I want to know more about you. How your heart feels and speaks to you. What you know and long for. I thought this months ‘Ask Sarah’ could be 'Sarah Asks You’.
I’d love it if you could share anything about how you’ve been living your life lately. What keeps you up at night? What is holding you up right now? What do you know for sure?
Oh my....I’ve read only half of these and I am nearly in tears. This might need to become a thing. Thank you. These messages are priceless. Water to my earth.
I am currently kicking up dust, stripping back, reviewing, reviving, renewing and preparing to unpick 12 years of living - to liberate my senses onto a plot of land to start afresh with a long-standing dream of establishing my permaculture home and become part of a food growing collective. I feel giddy with childlike glee that THIS is now happening for me and all my labour is finally budding the fruit stems of years to come. My busyness now and subsequent doings will be met with dawn chorusing: birds in trees I have a list to grow that embody the spirit I now summons
Hello Sarah - I’m an emergency medicine physician in a major metro area. I’ve been with many ill, dying, and recovering patients due to the pandemic over the past two years. I’m watching with horror and compassion of the suffering of our world, locally and globally, and to the atrocities and cruelty of a senseless war in the land of my grandfather - Ukraine. Your many meditations and courses have been a blessing for me, many times keeping me from going dark, helping keeping on path. I thank you from the deepest parts of my heart and soul for your being, here, now, Sarah Blondin.
What keeps me up at night….the many voices in my head all trying to take center stage at the same time! Mostly, for me, I question why I choose to do things which sabotage any positive results I may have achieved in my wellness journey. I feel I am an armchair expert on so many levels yet don’t do things I should to make positive progress in certain areas of my life. Thank you for asking—— I constantly listen over and over many of your offerings and reflections. Just hearing your voice soothes me in the moment. Much thanks
Sarah, in you I have finally found someone who I feel speaks to my feelings & gives me the space, words & thoughts to move forward. I separated from my husband of 18 years a few years ago. I have a gifted daughter studying university several provinces away, but has her own struggles. I have an adult son with severe autism. I also help care for my dad. I’ve had relationships that have been important to me, but have been hard too. I work, I bought my own house & I am spent. I care for many and have little time for myself. I worry about my children so much. However, I have a smile on my face each day because I have to be strong to keep going. Thank you for being a light for me. My favorite quote: Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, courage is the little voice inside your head at night that says, I’ll try again tomorrow. 🙏
My dear Sarah, this wonderful journey into my heart has been one of discovery and acceptance. By being able to sit in silence I have discovered that the journey towards my heart is sublime, I have not seen fireworks or felt the universe open before me, no, it has been almost imperceptible and I can only recognize that subtle change when I realize that I am at a point where reacting is no longer an option, thanks to your book and your meditations I can observe myself and without judging anything I am able to let go with love and feel peace.
I am happily adjusting to retirement and listening every day to meditations on Insight Timer without the pressure of having to get to work is making my heart soar.
What I know for sure is all of us are struggling, all of us know pain. None of us is absolutely right or wrong, we are somewhere along the spectrum of all things. What I know for sure is life with others is compromise, life with the earth is sacred and essential. What I know for sure is we are risking our existence on the planet for things that don't matter and won't matter if we cannot survive. What keeps me up at night is, what about the children? What I want is for children to be valued and loved, sheltered and safe, nurtured and educated, treated as the beautiful gift that they are. What I hope for is a more peaceful, kind, and loving world. It is possible because it is in our power, but if it is to be actualized, all of us most sow seeds of peace every day. These are things that keep me awake at night. But in the light of day, I love the people I am with and I am grateful for that love and the love that comes back to me through the faces and eyes and arms of my grandchildren, my own children, my friends, my husband of 40 years. Love is the oil of our lives, without it we seem to dry up and become brittle, angry, rigid, unforgiving, inhuman. What we all need is more love. Grateful for you Sarah and your influence in the world. We need more of that and more of you.
The past two years have been a period of extreme growth for me in all ways. I am a reading interventionist and have been teaching literacy online, using a multi-sensory approach (yes!) since March 2020. I have had to teach myself so very much! My brain is overloaded. Teaching literacy in this way brings me and my students so VERY much joy! All of the Teacher Tingles! (That is what I call it to my students, that feeling of Spirit, Energy, moving through me when we are learning together. :). ) There is so much more I want to do with my work. But I feel a little bit traumatized.
Also, in the past 6 months, I have gotten a divorce, packed up my things (going through every item in the house - reliving the memories attached, loving them, grieving them), driven away from the Georgia home I have lived in with my 3 children and now ex-husband for 25 years, and moved across the country to the mountains. This is something I have been longing for for quite awhile but have waited to do until the kids were grown. My ex-husband and I handled ourselves and the divorce so very well. Good changes, huge changes.
What is keeping me up at night is something that my mother said to me probably 20 years ago, or maybe when she was my age. I always considered my mother to be highly spiritual. She was doing yoga and practicing meditation before anyone else (1960s) in Alaska. She gave me my first Deepak Chopra book, sent me to Kripalu in the 90s. But I remember her words so clearly - "I guess this is all there is to life." I think that may be when she stopped searching. Stopped practicing.
I have made these huge changes! I am Free to Be Me! Amazing opportunity! But now that I am here, I am afraid. I do NOT want to end up in that same place - "I guess this is all there is."
I feel like I have not much time. A sense of urgency as my body shows signs of aging, and I make doc appointments to deal with worsening arthritis in my hip, etc. I am only 56! I feel young inside! Not yet not yet not yet! I am vital! Radiant! I have not yet learned what I came to learn! And that is the real issue...I have not yet learned what I came here to learn. I have not yet done what I came here to do. That is what is keeping me up at night. How do I conquer my fears? They've been with me since I was tiny?
The workshop yesterday was so very wonderful. I cried through the entire thing. Much appreciation, Sarah.
You have been a daily guide for 3 years as I recovered from a serious accident. I truly don’t know where I’d be without your meditations on surrender, trusting yourself, living in the moment and transforming from head focused to heart minded. I love your openness, vulnerability and loving energy that pours out to your community. Thank you for being you, so authentically.
My heart has been happy & feeling good…… I became the caregiver for an infant baby! I was an empty nester but through it all she is a complete joy to have in the home. I know for sure that I will obtain my dream job in another state very soon & continue to provide a safe & loving environment for this newborn baby whom I love ❤️
Grief stricken, lonely, and tired, I suppose but I guess that’s to be expected, even at this stage of morning.
See, starting at the tale end of last year my reality was slowly ripped to shreds as 3 of the most important people in my life all died within a 3 month span.
On Oct. 13th (2031) my AA sponsor, Jamie passed away (from an aneurysm), three week later my only sibling, my sister, Nikki (my best friend, my everything) died from an overdose. She was in recovery, as am I but had relapsed. Then, early this January my first and only Buddhist teacher, Wade passed away from a heart attack.
