Month: January 2021

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”- Rumi

A good friend of mine and I were in the perennial, deep discussion about “free will.” Everyone has their own take on that, and my point here is not to discuss the answer. That’s an answer we must each come to on our own.

But we were also talking, at the same time, about “prioritizing”, something I certainly have seemed to have a challenge with. (Ugh. Anyone else out there have a love/hate relationship with  procrastination and distraction?)

I absolutely loved a question my friend asked me: “Aly, what is it you can’t help but do?” So I’ve been thinking about that.

What if I started treating myself like a “real writer”, someone who can’t help but write? How would I then begin to prioritize my love of writing? How would I begin to treat it as if it were important?

Writing is the thing I can’t help but do. At least it’s one thing I can’t help but do. Through everything, it helps me cope with my life, even if nobody else were to care about what I’m saying. And the beautiful, the marvelous thing, is that now and then I hear that someone does care, that there was some benefit because I shared my words.

What if I treated myself every single day as if my dreams are important and worth building? Even if they fail. How would I begin to prioritize testing, failing, learning…and then getting back up?

What if I started treating myself as if I were someone worthy of being happy, healthy, and living in a state of joy and abundance? 

Here I am at this place in my life that feels like “sink or swim”. I can either crash and burn…or possibly fly.

At this moment, I just want to be grateful for that.

I just want to appreciate my journey to this place, this now, that is calling to me rise, to breathe, to listen to my heart. This moment is calling me to be present, awake, brave, and at the same time surrendered.

“You can’t push this river,” a lovely woman said to me. I love that. Yes, I must be patient. I must allow the river to carry me. With focus, intention and compassion, I must do what I cannot help but do. I must allow myself to be silently drawn by the strange pull of what I really love.

Now is the time for noticing and for prayer. Now is the time for being open and receptive.

No, I can’t push this river.

Sometimes it hurts to feel. Still,I am finding that to dive deep, to sit and unravel the feelings blesses me.  Fear begins to show its nuances of shame, guilt, confusion, rage, grief, disappointment, and frustration. I notice that to recognize everything that’s coming up and to let it dance in front of me has healing properties. 

To acknowledge it all has healing properties.

To confront it forces me to see where I have betrayed myself, where I have given up my power, and where I have refused ownership of my own life. I see that I have blamed others. And from time to time I have turned a blind eye to my responsibility.

To see this can feel humbling, and frightening, like devastation…or the edge of devastation, but it is also a path to growth. A new page is turning in my life and sometimes I feel as if I am not turning quickly enough with it. It feels like I’m not keeping up, which feels precarious. Yet how could I be separate from this unfolding of my life? I am always held by something I don’t necessarily understand.

We are all so very human, and yet the divinity of Beingness shines through us, too. At times we appear to ourselves to be helpless, receiving moment by precious moment the grace of God. I don’t know all the answers, I only know that there is a magic in the acceptance of what is. And so I work at that.

Grace. Grace. Grace.

Right now this grace looks like this lovely house I get to live in. It looks like a roof over my head and a warm bed to sleep in. It looks like plenty of food in the refrigerator, hot and cold running water, and a shower every morning. Not bad for “the edge of devastation.”

And the question is: What now? 

How do I want to step up? Own up. Choose.

Four years ago I didn’t see the sharp left turn coming  up in my life. And yet I jumped. I allowed myself to be brave and willing and curious. Paradoxically, sometimes it felt as if I were being dragged kicking and screaming into something foreign and unfamiliar. I see that all of that was a strange grace too.

I am not the same woman I was four years ago. And I do not yet know the woman I am becoming. I am breathing myself into a new life. With patience, listening closely to the wisdom of my body, I am beginning to trust that the way is opening up in front of me.

(Thank you so much Dr. Kate Dow for your service in teaching women the ways of getting in touch with our feminine knowing.)

Dedicated, with so much gratitude, to Dr. Kate Dow, to the Cultivating Calm and Confidence Within program and to the wonderful women with whom I am steadily growing closer to the wisdom of the feminine that shines within all of us.

Here I am. Stumbling. Standing. Walking. Dancing. I am alive within this vast Amazing Grace. Love’s confusing joy. Mystery…and yet not a mystery at all. I am alive within this vibrating Presence. (Where did all this come from?)

For that, let me remember to be truly grateful.

For the miracle of this vehicle that carries me through my days…for my breath…for the miracle of BEING…let me be truly grateful.

Let me be grateful for the grace of each day.

This year I am asking to face whatever shows up with less fear. More openness. More willingness. More courage. I am asking for more delight through the new year as I learn to be more attentive to the wisdom that is right here…in everything. 

I am seeking to move in love, service…surrender.

There is a divine wisdom that is alive in my cells, in my blood and my bones…in my muscles…in my DNA. 

Do you feel this wisdom too? Deep in what you are?

Let me learn to be more receptive to the guidance and the gentle kindness in the murmurings of my own heart.

I am learning to hear something that is much deeper than the noise and clamor of the world.

Something that is deeper than doing and achieving.

Deeper than measuring up…or the silliness of comparing ourselves to one another.

I am learning to rest in my own nature and in the wisdom of what I am.

When the world feels like a cacophony of judgment and rage…anxiety and threat; I am learning to find a peace that holds all that wild energy with compassion. There is a whispering: “What’s true?” Something is bigger than all of that, and it isn’t in my head.

Day by day, as I practice, I am becoming a friend to myself. As I breathe, as I chant or hum, as I lie on the floor and attend the sensations…everything I feel; I am becoming a friend to myself.

As the new year begins, my wish for all of us is that there be peace. Let it begin now. Let it begin in the only place I know where to start: here…in this experience. In this body.