It doesn’t mean stop what you are doing. It means stay connected to your source, as if you are carrying your home with you, so you are not impatiently trying to get somewhere.
Slow down from the inside, even if the outside is wanting or needing to move swiftly. You can move swiftly, full of purpose and zeal, but on the inside remain steady, slow moving.
When I slow down on the inside, I find I don’t need to push so hard on the outside because I know I’m already where I should be.
Suppressed sorrow, inner anger, fear, hatred, and injustice boil inside of me.
My breath, my breath – it struggles to move. I feel all so intensely but for the capacity to breathe – to imbibe the life force of my being.
I judge with ignorance. I judge from a place of intolerance. I judge inaction and I judge action.
I accuse. I blame. I judge. I shame…it goes on and on.
I carry my own sufferings as well as yours, knowing the answer is to relieve from within, to activate a force of love so great that others and myself cannot help but be moved to peace.
I begin to see the mistakes and inadequacies and to release myself and subsequently you from the shackles of limited beliefs and misperceptions.
I begin to feel the shift. I begin to feel myself escaping…not as a victim but as a beacon in a rising space of forgiveness, freedom and love. The hate softens and I then hold so much more compassion, kindness and understanding for all the sufferings than ever before.
And, as this life would have it, the weight bears down once more on my throat, taking away my voice, closing off my airway, and so I begin again turning inward.
These times when the breath cannot be freed, I must turn to love and relieve the anger from within.
So proud of you for letting those tears go, no longer clinging to the emotions to which they had attached themselves.
When you cry, I do not see sadness. I see freedom. I feel the release of beliefs and emotions that are out of balance with your natural state of being.
When you cry, I see you coming home to the love and peace within you and coming into a greater knowing of who you really are.
Enjoy the cry my friend. Let the river of love crest it’s banks and pour out of you so that you can once more rest along its edge or swim in its soft currents as it washes away the imbalances, injustices, inequities, and imperfections that may feel as if they are confining you.
Let love flow freely on every tear. Fall into the comfort and release of crying.
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.
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.
There once was a bright and shining little girl who truly knew her path and her gifts. Even at a very early age, contrary to her young counterparts, this little girl spoke her truth. “I won’t eat that animal…I just won’t,” she would cry even when it was the only opportunity she had to be fed. I will dance and run. I will play on my breath. I will have struggles and need experiences along the way to help me remember who I am, but I will make my own way. What she didn’t realize was how many others she would touch with her shining light, like a glowing ray of sunshine. And so she grew, in her own way, finding adventures far beyond the comfort of many others in her circle of family and friends. Yet, she never stopped listening to that voice of her truth – she stood up as she needed, she walked away with forgiveness and grace at times when others fell into compliance and complacency, and she shared and shared all of who she was and knew everywhere she went. She didn’t need a title or a label for what she spent her whole life naturally doing. In fact, others took her guidance and called it theirs. Others wanted to ride the wave of her knowing as if they could capture that spirit through study or association. And routinely many prodded and questioned her, demanding validation and justification around the path she chose. Nonetheless, she carefully sifted through all the disingenuous tethers, all the glitter and temptations, and stayed on her path, flanking herself with friends, colleagues, and ambassadors of truth, of inner knowing, of love…and she let the rest melt away (not always without sadness, anger, or feelings of loss, but carefully on the rhythm of each breath returning to wholeness). She is a daily reminder of the gifts of expressing, honoring, and living as authentic self….of living as love.