I wish with all my heart I could actually articulate exactly HOW I actually feel but it’s indescribable. Life changing, of course but more then that. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Half of me died with the first too and then with Wade just nailed the coffin.
All I know is I refuse to give up. I refuse to numb this pain, I choose to feel it all. The pain, the sorrow, the loneliness, the disappear. I choose to feel it because I choose to live and soon I shall. Once this grief simmers down… but I know one day it shall. I just have to keep hope.
You’re meditations have helped me so much, Sarah. You have no idea. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I’m 44. Single mom of 2 amazing kids (9 and 11). I suffer from chronic depression, anxiety and PTSD and am treatment resistant. Been fighting this battle for 10 years. I do not love myself and feel tremendous guilt and sadness that I can’t always be present with my children. That’s all I want…for my kids to not remember me as someone who was in bed all the time. I just want to engage in life, not watch it pass me by.
Hi Sarah, Thank you for asking. Without details, my birth family’s trauma was filled with brokenness and pain. My most recent loss was my only child and son to suicide. I have long studied spiritual traditions to help me find unravel the stories and find peace and acceptance - and it helps a lot. I found you on Insight Timer. My heart share is that I have a hard time feeling sacred. I can intellectualize that I am. But I don’t feel sacred. I feel calm, acceptance, gratitude…. But the divine light is a bit dim. Thank you.
I would like to feel secure in my relationship, I miss feeling passion and beautiful. Life is busy building careers and being parents - no time. I long to feel confident and have a sense that I belong.
I turn 55 years old on Tuesday. I am a mom, wife, and I work a LOT as a physical therapist. I am coming up on 5 years of sobriety and I seem to take stock of my life on my birthdays. I have been living my life at full speed ahead lately. My 16 year old daughter keeps me up at night. She isn’t too interested in living lately and it kills me. I know exactly how she feels so it’s extremely scary. I think I am actually holding myself up at this time, with my mountain (higher power). It’s weird to actually think this out loud. What a change. I know for sure that living by the heart can be really hard and scary but I wouldn’t have it my other way.
I long for success in conquering my demons. Yet, I fear both not becoming the man I long to be, while I fear becoming that man at the same time. It leaves me restless and in a constant shade of failure. My wondering brain is holding myself up right now. Too scared to live a fulfilling life of beauty and wonderment. I’m squandering such a rare and precious opportunity; life. But I have hope. And I know tomorrow is a new day.
My soul is aching, I have strayed so far from my heart I am scared I can’t find my way back. I feel so terrified and scared of who I have become… I do not recognise myself and all the joy I felt in me seems so far out of reach and crushed by a life crippled by betrayal. I see the way I turn on myself and have done for most of my life and I don’t know who I am without all this pain.
This has been one of the hardest years of my life. I’ve lost my dog who was like a soulmate, my mother passed recently, and me and my cofounder are parting ways, amicably. However, I’m still grateful and hopeful for so much and I know I couldn’t be in this head space without the past two years of work on myself through therapy and building my own spiritual practice…one that is my own and makes me feel truly connected to the Source. Your Heart Minded book was a part of the work plus your meditations on Insight. ❤️
What keeps me up at night- I just ended friendship that no longer serves me. With heavy heart and a lot of thinking I realized how this person is not aligned with where I am right now in my current life. We all go thru flows and in this flow I feel like my heart needs for freedom to say no, no walk away, no tell my truth. I'm a people pleaser and this has been hard thing to overcome. Learning to listen to my heart, my truth, my higher self. Journaling has been helping and just being ok with not being ok. I absolutely love your guided meditation. You have so much wisdom and touch my heart dearly. I read your book recently and loved it so so much.
I'm a mom to young children, I wonder what the World will offer them? It feels bleek right now. I know there is hope and as you have said, things are not what they seem but goodness- sending their tender hearts out there feels really scary and big right now. Or maybe that's just parenting and continuously learning to let go, again and again and again.
Anxiety & depression wake me at night. I am clinging to my higher power, staying close to the sunlight & things that bring me joy, but trudging through fear one day at a time. I know everything changes & this too shall pass. I take comfort in your meditations & writings. Thank you for what you do.
I’m 38. Divorced. In a relationship with a good guy. I want a family but I’m afraid. I’m afraid to pick the wrong person (again). I’m afraid I’ll be divorced three times (like my parents). I’m afraid if I don’t do it now, I’ll never have the chance. I’m afraid to make decisions based out of fear.
My heart…if I picture what it feels like to stand on the edge of a cliff on a windy day and look down...that’s about the same feeling I have when I try to approach my heart. I’m scared to get too close right now because I feel I’ll just fall apart. Which might be exactly what I need to do…but I digress. I’m a trans person who finally came out two years ago, after spending 32 years feeling like an inherently broken person. So many of us grew up without the language of what and who we are (even though the gender binary is much newer than our existence)…we just felt broken, wrong, and couldn't understand why. You can imagine what kind of thoughts and actions and behaviors come with those feelings as a child and teen. I am heartbroken over the fact that youth today are being put through this same kind of shame and the same kind of suppression of language. I had hoped so badly for things to improve, and I feel like things might be even worse, because of all the media attention and strangers’ comments and analysis online. We’re just people trying to move through the world like anyone else, how is our existence hurting anyone?
What is good and carrying me through: my communities, both my queer community and my 12 step recovery community. The latter of which helps me to connect with folks who don’t share my external identities (we look for similarities rather than differences). I’m on a mission to connect with folks who don't know a trans person, and the rooms of recovery feel like a great way to do that, since we all already have something in common. :) Other things that keep me going: caring for the seedlings in my vegetable garden, knowing that they care for me right back. Helping my partner with her bakery and getting up early with her to shape croissants, spending really sweet, connective 1:1 time together early in the morning. Focusing on laugher, joy, listening to music, being silly. That last piece is especially important. If I lose my joy, then I lose. I am going to soak up all the goodness in life, even if folks might want to take it away.
I am sitting in the totality of grief losing my precious kitty of 18 years 2 weeks ago….the loss is not anything I have ever felt before she was my comfort, my companion, my true north, my best friend 😭💔 I am having to face my space with the loneliness and the emptiness that push against my being…a true heartache that leaves me lost for words…I feel the gift she has left for me to transition to my next phase in life…🙏🏻 Precious learning of surrendering to the process….
Hello Family, and you do all feel like family, thank you for your transparency in your posts. You, along with Sarah, are helping me grow into a more spiritually mature woman of 55. Since plugging into this community I have learned to smile and be grateful even on really bad days when the pain is overwhelming. My heart is full of love and compassion and gratitude and I feel I’m being called to be a light to my little corner of the world. The collective energy present here is very warm honest and raw. Thank you all, most of all Sarah, for setting the example of what it means to be vulnerable. I’m learning from you. Peace
As I approach sixty, I feel like I want a complete re-start, beginning with a true and honest step into myself. No pretending, finally not caring about what messages I have been sent over all those years. I want to feel free, to enjoy, to create and just be. I have no idea what this looks like yet, but it is thrilling for the first time in my life to not have a plan and just listen to my soul, spirituality and nature.
