths of cohesion.
From this place springs the voice of the intuition…flowing strong and confidently into my external reality.
The more often I sit by this river and allow the currents to flow, the more resonant my knowing and the more joyful and fulfilling my experiences become.
With each breath, feigning an attempt to soften the tension in my muscles.
Always on high alert, my body is the ever faithful soldier standing at attention, ready to advance, attack, or defend.
My thoughts and feeling providing constant counsel, conducting their business at all hours of the day and night as if essential personnel.
It is a strange request I make that all the components that serve me in my daily busy-ness are called upon now to rest.
They are troubled by this pause as it could imply they may no longer be needed. They resist – the body…the mind…the emotions that want to protect and define me.
And yet, a strange and delightful spaciousness coats my experience when I am willing to just sit down and breathe.
It frees them all to not disappear but to serve me better. They become my friends, sipping tea on the deck, holding hands and dancing in the absence of mission and doing.
Oh, the joy of knowing my thoughts, my feelings, my body in the absence of need.
We rest here for a bit together, finding a freshness in how we coexist…
Suddenly the water rushes in carrying us to unfamiliar spaces.
Momentarily stunned with uncertainty this new uncomfortable vantage point becomes home.
Gradually settling into a new way of being and heading in a new direction provided solely by the force of another.
Sensing the way, knowing now a different path.
Facing challenges and significant dangers, but moving forward just the same… determined to make good on this shift.
With the pouring rain comes fresh possibilities to establish new pattens, make new discoveries, test adaptability, and make good in the face of adversity.
Here I sit in the middle of my couch. Extreme joy balancing on one armrest. Great challenge and sorrow on the other. There are pillows and soft coverings that support me as I lean to one side or the other.
There is excitement and movement, equal levels of engagement and doing required at either end of my couch.
There are days when I slide over to one side and days that I spend a large amount of time on the other. Neither better nor worse. Both engaging my heart and mind in ways that are good for me. Both providing opportunities for me to grow. Both utterly exhausting.
Today I choose not to lean or slide. Today I choose to curl up right here in the middle of it all, to feel the balanced rhythm of my heart, lulled into rest by my breath. Today I remember the weariness in my bones. Today I remember that laughter and crying use the same muscles.
I smile and melt deep into the cushions of my comfy little couch, so happy to have joy and sorrow by my sides.
So often during times of personal growth and expansion into self, we can find ourselves struggling in surroundings that seemed so comfortable and familiar before our transition into this new space. Family and friends become reticent, relationships unsettled. We are blossoming into harmony within as the world without seems to crumble.
We need not own that struggle. We need not judge those who seem to be hanging behind, unwilling to change, as we move into these new frontiers or feel slighted as they perceive us as weird or difficult to understand. There is room for us to all be who we will be. The important part is to stay true to who you are…no matter what.
Remember, you are what you are…and what a lovely you, you are…just the way you are!
Life is not about suffering. Yet, frequently I fall into a pattern of thinking I am not fully living my life if there is not conflict or hardship.
I have made up a story that there is no room for me to be happy, no time or purpose for self care, rest, nourishment, and companionship. No space for laughter, play, and love.
Yet without those features my life is not complete and I move farther and farther away from my natural state of being.
I don’t even realize that the life I think I should be leading, the life that constantly tells me I am not worthy and not enough, is shrouding me in darkness, not because that is who I am supposed to be but as a reminder of what I am deeper inside.
I am enough just the way I am. I am successful right here and now. I am capable of feeling strong, happy, and healthy always. I am worthy of goodness.
I am made of love and my real purpose here in this place and time is to be a source of love for myself and others.
All the other stuff – the striving, the suffering, and self-deprecation — is just like cobwebs and dust, painting a picture of dismay and decay. However, quite easily with a swift and conscious swipe I can clear them all away to restore the beauty of the forgotten objects that reside just below.
In this cleaning of my house, I once more feel the freshness, spaciousness, and goodness that is intended to be. In devoting just that little bit of time and attention, that quick swipe, to restoring the luster, everything seems to fall into place. When that shroud is removed all that remains is the goodness that is in fact my life and who I am supposed to be.
