I Love You, I am Listening

I love you, I am listening.

I did a meditation recently and it was exactly the right thing at the right time.

My husband and I are going through a period of flux and transition right now and it’s tough to be in the middle of so much change and uncertainty. 
But the more I look and ask around, the more I realize, we aren’t the only ones.
Mid to late forties is a tough stage of life.
As a collective we are amoungst strange and shitty times.
Aging parents who ought to not live independently anymore, parents dealing with teenagers raging in their daily struggles, death, fertility battles, divorces, the financial strain of these times, war…I mean the list goes on and on.
Everyone is doing their best.
And as much as we want to be there for each other and see each other through these strange times, most of us are already too busy juggling.

Deep breath.

I love you, I am listening.
This is the meditation that saved me.
It was an invitation to be still and just tune into myself.
I love you, I am listening.
It was an invitation to my heart, a holding of space for it to share what it’s been carrying.  
It was powerful.
I felt allowed to grieve the things that I am actually grieving.
I felt the weight of how deeply some things have cut me, or how tender some healed bruising still feels.
I heard the worries I keep stifling, the things that scare the shit out of me, and the things I hope I dodge.
I love you, I am listening.
I felt known, understood and held, by my self, 
by myself.
It was freeing to honour my heart by holding it in precious compassion and empathy.
No outside influences, no external pressure or judgement, just precious listening and allowance.

I forget the ways the world stops listening sometimes,
And the necessity of hearing our own voice amoungst everyone else’s;
of understanding ourselves even when the world cannot.

We don’t have quick fixes for another person’s pain. Period.
But still, we try.
It’s not out of the realm of potential to think we can save each other.
We live in a culture of social media experts and influencers.
Everyone has an opinion.
Someone has a quick fix.
We hear of remedies and potions.
We share stories of a friend of a friend that went through that too. 
We believe we’ve lived enough life to offer the lessons we’ve internalized. 
When people can’t find the right words, we become accustomed to filling in those gaps with our own.
When people share their wounds we want so badly for them to feel good again, we rationalize or justify the things that hurt them to minimize their impact.
We take sides and villainize bad guys to make what was “supposed” to be good, good again.
In this culture of accessibility with everything at our fingertips, we’ve convinced ourselves that happiness is too.
We mean well, but people remain unwell.

But there is healing is being loved, heard and understood.
Sometimes all we need is someone to let us.
I’ve been met recently with a lot of justification, well intentioned advice, labelling, minimization, warnings, apprehension or dismissiveness.
At the same time,
I have friends who held space for me to share.
I have family who cancelled her morning meeting to take my SOS call.
I have friends who silently nodded in understanding while I cried and released.
I have friends who came around me, lay hands on me and prayed.
I have friends who let me spill my guts over wine and a ride home.
What a gift of love we can give each other in these turbulent times.

I don’t know what’s best for you,
and I know life feels unkind sometimes.
But I can tell you, I love you and I am listening. <3

I Made it So

If only you knew dear one,
the power within you.
If only you knew that 
the magic of stardust is woven into your fibres.
If only you knew dear one,
the power of creation that runs through your veins.
You were created in His image, it is your birthright.
Unique, beautiful, irreplaceable you.

When will you take credit?
When will you realize that your life has happened,
your experiences have been such, because
you made it so.
The friends you hold dear?
The children you’ve raised?
Those great loves you cherish?
Those successes that make your heart burst?
Those challenges you conquered?
That growth? That wisdom?
You made it so.

Similarly my love,
Those times you sat on their backburner?
Those times you choked and left it unsaid?
Those times you felt unnoticed, unseen and uncomfortable?
Those times you felt excluded or overlooked?
Those times of failure and regret?
Those moments that broke your heart?
You made it so.

You stood in your greatness or you nurtured your smallness.
You made it so.

Sexy, fun, easy?
I made it so.
Crazy, clingy, hard?
I made it so.
Loving, kind, accepting?
Judgey, shameful, fearful?
I made it so.
Meaningful, precious, valued?
Beautiful, loving, safe?
Superficial, fleeting, false? 
I made it so.

