Until I Realized

 

I was once afraid of fear

Until I learned to feel it

And not let it suffocate me

But rather to allow it to gently flow through me

So that I may transform it into passion, purpose and meaning

I was once afraid of grief

Until I realized

It was a treasured visitor

For it revealed the vast ocean of love

That lay within me

And my capacity to feel

And care for others deeply

I was once afraid of rejection

Until I realized

That it need not cause me any hurt or harm

When I was able to fully embrace and accept myself

And honour my strengths and greatness

Celebrating the beauty and brilliance that lay within me

I was once afraid of heartbreak

Until I realized

That my heart was my own

And the only person who could truly break it

Was me

Through me disowning myself

And valuing how another person saw me

Above how I chose to see myself

And giving them the power to shape

How I felt about myself and my reality

I was once afraid of failure

Until I realized

That it was my greatest teacher

And that pain need not stem from it

When it empowered me to choose and act better in the future

And live more compassionately

I was once afraid of shame

Until I learned to befriend it

Then gently farewell it

Through granting myself permission to be imperfect

And make mistakes

While not letting them define or limit me

I was once afraid of guilt

Until I gave it purpose

And redirected it toward meaningful action

Allowing it to propel me along a path of love and healing

I was once afraid of my negative thoughts

Until I realized that their origin was my emotions

And by calming and uplifting myself

They would transform accordingly

I was once afraid of anger

Until I realized that it was not meant to be suppressed or ignored

But felt fully

Fuelling me to take passionate action toward what was most meaningful and important to me

I was once afraid of discomfort

Until I realized

It was one of my greatest guides

Revealing all that was in need of changing and healing within me

And I was once afraid of my shadow

Until I realized

That I was the alchemist of my life

And the power to transmute the darkness into light

Lay within me.

Words by Tahlia Hunter 

The Lovers’ Dance of Darkness and Light

 

he held her words

in the silence 

pressed them

into his heart 

and healed

a thousand lifetimes

of wounds 

and eternal grief 

absorbing her light

as she absorbed

his reflection 

How I Choose to Remember You

I choose to remember you

Not by how you hurt me

But by how you taught me to heal

Not by how you left me

But by how you taught me to never abandon myself 

Not by how you broke me

But by how you taught me to rebuild myself 

Not by how you dimmed my light  

But by how you helped me to shine 

Not by how you kept me trapped in a place of comfort 

But by how you empowered me to leave my comfort zone 

Not by how you left me feeling weak

But by how you taught me what it means to be strong 

Not by how you tried to control me 

But by how you taught me to be free

Not by who you told me who I was

But by how you taught me to define myself 

And above all

I choose to remember you 

Not by how you were unable to love me 

But by how you taught me 

To love myself. 

~ Words by Tahlia Hunter 

Anam Cara, Soul Friend

 

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."

In everyone's life, there is a great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home.

The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed. When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's lives. With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.

—John O'Donohue

The Gift of Pain from Heartbreak

 

He hurt her deeply

When he did nothing

He created a pain

Inside a wound

That already existed

She loved him deeply

But to her

It didn't feel like enough

Maybe she wasn't enough

She thought she was incomplete

Without him

She had to face her past

All the times

She felt invisible

To the men

In her life

Maybe she just needed time

Time to understand herself better

And figure out

That she may be hurt

But not damaged

The men

She realized

Who broke her heart

Actually gifted her

Because now she's confronting her pain

Facing her fears

And hears a faint voice whispering

I believe in you, even when no one did

I'm there for you, when it felt no one was

I love you, when others didn't know how to

That voice is what keeps her going

Keeps her looking forward

Instead of back

And keeps her believing

There is a love

Out there

That can unravel her nerves

Calm her storms

And explore her deep waters

With a wildness

And patience

She aches for

What is Not Love

 If you need someone to be happy, that's not love.

 IT IS LACK.

 If you are jealous, insecure and do anything to keep someone by your side, even knowing that you are not loved, and you say that you believe in that person, but not in others, who seem like rivals to you, that is not love.

 IT IS LACK OF SELF LOVE.

 If you think your life is empty without that person;  You can't imagine yourself alone and you maintain a relationship that ended just because you don't have a life of your own, that's not love.

 IT IS DEPENDENCE.

