Tue, 07 May 2024 12:15:09 -0700WeeblyWed, 10 Apr 2024 10:05:26 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/uncertainThe two sat on the leather couch, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, hip to hip and holding hands. It was obvious that they were utterly enchanted with one another. From the outside they were beautiful to look at, he with big fluffy blond hair and she with perfectly straight and shiny brown hair with natural copper-colored highlights. They shared that they were considering moving in with one another. She would leave her city dwelling to live with him in his home in the country which he shared with two other housemates. It was a big decision for both. He has a nine-year-old child that visits every weekend, and she cherishes her huge circle of friends and community above all else.

With eyes flickering and a quiet intensity, he shared one more complexity: “She is monogamous, and I am attempting to move out of my chosen polyamorous lifestyle - for her.” He shared how he had discovered sexuality as the part of his life where he could explore intimacy. It was safer to be vulnerable with a sexual partner then with a life partner, so he wanted to have any opportunity to stay open and spontaneous to future sexual encounters for this is where he belonged. He knew this, that a singular relationship would keep him from experiencing the power of sexuality and attention, yet he had stayed true to her for now.
With a tinge of bitterness, he pulled his hand away sharing that in his opinion she had ‘bent the rules’ by being overly physical with men while at weekend dance parties and summer festival events. “Where does she draw the line?” he complained. And just like that, a bit of space appeared between the two sides of their bodies, a sliver of separation as they pulled away in growing confrontation. He was not ashamed of the intrigue he felt, seduced by a hunger to be powerful and desired, something he had not experienced enough of. She liked sex well enough and found their encounters satisfying, but the hunger in him was searching for more, and this was confusing to her. He knew that she could not understand how joyous it felt to have the inner, empty void within filled with the power of sexual connection. She knew that he could not understand the joy she would love to feel in a secure, stable and monogamous relationship.

She began to realize that his search for more would interrupt her own hunger to live a safe and ordinary life, something he abhorred. By now their bodies had separated completely so that they were able to turn toward one another. They quietly gazed upon each other while holding the paradox of their dilemma; they could not be together if each were true to their hunger. That was the best they had for the moment, so with a bit of healthy distance, and the truth spoken, they simultaneously reached for the others hand once again. She fought a feeling of guilt for wanting him to be different, healed, and he fought his huge, horrible fear of being ordinary and unwanted.

They discovered that they could stay connected while holding their differences and this gave remembrance to a feeling of love. Visibly, they landed in their hearts. As each of their hungers subsided into the background of consciousness, they could see each other a bit more clearly. They reached for the other hand too, creating a firmer emotional connection with enough physical distance that they could be together, and unmerged. A silent wave of wisdom filled the room as their demands quieted. She could appreciate the part in him that longed for excitement for she was this too. And he could begin to feel an appreciation for her longing for security and love for he was this as well.

They had an uncanny ability to be comfortable with uncertainty, eclipsing any need to guarantee an answer or an outcome. And so it was for now, a situationship that warranted more patience, something they seemingly had plenty of.
]]>Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:04:04 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/untetheredHe was a stunning bird, especially during mating season with black feathers on his whole body and white, white wings. His inner and outer migrations had taken him beyond the hurdle of victim consciousness into an empowered expression of being. It was obvious, as his demeanor was innocently proud and his eyes direct. However, he still experienced a pull of neediness when attracted to a potential flying partner and this would snap him right back to judging his weakness for relying on others for validation or approval.

He truly did not want to inconvenience any other bird, believing, in his weaker moments, that his mere presence was too much. Beak chattering with anxiousness in his belly, he would replay scenarios over and over wondering what he should or could have done differently. This immobilized his lovely wings rendering him incapable of finding a mate while his family group were depending on him for just this. They needed to bolster their numbers before winter.

He had already meandered through the spiral work of inner healing and was now confronted with reconciling the deeper contractions he felt around attachment and love. These birds displayed human-like behaviors and just like humans at this level of awakening, this bird knew the answer was within. He was beyond giving himself validation and approval and was ready for an entirely new level of consciousness.

He perched on a sturdy branch with head upturned toward the bright sun, eyes closed. He basked in the light coming in through his eyelids and feathered skin taking comfort in the warmth. The outer light saturated his inner body becoming inner light. He surrendered as the light penetrated and liberated even the densest parts of his core energy field. Light. Bright. Untethered. Everything took on a deeper meaning as he gleaned insight into the inner workings of his mind, thoughts, and life!