Life isn’t happening to us, we are creating life.
Of course we cannot control everything,
but there is great power in the way we choose to live and show up in this world. 
Every.
Damn.
Day.
Pivot. Persevere. Pursue. Pray.
There is power in the way we choose to love, express ourselves, claim what is ours and accept what is not.
There is power in the way we alchemize the missteps of our past, and these terrible worldly atrocities.
Nothing is perfect.
It can all make us or break us.
We can’t always choose our outsides, but we can heal our insides.
We can make it so.

With what energy can we meet each other with?
From what source do we start each day?
Where we start from impacts where we end up.
So live dear one.
Find you.
Be you.
Live you, with love.
I know you will make it so. <3

Energy Conservation

How do we metabolize life?
Do we take it all in safely and peacefully?
How do we digest our experiences?
Are we adaptable? Do we transition through phases smoothly?
Can we swallow the things we can’t make sense of?
Are we able to take the good with the bad and not run from the things that bring us to our knees?
What happens to us as we age? Do we get smaller and quieter;
or do our experiences help us widen our hearts, lift our faces to the sky and gratefully ask “yes please give me more”, give me everything it means to be human.

How we do look back? In what way do we re-tell our stories?
Even just to ourselves?

Looking back, I wish I would have taken my life’s experiences more lightly.
Instead of consistently journeying with grace, I often died at many crossroads.
Instead of trusting divine purpose,
I swam furiously upstream trying to hold on to the things that weren’t mine to keep despite wanting them to be.
For many years, I kept a very tight grip, so hard sometimes my nails would make my palms bleed.
And when things slipped away, or go as they went, I clamoured the ocean trying to find them again.
Futile efforts. Futile energy. Futile stress. Futile worry. Futile remembrance.

Having said that though, I’ve always relied on my own capacity.
If God wasn’t going to open a window, I pried many a door open, just enough to squeeze out of.
I’ve made much of what I’ve wished for happen.
I’ve hustled, danced, conformed, tried, begged, stolen, lit fireworks and made magic happen.
But when magic is contrived you can’t help but notice the trick door, or the red scarf peeking from under one’s sleeve.
Contrived magic doesn’t feel so magical, it’s exhausting.
Futile efforts. Futile energy. Futile stress. Futile worry. Futile remembrance.

All of this doing came from a place of fear, 
and out of this fear came a need for control.
But it’s hard to measure a steady pace when fuelled by fear and control.
There were too many times I chopped too much wood preparing for the winter,
there weren’t enough branches to bare fruit in the summer.
Again, futile efforts. Futile energy. Futile stress. Futile worry. Futile remembrance.

And then someone taught me what my most precious commodity is.
I must have always known but never quite understood the concept.
My energy.
I am not a physicist or scientist to know Energy per say,
but as an adult deep in my forties, I know mine.
I know when I feel powered up and when I feel depleted.
And there are too many energy suckers already surrounding us,
(vampires, ogres, misers, zombies, kings, queens and jokers)
to allow myself and my own futility to drain my own supply.
So I am understanding my need to choose how I expend and preserve my precious commodity.

Despite life and it’s unpredictably,
despite the hard waves hitting so many of those around me,
I am trying to stop bracing.
Stop resisting.
Stop trying.
Stop needing to know and do it all.
It’s much easier said than done.
It’s something I have to revisit often,
learning to support and love people without taking their stuff on as my own
and being the fixer.
Giving, without giving myself away.
Trusting without neurotically needing to fill in the blanks.
Saving my precious energy for my own end, and consistently asking myself, to what is this end I am living for?
To love, to experience and to be whole.

I am learning authority over my own energy conservation so that I’m not running in red when it comes to what truly matters to me. 
Loving, dreaming, connecting, experiencing, accepting and healing my past humanness back to wholeness.
Conserving my energy so that I can lift my face to the sky, widen my heart’s capacity and say, yes, give me more and let me receive it all. <3

Rest now dear Warrior One

I hadn’t realized until recently that I had been operating from residual survival mode, until a dear friend brought it to my attention, followed by a meditation that made it crystal clear to me.  I was stuck somewhere between flight/fight mode, for years.  I was unintentionally patterning old ways of responding and operating despite the growth I’ve had, and the miles I’ve walked.  Sometimes we don’t even notice, until we really look; and until we see, we cannot shift.