 If you think that the loved one belongs to you;  you feel master and owner of his life and his body;  You don't give him the opportunity to express himself, to make up his mind, just to assert your dominance, that's not love.

 IT IS SELFISH.

 If you don't want it;  you do not fulfill yourself as a man or woman with this person;  you prefer not to have intimate relations with that person, however, you feel some pleasure in being by their side, that is not love.

 IT'S FRIENDSHIP.

 If they argue for any reason;  they are dying of jealousy of each other;  they don't always make the same plans;  they lack agreement in various situations;  they don't like to do the same things or go to the same places, but there is a desire to be intimately together, that is not love.

 IT IS DESIRE.

 If your heart beats stronger;  the sweat becomes intense, your temperature goes up and down dizzyingly, just thinking about the other person, that is not love.

 IT IS PASSION.

 Now that you know what love is not…

 It is easier to analyze what is happening with you and try to resolve the situation or program yourself to attract someone for whom you feel "true love" that feeling of affection, passion, intimacy and genuine commitment;  feeling of emotional and sexual attraction that you have towards a person, and that this person also feels the same for you, so that they can build a balanced relationship, based on true love...Bali

Tiny Boxes

 

His life was too compartmentalized

Too rigid

There was nothing more terrifying 

To her

Than the image of tiny boxes

Taking up her life

She was wild

And needed flexibility 

Air to breath

Fire to tempt her nature

And keep her engaged 

In life

Running was the only option for her

Running from a life

She could not imagine 

Herself living in 

The Purpose of Your Life

The soul purpose of your life is to love. To love yourself and others so fully, so furiously, that you become completely overflowing with immense joy and lightness. When your heart is bursting with love every day you will truly be fulfilled. When your love for another is so immense, so passionate, so compassionate, you won't have time to worry about your own problems and life. You will be in such a flow of juiciness and aliveness that you cannot stop yourself from giving away warm happy hugs to everyone you meet.

The day you stop resisting your natural connection with everything in this Universe, and start allowing for it, then the real magic begins. It is from this simple direct connection to life that you'll be able to fully relax, and feel the soft gentle Divine Presence that naturally flows from the centre of your being. From this place you can discover the Source of Love which is who and what you truly are.

"Who you are is neither consciousness nor it's content. You are the timeless source, the Supreme Reality. Trust that." ~Nisargadatta

We are here to awaken to the realization that we are intimately connected to the God Source. It is already all around us and inside us, we have simply forgotten it is here. This Divine intelligent all loving source is inside the matrix of every thought, thing and person. Whatever our mind comprehends to be "real", has the Divine Source inside it. When we are living each day being consciously aware that a higher intelligence is at the center of every single atom and electron, something miraculous begins to occur. We stop seeing ourselves as separate from this Divine Intelligence, and can truly come home to our own divinity. From knowing and feeling into our connection with every atom, we have discovered one of the greatest purposes of our lives.

Full self realization simply means there is NO more of a feeling of being separate from the God Source. We don't see "God" as something far away, yet as something closer to us than our next heartbeat and breath. Creating intimacy with the Divine Intelligence is the only sane path to freedom, and all other paths simply fall miserably short. Through knowing this connection we have real clarity in life again, and can see through the illusions and delusions that most everyone is entertaining.

The greatest illusion that many "sheeple" are caught in is that the Divine is not inside of us. Most believe that it's not real and the world is separate from the Divine. To ignore and forget that the Divine intelligence is an intimate part of your day is the origin of every experience of suffering. When we instantly clarify this lie, and start seeing, feeling and living the truth, we heal ourselves of all pain and problems just fade away into the background.

Being truly free from suffering is a goal that all human beings have in common. We are all here to learn, grow and evolve out of suffering. If we keep doing the same actions and expecting different results we will go insane. We simply need to wake up and learn how to be conscious and stop repeating our greatest error, which is ignoring the Divinity within us. When we honour this divine aspect, we can meet any darkness directly. We can accept that our pain brings us gifts, and be willing to embrace them. Looking directly into our own darkness we shine a light through it. We move beyond the demented illusions the mind creates and reach a more enlightened perspective on reality. Every time we sink into our darkness, it takes us closer to the light.