He shook his body and wings as birds do when they are releasing energetic holding patterns at a deeper level. This instant maturing process evoked a natural calling for Love to further transcend the mind, opening him to the whole ocean of Higher consciousness. What an achievement, what a transformation as he became a carrier of Light and higher consciousness. From the depth of his being he felt calm and peaceful, with no evidence of lack to be found. He does not know how long he remained on that branch. A minute? An eternity? But, when his eyes opened, he saw with a new perspective.

Several females lit upon the branch on either side of him taking refuge in his brightness. They all rested together as his inner light expanded into a field of light around his body, and theirs. And then, at a certain moment, all the females flew off save one, the perfect one. Life and love brought him the one he needed to fulfill his role in the flock. The two closed their eyes and leaned in, head to head, with unbiased satisfaction and gratitude.
]]>Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:02:26 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/womb-of-emptiness     With a keen memory, the little mouse vividly recalled being in her mother’s womb feeling disconnected and ill at ease. The dreadful familiarity of the womb-like void made it easy for her to access whenever she felt threatened by her current and most meaningful relationships. It was also very challenging for her to feel the difference between the void as a place to check out from her feelings, lost in the absence of love, versus the void or womb as an atmosphere of letting go where it is safe to relax and renew.

Within the womb that she knew so well there quickly grew a wall she named ‘safety.’ The job of safety was to play the game of protection tricking her into a false sense of love. When safety executed her job in a practiced and expert way, the little mouse believed that love would flow under impossible circumstances with unavailable friends. This meant that she could habitually settle for emotional breadcrumbs, putting her faith in those who could not show up for her. This would give her a false sense of security that in turn created a flexibility in her that allowed the absence of love to feel normal.

She reflected upon her relationships with humility, realizing the depth of her dilemma. She was at the origin of her attachments, willing to martyr her presence for a drop of apparent care. So, she felt into her place of refuge, experiencing it as both frightening and enticing. A mixture of a drug-like addiction to feeling aloof and superior to the pain of abandonment and an invitation to a larger version of the womb. The little mouse realized that she could enter the womb as the child of her mother, or she could enter and surrender in the great universal womb of creation. She shuddered at the difference between her two options, feeling powerless to the experience of being in the maternal womb, and powerful in her choice to allow the great and mighty cosmic womb to hold her with divine love.

The sweet little mouse realized that both options were true, her mammalian experience and her divine heritage. The agony of her life origins haunted her yet surrendering to the unconditional care of her greater origin finally loomed larger than her little life. She was no longer afraid of the vast, empty void, entering as the radiant light of awareness, identified as nothing, and feeling connected to everything.

She began to taste freedom and even bliss as she relaxed more deeply into the mystery of emptiness. As she was freefalling, her body/mind cleared the deepest of unconscious mental and physical patterns, beliefs, and assumptions. She could finally trust the journey. And in so doing she was led by the hands of pure grace into her higher nature, shifting into the upper room perspective and experiencing a divine love that she now knew could and would hold all flavors of misery.