It’s okay, rest now dear Warrior One.
I’m sorry, for not releasing you sooner.
It’ s my fault.  I failed to see you fighting all of these years later.
I didn’t mean to forget you or take you for granted,
But truth be told, I forgot you were still on watch for me.

I owe you so much and will forever be indebted to you.
You took command when I needed you the most.
I know you are worn thin from years of fighting,
thank you for your unwavering loyalty and fierce protection
But it’s okay, rest now dear Warrior One.
I am ready to release you.

You rose up in me when I needed protection.
You were summoned in the heat of survival.
You appeared when everything came charging, seeping, knocking, creeping, lurking and hiding.
You showed up when everything changed.
I was so unprepared, and trusted those enemies as friends.
I was too naïve to recognize, too inexperienced to know better.
But you called each of them by name, and did what you needed to do
To keep me standing.

There were many;
selfish lovers,
disloyal friends,
teachers lacking moral culpability.
There were wrecking losses,
unattainable standards, and
disillusioned institutions.
There were manipulative faith systems, engrossed in 
cultures of fear and shame
There were thieves of comparison,
and too much low hanging fruit.
There was forced conformity, and
acceptable standards.
There was too much blending in,
staying quiet and playing by the rules. 
There were the boxes they tried to squeeze me into,
the pressures of expectations that tried to minimize me and control me.
There were too many times of feeling unseen and not being heard.

I needed you to fight for me,
to rage against these pressures and be hypervigilant with my boundaries.
Your sensitivity was so heightened that almost everything was perceived as a threat.
you didn’t trust any of it.
But rightfully so.

You dug huge moats around me,
built sky high walls impossible to penetrate.
You scrutinized everything that came close.
because there was too much at stake,
My identity, my soft heart.
And though life could have robbed me of it,
You made sure I stayed intact.

But I’m ready now.
I’m not afraid anymore.
I’m not weak anymore or susceptible anymore.
These false shadows don’t threaten me,
Those false idols can’t lure me.
I know myself now.
Nothing can take any more than I’ll allow and I am ready to give.

So rest now dear Warrior one,
my heart is strong enough to lead, 
and I am ready to love it all.
But it won’t change me, 
because I can be me, without you.
I know that now.
I am ready to live from my heart
without needing you to protect it anymore. 
You stood before it long enough,
For me to know without a shadow of a doubt, 
it
is
invincible. <3

It’s Okay Even When It’s Not

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about relationships.

How some last and some don’t, the push and pull of some relationships that never quite feel solid or safe; while others remain more intact. Such is the inconsistency, temperamental and sometimes whimsical nature of love.

I’ve been contemplating blood being thicker than water, friends becoming family, colleagues becoming confidants, loves becoming strangers or best friends becoming foes. I’ve experienced them all. Relationships can be magical on one hand and unpredictable on another. Love is a spectrum between the magic of immediate connection, the beautiful intimacy of lifelongs or the familiarity that breeds contempt. Who knows what you are going to get, it feels like a roll of a dice sometimes. This unpredictability use to scare the crap out of me. It use to fuel a deep fear of endings, loss, absences or abandonment. It use to control my responses and manipulate my actions because I would mitigate risks by avoiding conflict, hustle for love or make myself easy to love.

I didn’t understand the equation of relationships, how could deep chemistry and connection possibly morphe into toxicity or indifference? How could the line between love and hate really feel so thin? Why do some people stay and some people leave? Is it me? What’s wrong with me that would express so many beginnings and at the same time, many endings?

But this morning, I was reflecting and reminiscing about the beautiful relationships in my life that have stood the test of time. The ones that house hilarious, unforgettable and precious memories of the past. The ones who have seen me through many different me’s. And I realize, these are the ones that gave me the space to grow, as I did for them. These are the ones that let me show up as myself, flaws, shortcomings and all. These relationships aren’t perfect, they aren’t set apart because they’ve been easy. They weren’t cake walks or perfect. They too have been through their share of ups and down, seasons of closeness, love and camaraderie, as well as seasons of disagreement, misunderstanding, indifference or volatility. But regardless of what they went through, they continued to have enough space for each of us to show up exactly as we were. We had the space to be ourselves, whatever that looked like. (Because honestly speaking, when we aren’t able to show up as we are anymore, we probably just stop wanting to show up).