Another great purpose of our lives is to heal all the wounds from our past. One of the quickest paths to doing this is practicing forgiveness everyday. This means also to forgive ourselves for the judgments, deceptions and secret lies we've been telling ourselves for years. When we tell ourselves we are not good enough, smart enough, courageous enough, wealthy enough, we constantly are living a lie. To find the positive unlimited potentiality within us allows us to be bigger than our pain, and eventually release and heal the deepest unconscious wounding we're carrying.

"It's such a surprise to notice that you are the pulsing heart of the emptiness, the mountain strength of the vastness." ~Pamela Wilson

Nobody else is here knows you better than you know you. We are born to get to know ourselves so intimately that deep down we can take responsibility for our life experience and shift it. When we feel into our darkest pain, we can see our patterns, and find out why we are holding onto our struggle and how to stop doing it. Through understanding ourselves we can move beyond any pain we are creating. Healing means awareness. By simply investigating our inner world with an authentic curiosity, we summon the tools that will bring us into transcendence.

By remembering who we truly are (Divine Source), we can clearly see all our relationships as a grand play of self mastery. When we are capable of forgiving ourselves, we feel worthy of being free from any pain or tension we were carrying around. We can deepen in compassion for anyone who threatens us, criticizes us, or attempts to shred our ego in anyway.

By having compassion for all beings (including ourselves) we uncover the secret to where all healing begins and ends. When we can accept the truth of who we really are, we instantly soften and can see that those who strike out at us are just craving love. They are in greater pain than we are and needing us to show them the way out of it. It is our job to guide them, by letting in the greatest lightness and compassion we can summon. Doing this we receive the bliss filled blessings we are here to experience.

The final and perhaps greatest purpose of our lives, is learning how to enjoy every moment of our lives. Loving every day of life takes great perspective, patience, clarity and a certain level of mind mastery. Life is naturally experienced as an awesome amazing playground when we find that our main purpose here is to celebrate it all. We are naturally filled with joy when we are grateful for this divine opportunity to love, be loved and discover that love is the Source of who and what we actually are! Gratitude increases our vibration to the point that we are "protected" from attracting future pain, suffering and more delusion that we are separate from the Divine. We may still karmically manifest the gift of being challenged by certain people or situations in life, yet from the attitude of gratitude it all becomes a fun easy ride home.

"Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction, don't let any prude tell you otherwise." ~ St Teresa of Avila

~ Jafree Ozwald

http://www.trans4mind.com/.../index-

Now Available on Hoopla/Shedding the Wife

 

SHEDDING THE WIFE: a spiritual journey through divorce is now available on Hoopla! 

shedding the wife

is about a spiritual journey

through divorce

with inner landscapes

of floods and fires

the storm

becomes a catalyst

to self-discovery

this book is

for all women

healing from the wounds

of betrayal, neglect, and/or abuse

and by doing the inner work

empowers us

to let go of the past

and move forward as a warrior

https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15414093

A Mystic's Inner Life

 

She thrived on her own

She was reserved

Kept to herself

She knew at a young age

She was different

She could blend in anywhere

Connect with anyone

Yet very few got her

She had a complicated inner life

That only a mystic would understand

When she withdrew

From the world

It was to explore other worlds

That only a few

Know the entrance into

She thrived alone

In places many avoid

But she knew that it was only in those places

The real gems of life are found

Excavated

And kept for safekeeping

In the most secret places

Of her inner being

Inner work is done in solitude. Truths are discovered painstakingly through a process that most avoid. The Mystic’s path is not for the faint-hearted. Loneliness is your companion.

Twin Flames/ A Solid Masculine

 

When a woman is loved right she becomes many times the woman she was. She experiences a rebirth of her full divinity into her childlike innocence and purity as she is nurtured in her feminine essence and supported to let go off her masculine defenses and blossom into all she is becoming.

As true love cast out all evil and all shadows die in the light of their love she becomes secure in what she feels and sees as her intuition is no longer cast aside as crazy by the masculine and she develops a trust in not only her intuition but his as they both nourish their gifts, talents and traits.

Sacred union with the divine masculine changes a woman,

but only if she is able to surrender to him and trust his love, which also depends equally on his capacity to be solid in his masculine core and hold her in her feminine essence and emotional nature without faltering.

