I want to know

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah

This is my life mantra

Shadow Dance

"Your shadow is not always dark... you just have to let her play too, let her out into the light so she can dance."

Everything Changes

Everything Changes from Hopeful World on Vimeo.

Everything changes.

What if that's the best news of all?

That we can change

That we can reimagine our lives

Without blame

Without judgment

With a certain kind of grace that comes from knowing we don't control it all

There is a way that we have to face these things alone

but it doesn't mean that we're the only one.

In every moment of doubt and despair,

There's a moment of doubt and despair being felt somewhere else in the world.

And there is no way for us to be disconnected from each other's suffering or each other's joy.

Both of these things are there at the same time.

We're together.

This is what it means to belong to the human family.

What if the gift is the ending?

What if your silent wish is the beginning of a new dream?

Your loss is the birthplace of hope.

Your mistakes are a new place to begin again.

Your goodbye is the beginning of a new life.

Leaning In

Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Mumford and Sons

The words above have been singing in my mind lately.

When my relationship with Che ended I scoffed at those words.

“Oh yeah? That’s BS. I am dismayed, enslaved and betrayed and in no way do I feel free in this moment”

But slowly I began to see the truth

Relationship is not Love
Relationship is two souls doing their best to share love
But it is not love itself

Love can only be received from the divine and poured out when our cup overfills
The overflow is relationship
But Love is the unconditional infinite energy that surpasses all understanding

And the other thing I know now without a doubt

When we allow that love into our deepest darkest neediest angry dark places, everything changes

I see inside of me a precious infant girl

As I have talked about before, I have been working on loving her for a long time now

A great part of me felt she was a mistake and had no purpose being here 
(even though my logical mind disagreed)

But as I thought back to the moments that I held Roland and Hayden in my arms for the first time.

The memory of the sheer joy and love and responsibility at meeting these tiny souls overwhelmed me.

If I close my eyes and take a breath I can see my own infant self resting in my arms

That same joy and love and responsibility fills me

The loneliness and desperation from this shift in my life has allowed me to dig deep enough to find her

And by grace I have found a way to allow divine love in like I have never allowed it before.

Some days I succeed and others… well I’m human

I know through lots of experience now that I have to release all the stuff that blocks the love

Anger, resentment, jealousy, judgment those things are energy that get trapped in our bodies

But with work they can be released

The shift is not easy. It takes every ounce of bravery and courage that I have inside of me

It is so much easier to just be angry or hurt or full of shame

But I believe that infant girl deserves better than that.

She deserves to have someone fight for her and guide her along the path

She deserves to experience love and connection with both spirit and other souls

We are a work in progress, no doubt and will be till we take our last breath

We are full of paradox and hypocrisy. Love and Fear, Trust and Jealousy, Joy and Sadness

We all are

During a breakup it’s so much easier to get through, if you can just be angry and look at 
only the negatives of the person you are choosing to walk away from.

It is so easy to choose distraction and self pity.

The harder road is to see the person fully, the healthy and unhealthy, the quirks, the things that make your heart leap, the good times and the hard times and to stay with the ache of the loss.

I see it all. I am grateful for it all because everything led me right here to this moment.

I have made lists of everything our relationship allowed me to believe about myself and everything I allowed myself to experience because I was in it.

Those things don't disappear now that the relationship is changed. I will hold onto them with gratitude.

I know the heart ache was worth every moment of bliss and connection I felt leading up to it.

I remember moments of pure “cup overflowing” connection. Two souls locked together in a moment outside of time.

Looking back I want more of that connection. I crave it. My heart longs to see and be seen again. But then a new energy floods my body and I realize I am simply grateful I had that experience. If it comes again, awesome, if not I will continue to be grateful for it. It was enough.

I feel a strange mixture of relief and missing him. I feel like part of my heart is still with him and his gracious shadow follows me wherever I go.

The push and pull is tedious and intense. The only way I know through is to keep coming back to myself

To keep seeking connection with the love that surrounds me and fills me and ALLOW it in

I let go of hurry and distraction and rest in this moment.
This very moment with a lonely heart crying out in gratitude 

Everything is occurring in its perfect time.

I am learning about letting go of what’s real

Letting go of the imagined
Letting go of dreams held on pedestals
Letting go of wanting more
And allowing myself to notice what I already have.

Today I decided it's time to try out some new ways of doing things to see if they bring more peace through this transition.

I’ll give them a week and check in to see what is working and what can be left behind.

• Get up 15 minutes before I need to wake the boys to meditate, connect with the divine and be in silence.
• Keep my phone out of my hands when I’m in bed. No facebooking, instagramming, mindless games or internet surfing before I go to bed or when I first wake up. They lower my energy and take me away from myself.
• Cook and enjoy delicious meals. Savor each bite.
• Flow with the tide of emotions and allow them all. I have learned that if I take just a few minutes to find a quiet place and allow the intense ones to come up, they only last about 90 seconds. But if I hold them in they sit simmering all day or explode in BAD ways.
• List at least 3 things I’m grateful for in my Day One app. I have been doing this for a few months now and it is so so good.
• Write, Read and Listen to Audio Books – fill my mind with positive, encouraging and helpful ideas instead of allowing my monkey mind to go wild. But also take time each day to write out whatever needs to be said.
• Look for opportunities to give. Put flowers on a heartbroken girls door. Pay for the coffee of the person in line behind me. Send a care package to a dear friend who's life is also in deep transition, send a real hand-written letter to a friend, smile at my office mates, say thank you to the cleaning lady in the gym.. little things that make a big difference
• Reach out for connection - but in a healthy way. Similar to drinking alcohol. If  I "need it" then nope, take time to reconnect with myself first. But otherwise go out and connect!