Messages From This Week Of Being Human
current study.
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Every day, you will encounter sublime and striking feelings. No one can live without inhaling and exhaling, bearing witness, and staying limber. No feeling is permanent. No feeling is final. One moment, you catch yourself smiling, and the next, floored under life's pressure. You are cycling through the pulse of creation. Shaming or condemning yourself while under a temporary swell of life in movement is like unplugging from your pulse and body. I see all ways and love all forms. I choose to stay fully alive and embodied.
There will be times when you startle people with your honesty and transparency. Only some people want to see what you do, not everyone, which is none of your business. Your business is opening your heart and remaining so open you refuse to collapse and withdraw under someone else's discomfort and perception. You are not to diminish who you are, no matter the cost. People most often condemn what they cannot tolerate in themselves. Gentle, the world will touch where you most need to release. Focus on something other than who is pushing. Pay close attention to where the pressure is asking to let go.
Your most intimate relationships will show you where you need help. Help in loving and speaking in loving ways. You will be humbled in this process, for every day will reveal another part that needs to shift. Heavy-handed requests, judgments, and harsh sounds cause your orbit to spin out of order. What does love and softness look, sound and move like? Be the center point of consciousness where everything around you is an extension of your bloom. Everyone in your life is gathered around the same table, learning how to mimic one another. May it be kindness and companionship you are teaching. May you brighten and uplift each others life force. We can get caught asking others to be for us what we are not for them. Try, try again.
Notice if you have let your pole star out of your sight. Recognize if all you are doing is acting in small ways that do not contribute to your getting where you'd like to be, and be honest about the retracting fear. Stop one thing keeping you from reaching your destination, and then another, until one day there's no more clever distraction in front of you and your next most brave choice and action.
Your parents are getting older and will someday die. You will watch them descending toward the horizon, gradually moving toward their great disappearance. Fixing or forcing more life from them will not keep them here, and only make things harder. Tenderly open your eyes and heart to the truth of this stage and the next. If it hurts, feel the sum of that hurt. Life will never be more honest and close in than during this time. Please don't waste it in denial. Love while you still can without the noise of your protest.
Your children are your precious companions on this journey. They are your soul friends. They are not your sources of love or tools for manipulation and control. They are your friends. Speak to them in a way that nurtures this friendship, allowing them to rest here with you, feeling your warmth and wisdom. Micro managing, coaching and shaping them, will only weaken their spirit and their connection with you. Catch yourself. Smile at them, be a guiding presence, and let them draw close because of the love that radiates from you. Be the kind of person you most want to walk this path with.
The pile of laundry on the floor of your room is not something to swear at every time you pass. It is evidence of a full home, and a full life, and a full heart. You want the mismatched socks on your floor.
What is swelling around you this week? What is asking to be in conversation? I so love when you share.
thank you.
love,
Sarah
Good morning from the wilds of Northumberland, UK. I am like cloth spread out to dry ... on 'tenterhooks' ... stretched every which way to become smoother in my ways! Your words echoed a counsellor who is hearing my cries to understand my relationship with my daughter. She is hiding behind her career, having pushed her grief way down inside ... and so she shuns my vulnerability. It echoes what lies just beneath the surface of her ... and if she opens up she won't be able to do her job as well as she does. She is my surviving child and she unable to support me through my journey with prolonged grief from losing my son, her younger brother over 20 years ago. I have PTSD I am told. She does too, but will not acknowledge it. She found him ... he died from a heart arrhythmia ... Sudden Adult Death. I find myself very alone with my feelings right now ... they rise and fall many times during the day. She cannot bear to see me open, curious and asking for help ... she sees this as a weakness. My grief has resurfaced because when he died I held it all together for everyone else! I had no time to grieve ... no time to just sit with my son because I made a choice in a moment of wanting something good to come out of the loss ... I donated his organs ... in that moment, I lost control of how I could and would grieve. He was taken ... meetings, forms to be signed. He helped several children but now I consider how I make my choices ... have I enough time to discern the 'fallout' understanding more now of the Law of Cause and Effect! While it helps me see why my daughter is unable to support me, and all I need is to hear me, and not judge, I certainly am not a needy Mum ... I have to respect her boundaries and this seems so wrong. She pushes me away and all Mums have a need to nurture. So I live afar ... the beach is my medicine. I realise my words here may be too raw for some to read. I read 'broken open it is happening for you ... not to you' and right now I am not seeing the value of these words. How we are asked to rise above our suffering ... seek acceptance or is it resignation with one of life's hardest lessons. Many say keep busy ... its not as easy as it sounds. Many say in time she wlll come round ... but for me every day that passes is another loss of mending our wounds. How can I let go? It is not natural. Thank you Sarah for your inspirational words that soothe so many of us.
I lost my husband four years ago in August. He was everything to me and my five adult children. I am still grieving, and I think I will forever grieve because I loved him so completely. As I slowly try to figure out how to live without him by my side, I realize that I have to accept my grief and hurt every day. I think in the beginning I tried to push away those feelings of pain. There is no "fast pass" through grief. Every day brings memories and feelings that can be hard to feel. I appreciate the way you talk about the fear that we have when we are facing intense emotions. You just have to accept them even if you don't like them. John had cancer that tore through his body for 3 years. He would always remind me that we were running a marathon. He used to say, "Hey hon, how about if we just do today." Such an easy saying, yet incredibly hard to do some days. Thank you, Sarah for your posts. I look forward to them. They have helped me through so much.