The womb of the divine radiated an undeniable and unconditional love that the little mouse received. It healed her hurt thereby relinquishing the role of ‘safety’ in exchange for presence and peace. She could now move through the world as a child of God first and the daughter of her mother second. Her primary nature permeated the shadows of her mammalian life experience and she too radiated with the vast light of love and innocence. She could envision her life and relationships differently now, knowing that love attracts love. “So be it,” she proclaimed, and the universe gladly responded.
]]>Mon, 01 Apr 2024 10:28:42 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/no-details-necessaryTitrate: Place your soft open attention around the periphery of sensations that you call ‘overwhelm.’ No need to dive into the epicenter at all. Keep your soft attention around those sensations until you need to shift and look out your window at that beautiful tree dripping with spring buds. Back and forth, as slowly as need be, to make friends with the sensations in your sensitive body.
With each pendulum movement from sensation to beauty her capacity to be with overwhelm changed. And the feeling of overwhelm changed too. She could now speak of two incidents, generally, no details needed, from childhood. She began at the outermost periphery: “Where were the parents? Why were we so unsupervised? I needed protection!” she exclaimed with an immense grief. She looked out the window and relaxed into the beauty, breathing through her mouth, taking all the time her body needed to re-set. She had never spoken these words, much less mentioned what happened. Mentioning what happened is not necessary anyway, I assured her.
New periphery: Asking her to find one word to describe what happened she chose “inappropriate.” My parents had creepy friends with creepy kids she shared, explaining their track record of lawless acquaintances. At least the ones she knew of. She was very young when ‘things’ happened, and while she had tried to tell her parents, they kept inviting those same friends over for weekly visits. Still leaving her unsupervised with their children. Window. Looking out the window, she sighed, long and slow sighs, breathing slowly through her mouth, returning to calm. She took her time demonstrating excellent self-care.
The periphery of pain was getting smaller now and the next layer revealed a buried rage. What would rage say? Rage, her protector, was very wise. Rage, now turned outrage, knew exactly what she needed, what was missing, what needed to happen, no, what should have happened. This time she felt relieved for it was the rage that she had been managing to bury. She suspected that the effort to manhandle rage turned into overeating and the habit of filling up shopping carts on her favorite clothing websites.
Window. Window. Window.
The periphery narrowed yet again, and she could see herself as a child feeling confused, lost, and very scared. She noticed that these feelings created the belief that she was shameful and broken too. She has young children now and could see her young version of herself as she would her own. Instead of ignoring the feelings of her young experience, she allowed them to be as if holding them for her: The shame, confusion, loneliness, and feelings of fear. No window needed, just a loving warmth emanating through her body allowing all these new sensations to rise and integrate.
Her ‘radar detector’ for zeroing in on people who are untrustworthy and potentially misleading is well cured. She realized that instead of scanning for danger, she could notice all the other people. The ones she could not see before; those who are trustworthy and honest. Oh, this would make for such an easier life, for her and her children.
This time she looked out the window with awe and wonder. Together we repeated: “All of life comes to me with joy, and ease, and glory!” five times. Who knows why five, but it was enough. Her body tingled, a growing excitement in her belly, and a smile on her lovely face.
]]>Sun, 31 Mar 2024 10:29:07 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/franFran. Dear Fran. Every morning at 4 a.m., before even the farm roosters began their morning crow, she lay in bed and began her planning. All the things. So many things. Strategic planning, hurried planning, responsible planning. Her solar plexus ached with a strong desire to do well and mean well, but she always felt cold, stiff, rigid. She was alive yet exhausted, reliable yet relentlessly busy, integrous yet demanding. A rumble of nausea rose in her gut, interrupting her thoughts, if just for a moment.

Her red-haired Scottish husband, who lay just a few inches to her right, was oblivious to her early morning list making narrative. He always slept hard, physically exhausted from all the work he needed to complete on his wife’s list from the previous day. Each morning, he would wake up slowly, yearning for silence. Quiet. Instead, he would wake to her intense enthusiasm and her lists. The obligation to make her happy crept in and yet, day by day, he felt more and more distant from his dear Fran.

Fran dreamed of sitting on their front, wraparound porch of their enormous hand-constructed log cabin where she could view their fenced in areas for the animals that needed boundaries like goats and sheep. She would also see the vast, unfenced areas where the other animals ran free like dogs and fowl. But she was too busy to sit for they had developed a beautiful working farm growing food for themselves and others, just like the one that Fran’s grandmother left behind in Switzerland so many decades ago.

Grandma’s name was Francis, and she began working at the age of five. She had become a furious list maker, like her daughter and now her granddaughter Fran. Three generations of never relaxing, busy, busy, constant movement and agitation. All three women felt irresponsible, guilty, and quite literally nauseous if they stopped for any measurable amount of time to take pleasure in their lives. No time for that.

The ‘list maker’ in all three women appeared grandiose, lacking in vulnerability or warmth, yet the hidden hunger that powered its intensity longed for softness, love, and security. The degree to which list making constructed itself into a viable identity is to equal degree the longing for safety and love. Grandmother Francis and her daughter could not see this for they were loyally blind to its construct, driven to play out the role from beginning to end. Fran, however, had her husband to thank, for he saw. He wanted Fran to enjoy all that he had created in her name. Loyally blind to her lists and to her heart, his exhaustion woke him up and he spoke.

So that morning, in bed, the farmer turned to his wife and whispered, “Let’s not waste the best years of our life Fran.” She immediately felt nauseous, spinning and alone. It was a feeling that her mother and grandmother knew as well. A feeling of desperation and fear that the women in Frans family conquered through making and checking off lists. Who knew when this way began. Fran had heard a bit about her great grandmother, that she too was caught in an inner whirlwind feeling of ‘something is wrong, so get it right.’