Lately I’ve been living my life by expressing my love. I have been calling people like my father, my boys away in college, my nieces and nephews to just ask them “how are you doing “?. The reason why is because my sons have lost two friends in the last 10 months due to an intentional overdoses of fentanyl. They were 19 year old kids and it has been heartbreaking too see the anguish of their mothers, I know these families for years and it has really impacted me. So these days I am on a mission to make sure that the ones I love know and hear they are loved.
...up at night? I travel deep into the dream world...holding me? I am holding myself for the first time in my life, standing on my own two bare feet, leaning into my intuition and heart even when it is uncomfortable...know for sure? that my practice, my connection with my heart and my jounrney on this earthly path is all sacred to me. I am deeply blessed. Thank you Sarah for your guidance, for asking the right questions, and for holding space in your beautiful way. xo
Healing nervous system. Taking ownership of my healing and not looking to my ex to help me resolve the trauma and pain she caused me. Pausing when feeling dysregulation. Releasing attachments. boundaries w self and others. Self worth/love/esteem
Sarah, I have been wanting to contact you for quite some time.
The first meditation of yours I ever listened to was the one about the warring self. I wept uncontrollably, it was like those words were made for me. Since then, I have listened to your mediations every single day.
Last year I was faced with the most soul destroying relationship breakdown, full of betrayal, deceit, violence, lies and manipulation. I can’t even put into words the gut wrenching emotional pain. The grief. The anger. It was palpable. I felt ripped open, broken, like an abyss of nothingness was inside me. My heart broke, and I gasped for air and howled with pain, I shook with fear, cried curled up in a ball for hours on end, I panicked and trembled with anxiety every day.
I wanted to die. I couldn’t function. I hit the bottom, and I couldn’t go any deeper into despair.
But then there was you. Your voice. Your teachings.
You got me through.
I kept listening to you. I committed. I kept breathing. I kept working. I recognised the unresolved grief of my mother’s suicide. I unpacked all my stuff as it bubbled up. I kept feeling. I kept being alone. I kept recognising my emotions and letting them go. I kept going to the beach.
Every word you spoke, I felt like you were talking to me. Like your words and lessons were part of my journey.
My 12yo daughter said to me yesterday ‘Mum, you have risen from the ashes like a Phoenix’.
And I have.
I am healing. I am happier and more whole than I have EVER been. I LOVE MYSELF. I feel no pain. Only compassion. I can’t ever go back to that despair, for I have been there, I have felt it, I have faced it, and I have grown.
I am reborn.
I have you to thank for that.
I have happy tears as I write this, I’m so grateful to you.
My 3 daughters listen to you too, we lie in bed each morning and meditate (if you could call it that!) together. So many great life lessons there for them.
Thank you for the gift you have given me. So blessed🦋🙏 Unfathomably blessed.
My 3 boys aged 9,7,4 keep me up at night - their troubles at school or squabbles with friends or advocating for them in the public school system as well as shuttling them around to their very busy schedule. I worry about being that steady force for them but also my own identity being tied up in it and constantly that tugging knowing things will keep changing and how to stay grounded to that fleeting moment of their childhood while also helping them to learn to be independent and kind humans. I feel so lucky to have listened to your voice after 3 surgeries around BRCA2 genetic mutation diagnoses. It pulled me through and continues everyday to remind me of all that lives inside of me and is available to me if I just look and remember. That rooting presence I can always count on for my daily walks.
I love to write, but I haven’t published in many years. With renewed encouragement, I’ve begun pouring out new drafts. As I begin to edit, I hear the whispers of old ghouls circling with their tired tales of caution. You once answered a question, describing this feeling of having so many words and not knowing which way to birth them. I’ve rarely felt so seen. Every time I feel I have something pouring from the cracks of my heart, I begin self-editing — envisioning how it (I) will be received. I quickly retreat back to the security of my private journals, stacks and stacks tucked away from critique. Even my own. I notice I cannot bring myself to read them. I am working up the courage to meet these past versions of myself with compassion. I feel this is the key to liberating my voice. As you so beautifully put it, Looking so it shall lift. I often think, maybe these words and stories are just for me? There’s a sea of voices. Maybe mine is just noise? But this unrequited gnawing is my most constant companion. No matter how many times I try to abandon her for safekeeping, she never leaves me. I find comfort in your words as I tiptoe forward, reminding myself that I can hold both fear and love through this process. thank you.
I have struggled with depression for years. The sudden ending of a long-term relationship has shaken me and presented me with a choice: withdraw further from what life offers, or wake up and engage with what is before me. I have chosen the latter, but being healthy is very hard work. I find myself seeking quiet and working to change my life-long pattern of numbing the emotional pain I faced and accepting that I cannot control everything I encounter. The self-esteem issues are proving to be especially durable. What keeps me up is knowing that I have to face the fears inside me, and make peace with them. I have found support in friends and communities such as this, where I can hear of other people's struggles and victories. I am grateful for forums such as this because people like Sarah give me hope and reinforce that opening one's heart, even when in a state of torment, and being open to what life brings, is the true path to the peace I am seeking. Thank you all.
Trying to stay present in the moment. Trying to feel safe. Trying to listen more carefully to what resonates with me. And manifest that knowing in more self-authentic art making (such as it is! : )) Peeling away the layers of getting to know and embrace myself.
It has been a long few years, but I think I'm finally learning to stop striving all the time. To take the time to see the sunshine bursting through the trees and hear the birds chirping on a walk. I continue to work on loving myself and believing I am enough just as I am.
I want to start this by saying thank you from my heart of hearts for all that you do. You’ve been a long-time inspiration and teacher for me, and unbeknownst to you, you’ve seen me through many seasons of life. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It’s an honor to walk this world with you.
Now to answer your questions…
In the past couple of months, it has felt like most everything in my life has unraveled to an extreme degree, mostly all by factors well outside of my control. Without going into it (as I feel it reads a bit like a sob story at times and that’s not my intent in the least), some of the biggest questions (the non-existential ones anyways 😉) I have been staring down are about home.
What makes a home? Where is home? How do I nurture home wherever I go? How can I balance homes in different places and people simultaneously?
At the same time, I’ve been thinking so much about gratitude. The past 12 months have brought me to my knees more times than I can count - at times by force, and at times by my own surrender. Someone said to me recently, “Char, you’ve had a lot of bad luck.” I thought about that and in a moment of self pity, I wanted to resonate with it…but I just couldn’t. Even though it might be true, it’s also only half the truth. The other half is that in the bad luck, all your good luck becomes magnified too. Even though the past 12 months has brought me to my knees over and over and over, I have had the best luck in the fact that I have a tribe of brilliant and beautiful people and forces who have helped me stand up and take another step forward time and time again. On days when it’s easy to feel like the universe is against you, I’ve had to remind myself that can’t possibly be true when I look around and see all that I still have.