If she senses any weakness in his core and he is too much in his feminine she will not feel safe to surrender to him and trust his core. Trust is built slowly from both ends and if one doesn't trust the other will not trust. It's a mutual exchange of energy at all times and only by continuously showing up authentic and honest in full integrity without fear of communicating their truth will they be able to create solid trust.

For every trigger they work through together they grow more and more solid in their union.

It's a beautiful dance if the two can be mature and accountable and willing to face themselves honestly and openly with loving communication. Then both will become more of who they are meant to be and the blossoming feminine will be the nourishing Goddess she was meant to be.

But it all depends on the masculines capacity to be solid.

~ Ulf Haukenes 

Through Time

 

my solitude

lengthens and widens

like a night sky

i stare at it's vastness

and get lost

in the stars

of my own creation

only through time

do we conquer ourselves

or self destroy

The Way You Love Yourself

 

True vulnerability is not easy. We are wired to protect ourselves from getting hurt. We will lie, hide, pretend, cry, yell, and even fight to keep from feeling judged or exposed. It's extremely difficult to create emotional intimacy and connection when we struggle to trust someone else enough to just be ourselves without fear of rejection or abandonment. 

How much do we really love or even like ourselves? How you can tell is based on how open you are about who you really are. If you feel unworthy, unlovable or inadequate, then you will feel that others will judge you as such as well and validate your negative beliefs about yourself. It's hard to let yourself love someone that you don't feel good enough for. Having flaws and weaknesses exposed can be terrifying for someone who lacks confidence and hasn't learned to intimately accept themselves.

What's worse than living with insecurity and anxiety is living without real love. Love is what frees us from judgement, guilt, shame and toxicity. Love is what allows us to evolve and reach our greater potential. Love is what lifts us out of despair and brings us hope. Love is what teaches us to accept ourselves and others because empathy is far more powerful than our fragile ego. 

The way that you love yourself will determine how you love, who you love and what your unmet needs are. It all starts with you and how brave and strong you choose to be and continue to be despite loss, rejection, loneliness or even trauma. Love is truly the only remedy for our heartache. Imagine having a partner who knows you, understands you, protects you, accepts all of you and makes you feel safe to just be yourself. If you really want that, then what are you doing to treat yourself the way that you want to be treated by someone else? By practicing self love, you are teaching yourself how to show up with the same kind of unconditional love and acceptance for someone else. You can learn how to be open to the kind of love that you've always wanted. Love is the gift that's meant to be shared.

- Sunil KS

Beautifully Human

 

*YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG*

You didn't come here to perfect unconditional love.

That's where you came from and that's where you'll return to.

You came here to learn:

Love before heartbreak.

Complicated love.

The love you deny for the ego.

The intense and crazy love.

The broken love

Love with detachment.

Love overshadowed by passion.

Stumbled love.

The love that is not shown.

The love that is silent

The love that is lost.

Self-love.

Universal love.

You didn't come here to be perfect. You already were.

You came here to experience being beautifully human.

Failed and Fabulous.

To then rise again and be the Light that guides you through your shadows.

But what about unconditional love?

Cut it with that story.

Love, in truth, does not need any other adjective.

Does not require modifiers.

It does not require perfection.

It only asks that you show yourself aware of yourself.

May you be the best version of yourself.

And do what you came to do.

May you be present and feel whole.

That you shine, that you fly, that you laugh, that you love, that you cry, that you get hurt, that you heal, that you fall, that you get up, that you play, that you work, that you live, that you transcend, always in your own way.

That is enough and it is enough.

- (1) Twin Flame Journey | *YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG* | Facebook

The Legacy You Will Leave

 You came naked

You will leave naked

You came without anything

You will leave without anything

You arrived weak

You will leave weak

So, why so much hatred, resentment, envy, selfishness and pride?

We will all go empty handed, what all material things we have earned, we earned here, and will leave everything here only.

The only thing that will go with you, that you actually earned here is the love you shared, the compassion you showed, the humbleness, your gratitude, your helpfulness, your kindness.

That is the legacy you will leave here that everyone will follow.

- unknown author  

Deep Listening

 

The most beautiful quality of all in a human being in my humble opinion?

The ability to listen deeply.

To listen from Presence. From stillness.

