These past 2 weeks have been interesting to say the least. I find myself in this "in between time"...the time between what was and what will be. My last day at SCI has come and gone. I had a sense that what was to come would be difficult. I managed to avoid it that first week; managed to stay busy. I surrounded myself with people rather than sitting with myself and I didn't write. I talked about it but avoided it. I feel the nudging though. It was gentle at first and but has become progressively harder. It is the nudging from the Goddess within that tells me it is time to be quiet; time to go within. I am thinking that maybe this is what this meantime is all about...being quite and listening; exploring the parts of myself I have yet to see.
I had no idea until now how much of my identity was wrapped up in being a counselor; helping other people hold their stories. I believed I had "been there and done that". I am realizing now that I may have been there and done that but in this quiet I'm being asked to "go there and do this"; I'm being invited to go deeper. And for the first time there is a part of me that what's nothing to do with "this". There has been more time to think this week; to sit with myself and I seem to go back to my childhood, a part of my life I was convinced I had come to terms with.
When I sat in the quiet yesterday, paper and pen in hand, to write that was what came up for me. I ended up recalling and writing about the first 4years of my life as best as I could remember. I thought about how surreal it felt; as if I was writing about someone else. I became frustrated as I tried to inject feeling into the words and couldn't. There were none. I try to imaging my 7yo having the same experiences and I can't, he would no longer be who he is. He would have to shut that down in order to survive and I realized that is what has happened to the magical 4 yo I once was.
I don't know know if there are words to describe the sadness of realizing that I shut a part of myself down. There were no words yesterday; just swirling energy in my heart and a pain in my throat. All I could do was wrap my arms around myself and cry. I'm guessing it was some of what she would have felt at that time; the little Jenn but there was no one to guide her through it back then. I have to give her a voice now and allow her to tell her story; to integrate her experiences and make sense of it all. The funny thing is that I began the process of writing my memoir before leaving SCI. I had decided that it was some thing I finally needed to do and shortly after I started I found myself stuck. I didn't start at the beginning; I didn't want to. I wanted to start at where I am now. I'm guessing in order to really understand how I got here I have to fully internalize where I came from ...move it out of my head and into my heart.
I have been carrying this sadness around since yesterday and to be honest delving deeper scares me. Knowing now that I will have to go through each piece and finally deal with the energy surrounding it seems like an insurmountable task. The feelings can seem overwhelming, as if what I have carefully woven together for the last 32 years is now beginning to unravel. I know the story will write itself if I do this though and that the choice to write is is now beyond my control. I just have to cooperate with Spirit and trust the process.
There is hope that when all is said and done I will unravel for a divine purpose and what will be revealed underneath will be beautiful and whole. I have come to know in my short 32 years that hope is not something that comes form outside; it can not be injected into me through wise quotes and well wishes. Hope is born in darkness; in going into it and finding the light that shines within; that can never be extinguished. It is the light that has allowed the 4 yo in me to experience some of the worse that life has to offer and survive spirit intact with grace and the ability to love and believe that the heart of life is good.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Power of Intention
My intention for yesterday, today, and every day is to heal, to grow, to take another step closer toward my destiny, helping others heal. I know I cannot do that effectively if I do not continuously mend myself. The more I let the Universe know this, the more opportunities I get.
Because of this, I am in a place in my life where I know deep down in the depths of my soul that all the adversity I have gone through has been for a purpose. Some of it I was powerless over and some of it I created because I refused to accept and grieve that which I had no control over. But it has never been for naught.
My adversity has given me the opportunity to look at life in a different way. I have come to perceive everything as a lesson. I have come to accept that grief is inevitable when you choose to love, because love really is a choice. It was a choice I had to consciously make after finally allowing myself to grieve the losses in my life; the loss of loved ones, my childhood innocence, unmet needs. The beautiful gift is that I was able to make the choice fully aware of the price I will ultimately have to pay, for nothing is constant. People come and people go, summer turns to fall, fall turns to winter and winter to spring. The wheel of the year goes on but it no longer scares me as much as it used to. It is a fear I can allow myself to experience, breathing in and out, and moving forward, heart wide open. The more I release, the more I make room for.
Spirit, continue to walk with me as I dream my world into creation…a world where I can help heal and inspire others as they walk their journey. Allow me to put one foot in front of the other despite my fear knowing that you are always beside me…the buffalo, the owl, the spider and the grasshopper; all of your beautiful manifestations. Allow me to hear your voice in the wind and the whispers in my soul…the Goddess within, ever guiding me.
And so it is.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Gratitude for lessons learned...
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| open heart |
I have also come to understand that after identifying and expressing them, it is my job to step back and take an objective look, sit them down at the round table and ask me what they are here for. If I can do that, step back from my feelings, they have an enormous amount of information to pass on. I am realizing that certain feelings are harder to step back from than others, that there are feelings that alert me to much deeper wounds; wounds that are sometimes harder to face. And that there are experiences and situations which will continuously call attention to them until I honor them and what they have to teach.