“Humbling” is a word I’ve used a lot lately to describe this particular season I am in. Humbled to still be here and to have your teachings as another hand that have helped me up over and over again. 🙏💛
My heart is so wonderful and she speaks to me more deeply than any words can say. The invisible thread which connects us to every single being, creature, tree, plant innumerable creations. What’s keeping me up is going back to worrying about why someone doesn’t like me. I realize to be content right now No Matter What is happening in life. We all have this one precious life……Let’s be at peace here and now. I know for sure peace is the most important thing for me. Peace with my creator, my self then my fellow beings. Thank you Sarah for your beautiful insights. I do love you
Dear Sarah, my heart is beating so fast while i write this words! About 5 years ago i was forced to make some rather lifechanging choices and that was for real the start of getting to know me and my heart again after years and years living putting others wellbeing before my own. I met my dearest friend while i studied to be a assitant nurse and he told me that it was ok to love my self first and he told me about you on Insight timer 🙏 I struggled a lot with lonelyness and was seeking confirmation from others, no i know that it is my own company och confirmation i need the most when i am feeling lonely. And i now love to sit i silence and knowing that the answere is there in my warm loved heart ❤
Thank you so much Sarah for being a dear feiand of mine i turn to sometimes just to listening to and say ahhh, i am a just a human being trying to be human 😍
I am in love with my self and to all that is in this one precius life 💞
Thank you for this beautiful invitation to fully share myself here. I immediately notice how your question has given me the permission I hadn’t realised I needed. I feel like I could pour out a thousand words right now, and yet still I know I will hold some of those back for who wants to read a thousand words? I just want to convey this sensation of a floodgate opening simply because someone - you - has actually asked me how I am, with sincerity, love and kindness.
It doesn’t feel like I have many people in my life who do that right now, and you are showing me the value of what it means for me to have that. And I bless my sacred stars that I at least now offer that kindness to myself, but of course, love from another can offer a whole other level of comfort and surrender. I know I have the opportunity to ask you something, anything, each month, and yet I realise now, that I’ve never asked, perhaps because I’m conscious of asking something too specifically related to me. It’s as if, in spite of the years of self-work, self-actualisation and self-love, there is still a belief in me somewhere that I can’t or shouldn’t make it all about me, even though I have seen countless times how other people’s personal enquiries have been as applicable for me as they have been for them, for of course, we are all connected, we are all one.
The first obvious stirrings of my soul journey began in 2014, and accelerated rapidly at the beginning of the pandemic in February/March of 2020. I am transformed on the inside and yet my environment has largely remained static. I have lived back with my parents more or less since 2016 when my ex-husband and I sold the house that we had only purchased 2 years before, with the intent of living our lives together and building a family of our own. Life clearly had other plans for us both, and I can truly say that I have no regrets about any of it, but right now I am in that awkward transition stage of knowing I am the caterpillar transformed into the butterfly, struggling to release my new form from the chrysalis that enabled my transformation to occur safely, but that I have now outgrown. I know that this old environment will slowly cause me to die if I don’t succeed in breaking free. Your photo mentioning the dirt is also synchronistic for just yesterday I was sharing with someone that it feels like I am a new plant trying to break through the earth, but the soil of my past keeps falling back on top of me, obstructing my upward trajectory and almost causing me to suffocate. I have only just started to put words to this experience that feels to have been going on for a few months, and I truly believe that I can give voice to it now because I can finally see the light up ahead.
I have big plans and changes ahead of me. I have no idea how they will turn out but I know that if I never try, I will never know and so on Friday, I booked myself a flight to Mexico from the UK for a month’s time. I will join a friend there for six months and see if my new life belongs there with him. I have no attachment to outcome, just an eagerness to explore the possibilities of what could be when co-creating with another powerful and loving soul.
Other pulls on my heart since making this decision are now causing some waves in me and I am hoping to delay Mexico by just a few weeks so that I can take part in a sacred pilgrimage in my homeland before I take some time away from her. I feel a tiny fear rising of disappointing the one waiting for me in Mexico but I know that the relationship I am yearning for is one where both partners value the desires of each other’s hearts and support and celebrate them with patience and love, trusting that if each chooses the other and encourages the other to live in their full truth and expression, there will always be peace, harmony and reverence for the magic and mystery of life and for the free will to choose our own path, that each of us were born with.
It’s an exciting time that follows on from what has been a difficult, and almost agonising, time but I know that out of the depths of despair come the greatest moments of clarity and lightness. I am grateful for this life and for this journey of twists and turns and leaps of faith. Sarah, I am so deeply grateful for your weekly love letters and heartfelt offerings, and for this question you have posed to us all today. You have offered us your hand and created a space in which we can open our hearts and bare our souls. Thank you for this most precious gift, for your love, for your patience, for YOU. I love you, I love me, I love us all. Thank you to all who read this and to all who choose to share themselves here.
Together we stand united in peace, love and reverence for our beloved Earth and this one precious life that we have been given. May our lives be as awesome and magical as they possibly can be 🙏🏻💗🌟💙🌷
Thank you for asking such an intimate question. My heart has been, is & continues to be on an ongoing journey home. Recently this is both an inward & outward experience. I now live on 3 acres (truly a gift) with my dear life partner. My heart speaks to me in silence & beauty. I love listening to Turning to the Mystics which is a podcast by the Centre for Action & Contemplation- James Finley is the teacher.... my heart tells me there's something it wants me to hear in what he articulates..
I long for timelessness of peace that knows no boundaries
I long for an expansion of peace and beauty - and for others to experience that
I know the goodness of beauty - the ever and always giving nature of Life - I'm sustained by allowing tears to flow, flood & nourish.
I know there's an ever deepening homecoming I'm being called to constantly
I long for clear streams
My heart knows that your weekly Folding In is food & nourishment for my soul
What keeps me up At night is the world I chose to bring my precious child into. Every time there are signs of further decay , chaos, uncertainty and upheaval I ache for her. I can not save her. All I know is to pray that I have given her all that she needs to survive and please g-d be happy and fulfilled. As my own beloved mama told me, “There are no guarantees in life.” May my darling girl be happy, healthy, safe and peaceful. May she live with ease and be free from suffering. 🙏🏻💕
Oh my....I’ve read only half of these and I am nearly in tears. This might need to become a thing. Thank you. These messages are priceless. Water to my earth.
