I made another meme!  😀

After my descent in to technology Hell yesterday, I needed to remind myself of this!  Life is good!  It has it’s ups and downs but it’s here for the living and I’m living it.

I realized this is just the Secret of Life right here.  It’s not that complicated.  If you’re wondering where you belong, you just need to gravitate toward those people and things and life experiences where you feel your light shining and go there and shine!  I don’t know about you but sometimes I land in a dark scene and keep igniting this light inside thinking I can bring back a spark of something…all the while water is being jetted at me from all angles.  Or in some cases, receiving no nourishment at all leaving my dying on the vine. Thankfully those times don’t happen often but when they do, don’t they take you off guard and you find yourself trying to ignite your flame, while drowning?  Or dying of thirst?

A client going through an extremely difficult moment in her life asked me this week “if I let go, am I giving up?”.  That is a very very profound question and one I think many of us navigating all this surrender business confront often.  That fine line between letting go and giving up.  Not having the answer to that, I just reflected to her “how does that question feel to you as you ask it?”.  Sometimes, as Rilke says, we just need to be with the questions, with “all that is unresolved” in our hearts. The waterworks then started for her and it was healing.

I think answers come to us if we let go.  I think all this pursuing can exhaust us–the seeking seeking seeking feeling like we’re in some kind of control here.

I also said to this woman “someone once said to me years ago ‘the only prayer that really makes sense to me is Not my Will but Thine be done’ “.  Powerful simple words no matter who/what you attribute that “Thine” to.

I didn’t know I was gonna go all up in here when I made that meme but I’m glad I did.  That’s the beauty of blogging which is basically journaling for me and the winding roads it can take you once you put yourself on that blank page.

I’m not gonna lie, yesterday wasn’t my best day and it was my day off.  Alfonse and I went to drop off clothes to this organization that helps women get back in the work force then went to a wonderful place for lunch.  It didn’t take me long to assess that the black cloud of depression had floated over him again.  It’s disheartening when that happens for sure.  But it does cycle.  I’m the one person who intimately knows those peaks he hits (which are really just neutral kind of normal days for most of us) and holds out for them.  I just can’t find it in me anywhere to give up on my brother.  That’s my gift; my tenacity.  Yet at the same time I do need to get better with the letting go part.

He told me he’s decided to not go out to our family beach home for two weeks with me in Sept.  That’s kind of heartbreaking but at the same time hearing him say it wasn’t a good idea for him to be away from his treatment team right now is just a sign of sound decisions and good mental health and awareness.  Yet, it’s a slap in the face from Schizophrenia too.  It is just a relentless vicious disease that has infected the least deserving person in my world.

our cottage is the white one with the pointy hat on top 😉

I find myself taking that strong light I have within and thinking I can combat his depression by over-efforting it in to his scene. That somehow I can light a fire inside him.  Not my best coping strategy.  Back to my other meme, sometimes it takes great effort to sit back and wait, trusting, doing nothing.  This creates a faithful person I think.  And this life has done nothing if not offered up opportunities to make me faithful for greater tomorrows.

After yesterday of my iphone dying, my computer acting weird,  having to remember or not remember every single password I ever created, getting terrible service at the Apple store then great service at Verizon and the phone I really wanted — my new Samsung Galaxy Note–I went out to the movies again with my bff Amy.  There was lots of laughter and a great dinner at our favorite restaurant after; sharing, connecting, nourishment.   I woke up today, squeezed slipped in to my exercise wear and made it to Bootcamp knowing today will be better than yesterday.  It’s just putting one foot in front of the other sometimes–simple as that.

My teacher John Barnes says “you will only take your clients as far as you’ve been willing to go yourself”.  As I reflect on the recent influx of new clients coming in with serious life issues going on, I realize I’m right on track accepting what this life serves up, digging deep and finding those places where I can shine and support.  As I quietly let go holding the space for their own healing to occur.  I need to remember I do possess that skill on days like yesterday with Alfonse.  That’s my current learning curve and it’s a big one.

How miraculous that at the same time I’m focusing on where I belong, where my light is ignited and shining brilliantly, certain shadows have slipped away effortlessly and naturally.

Yes, I do think it’s that simple.

We can all complicate the simplest of things in our lives can’t we?  (notice I’m dragging you along with me in that 😉 ).

Sometimes the places that should be the dark spots, for example my brother, are the places where we shine brightest.  Then sometimes those where we feel we should be shining or once shone or have oh so much potential to accept our shining (right?) are squelching us right through our denial.  It can be tricky business this light of self awareness.  But I know every single one of us knows, immediately, when we ask that question “does this person/place/group/job/relationship bring out my shining?” what the answer is.  The trick is to not talk ourselves out of it.  Just go there, or find somewhere that’s a yes and go there.

I say get out there and shine today even in a small way.  I intend to.

And tell me about it.  If you’d like.  🙂