Maybe sometimes we forget to check our expectations at the door, not realizing that the rate of growth varies between all of us. I have had friends who have married in their twenties when I still felt like a toddler learning how to walk. Friends who started their forever careers and raising families when I felt like I was just weaning of my mother’s milk. I’ve also had friends relive their teenage years of independence and discovery while I was setting goals and starting a mortgage. Today I realize that it’s not about outgrowing each other, it’s about how we are personally growing. We each have our own timetables. We feed at different times and experience growth spurts sometimes during different decades…and we either make room for people to do that, or we don’t.

What matters is not necessarily our constant compatibility or similarities, but it’s our commitment to creating space, tolerance, acceptance and openness to best support each other’s journeys as much as possible. Is there space between us, for each of us, or is it onesided? Is there space between us for both of us to flex, to navigate, to fak up, to landslide backwards or make huge strides forward? Is there space between us for each of our failures, our successes or even our periods of stagnancy? Am I able to be imperfectly me and you be wildly you? Or is our space filling up with priorities, judgments, values, beliefs , stories, assumptions, labels and expectations? Are these things making the space too small for either of us to move in without bumping into corners and bruising ourselves on rough edges? If the space between us is too small, how will either of us dance?

None of it is right or wrong. None of this is or good nor bad; sometimes our priorities, beliefs and values do trump an another’s otherness; that’s maybe what we call friends for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Do we meet each other where we are, or do we need the other to be where we are? If we need each other to be where we are, then neither of us will be allowed to grow.

Our hearts are resilient. We can love and create spaces so great they encompass so much room to trip, to fall back or run ahead…we can create fields so wide, so vast and so lush that horses can either graze or gallop. We can allow the ones we love, the space they need to fully stretch their limbs, rev up their heart rates or choose to curl up and rest.

As I continue to grow, let me love in freedom and with freedom. Let me create huge oceans with my patience, fields with my acceptance and blue skies with my non judgment. Let me create safe and sacred spaces for you to be you and me to be me. And in all of this unbridled space, may love and kindness flow even when it feels like there are mountains between us. Above everything else, may we continue to grow with whoever allows us, exactly as we are meant to. <3

Functional Insignificance is BS

Functional insignificance is the act of waking up each morning and powering through your day despite nagging feelings of insignificance; functioning despite the lack thereof.

I’ve struggled with feelings of insignificance throughout different periods of my life and have often contemplated the merit of significance.

Is it foundational?  A must have? What fruits does the belief of one’s own significance produce?

Power? Confidence? Capacity? Strength? Joy? Satisfaction?

Where does it come from?
How does one find it?
Does it come from a job? School? An accomplishment or title?
Is it measurable?
A balance in our bank account? The number of letters in our signature lines?
Can I find it in the number of followers I have on social media or the amount of money I tithe to the Church?

Is significance a product of being wanted or needed?
Being a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend, a sister, an aunt or cousin?
Is significance relational?
Can I find it in love? In sex? In community or family?

Is it in legacy?
How successful the ones who follow us are?

How can one find it and keep it forever?
Cultural significance was growing up believing that significance was on these terms of accomplishment and success.
But as quickly as external success can come, so too can it be stripped away.

The truth is, we are all replaceable.
The job we have has hundreds around us whose resumes read the same.
Relationships can be fragile and brittle, and people shift and transition a thousand times in their lifetimes.
There is a constant pendulum swing between important and obsolete.
From young to old,
new to dated,
working to laid off,
married to divorced;
nothing stays the same.

But as I crest over my mid 40s, I begin to realize,
significance isn’t so passing, it’s constant and accessible;
its woven in our DNA.

They say that comparison is the thief of happiness;
and sure, if I concentrate on these external measures there will always be something or someone that will invalidate the sense of significance I hustle to gather up for myself.