Fran allowed herself to feel that familiar feeling, asking her dear husband to hold her tightly. She breathed. She cried. He whispered that nothing is wrong. Everything is alright. She asked him to repeat that over and over again. And he did. He loved his Fran and the way she loved their farm and their life. Fran lay quiet and very still as her husband offered a blessing to the women from whom she came. He honored their way as the old way. A way that served their fierce fears and got them through. They would be remembered for their contributions and given a place in their hearts.

He held Fran tightly and whispered that it was okay to let the compulsive list making go and know that she is intrinsically bound to her Swiss lineage too. She sighed. And relaxed. She could feel a bit more playful now, and softer. There were things to do on the farm, but Fran knew that they could wait. And so that morning they stayed in bed taking pleasure in each other, if just for awhile, on the bed that they had built together.
]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:53:04 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/black-sheepHer Mamaw and Papaw could not see her for who she was when growing up, or even now, thirty-four years later. Both parents had an uncanny knack for pinpointing the faults they saw in her as not fitting in. And all those ‘faults’ were the very things that made her unique and special. In addition, the things that the little cowgirl cared about, like a kitten or a doll, would mysteriously disappear. Sometimes she would not receive presents at Christmas, her parents explaining how she had been a very bad girl that year.
Despite how much the girl could identify the illegitimacy of her parent’s behavior, she felt guilty for letting them down and responsible for hurting them. She also felt a chronic anxiousness made up of anger, sadness, powerlessness, and loss. She hated speaking with her Mamaw in particular, often not answering the phone when she called. She knew that this was a big step, but she also realized that her parents were not going to be around forever. It was still scary to imagine what her Mamaw would say to shatter her fragile world.
The cowgirl still gave her parents the power to destroy her. That’s first, and second, she felt guilty, and third her hips sank under this weight rendering her immobile and silent. She was struck and stuck and barely keeping her head above water. Yet, she came to realize that she must honor her parents as they are, keep a healthy distance, and use the life her parents gave her to be true to herself without anger. She did not want to be a rag doll anymore, but a cauldron of love and self-care.
Luckily the cowgirl had help. Her girlfriend saw too and supported her autonomy and agency and authority. She learned to take her parents off the imaginary pedestal and see them as they are too. Human. Conditioned. Stringent. She recognized their dire need for her to fit into a code of behavior that would guarantee belonging to a people and a place that was not hers.
She started to move through the world not as her parents’ broken daughter, but as a composed and talented woman. Her reclamation came with the understanding that her anger was a signal that let her know that she had an unmet need; the need to be seen and celebrated and supported for all that she is. Rather than waiting to receive this from her parents, or even others, she learned how to see, celebrate, and support herself. This perspective and orientation were exactly what she needed to honor her lineage while stepping into a vastly different lifestyle.
She would have liked to receive permission and a blessing to do it differently from her parents, but that would have been impossible. Their blessing would have been for her to be like them. So, she asked the soul of her long gone Auntie Sarah to step forward instead as the cowgirl knew that she was the right one for this message. After all, she was her namesake.
The warmth of love that Auntie Sarah shared from her soul gave cowgirl the freedom to be. Auntie Sarah had a message that expressed how necessary it was for her great niece to do it differently so that the family tree could grow a new limb. She was not an outcast or a black sheep, but a forger of higher consciousness and for that, Auntie was so grateful for it was something she had tried to express. In her time there were too many constraints and who she was became an unbearable and unspoken secret.
Auntie Sarah reiterated that she belonged, and she was different. She could be as she was meant to be now for it is what all children want. And the cowgirl turned city girl received the blessing in every cell of her body, appreciating her special role in her family.
]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:52:06 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/dharma“I am a foreign object, lucky, but not worthy.” She worked in ‘big law’ culture representing people who were not as lucky and who felt equally unworthy. Her parents hailed from a small country that hosts the largest open-pit gold mine in the deserts of central Asia, north of Afghanistan. The lawyer would return ‘home’ every other year for weddings and funerals, but grew up in Adams Morgan, an upscale neighborhood in D.C.
Yasmina looked in the mirror once a day, disciplining her eyes to look downward any other time there was a mirror around. Bathrooms made this difficult, but she had mastered the art of not looking. No selfies or group photos either, at least as few as possible. This was especially hard since her many friends all loved to document evenings out with lots of pictures for memory’s sake.