The learning usually comes through my interactions with others. This weekend I learned that there are still areas in which I take things deeply personal. I am better with some but there is work to be done. I learned a big lesson about my ego as well. I was reacting out of fear, fear of rejection. I also learned that when people I love establish their boundaries and follow their dreams despite how it may appear to others, there is growth, growth for them and the people with which the boundaries were established. I have learned to trust love and the process even if I am not sure why things are happening. Had my friend not followed her dreams and her calling, I would not have moved forward in mine. I would not have been made aware of the wounds that still need tender, loving care and the self-defeating thoughts that I thought I had conquered but continue to rear their ugly heads.I am grateful that I can be honest with myself and face the shadow parts that I do not like. I know that it is how I grow,Ariadne's thread to the Goddess within. Thank you Miss Paula for being you; for loving yourself enough to follow your dreams and for once again reminding me that love is not a feeling, but an act. An act that requires seeing myself and those around me in their own uniqueness rather than through my fear, attachment, entitlement and control. ~ Munay
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Intention for Today...and everyday
"Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my Sacred Space and love beyond my fear, and thus Walk in Balance with the passing of each glorious Sun." ~Author Unknown
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Maiden and The Crone
It has been years since I have attempted to write anything. As a young girl writing was my outlet; the only way in which I was able to acknowledge the whispers of my soul. I haven’t written since 10th grade, the year I dropped out of high school and had my second child. I thought it was a part of me that was lost; gone with the 15 year old I once was. I realize now she has never been gone; she has always been there, a part of my shadow; her voice has been stifled but she has found other ways to make herself heard. Ways that usually hurt her more than anything. I now know that being heard, truly heard, is a fundamental need and I have begun the process of giving her back her voice; of allowing her to be heard. She is the Maiden within and in turn has brought along her ability to take risks; to string words together, creating something tangible out of the intangible…my emotions.
I have experiencing a wide range of feelings lately and writing has been my bridge this last week, my connection to the sacred. I am walking away from a career right now, from security, and at times I think I am absolutely crazy. I tell myself that I could easily remain where I am and take the safe route; the responsible route. But then a voice reminds me that there are parts of myself, the best parts of myself, which I would have to cut off in order to survive taking this responsible, safe route. I am at a point in my life where I am discovering and falling deeply in love with who I am. As Ntozaka Shange wrote...” I found God in myself and I loved her, loved her fiercely”. The fear of losing those parts of self, as I am just finding them, has become much greater than the fear of losing security; the fear of what could happen if I do not take the safe route.
Writing has been a way of beginning to sort all this out. Not only has it connected me to a part that had been lost; it has also deepened my connection to a part of me I never knew existed. This part of me, the wise Crone, reminds me that in order for rebirth there must be death; death of ideas, beliefs, circumstances and situations that no longer serve me; that hinder my growth. She also helps me remember that If I put one foot in front of the other I will get there, wherever that may be. She knows this because she has been with me all along.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Lessons from a Water Balloon
I guess that before I go on I should describe Elijah, my little Buddha. I call him that because if there is anything he has shown me, it is that children are here to teach. I’ve often watched his approach to life and tried to emulate it. He greets each day with wonder, has no worry about the past or the future and has difficulty holding grudges. Elijah expertly explained to me once why I should forgive our dog Shai for peeing on my bed. He reminded me that our dog is just that, a dog and dogs pee on things. He explained me that we all make mistakes and need to be loved and understood.
As he gets older and “life” happens, he is beginning to carry over his worries from the previous day into the next and holding onto his hurts a little longer than he used to. As a mother I worry. I want him to hang on to this part of him, that part that lives in the questions, that’ always wonders if there’s more, the part of him that lives heart wide open and has the ability to forgive. I understand though that he too has his journey; the lessons he chose to come here and learn.
My little Buddha has taught me a lot, which brings me back to the water balloon lesson. Elijah decided to name and keep his balloon as a pet after successfully being tied closed by his father and decreed that we should all have our own “water balloon pets”. Daddy went back to the task of filling them with water while Elijah and I named them. He named his Peter, I named mine Patty and Daddy’s was named Patrick.
When my husband suggested we use Elijah’s pet “Peter” in a catch, Elijah stared at him in horror! What if we dropped it and it broke? Funny enough, I understood his fear. I suggested he could use my “pet” Patty in a catch, explaining that it is every water balloon’s dream to be used in a catch, to be tossed high up into the air and caught in a child’s hand. Elijah looked up at the trees that keep guard in our yard and expressed his fear that he would be unable to catch Patty should he toss her up as high as they stood. Again, what if she broke; landed in a puddle on the ground? I heard myself explaining to him that if she broke, she would break doing something that she loved, fulfilling her dream, her reason for being created.
I am like the water balloon in many ways. I am in a period of transition, in the process of fulfilling my dreams; figuring out my reason for being created. It is scary being tossed into the air, unsure of whether there will loving hands to catch me as gravity propels me down. It’s a chance that I am now willing to take. When I was a child I believed I could be anything I wanted, create my destiny, as long as I believed. I was always told to dream. I would be dishonest if I said I wasn’t scared. And as I was driving home from work this evening I was contemplating feelings of fear.
It’s amazing how the Universe works, how the Goddess speaks to me in different ways. A co-worker once told that “we often teach what we need to learn”. The water balloon was just as much a lesson for me as it was for Elijah and he happily tossed Patty into the air with his father. Patty broke shortly thereafter and Elijah insisted we each keep a piece to remember Patty; a piece to remind us to always follow our dreams, no matter our fear of landing in a puddle on the ground.
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