But isn’t significance in the fibre of our beings, our intrinsic make up?
Isn’t significance in the uniqueness’ we each have?
How special and irreplaceable is my own individuality.

Significance is the fingerprint of our souls and the way we express our own gifts,
in ways that are forever relevant and needed.
It amazes me the way different people lead with their gifts;
Some lead with their minds, their hearts, their kindness, their empathy, their wisdom, their counsel, their acceptance, their nonjudgement, their humour, their charity, their leadership, their inclusivity, their creativity; their forgiveness, their positivity, their organization, their drive, their independence…

Significance is as vast and diverse as a star filled sky,
and we each contribute in our own ways,
that butterfly effect that starts from within us and has an impact somewhere else.

I think as I work to chip away at external meanings and measures for significance,
I come to better understand;
we all have our own gifts.
And my advice to myself is to find or create my own lane;
and flourish and conquer the f*k out of it. <3

Forty Some is Definitely NOT for the Faint of Heart

Being in your mid forties is not for the faint of heart.
By this age, the bubble has been popped, the lustre of naivety dulled and the blissful state of ignorance a faint memory.
By this age, you have experienced things you would never have wrapped your mind around before.
But you get to your mid forties and barely anything surprises you anymore.

You know the burden of death,
the adjustments you make every day to deal with the absence someone you loved has left in your daily.
You know the spontaneity and unforgiving brutality of sickness,
the way your world can flip upside down with one stupid return visit to the Doctor’s office.
You know the unkindness and persistence of aging,
especially when you become the primary caregiver of someone you can’t stop from fading away.
You know the betrayal of love,
and that “forever” love isn’t always forever.
You now the sting of real rejection,
realizing that human beings, while doing the best for themselves,
can mean the worst for ourselves.

In your forties, you bear firsthand witness to generational dysfunction.
We see our own dysfunctions cycle and reincarnate themselves in the generations that follow us, desperately hoping we can fix in them the things we couldn’t fix in ourselves.

When we were younger, unknowns and transitionary periods were dreamy, chalk full of potential and wild imagination,
In your mid-forties, unknowns are scary AF since the safety net of youth and time become thin and worn.

In my twenties, I knew what I was striving for, my goals were crystal clear.
In my mid-forties, that purpose feels foggier while that energy wanes.
And after all of this time has passed, these twenty some years;
I ask myself,
Can I still trust the world to be gentle and kind with me?
Can love still pour into and fill the places fear and loss has emptied out?

In your mid forties you know you have to hustle,
because we all know and occasionally visit the places we laid our childhood dreams to rest.

By this age we know that time is fleeting,
and there isn’t the same space for procrastination or apathy.

Being in your mid forties isn’t for the faint of heart,
Because it takes courage and resilience to find hope and new purpose for your next 40

These past couple of years have been tough.
But may we regroup, hold on to the ones that we love and brace ourselves as we create new beginnings from these endings.
May the next 40 be fruitful and kind.
Maybe the journey is messy and challenging, but may life be rewarding and full.
May the next 40 be full of everything the strong of heart fight for.
May we meet these next transitions with the same hope and tenacity we met these first forty years,
most importantly with,
and God willing still,
open and strong hearts. <3

Unimaginables – When Life Goes Sideways

I met up with a girlfriend recently who was still in the process of recovering not only from her father’s passing but also the end of a long term relationship she had been in; both happening almost simultaneously. Sigh.  Deep breath. Wrecking.  We’re surrounded by stories of each other’s pain and umimaginables.

Ugh there is so much that can go sideways in life; there really is little within our control.  From unimaginable seasons of unexpected loss and grief to small surprise level one earthquakes; you never know what’s coming.   Loss, pain, grief, sadness, disappointment…it’s like a condition of life.  To be human is to experience suffering; none of us get a pass.

When my 17 year old niece was visiting this summer, one thing I really wanted to impress upon her – the one thing I needed her to really recognize and plant somewhere deep down into her subconscious to revisit whenever she should need; is the truth that “everything passes”.  Big things become small, small things become big, highs are amazing, lows suck…but none of it lasts; “everything passes”…THAT might be the only predictability of life, the constant motion and continuity of it.  Everything passes and nothing stays the same…even when the days feel long or hard, we know the years fly by.  And eventually we can look back and see the peaks and valleys we’ve come through barely able to recognize where one started and the next began.