I am currently kicking up dust, stripping back, reviewing, reviving, renewing and preparing to unpick 12 years of living - to liberate my senses onto a plot of land to start afresh with a long-standing dream of establishing my permaculture home and become part of a food growing collective. I feel giddy with childlike glee that THIS is now happening for me and all my labour is finally budding the fruit stems of years to come. My busyness now and subsequent doings will be met with dawn chorusing: birds in trees I have a list to grow that embody the spirit I now summons
Hello Sarah - I’m an emergency medicine physician in a major metro area. I’ve been with many ill, dying, and recovering patients due to the pandemic over the past two years. I’m watching with horror and compassion of the suffering of our world, locally and globally, and to the atrocities and cruelty of a senseless war in the land of my grandfather - Ukraine. Your many meditations and courses have been a blessing for me, many times keeping me from going dark, helping keeping on path. I thank you from the deepest parts of my heart and soul for your being, here, now, Sarah Blondin.
What keeps me up at night….the many voices in my head all trying to take center stage at the same time! Mostly, for me, I question why I choose to do things which sabotage any positive results I may have achieved in my wellness journey. I feel I am an armchair expert on so many levels yet don’t do things I should to make positive progress in certain areas of my life. Thank you for asking—— I constantly listen over and over many of your offerings and reflections. Just hearing your voice soothes me in the moment. Much thanks
Sarah, in you I have finally found someone who I feel speaks to my feelings & gives me the space, words & thoughts to move forward. I separated from my husband of 18 years a few years ago. I have a gifted daughter studying university several provinces away, but has her own struggles. I have an adult son with severe autism. I also help care for my dad. I’ve had relationships that have been important to me, but have been hard too. I work, I bought my own house & I am spent. I care for many and have little time for myself. I worry about my children so much. However, I have a smile on my face each day because I have to be strong to keep going. Thank you for being a light for me. My favorite quote: Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, courage is the little voice inside your head at night that says, I’ll try again tomorrow. 🙏
My dear Sarah, this wonderful journey into my heart has been one of discovery and acceptance. By being able to sit in silence I have discovered that the journey towards my heart is sublime, I have not seen fireworks or felt the universe open before me, no, it has been almost imperceptible and I can only recognize that subtle change when I realize that I am at a point where reacting is no longer an option, thanks to your book and your meditations I can observe myself and without judging anything I am able to let go with love and feel peace.
I am happily adjusting to retirement and listening every day to meditations on Insight Timer without the pressure of having to get to work is making my heart soar.
What I know for sure is all of us are struggling, all of us know pain. None of us is absolutely right or wrong, we are somewhere along the spectrum of all things. What I know for sure is life with others is compromise, life with the earth is sacred and essential. What I know for sure is we are risking our existence on the planet for things that don't matter and won't matter if we cannot survive. What keeps me up at night is, what about the children? What I want is for children to be valued and loved, sheltered and safe, nurtured and educated, treated as the beautiful gift that they are. What I hope for is a more peaceful, kind, and loving world. It is possible because it is in our power, but if it is to be actualized, all of us most sow seeds of peace every day. These are things that keep me awake at night. But in the light of day, I love the people I am with and I am grateful for that love and the love that comes back to me through the faces and eyes and arms of my grandchildren, my own children, my friends, my husband of 40 years. Love is the oil of our lives, without it we seem to dry up and become brittle, angry, rigid, unforgiving, inhuman. What we all need is more love. Grateful for you Sarah and your influence in the world. We need more of that and more of you.
To release the approval of others and take back my power. A step by step process.
The place
I found a place inside my heart—thwarted by these thoughts of mine
Echoes of my souls deep knowing…Before beginning, but at life‘s start
Standing at a threshold—At once, a beam of light shown through
— fastened to my own conception; Crumbled, by foundations purpose.
Here a place of warmth, contentment. Always held, yet in obeisance—
Strength, surmounted all the states. To reveal simplicity in its stride.
Suddenly, dawn fomented; gentle mist, fresh breeze, gushed my lovers breath
Then going on inside a dream, where nothing looked as it was;
Came upon the ancient stones, that held the pool of indigo bliss.
Sitting there, where all came clear; had I been there all the while?
Indeed; since this time of birth! Smile wiped the moistened cheek—
thinking brought me around to feel; this heart of mine is all that’s here!
I love this Sarah, thank you.
The past two years have been a period of extreme growth for me in all ways. I am a reading interventionist and have been teaching literacy online, using a multi-sensory approach (yes!) since March 2020. I have had to teach myself so very much! My brain is overloaded. Teaching literacy in this way brings me and my students so VERY much joy! All of the Teacher Tingles! (That is what I call it to my students, that feeling of Spirit, Energy, moving through me when we are learning together. :). ) There is so much more I want to do with my work. But I feel a little bit traumatized.
Also, in the past 6 months, I have gotten a divorce, packed up my things (going through every item in the house - reliving the memories attached, loving them, grieving them), driven away from the Georgia home I have lived in with my 3 children and now ex-husband for 25 years, and moved across the country to the mountains. This is something I have been longing for for quite awhile but have waited to do until the kids were grown. My ex-husband and I handled ourselves and the divorce so very well. Good changes, huge changes.
What is keeping me up at night is something that my mother said to me probably 20 years ago, or maybe when she was my age. I always considered my mother to be highly spiritual. She was doing yoga and practicing meditation before anyone else (1960s) in Alaska. She gave me my first Deepak Chopra book, sent me to Kripalu in the 90s. But I remember her words so clearly - "I guess this is all there is to life." I think that may be when she stopped searching. Stopped practicing.
I have made these huge changes! I am Free to Be Me! Amazing opportunity! But now that I am here, I am afraid. I do NOT want to end up in that same place - "I guess this is all there is."
I feel like I have not much time. A sense of urgency as my body shows signs of aging, and I make doc appointments to deal with worsening arthritis in my hip, etc. I am only 56! I feel young inside! Not yet not yet not yet! I am vital! Radiant! I have not yet learned what I came to learn! And that is the real issue...I have not yet learned what I came here to learn. I have not yet done what I came here to do. That is what is keeping me up at night. How do I conquer my fears? They've been with me since I was tiny?
The workshop yesterday was so very wonderful. I cried through the entire thing. Much appreciation, Sarah.
You have been a daily guide for 3 years as I recovered from a serious accident. I truly don’t know where I’d be without your meditations on surrender, trusting yourself, living in the moment and transforming from head focused to heart minded. I love your openness, vulnerability and loving energy that pours out to your community. Thank you for being you, so authentically.
My heart has been happy & feeling good…… I became the caregiver for an infant baby! I was an empty nester but through it all she is a complete joy to have in the home. I know for sure that I will obtain my dream job in another state very soon & continue to provide a safe & loving environment for this newborn baby whom I love ❤️
Grief stricken, lonely, and tired, I suppose but I guess that’s to be expected, even at this stage of morning.
See, starting at the tale end of last year my reality was slowly ripped to shreds as 3 of the most important people in my life all died within a 3 month span.
On Oct. 13th (2031) my AA sponsor, Jamie passed away (from an aneurysm), three week later my only sibling, my sister, Nikki (my best friend, my everything) died from an overdose. She was in recovery, as am I but had relapsed. Then, early this January my first and only Buddhist teacher, Wade passed away from a heart attack.