On one of these evening dinners out, she looked over at her best friend and shared that being a lawyer was not her first career choice; it was her parents. “I did what was expected of me and I made sure that I was very good at it. And now I have everything that I could want and more, but I do not like my job.” She explained how she functioned automatically, returning home every day to her sofa for hours of nothing. “What I really want, really and truly, is to be creative as a fashion stylist, teaching people by sharing the dos and don’ts of dressing well.” She has had a lot of practice in formal and more casual affairs owning three wardrobes full of clothing in her top floor apartment.
Her friend listened and asked Yasmina why she didn’t or wouldn’t explore this interest more seriously. Yasmina paused and lowered her eyes, whispering that her greatest fear is being laughed at or worse, being called stupid. “Who would take me seriously; lawyer by day, and stylist by?” She thwarted every effort to express her genius by staying in the smart lane and avoiding the other. It had to be one or the other in her view, as both seemed impossible.
Her best friend Maryam tried to understand Yasmina’s view, but her right brain made seeing her dear friend’s dilemma easy for she could be radically inclusive, seeing both her job and her interests as mutually compatible. Meanwhile Yasminas left brain saw her dilemma has mutually exclusive, eliminating any possibility of a blaringly obvious compatibility!
Yasmina gave the suitable name of ‘Fear’ to her left front and back brain. Maryam gave the suitable name of ‘Love, Awe, and Wonder’ which she called ‘LAW’ to her right front and back brain. When Maryam shared this with Yasmina, her eyes lit up hearing this acronym! She could imagine tricking her left brain by using LAW to take down the flood gates that blocked her years of unique and creative ideas. Her fear brain had no idea what to do with her genuine inspirations but could be convinced to let LAW take over simply because it loved the name!
Slowly dear Yasmina reoriented her inner perspectives enough to speak of her skills at work. “Please help me find my look,” one coworker exclaimed, and “Yes, please help me, I have a huge function coming up next weekend and I have no idea what to wear,” said another. Yasmina’s eyes lifted upwards this time with a look of awe and wonder and not a shred of fear. She had made the journey from her left brain to her right and back again as she organized her ingenuity!
The best part for Yasmina is that her parents approved. In fact, she was asked to design her cousin’s wedding ‘back home’ giving her the freedom to explore her country’s national costumes that boldly featured ornate brocade, lace, and layers of colors. Yasmina found her place in both of her home countries, slowly but surely, and no one, absolutely no one, thought her stupid or laughable, not even herself.
]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:51:07 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/awakening
She was a teeny tiny snail hiding against the furthest back wall of the open inner cavern of her shell. The left side of her viscous body contracted into a declaration of overwhelm, as every day she brilliantly performed ‘all the impossible things’ to keep the peace. The right side of her body however, contracted into a declaration of “NO!” that felt loud, unapologetic, and angry.
On occasion the inner cavernous experience became too much to bear since she was chronically enmeshed with either the right or the left side of her body. So, the tiny snail would burst out of her shell, if just for a moment, to experience what she called a ‘’bubble of awakening.’ In these rare moments she felt free, blissful, and limitless. These moments were brilliant, but ultimately overwhelming since they were short lived and without lasting effect. This was a difficult life. She felt projected from her inner life experience to the outer moments of bliss, only to collapse back into her heavily conditioned and familiar inner reality.
One day the ageing, wise snail of her small group slowly slithered up to her side. He had been eyeing her, seeing her suffering for some time. He parked his shell close to hers and waited patiently and peacefully for he was in no hurry for her to realize his presence. Eventually she did, and her tiny snail head slowly slid out from the shell just far enough to see him. She blinked and squinted, and magically his presence alone gave her permission to begin a rather long monologue of lament. She whispered at first, a small voice strained with pain, but as she came further out of her shell, her voice got stronger and louder! Her complaints were valid, he nodded, as her fatigue was monumental, and the aloneness she felt failed her precious life.
The wise one asked her how it is that she wanted to feel. “Safe,” she replied. “Safe to be me without being responsible for other people’s happiness and enormous expectations.” She could feel the weight of this burden along with the old, old longing to please. Eventually the tiny snail had said enough. Wordless, she allowed all sensations to rise and fall. The paramount effort of critical self-awareness dissolved, and the vast, open, transparent field of Awareness became the foreground and background, infinitely and eternally. All that rose as a thought, feeling, or sensation, simply dissolved back into the wordless void of love without any desire for attachment or identity.