To listen without trying to fix someone, change them, or ‘save’ them.

The ability to allow another to be exactly as they are.

Not giving unsolicited advice. Not lecturing them about the latest psychological research or the ‘most true’ spiritual teaching. Not trying to mold them, manipulate them into matching a concept of who they ‘should’ be. Not projecting your own trauma - or traumatic answers - all over them.

Just listening. Listening with an open mind and an open heart and a receptive nervous system.

Allowing them to breathe, to express, to weep, to question, to be completely unique, to expand into the space, to discover their own truth.

I have met world experts in intimacy, relationships, and honest communication who are unable to do this.

I have met spiritual gurus, so-called “enlightened masters”, expert psychologists, and life coaches who are utterly unable to do this.

I have met popular teachers and authors on ‘listening from the heart, ‘holding space’, ‘pure awareness, and ‘embodied spirituality’ who are unable to do this.

It is a rare gift - the ability to allow others to be exactly as they are.

Broken. Whole. Sad. Angry. Afraid. Lost. Awake or asleep. Whatever.

To listen to them with every fiber of your being.

To receive them through the senses, to listen like the wild animals of the forest.

To swaddle them in undistracted, fascinated attention.

To envelop them in a silent, warm Presence.

To make them feel - in those precious moments that you are together - like they are the most beloved One in the whole Universe.

When you sense this kind of sacred listening from someone, it’s unmistakable.

It cannot be manufactured.

It cannot be faked.

It is utterly rare and holy.

It is nothing less than unconditional love.

Your nervous system senses it and rejoices.

~Jeff Foster

Her Memory

There are words

Stuck in his throat

That he can’t get out

Feelings he wants to express

But fears he can’t

He thinks it’s too late

Too much time has gone by

And the damage is done

He can’t take back

What he did

And what he should've said

Her memory

Lingers in him

And he knows

Time is not on his side

One day

She’ll marry again

One day

Her heart will belong to someone else

And he’ll have to live with that

Because he never

Spoke up

Be the Change

I don't mean to offend people but often times I do, unintentionally.

I don't mean to be rude or condescending but sometimes the words out of my mouth sound that way.

I use to be quiet.. kept to myself. 

You'd never know what I was thinking.

But as I've aged that's changed.

I'm bold.. sometimes in your face..

Don't hold back anything.

Especially when I get a sense of dirtiness.. Someone being less guinuine than what I expect from others.

I don't like shady, dishonesty.

I don't like being treated like a dumb girl.. taken advantage of.

So if you think for even a split second you can pull the wool over my eyes, I'll call you out on your bullshit.

Life is to short to play games.

To short to not be real.. even with strangers.

And I can't help think that more people need to be more bold and stand up to those who are taking advantage of the vulnerable.

Say enough is enough..

Take your bullshit somewhere else.

Demand integrity. 

Demand change.

Be the change..

Speak up!

Not Your Job

 PLEASE HONOR YOURSELVES.~~

 Quit trying to fix others who can not, or will not, face and work on their shadow. Don’t waste your time helping those who are not courageous enough to be transparent, honest and authentic.  FYI…. An apology without change behavior is actually manipulation. If you have given these ones many chances to rise up, but they continue to break promises, it is time to move on.  It doesn’t matter how much you love them. Even if you have great compassion for how unconscious they are. If they are open and willing to allow you to absorb and process their shadow for them, they do not care for you, they are just using you. This is spiritual abuse. 

Don’t let someone make their issues your job!   

You cannot fix other peoples issues, unless they’re willing to dive into the messy nightmare we call our shadow. If we keep trying to help someone that isn’t willing to be helped, even if they say they want to be helped, even if they are good and kind people, but their actions keep showing us that they will not make any effort to change, or have a willingness to facing their shadow, and do the necessary work on themselves. . . We only weaken them. Yes, WE WEAKEN THEM! And we also weaken ourselves!!!  

It is only when we finally pull our energy away, that they they have the opportunity to face the things they need to heal. They may or may not do it in this life time, but it is not our job anymore. It never was. 

We always think if we don’t give up, and keep trying, we can make a difference.  But there are so many people out in the world who are ready, that you can hold space for and where you can make a difference.