So we will suffer, but the saving grace is; we are equipped.  Maybe we might be victims of chance, fate, choice, or circumstance; but the good news is, we are equipped.

In seasons of suffering, we might not be able to control the what, but we have a choice in the how, the way we work through it; how we brace, keep and care for ourselves through our experiences. We can choose how we show up for ourselves in the thick of it. That’s our Grace, our power to choose for ourselves.

When life goes sideways, dear one, let it. Feel it, invite it, let it.  Don’t run, don’t resist it.

Don’t be afraid; it will hurt, but not forever. Let yourself feel for as long as you need.

But no matter how long you sit with it, don’t forget, you are equipped.  When you are ready to, shift from your heart to your head. What is the pain teaching you?  What is it wanting you to learn? Where will you choose to go from here? How will you rise again?  Because trust me dear One, you will rise again.

You will rise again.

Like a Phoenix from the ashes,

you will rise again.

Stronger. Wiser. More Powerful

Don’t be afraid of this time, it will serve you if you believe in your own capacity to overcome.

The pain can be a gift when we learn to receive it.

Face it.  Let it in, let it all the way in.

Had your soul called this forth?

Did your heart intuitively know it was time?

Even when you can’t see two steps in front of you, trust that life is happening for you, not against you.

Your soul’s wisdom far outweighs the lies of this world.

Let go of those quiet whispers of not being good enough or not being able to withstand it.

Fuck those fears that feel more real than imagined. They are just illusions.

Smash those old paradigms that use to fit, but feel like cages now.

You are not who you were, experiences change us and you have been transforming your whole life,

You deserve freedom and peace, and you deserve to create those on your own terms.

Your story isn’t finished. The rest is still to be written; and you will write it.

Like a Phoenix from the ashes, you will rise again.

Stop believing the lies that pain tricks us into believing.

Stop allowing your limited beliefs to dictate your destiny any longer.

If you tell yourself any stories, let it be of your victorious comeback.

When you are ready, unleash your dragon and burn those old cities down.

Let it cinder the boxes of cardboard masks you use to wear.

Cut the chord between duty and dreams, before your dragon sets it all ablaze.

           You only owe it to youself.  

Know yourself by name, and feel yourself by heart.

You’ve got yourself.

You will fight for yourself.

If all else crumbles, you won’t let yourself down.

Like a warrior stand firm before your being.

Protect yourself at all costs.

Fight tooth and nail to preserve the sacredness of your own heart.

You will get through this stronger. Wiser.  More Powerful

We will remember.

When the chips were down, you got up again.

From those ashes, you rose again <3

Actually Letting Go

Recently I did a beautiful meditation again led by Sarah Blondin on the Insight Timer app.  The intention of the session was to visualize us detaching from things that don’t always serve us like limiting beliefs, stale values, old narratives we’ve retold throughout our lives, relationships or conditioned ways of operating…all of the supposed to’s, the could have’s or would have’s.  Extracting these things can seem like a heroic (and impossible!) feat – but this visualization brought it within arm’s reach for me….imagine the freedom in being able to detach from old attachments that might have once served us but don’t continue to serve us anymore.

I often spend my days on the shoreline of my experiences and existence. I bask in the sunlight and lay on the warm sand.  I know this shoreline well, it’s crooks and crevices, the slight dips or sandy dunes…this shoreline is home to me.  Here on this shoreline lies all of the things I am used to, my place of comfort and familiarity; my judgements, expectations, idols and memories. 

 On the shoreline, I always keep a protective eye on the basket I carry around with me everyday; that in which I’ve collected precious seashells, people, beliefs and understandings throughout my years of life; from childhood until now.  This basket is the most valuable thing I carry, because  there was meaning I attached, to everything I collected from the moment I packed them away, even if today I can’t distinguish the times I might have created meaning only for meaning’s sake back then.

