Brave Love

“I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability. Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.” Brene’ Brown

I struggle to find words to adequately describe reconnecting with my guy the past few weeks. This will most likely be clumsy and trite compared to what I feel inside. But I must get something down. I choose to let go of finding the perfect sentiments.

My thoughts and words tend to the black and white. The desire to tie everything together like a perfectly written thesis with a clear and resolved ending and moral lesson swirls in my mind. Loose ends and threads of philosophical morality bob in and out, each perspective trying to win the argument.

When I let go of the thoughts, I find my heart. And it feels ablaze with hope. It feels held in a container of grace. It feels seen and loved in return. And that, that is all that really matters to me now.

Some things cannot be explained, only felt.

Like the knowing that comes from looking deeply into the eyes of another soul.

Sometimes that knowing says “I care for you, but you are not meant for me. My heart belongs to another”

Sometimes that knowing says “you are me and I am you. I love you. I am home again”

Vulnerability and grace are the most powerful forces of the human spirit. With vulnerability comes the absolute necessity for courage. Brave expression is required to be fully seen… darkness, light, joy, pain, jealousy, tears, hope, all of it. Running is not an option and running can take many forms.

This journey has been difficult, but it was all necessary. Every moment of pain and grief and hope had to swirl through my heart in order to find the place where I could love myself fully and stop trying to prove to everyone else that I deserved theirs. Am I 100% there? No, but I have made major headway.

Last night, my love looked at me with so much intensity in his eyes and told me “I will give you the love you deserve”. My heart shuttered. It ran a little and then turned back around and peeked back at him. And then I made the choice to stop that old story of unworthiness. I looked at him with matching intensity and said “I will receive it. I will give you the same. I will give you a love that allows you to always feel free and I ask the same in return”.

Because now, after the journey of losing each other, I see it. I see the gift. Sometimes you have to lose something to fully appreciate what you had. And now we both see so clearly that we are meant to walk this road of life together. And we are both on board with showing up fully to make it happen. And the best part is that we are in a much better place inside ourselves at understanding that we fully deserve each other’s love.

I am honored and awe struck at the grace and brave courage I see before me and within me. No more running.. even in small ways. Each of us is giving our all to create something bigger than we can be on our own.

I am humbled.

I am thankful.

I am loved.

Thank you Che.

Thank you for your brave love and grace.

Painting my journey

So much is happening over here. It is difficult to wrap words around the shifts and major life decisions that I am making each day.

Grief, Peace, Bravery and Joy

The past six months have changed me forever.

I have learned how to root my spirit deeply.

I have learned how to listen and follow my heart

Sometimes the wake of that following leaves a fiery trail.

I have had to make difficult choices

But I have learned how to hold on to the love even if I have had to say goodbye

I have formed new habits

Dug deep grounded roots into the essence of who I am

I have found that still place and the wide open sky inside

I found freedom and commitment and the dance between the two

Painting has become my practice and teacher

I gifted myself the experience of learning from a woman who’s paintings and life inspire me deeply

Her painting course was more than techniques and processes for canvas and paint

It opened my eyes to the beauty of the creative process and how it is such an allegory for the journey of life

Grounding before creating

Listening deeply and following the tiny urges – go left – go right – big strokes – tiny details

Play and Let go of Creating a Set Outcome

Get Out of Your Own Way

Variation – change it up – try new things

Let it go – don’t hold things so preciously that you lose freedom to follow your intuition

Step back and be Grateful for this very breath

Love it all even if it is in the ugly teenage stage

Spiral In

Spiral Out

Hold the brush loose

If you don’t like something, choose again. You can always add another layer

But let the parts you do love shine through

Work with what’s working and do more of what you like instead of focusing on the parts you don’t like

Make bold commitments by following your heart/gut

It’s never too late to make a bold move – we get to choose and choose again

Life is an intuitive dance in each present moment.

Like painting… Each stroke, Each moment has its own story to tell.

Change is inevitable

Flowing with it brings peace

Resistance brings suffering

Painting has become the prayer to teach me the process

 

This past week abundance showed up in many forms in my life. It was what I had been asking for. And we all know the saying, be careful what you ask for. The realization that with abundance comes hard choices had never really occurred to me.. at least not at this level. Options that all call to me, each in their own beautiful way.

I have learned to simply follow my heart in each moment to make those choices. I have chosen and chosen and chosen again.

And now, I have stepped up and made a brave and bold choice to choose commitment again.

I believe I had to go on this journey to be able to stand on my own two feet and be steady in that commitment. I feel ready and eager for the journey ahead.

My heart is grateful for all of the love that came knocking and I’m grateful that I get to open the door and let it in.

And because Love battles

And because love battles

not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women, I will finish off by taking the path away to those who between my chest and your fragrance want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.

What more can they tell you?
I am neither good nor bad but a man,
and they will then associate the danger
of my life, which you know
and which with your passion you shared.

And good, this danger
is danger of love, of complete love
for all life,
for all lives,
and if this love brings us
the death and the prisons,
I am sure that your big eyes,
as when I kiss them,
will then close with pride,
into double pride, love,
with your pride and my pride.

But to my ears they will come before
to wear down the tour
of the sweet and hard love which binds us,
and they will say: “The one
you love,
is not a woman for you,
Why do you love her? I think
you could find one more beautiful,
more serious, more deep,
more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,
and what a head she has,
and look at how she dresses,
and etcetera and etcetera”.

And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up
and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved.

To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.

You came to my life
with what you were bringing,
made of light and bread and shadow I expected you,
and Like this I need you,
Like this I love you,
and to those who want to hear tomorrow
that which I will not tell them, let them read it here,
and let them back off today because it is early
for these arguments.

Tomorrow we will only give them
a leaf of the tree of our love, a leaf
which will fall on the earth
like if it had been made by our lips
like a kiss which falls
from our invincible heights
to show the fire and the tenderness
of a true love. 

Pablo Neruda