Don’t waste your life helping someone who does not want to be helped, and is using your energy to sustain themselves, to boost their self-esteem, and to give their life meaning. Because eventually the very thing that they were attracted to you about will be the very thing they don’t like anymore.

The bottom line is this: 

HONOR YOUR GIFTS and share with those that have the open heart to receive it.  Honor your energy.  Don’t throw your lighted pearls before those who are not willing to accept, honor or respect them.  

Honor and value yourselves!

Honor and value your light!

Honor and value your gifts! 

And this action will also honor the God within us ALL. 

Our days of fulfilling karmic obligations are over. We don’t need the extra baggage at this point. Cosmic and earthy energies are flooding in everywhere for everyone to help us purge, learn and ultimately grow beyond the many things that have been holding us back. There is no going back. There is only forward into the void where we will create our new world. 

~Aluna Joy Yaxkin

When She’s Difficult to Love

She's good at shutting down

Just ignore her needs

Or neglect her heart 

Just once 

And she'll retreat within

Sometimes for days

Her silence

Overwhelming 

So love her

To the best of your ability 

Even on the days

When she's difficult to love

Periods of Growth

 “Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. 

Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.” 

—Alice Walker, Living by the Word

Love in Motion

"Love is the perfection of consciousness. We do not love because we do not comprehend, or rather.. we do not comprehend because we do not love. 

For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.. 

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual... 

In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be one and two at the same time.

Only love is motion and rest in one. Our heart ever changes its place till it finds love, and then it has its rest."

~Rabindranath Tagore

Twin Flame Dream- Relationships

 

From Journal Entry 6/17/2013

I am with my husband and kids in his living room. He is across from us with his wife and kids. His wife has a birthmark under her left eye. He points to the right side of her face and says he loves that side more. He points to everyone except me and says we are all family. Then he points to a family portrait on the wall. He calls my family his aunts and uncles.

I can feel how family is important to you…

How family comes first.

How family also means everything to me.

How there is a karmic bond between our families.

In the end, we all want to feel like we belong to someone or to something greater than ourselves.

I want to say that that greater thing is love.

And unselfishly, we know that our greatest wounds are caused by love.

This twin flame journey has really shed light on family dynamics.

I see how our infinite souls are intertwined with those we love and even those that we grow to hate.

I don't have all the answers.

I don't know if my actions are undoing karmic cycles and mending those relationships that mean the most to me.

So many insecurities I feel.

So much healing I still need to do on myself.

My world still spins around you...

My thoughts orbit next to yours and even collide at times.

I swear sometimes I can see your thoughts.

They drift into my dreamscape and it is there your drama plays out.

Sometimes it feels like I am sunbathing in the warmth of your thoughts…

Other times it feels like I'm in the middle of a hurricane.

These images are framed in a picture…

permanently hanging up on the walls of my mind reminding me how relationships are not simple.

 

Half A Life

 

Do not love half lovers

Do not entertain half friends

Do not live half a life

and do not die a half death

If you choose silence, then be silent

When you speak, do so until you are finished

Do not silence yourself to say something

And do not speak to be silent

If you accept, then express it bluntly

Do not mask it

If you refuse then be clear about it

for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance

Do not accept half a solution

Do not believe half truths

Do not dream half a dream

Do not fantasize about half hopes

Half the way will get you no where

Half an idea will bear you no results

Half a life is a life you didn't live,

A word you have not said

A smile you postponed

A love you have not had

A friendship you did not know

The half is a mere moment of inability

but you are able for you are not half a being

You are a whole that exists to live a life

not half a life. 

~ Khalil Gibran

    

The Power of Stillness

 "Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that. 

The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. 

Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. 

Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:

'And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.'

~John O'Donohue

I Am Here For You

 

He dropped her off at the bus stop one morning

She waited for him to come home
She was nine
He never did
Disappointment set in
She grew up and married at 27
Thought She'd finally be seen, valued, cherished as a wife
But he never did
Disappointment set in
She sat down at 41
And wrote a letter
To the love of her life
After her husband left
She hoped he'd respond
But he never did
Disappointment set in
She met a guy at 44
And he promised her
Everything
But he never did
Like much about her
Disappointment set in
After years and years of disappointments
She made a resolution
To be there for herself
To show up every day
And declare
"I am here for you!"
When the men in her past
Never did