 This shoreline is my identity; where I’ve come from and where I stay, my lens – the place from which I’ve seen the world and understood and processed my experiences filtered by my emotions.  The shoreline is where I’ve kept myself fenced in and protected from the mystery and unknown waters before me.  Sometimes, I might wade out and let the water cool and intrigue me, but I never venture too far out.  I’d sooner dig my feet or bury my legs in the hot sand of my narratives, cycles and learned responses less I feel vulnerable, afraid or exposed – I keep my soft belly hidden and allow the sun to tan my back instead.  Every so often, I might wander down the beach and seek other likeminded or like spirited people who will reinform and reinforce the stories that I tell, who will nod, cry and collude as I tell them I have it all figured out; after all, there is strength in numbers, and if enough of us can believe, then we will all feel better believing.  

 In the past, I’ve tested myself and stepped further out into the water. Except when I’ve felt the water rising to my hips, with short breaths and a heightened sense of anxiety, I’ve quickly turned back to focus on the shoreline; the losses and disappointments I often revisit – the sorrow, the longing, the dreams, the escape and wishful thinking I feel more at home in, than the unknown in front of me.  Why is it easier to fix my sights on things seen and known, than close my eyes and imagine the mystery of magic and miracles.  But this time is different – the water is calling and intuitively I wonder if I am starting to outgrow this shoreline.  

 So I step out into the water, curious and nervous – but willing this time.

 I step into the waters and keep moving forward, small step by step and feel the water level rising up my body. 

I keep moving forward, small step by step until I am barely on my tippy toes with the water cradling my raised chin barely above the soft movement of the waves.

Here I am suspended on the cusp of old and new.  Old would be wading back, swimming back, running back – going back to what I know – new is not.  

While I wait, on this edge, I sense some unfamiliar safety – I feel the water holding me and gently rocking me…and without thought or conscious choice, I just let go – my toes don’t touch the bottom anymore, and instead of lost or drowning, I am floating upright and free.

I close my eyes as the waves continue to hold and gently rock me.  The mystery of this unknown feels safe and abundant – it feels limitless; and my hard edges melt and dissolve into the grandness cradling me and I can’t even tell where I end and it begins.  I feel light, wide open and trust it all.  It ironically, feels more like home to me.

Freeing ourselves from attachments is the willingness to believe there is potential and truth beyond them.  Freeing ourselves from our attachments is questioning them and not wholly trusting their value or usefulness.  Freeing ourselves from our old attachments is finding open spaces away from the clutter and collection of our recycled thoughts, feelings and beliefs…leaving the shoreline for the water and being willing to do so, trust and let go…no preconceived notions, no fears, no old us…

There are many unknowns beyond my 45 years of knowing;  life after love, life after youth, life after death – life in unravelling myself from the identity and meaning of every story I’ve ever told and distance and peace from anything I’ve ever been blindly or fruitlessly  attached to – out there in the deep depths of the water is where all of these stories stop being mine, because I can’t lug my heavy basket out there and presume I’ll float and not sink…if only we are willing to keep moving forward, small step by step until the water picks us up and we actually let it. <3

So I’m Not Just F*ked Up?? WHEW!

I’ve always thought I was kinda f*cked up on some level.  (Is it weird to admit that publicly lol?? GULP)

Okay well let me clarify that, not terribly, but I always believed I had some level of emotional dysfunction that would express itself and distress itself in my relationships.  And I don’t just mean romantic relationships, in any of my relationships, whether it was professional, personal, family etc. I knew I’ve always had default ways of operating and reacting, ways that I’m not always so proud of, but ways that I couldn’t quite frame or understand, never mind change.  I might not always show what’s going on inside of me, but surely I always felt it.  My way of operating sorta just felt like my nature, even if they felt destructive, self sabotaging or counterintuitive – I would just chalk it up to it all just being my personality.  Maybe I’m just built with some weird dichotomy of peace/gratitude/love/connection and intuition that are woven together with some fabric of volatility, pessimism and recklessness.