I wish with all my heart I could actually articulate exactly HOW I actually feel but it’s indescribable. Life changing, of course but more then that. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Half of me died with the first too and then with Wade just nailed the coffin.
All I know is I refuse to give up. I refuse to numb this pain, I choose to feel it all. The pain, the sorrow, the loneliness, the disappear. I choose to feel it because I choose to live and soon I shall. Once this grief simmers down… but I know one day it shall. I just have to keep hope.
You’re meditations have helped me so much, Sarah. You have no idea. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I’m 44. Single mom of 2 amazing kids (9 and 11). I suffer from chronic depression, anxiety and PTSD and am treatment resistant. Been fighting this battle for 10 years. I do not love myself and feel tremendous guilt and sadness that I can’t always be present with my children. That’s all I want…for my kids to not remember me as someone who was in bed all the time. I just want to engage in life, not watch it pass me by.
I’m just trying to DO. and stop being in my own way.
Hi Sarah, Thank you for asking. Without details, my birth family’s trauma was filled with brokenness and pain. My most recent loss was my only child and son to suicide. I have long studied spiritual traditions to help me find unravel the stories and find peace and acceptance - and it helps a lot. I found you on Insight Timer. My heart share is that I have a hard time feeling sacred. I can intellectualize that I am. But I don’t feel sacred. I feel calm, acceptance, gratitude…. But the divine light is a bit dim. Thank you.
Trying to forgive and hold boundaries for myself.
I would like to feel secure in my relationship, I miss feeling passion and beautiful. Life is busy building careers and being parents - no time. I long to feel confident and have a sense that I belong.
Hi Sarah,
I turn 55 years old on Tuesday. I am a mom, wife, and I work a LOT as a physical therapist. I am coming up on 5 years of sobriety and I seem to take stock of my life on my birthdays. I have been living my life at full speed ahead lately. My 16 year old daughter keeps me up at night. She isn’t too interested in living lately and it kills me. I know exactly how she feels so it’s extremely scary. I think I am actually holding myself up at this time, with my mountain (higher power). It’s weird to actually think this out loud. What a change. I know for sure that living by the heart can be really hard and scary but I wouldn’t have it my other way.
I long for success in conquering my demons. Yet, I fear both not becoming the man I long to be, while I fear becoming that man at the same time. It leaves me restless and in a constant shade of failure. My wondering brain is holding myself up right now. Too scared to live a fulfilling life of beauty and wonderment. I’m squandering such a rare and precious opportunity; life. But I have hope. And I know tomorrow is a new day.
My soul is aching, I have strayed so far from my heart I am scared I can’t find my way back. I feel so terrified and scared of who I have become… I do not recognise myself and all the joy I felt in me seems so far out of reach and crushed by a life crippled by betrayal. I see the way I turn on myself and have done for most of my life and I don’t know who I am without all this pain.
This has been one of the hardest years of my life. I’ve lost my dog who was like a soulmate, my mother passed recently, and me and my cofounder are parting ways, amicably. However, I’m still grateful and hopeful for so much and I know I couldn’t be in this head space without the past two years of work on myself through therapy and building my own spiritual practice…one that is my own and makes me feel truly connected to the Source. Your Heart Minded book was a part of the work plus your meditations on Insight. ❤️
What keeps me up at night- I just ended friendship that no longer serves me. With heavy heart and a lot of thinking I realized how this person is not aligned with where I am right now in my current life. We all go thru flows and in this flow I feel like my heart needs for freedom to say no, no walk away, no tell my truth. I'm a people pleaser and this has been hard thing to overcome. Learning to listen to my heart, my truth, my higher self. Journaling has been helping and just being ok with not being ok. I absolutely love your guided meditation. You have so much wisdom and touch my heart dearly. I read your book recently and loved it so so much.
I'm a mom to young children, I wonder what the World will offer them? It feels bleek right now. I know there is hope and as you have said, things are not what they seem but goodness- sending their tender hearts out there feels really scary and big right now. Or maybe that's just parenting and continuously learning to let go, again and again and again.
Your words are such a comfort.
Anxiety & depression wake me at night. I am clinging to my higher power, staying close to the sunlight & things that bring me joy, but trudging through fear one day at a time. I know everything changes & this too shall pass. I take comfort in your meditations & writings. Thank you for what you do.
I’m 38. Divorced. In a relationship with a good guy. I want a family but I’m afraid. I’m afraid to pick the wrong person (again). I’m afraid I’ll be divorced three times (like my parents). I’m afraid if I don’t do it now, I’ll never have the chance. I’m afraid to make decisions based out of fear.
all the places I tried to belong to and all the people I long for
Hi Sarah, thank you for opening up this space.
My heart…if I picture what it feels like to stand on the edge of a cliff on a windy day and look down...that’s about the same feeling I have when I try to approach my heart. I’m scared to get too close right now because I feel I’ll just fall apart. Which might be exactly what I need to do…but I digress. I’m a trans person who finally came out two years ago, after spending 32 years feeling like an inherently broken person. So many of us grew up without the language of what and who we are (even though the gender binary is much newer than our existence)…we just felt broken, wrong, and couldn't understand why. You can imagine what kind of thoughts and actions and behaviors come with those feelings as a child and teen. I am heartbroken over the fact that youth today are being put through this same kind of shame and the same kind of suppression of language. I had hoped so badly for things to improve, and I feel like things might be even worse, because of all the media attention and strangers’ comments and analysis online. We’re just people trying to move through the world like anyone else, how is our existence hurting anyone?
What is good and carrying me through: my communities, both my queer community and my 12 step recovery community. The latter of which helps me to connect with folks who don’t share my external identities (we look for similarities rather than differences). I’m on a mission to connect with folks who don't know a trans person, and the rooms of recovery feel like a great way to do that, since we all already have something in common. :) Other things that keep me going: caring for the seedlings in my vegetable garden, knowing that they care for me right back. Helping my partner with her bakery and getting up early with her to shape croissants, spending really sweet, connective 1:1 time together early in the morning. Focusing on laugher, joy, listening to music, being silly. That last piece is especially important. If I lose my joy, then I lose. I am going to soak up all the goodness in life, even if folks might want to take it away.
Thanks for your support and love,
Rian
I am sitting in the totality of grief losing my precious kitty of 18 years 2 weeks ago….the loss is not anything I have ever felt before she was my comfort, my companion, my true north, my best friend 😭💔 I am having to face my space with the loneliness and the emptiness that push against my being…a true heartache that leaves me lost for words…I feel the gift she has left for me to transition to my next phase in life…🙏🏻 Precious learning of surrendering to the process….
I love living simple, one day at a time, with alot less, closer to God, being outdoors, the slower pace is me!