This was no ‘bubble of awakening ’discovered as an exit strategy from the inner shell story, but a realization of God and Beingness. Truth and presence surrendered the story of the tiny snail as a transient creation with no judgement. God as Awareness and Love experiencing its creation through the snail and the snail knowing herself as That. As her personal identity project collapsed, she realized the truth of all beings, and she could simply, beautifully, purely, be.
The two snails relaxed in the sun with nothing to do, change, or fix. A bubble of quiet, palpable joy emanated from their tiny snail souls providing a lens of silent awe and wonder. The solidity of their shared inner stillness witnessed the movement of life in, through and around them with a deep, abiding care. An impersonal, cosmic love that beckoned no action, but a silent recognition of itself.
]]>Wed, 20 Mar 2024 09:34:48 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/dialecticsThe tiny owl insisted on wanting a life partner, yet wondered if she was ready or how she would know who that right owl coco was! After a string of disastrous and dangerous partnerships, she chose to be single, refraining from looking and focusing on healing her heart, mind, and feathered body. She constructed a nest of security and learned to live on her own.
Years later on a dating app called ‘Who, Who is right for You, You?’ she met a male owl and started to get to know him. She flew an hour to meet him in his territory for each of their visits as she was too cautious to invite him to hers. Her fear and control caused her to reflect on her inner turbulence and as she did, she made an interesting realization.
Her owl parents were extremely promiscuous, both having many partners, insecurities, and troubles. She became the same way as an owlet, seeking a partner based on the color of his feathers, moving into his nest, and then leaving a short time thereafter for another. Boundaryless, she mimicked her family’s ways and met a lot of danger and a bit of heartache too. So, in her abstinence, she became the opposite, enacting the truth that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Life moves in dialectics – action, reaction, synthesis. Repeat.
Now she was too boundaried! The owl went from partying to sobriety, carefree to serious, many partners to no partners and both extremes were no longer working. But, when her new friend did not call back right away, for example, she felt anxious and afraid, her mind full of ‘what if’s’ around fidelity, questioning her perceptions and wondering if being single was best.
The tiny owl was not in danger, nor was she ignoring anything important. She realized that at the beginning of her journey she needed crisis as a catalyst for change, to make the massive shift from out of control to highly controlled. But the catalyst she was now ready for was progress. She no longer needed a crisis to grow as she felt that she could learn to trust her owl wisdom and intuition and relax into a new way of being with an owl that might be the right one. She would take her chances and do it differently this time, so with a bit of fear and a lot of excitement she invited him to her nest for their next weekend visit.
]]>Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:32:02 GMThttp://thebreathingspace.org/stories/recoveryLook, this is no laughing matter. The mother took her 9-year-old son and fled her husband’s violence and unbridled tyrades to a different continent. The father in turn found them thousands of miles away and kidnapped his son, scurrying back to that unnamed country. Unbelievably, the father was entirely supported by the woman’s whole family. Every one of her family members supported the father in taking his son away from her because they value a boy’s life more than a girl.
Well, she returned to that unnamed country, found her son, and once again took him back with her to live a life of hiding. She felt betrayed, sad, hurt, lonely and truth be told, the betrayals started at a very young age. At two she was burned, at seven years old she was blamed for the string of molestation's that continued for years by various family members, all while being indoctrinated into a culture that branded all girls as useless.
She could trust no one and no one trusted or believed in her. Her life experience exuded a fowl odor of utter disrespect. None-the-less, this brave woman wanted to break free from the feelings and their stories and forgive her family. She also knew that what she wanted and needed most was to be loved, and that if she were, she would feel fulfilled. No doubt.
She held a pillow tightly as if holding the many layers of accumulated pain in her arms. It helped. She imagined her whole body being saturated with a soft pink honey like nectar, speckled with yellow and gold, that held the frequency of unconditional love. Her body relaxed. She shared this nectar with the pain pillow, and she perceived it softening too. She took ten minutes to lie down, legs bent, pillow held, to invite the chronic tension in her jaw, neck, and shoulders to relax. It was a start.
Some of her stories were just too brutal to share. Many were lost in a chronic brain fog. Her body needed recalibrating out of adrenal burnout, shame, and fear, back to a more livable setting first. So, she willingly committed to this practice for as long as it would take while slowly finding her words, one story at a time, when the timing was right. No hurry. No pressure. No judgement. She began to breathe just a little more deeply and the look in her eyes was that of extreme relief. For the first time in a very long time, she felt love for herself.
]]>