Crossing Over the Breaking Point

I’ll never know why life throws curve balls that sometimes knock you flat. Situations out of your control that make you bend beyond any bending ever managed prior. I don’t even think I have the ability to TRY to understand anymore.

But I’ve discovered there’s a sacred place beyond the breaking point, the point where there’s a choice to either find yourself shattered or contorted, twisted, still intact but bent beyond recognition. There’s a fine line where you cross over into infinity, into a field of open ended possibilities and options. And it’s simply a matter of figuring out it’s a choice, even when there seems to be a tornado of events swirling around. One small shift in your brain where in the face of “fight or flight” you find a calming peace and strength that isn’t your own but IS your own all in the same instant. And you make peace with everyone and everything.

A person can open eyes and see that you can walk the path of victim, victim of a disease, victim of physical pain, victim of a broken heart… or you can walk the path of seeking joy, no matter what happens around you. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember the power of laughter, the incredible strength of a smile, but it appears as if magically, unrehearsed and unplanned after the temporary tragedies.

We have a mystical, magical ability to find light in the middle of dark, happy inside of sorrow, courage inside of fear. We find it within. We find it within each other. A quiet, subtle “homing device” that brings us to a better place.

I’m meeting up with an old friend from college today after spending the evening with incredible friends, music and laughter. And it might not seem like much, but it’s enough to alter a life. It’s the way God has whispered reassurances. It’s the way I’m reminded that sometimes you have to just completely let go and trust good things will always, always find you.

April Fool's Day

April Fool
Do you ever wake up realizing you’ve been making choices and decisions from a place of fear and pain rather than from a place of love? Ironically on April 1st, I woke up today with that understanding about my own self. I’m amazed at how the human brain uses sleep time, night time, to sort and file and “clean house” and re-think in order to solve issues and bring about clarity and organization to a mess of jumbled up, chaotic thoughts.
April Fool’s Day Eureka Moment
There’s a hidden art some of us perfect without even knowing we’ve mastered it; self-sabotage. I woke up with eyes wide open after my son asked me yesterday after telling him about some parts of my life, “Mom. If I were here telling you what you’re telling me, what advice would you give to me?” The question stopped me in my tracks and I immediately knew how I would respond to my own child. I had never even considered treating myself with the same support and love, the same as a mother looking in from the outside. I went to sleep, thinking about the wisdom he offered. The minute my eyes opened (literally and figuratively) I saw how time after time I’ve climbed my way through the self-sabotage ranks. Those two little words were standing in front of my brain waves as clearly as a physical object in the room: SELF SABOTAGE.
“Self-sabotage” is defined several ways, but this one speaks loudly – “Self-sabotaging behavior results from the same cause, a misguided attempt to rescue ourselves.”
An attempt to rescue ourselves from suffering the unpleasant realizations life always circulates that causes our own mind to spin and whirl and tangle itself up inside of “what ifs” and “buts” and “why?s”. While trying to save me, I hurt me. I lose me.
The biggest self-defense mechanism of all.
I’ve thought all along that I was really good at embracing “success”, reaching for goals, taking steps that will bring good into life. But this morning I suddenly saw an invisible dance I’ve been doing that tells my inner child, “You’re not good enough. You’re not worth it. You don’t deserve….” I saw how I’ve chosen to subtly “punish” myself for allowing bad things to happen, for allowing my own self to be so vulnerable at times that others have entered and caused damage, punish myself for things that are most often completely out of my control but that I’ve internalized into “it’s all my fault”, "if I were perfect" "if I tried harder" "if I were only better".
Over and over my mother has told me that the one and only reason we are here on this earth is to be happy, to seek out joy. That should be an easy road map, but there are a few of us out here that manage to knock ourselves off course because those qualities end up making us feel good about ourselves, and we view ourselves as being too small to earn “the good life”.
I hope today I can trust “awareness is key”. I hope I can start changing what I’ve never before been able to see. Time to go kick life’s ass and follow the “path of greatest ease” which was the challenge placed before me the last time I spent time in Maui with wonderful healers of hearts.
"Live long and prosper"……
Love yourself.