My feelings would sometimes feel too big for me. I too often would take things too personally followed by an unnecessary expenditure of time and energy over analyzing and creating stories about my conflicts and interactions. Often times the stories that I would create would be heavy with self criticism,would include victims and villains and would all get away from me.  One minute I might be content in relationship while feeling doubtful the next.  Different people triggered me differently.  I know I can be super reasonable and practical if I’m not emotionally triggered, but once triggered, BYE BYE reason!  Generally, I carried an underline fear that would consistently and secretly remind me not to get too invested in people because they might fail or betray me.  So too often I awaited the endings of relationships once they began, like a skepticism I just couldn’t shake.  I’ve always believed this behaviour and way of operating felt dysfunctional but it was all so habitual that I could only chalk it up to me being inherently dysfunctional on some level. I feared abandonment the moment I became invested in someone, have always hated goodbyes and rejection; and would use control to mitigate my feelings of weakness and vulnerability.  Relationships, while feeling amazing on one hand could easily feel unsafe on the other.

I’ve never wanted to hide my crazy, I’ve always wanted to heal it. I’d always wonder how a “normal” and well adjusted person would have better handled some of my experiences with much less drama and personal commotion?   There are just parts of myself that I’ve always wished I could excise, undo and redo.

As I’ve aged I’ve worked through various outlets and tools trying to dig down and figure this dysfunction out.   Meditation to ground myself and temporarily table my dysfunction, prayer and the Bible to quell my dysfunction and strive for more ideal ways of responding to people, having my girlfriend who is studying astrology tell me about my nature and propensities based on my sign….masking or numbing with vices, or at times not giving a fak and just letting my wild run wild.  Nothing really unravelled or identified the truth of my ways of operating….until somebody introduced me to attachment styles.

Life is magical.  A girlfriend had mentioned reading a book on attachment styles weeks ago that had brought her a lot of clarity and understanding and though intrigued I hadn’t followed through on getting the book.  And then ironically, Jason sent me this attachment quiz weeks later, so out of the blue, echoing her same sentiments.  BOOM, magic.  In case anyone is interested:

https://attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com/quiz/?wickedsource=google&wickedid=EAIaIQobChMI1e3lg4Sk9gIVpx-tBh1yTA9MEAAYASAAEgLhivD_BwE&wickedid=535245286760&wv=3.1&wickedsource=google&wickedid=EAIaIQobChMI1e3lg4Sk9gIVpx-tBh1yTA9MEAAYASAAEgLhivD_BwE&wickedid=535245286760&wv=3.1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1e3lg4Sk9gIVpx-tBh1yTA9MEAAYASAAEgLhivD_BwE

I have a fearful avoidant attachment style. It was what I learnt at a young age that formed and informed my internal workings and responses to conflict and relationships. Typical of immigrant families, love felt based on performance, ran either hot or cold and felt conditional (and this is no slight to my parents who came to this country and worked hard to provide incredible life opportunities for us kids).  But this attachment style and why I adopted it described many of my responses to a tee – becoming bored with status quo and finding comfort almost uncomfortable; craving emotional connections but coating that craving with a fear of abandonment or betrayal. My in and out approach to commitments was fear based. Not always being able to communicate my needs, and instead testing people to see if they could meet them, or pouring out energy on those that I loved, not realizing I was doing so with the hope that it would be poured back without me just properly communicating what I most need.

Being able to identify this conditioning not only educates me on why I sometimes react the way that I do, but lets me know how I can properly address these responses and heal the places and beliefs that drive them. Things like self-regulating and not self-abandoning, being in tune with my emotional needs and providing for them in productive ways, developing consistency and congruency in my own life, re-establishing my own boundaries and integrity to rebuild my own sense of safety and trust. Aligning my intentions and words with my own actions and remaining steadfast, seeing them through and committing to them for my own self assurance and tenacity.  I always thought my flittiness was part of my carefree approach to some things, not realizing that my flittiness is actually fear based and self protective in nature.

So so interesting, enlightening and timely.  Life has such a funny way of providing the things we need when we most need them.  And this is me, I want to know it all.  While I am alive, I want to figure it all out.  I want to understand the purpose and significance of my life. I want to learn as much as I can learn and heal the things that I know need healing.  Above all I want to love, I feel like we are put here to love, fully, wholly and freely…if only we can cut off the baggage and conditioning that prevents us from loving so. <3