Hello Family, and you do all feel like family, thank you for your transparency in your posts. You, along with Sarah, are helping me grow into a more spiritually mature woman of 55. Since plugging into this community I have learned to smile and be grateful even on really bad days when the pain is overwhelming. My heart is full of love and compassion and gratitude and I feel I’m being called to be a light to my little corner of the world. The collective energy present here is very warm honest and raw. Thank you all, most of all Sarah, for setting the example of what it means to be vulnerable. I’m learning from you. Peace
Good morning Sarah -
As I approach sixty, I feel like I want a complete re-start, beginning with a true and honest step into myself. No pretending, finally not caring about what messages I have been sent over all those years. I want to feel free, to enjoy, to create and just be. I have no idea what this looks like yet, but it is thrilling for the first time in my life to not have a plan and just listen to my soul, spirituality and nature.
Lately I’ve been living my life by expressing my love. I have been calling people like my father, my boys away in college, my nieces and nephews to just ask them “how are you doing “?. The reason why is because my sons have lost two friends in the last 10 months due to an intentional overdoses of fentanyl. They were 19 year old kids and it has been heartbreaking too see the anguish of their mothers, I know these families for years and it has really impacted me. So these days I am on a mission to make sure that the ones I love know and hear they are loved.
...up at night? I travel deep into the dream world...holding me? I am holding myself for the first time in my life, standing on my own two bare feet, leaning into my intuition and heart even when it is uncomfortable...know for sure? that my practice, my connection with my heart and my jounrney on this earthly path is all sacred to me. I am deeply blessed. Thank you Sarah for your guidance, for asking the right questions, and for holding space in your beautiful way. xo
Healing nervous system. Taking ownership of my healing and not looking to my ex to help me resolve the trauma and pain she caused me. Pausing when feeling dysregulation. Releasing attachments. boundaries w self and others. Self worth/love/esteem
Wondering if I'll ever find the one and wanting to be in a warm place on a board in the ocean, feeling the waves roll under my body.
Sarah, I have been wanting to contact you for quite some time.
The first meditation of yours I ever listened to was the one about the warring self. I wept uncontrollably, it was like those words were made for me. Since then, I have listened to your mediations every single day.
Last year I was faced with the most soul destroying relationship breakdown, full of betrayal, deceit, violence, lies and manipulation. I can’t even put into words the gut wrenching emotional pain. The grief. The anger. It was palpable. I felt ripped open, broken, like an abyss of nothingness was inside me. My heart broke, and I gasped for air and howled with pain, I shook with fear, cried curled up in a ball for hours on end, I panicked and trembled with anxiety every day.
I wanted to die. I couldn’t function. I hit the bottom, and I couldn’t go any deeper into despair.
But then there was you. Your voice. Your teachings.
You got me through.
I kept listening to you. I committed. I kept breathing. I kept working. I recognised the unresolved grief of my mother’s suicide. I unpacked all my stuff as it bubbled up. I kept feeling. I kept being alone. I kept recognising my emotions and letting them go. I kept going to the beach.
Every word you spoke, I felt like you were talking to me. Like your words and lessons were part of my journey.
My 12yo daughter said to me yesterday ‘Mum, you have risen from the ashes like a Phoenix’.
And I have.
I am healing. I am happier and more whole than I have EVER been. I LOVE MYSELF. I feel no pain. Only compassion. I can’t ever go back to that despair, for I have been there, I have felt it, I have faced it, and I have grown.
I am reborn.
I have you to thank for that.
I have happy tears as I write this, I’m so grateful to you.
My 3 daughters listen to you too, we lie in bed each morning and meditate (if you could call it that!) together. So many great life lessons there for them.
Thank you for the gift you have given me. So blessed🦋🙏 Unfathomably blessed.
My 3 boys aged 9,7,4 keep me up at night - their troubles at school or squabbles with friends or advocating for them in the public school system as well as shuttling them around to their very busy schedule. I worry about being that steady force for them but also my own identity being tied up in it and constantly that tugging knowing things will keep changing and how to stay grounded to that fleeting moment of their childhood while also helping them to learn to be independent and kind humans. I feel so lucky to have listened to your voice after 3 surgeries around BRCA2 genetic mutation diagnoses. It pulled me through and continues everyday to remind me of all that lives inside of me and is available to me if I just look and remember. That rooting presence I can always count on for my daily walks.
I love to write, but I haven’t published in many years. With renewed encouragement, I’ve begun pouring out new drafts. As I begin to edit, I hear the whispers of old ghouls circling with their tired tales of caution. You once answered a question, describing this feeling of having so many words and not knowing which way to birth them. I’ve rarely felt so seen. Every time I feel I have something pouring from the cracks of my heart, I begin self-editing — envisioning how it (I) will be received. I quickly retreat back to the security of my private journals, stacks and stacks tucked away from critique. Even my own. I notice I cannot bring myself to read them. I am working up the courage to meet these past versions of myself with compassion. I feel this is the key to liberating my voice. As you so beautifully put it, Looking so it shall lift. I often think, maybe these words and stories are just for me? There’s a sea of voices. Maybe mine is just noise? But this unrequited gnawing is my most constant companion. No matter how many times I try to abandon her for safekeeping, she never leaves me. I find comfort in your words as I tiptoe forward, reminding myself that I can hold both fear and love through this process. thank you.
Incredible. Breathtaking. Thank you.
I have struggled with depression for years. The sudden ending of a long-term relationship has shaken me and presented me with a choice: withdraw further from what life offers, or wake up and engage with what is before me. I have chosen the latter, but being healthy is very hard work. I find myself seeking quiet and working to change my life-long pattern of numbing the emotional pain I faced and accepting that I cannot control everything I encounter. The self-esteem issues are proving to be especially durable. What keeps me up is knowing that I have to face the fears inside me, and make peace with them. I have found support in friends and communities such as this, where I can hear of other people's struggles and victories. I am grateful for forums such as this because people like Sarah give me hope and reinforce that opening one's heart, even when in a state of torment, and being open to what life brings, is the true path to the peace I am seeking. Thank you all.
Trying to stay present in the moment. Trying to feel safe. Trying to listen more carefully to what resonates with me. And manifest that knowing in more self-authentic art making (such as it is! : )) Peeling away the layers of getting to know and embrace myself.
It has been a long few years, but I think I'm finally learning to stop striving all the time. To take the time to see the sunshine bursting through the trees and hear the birds chirping on a walk. I continue to work on loving myself and believing I am enough just as I am.
Hi Sarah,
I want to start this by saying thank you from my heart of hearts for all that you do. You’ve been a long-time inspiration and teacher for me, and unbeknownst to you, you’ve seen me through many seasons of life. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It’s an honor to walk this world with you.
Now to answer your questions…
In the past couple of months, it has felt like most everything in my life has unraveled to an extreme degree, mostly all by factors well outside of my control. Without going into it (as I feel it reads a bit like a sob story at times and that’s not my intent in the least), some of the biggest questions (the non-existential ones anyways 😉) I have been staring down are about home.
What makes a home? Where is home? How do I nurture home wherever I go? How can I balance homes in different places and people simultaneously?
