Remember this…

You are not broken.

You are opening…

The treasure you seek…

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. ~ Joseph Campbell

And how often have I kept myself from what I really want by believing in my fear more than my love of what was held in that cave?

I wonder if this rose thinks about that – if maybe it shouldn’t bloom any bigger because, you know, that leaf is right there… and you wouldn’t want to disturb the leaf, or hurt it’s feelings now, would you?

Really. We do that. Silly as it seems, we do.

So. Look around. See if those obstacles in your way are real, or if, perhaps, they are as thin and insubstantial as what is holding that rose back.

There is room for you, and for all you love.

Honest. Promise. There is.

Abandon impatience…

When you plant seeds in the garden, you don’t dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet. You simply water them and clear away the weeds; you know that the seeds will grow in time.

~ Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron ~

If only…

One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

The past two or three weeks have been a whirlwind. Sooner or later, I am sure I will begin to unwind the whirl here and tell you about it – certainly, there will be photographs of all the places I’ve been, the beauty I have seen, the things that have filled me with awe. For now, though, there’s this…

I chose the word “clear” as my word for 2012 – or perhaps more honestly, it chose me… and in any case, it certainly has been a time of clearing, of clarity, of seeing much that has been hidden away by or for me, for a very long time. It is not always so easy, this “clear” thing.

What became clear this morning is another word: regret. I’m not sure why, exactly. It could be because, in a ring with an incredibly beautiful horse the other day, I discovered I have a few regrets, and that I had never acknowledged or grieved them. Yep. That’s probably it.

So this morning, I let my brain play with that word. Regret. At first, the lyrics to “I did it my way” came through, loud and clear. And then this: if, as I truly believe, everything boils down to love and fear – which category does regret fall into? I think we tend to see it as a negative word – so, as much as I know that fear can be a positive force, I put it in that column.

Guess what? It didn’t really fit. So I tossed it over to the Love column and took a long look at it in that light. Yep. For me, that’s where regret belongs. In love.

Because what is regret if not caged love?

I regret that I spent so long believing stories that said I was bad, broken, condemned to hell. The antidote? Self compassion, love for the little girl who listened and accepted hatred that was only reflected onto her, seeing the beauty that was never tapped. Loving all that was and is and bringing it into the light.

I regret that I built walls around my heart – thick, heavy, impenetrable walls that were covered in the thorns of self hatred, making it impossible for anyone to come close. And the antidote? Letting those walls begin to crumble, finding holes in the grout, going at the roots of the vines with a machete made of truth. Letting love reach my heart in tiny amounts at first, slowly allowing the rays to get wider and stronger, beginning to create space for others to see the huge heart that had been hidden for so long.

And I really regret keeping my love of horses buried under all of that and more. From the time I was very young, I was mesmerized by these incredible animals – and wanted nothing more than to be close to them. Fear – inherited fear and my own – kept me away, in part. Beyond that, though, it was the fear of allowing myself to have what I loved – my heart’s desire. If I was so bad, so toxic, such a negative influence, how could I let myself near what I considered to be the embodiment of all that is good and true and beautiful?

I regret that I am not the only one who does this. Sadly, I think there are many of us who bar love on a daily basis, and who refuse to listen to the tiny and yet strong voice inside that knows what we truly need in order to be fully present in this world.

I have spent the last few days with a force of nature named Koelle Simpson and a posse of beyond compassionate women in an Equus Coaching workshop. To say I am grateful for this experience is the understatement of the century. While I have done a huge amount of excavation work and healed mightily in the past decade, on a gorgeous ranch in Arizona, surrounded by love in the form of fellow coaches and the teachers with four hooves, I truly found my way home.

You, as much as anybody…

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

~ Buddha ~

On Valentine’s Day, and every day, this is true.

Fear, revisited… Or, that’s okay…

I wrote this summer about fear, and truth be told, I’ve been living in the midst of it ever since.  In fact, a quick search for “fear” on my site brings up a good dozen or more posts in the last six months.  I am beginning to think that it’s here to stay.

And that’s okay.

I was talking to my best friend in Chicago yesterday, filling her in on all the ways my life is moving forward at a breathtaking rate, and she told me that I was amazing.  I breezed right by that (old habits die hard) and then stopped and circled back, asking her why she said those particular words.  Thank God for old, dear friends.  She laughed that laugh that I love, and thought for a minute before responding, “Well, you are fearless…”.  This from the woman who literally walked me through the days of unearthing the violence in my early days, the taking off of my mask, the days of hiding under the covers and crying river upon river.  Who saw me, more than once, literally paralyzed.

And then it was my turn to laugh.

Because here’s the thing.  I am scared (expletive deleted here).  Beyond words scared.  All the time.

And that’s okay, too.

I’ve come to see something really clearly.  Fear, being scared, anxiety – all of that and more – are just ways that our inner lizards, our primal selves, try to keep us safe.  This mighty yet small inner voice is the one that has descended from generations of those who survived a lot – the ones who were nervous, who watched around them constantly, who were ON ALERT!!!, in a very big way.  Tara Brach tells a wonderful story about this – the bottom line is that our prehistoric ancestors who hung out on a rock, hands in mudra and meditating didn’t make it.  They got eaten.  And so we have carried all that fear forward.  So to speak.

Here’s the metaphor for the day.  I watched a candle burn for a while yesterday, focusing on the light.  And I blew it out quickly, releasing a rather surprising amount of smoke.  As the smoke rose, I blew into it, and it disappeared.  And reappeared.  I blew it away, and once more, it returned.  It came and it went. Just like fear.

As best I can tell,  the only way out of fear is through it, over and over.  Identifying the fear, questioning it – is it fear of failure or fear of moving forward is a favorite -, allowing it to move away.  And not being so surprised when it returns.  Over and over again.

And that’s okay.  It is.

It’s Tuesday, and I am joining Heather and a great group of writers in Just Write.  Take a look!

Our work…

My work is to accept myself as I am, in this moment.

Not some thinner, more organized, streamlined future self

who may or may not magically appear one morning.

It’s to know that right here, right now,

I am allowed to love and be loved, just as I am. 

~clg

It’s time we all saw that, isn’t it?