At the same time, I’ve been thinking so much about gratitude. The past 12 months have brought me to my knees more times than I can count - at times by force, and at times by my own surrender. Someone said to me recently, “Char, you’ve had a lot of bad luck.” I thought about that and in a moment of self pity, I wanted to resonate with it…but I just couldn’t. Even though it might be true, it’s also only half the truth. The other half is that in the bad luck, all your good luck becomes magnified too. Even though the past 12 months has brought me to my knees over and over and over, I have had the best luck in the fact that I have a tribe of brilliant and beautiful people and forces who have helped me stand up and take another step forward time and time again. On days when it’s easy to feel like the universe is against you, I’ve had to remind myself that can’t possibly be true when I look around and see all that I still have.
“Humbling” is a word I’ve used a lot lately to describe this particular season I am in. Humbled to still be here and to have your teachings as another hand that have helped me up over and over again. 🙏💛
My heart is so wonderful and she speaks to me more deeply than any words can say. The invisible thread which connects us to every single being, creature, tree, plant innumerable creations. What’s keeping me up is going back to worrying about why someone doesn’t like me. I realize to be content right now No Matter What is happening in life. We all have this one precious life……Let’s be at peace here and now. I know for sure peace is the most important thing for me. Peace with my creator, my self then my fellow beings. Thank you Sarah for your beautiful insights. I do love you
Dear Sarah, my heart is beating so fast while i write this words! About 5 years ago i was forced to make some rather lifechanging choices and that was for real the start of getting to know me and my heart again after years and years living putting others wellbeing before my own. I met my dearest friend while i studied to be a assitant nurse and he told me that it was ok to love my self first and he told me about you on Insight timer 🙏 I struggled a lot with lonelyness and was seeking confirmation from others, no i know that it is my own company och confirmation i need the most when i am feeling lonely. And i now love to sit i silence and knowing that the answere is there in my warm loved heart ❤
Thank you so much Sarah for being a dear feiand of mine i turn to sometimes just to listening to and say ahhh, i am a just a human being trying to be human 😍
I am in love with my self and to all that is in this one precius life 💞
Dearest Sarah,
Thank you for this beautiful invitation to fully share myself here. I immediately notice how your question has given me the permission I hadn’t realised I needed. I feel like I could pour out a thousand words right now, and yet still I know I will hold some of those back for who wants to read a thousand words? I just want to convey this sensation of a floodgate opening simply because someone - you - has actually asked me how I am, with sincerity, love and kindness.
It doesn’t feel like I have many people in my life who do that right now, and you are showing me the value of what it means for me to have that. And I bless my sacred stars that I at least now offer that kindness to myself, but of course, love from another can offer a whole other level of comfort and surrender. I know I have the opportunity to ask you something, anything, each month, and yet I realise now, that I’ve never asked, perhaps because I’m conscious of asking something too specifically related to me. It’s as if, in spite of the years of self-work, self-actualisation and self-love, there is still a belief in me somewhere that I can’t or shouldn’t make it all about me, even though I have seen countless times how other people’s personal enquiries have been as applicable for me as they have been for them, for of course, we are all connected, we are all one.
The first obvious stirrings of my soul journey began in 2014, and accelerated rapidly at the beginning of the pandemic in February/March of 2020. I am transformed on the inside and yet my environment has largely remained static. I have lived back with my parents more or less since 2016 when my ex-husband and I sold the house that we had only purchased 2 years before, with the intent of living our lives together and building a family of our own. Life clearly had other plans for us both, and I can truly say that I have no regrets about any of it, but right now I am in that awkward transition stage of knowing I am the caterpillar transformed into the butterfly, struggling to release my new form from the chrysalis that enabled my transformation to occur safely, but that I have now outgrown. I know that this old environment will slowly cause me to die if I don’t succeed in breaking free. Your photo mentioning the dirt is also synchronistic for just yesterday I was sharing with someone that it feels like I am a new plant trying to break through the earth, but the soil of my past keeps falling back on top of me, obstructing my upward trajectory and almost causing me to suffocate. I have only just started to put words to this experience that feels to have been going on for a few months, and I truly believe that I can give voice to it now because I can finally see the light up ahead.
I have big plans and changes ahead of me. I have no idea how they will turn out but I know that if I never try, I will never know and so on Friday, I booked myself a flight to Mexico from the UK for a month’s time. I will join a friend there for six months and see if my new life belongs there with him. I have no attachment to outcome, just an eagerness to explore the possibilities of what could be when co-creating with another powerful and loving soul.
Other pulls on my heart since making this decision are now causing some waves in me and I am hoping to delay Mexico by just a few weeks so that I can take part in a sacred pilgrimage in my homeland before I take some time away from her. I feel a tiny fear rising of disappointing the one waiting for me in Mexico but I know that the relationship I am yearning for is one where both partners value the desires of each other’s hearts and support and celebrate them with patience and love, trusting that if each chooses the other and encourages the other to live in their full truth and expression, there will always be peace, harmony and reverence for the magic and mystery of life and for the free will to choose our own path, that each of us were born with.
It’s an exciting time that follows on from what has been a difficult, and almost agonising, time but I know that out of the depths of despair come the greatest moments of clarity and lightness. I am grateful for this life and for this journey of twists and turns and leaps of faith. Sarah, I am so deeply grateful for your weekly love letters and heartfelt offerings, and for this question you have posed to us all today. You have offered us your hand and created a space in which we can open our hearts and bare our souls. Thank you for this most precious gift, for your love, for your patience, for YOU. I love you, I love me, I love us all. Thank you to all who read this and to all who choose to share themselves here.
Together we stand united in peace, love and reverence for our beloved Earth and this one precious life that we have been given. May our lives be as awesome and magical as they possibly can be 🙏🏻💗🌟💙🌷
Thank you for asking such an intimate question. My heart has been, is & continues to be on an ongoing journey home. Recently this is both an inward & outward experience. I now live on 3 acres (truly a gift) with my dear life partner. My heart speaks to me in silence & beauty. I love listening to Turning to the Mystics which is a podcast by the Centre for Action & Contemplation- James Finley is the teacher.... my heart tells me there's something it wants me to hear in what he articulates..
I long for timelessness of peace that knows no boundaries
I long for an expansion of peace and beauty - and for others to experience that
I know the goodness of beauty - the ever and always giving nature of Life - I'm sustained by allowing tears to flow, flood & nourish.
I know there's an ever deepening homecoming I'm being called to constantly
I long for clear streams
My heart knows that your weekly Folding In is food & nourishment for my soul
Thank you
Love Jill
What keeps me up At night is the world I chose to bring my precious child into. Every time there are signs of further decay , chaos, uncertainty and upheaval I ache for her. I can not save her. All I know is to pray that I have given her all that she needs to survive and please g-d be happy and fulfilled. As my own beloved mama told me, “There are no guarantees in life.” May my darling girl be happy, healthy, safe and peaceful. May she live with ease and be free from suffering. 🙏🏻💕