Category: Love

I Could See Peace Instead of This

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PeaceI have an affirmation on my wall that says, “I choose peace.” When anything happens in my day-to-day life that makes my chest tense up and my heart rate rise, my mind thinks about peace. I finally know I can have it. I finally understand that peace is mine for the taking, that the Universe is standing in front of me holding a silver platter with the fancy lid lifted off just WAITING for me to accept the gift of peace in my life.

And yet, the damn drama sneaks in.

It’s almost as if there’s comfort in drama, as if in all that turmoil something is actually happening, that life’s moments aren’t going to waste. But this is nonsense. Drama is what eats up life’s moments, the moments that are given to us to live inside and revel in and feel and experience.

Have you had that moment when everything was right with the world? Maybe you were sitting outside in your yard, maybe you were next to someone you love, maybe you were beside a body of water, or on top a mountain looking out. . . and time stood still. All was right simply because in that moment, you were PRESENT, and the day-to-day bullshit was out of your mind.

Usually it only takes me a few brief moments before my ego starts shoving those worries back into my head: will I be to school to pick up my kids on time, do I have enough chicken for dinner, did I remember to submit that doctor bill to the insurance company, do I need to get in early to work tomorrow, and the list goes on, and it gets so full and so heavy that all of the present moment seems to disappear.

I’ve been studying A Course in Miracles. I always know when I’m on a trigger point because for some reason the day’s simple simple exercise becomes overwhelming, and I “never get to it” on that day. All of a sudden, instead, it takes me over a week to sit down for 5 silly minutes and do the meditation.

Here’s what has me in resistance mode this week: I could choose peace instead of this. Sit down for 5 minutes somewhere quiet, close your eyes, and let the issues or ideas in your life that trouble you come up one by one as you observe and simply repeat this idea: I could choose peace instead of this. And with each one, after you observe it and repeat this idea, let it go.

Letting it go seems like my nemesis. There’s one issue that’s currently prevalent in my life, and it has my stomach in knots far too often. It shakes my sense of self so much that I can too easily fall into self-doubt.

Does the following sound familiar:

My ego wants to be RIGHT about this; the way I feel about this situation must be RIGHT. How could I be WRONG? It seems so obvious that I am right, and I know a big handful of people that completely agree with me. This must definitely make me right, right?

Ugh, NO. It will never make you right because there isn’t a right or wrong, no matter how much you want to win. If it feels right to you, it’s right for YOU. If you’re trying to convince someone else to see it, and he/she just can’t. . . .well, that’s how it goes. People disagree. You can spin and spin your wheels trying to get someone to agree or to do what you want, and if they don’t see it they just don’t see it.

In the meantime, through all that spinning, you’re hurting yourself. Even if you’ve been unjustly wronged by someone else, when you’re spinning you’re hurting yourself.

I can actually feel my body tense when I think of this current situation in my life that has me convoluted. I can get a lump in my throat if I think of it too hard. I can break down and cry. But until I LET IT GO, I won’t have peace. And the hard truth is, if I’m not letting it go, then I’m not choosing peace.

I believe in affirmations. I believe that continuously affirming “I choose peace” will eventually bring peace to my life. Eventually this situation will fade or dissolve. Eventually I’ll have peace. But if I really want to, I can choose it right now. I can be okay with how I feel about it, and let go of the need to have anyone else see my point of view.

This isn’t about not standing up for “what’s right” or not taking action when it’s needed. This is about telling your ego to shut the hell up. This is about being steady in your Truth.

All those people throughout history that have instituted great change and inspired generations, do you think they were doing it for the sake of the drama or to appease their egos? They didn’t bother to fight about who was right or wrong; they just took action. They knew Truth, and they acted. They weren’t begging for approval.

When our bodies clench up in fear, something is amiss. In my case, it’s because I know I’m wrong. Not wrong about the issue at hand, but wrong about the fact that I’m swimming in drama instead of letting it go and accepting the peace the Universe has served up for me.

It’s not easy. But it’s simple.

I choose peace. I choose miracles. Not for anyone else’s approval, but simply for my own Truth. In my own Truth, I’m best equipped to serve the world.

And so I move onward. I hope you will too.

*Title taken from ACIM, Lesson 34

Love Poems? Really?

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crabapplesNot long ago I got a very strong message in my dreams. The message came at a time when I was mumbling through some self-inflicted struggle in my life.

So, what’s the message I got?

Write Love poems.

Spirit always talks to us in our own “language.” The Universe wants to get through, so it does what it must to be heard.

Beyond blogging and working on a book for mamas, I’m a poet. I have been a lover of poetry my entire life. I pursued poetry through graduate work, but after I became a mama, my writing slowed and slowed down.

Mothering days seemed so rushed with managing a household, caring for a child, taking care of work, that somewhere along the way, I forgot to write poems.

I have always believed in poetry as a healing medium. So in recent years, more than writing, my focus has been on sharing this medium with others and reading and discovering poems that move me.

But write Love poems?

The Universe knows me well because immediately my graduate-degree-obtaining ego proceeded to resist. I began to explain all the reasons why love poems are overrated, or shallow, or unable to fully express truth. I was put in my place quickly.

These are poems of gratitude. Each day choose one thing in your world that you are grateful for, and write a poem of Love directly to it.

And so the journey began. The path has been touch and go. Sometimes the poems come together smoothly and are given to me in one whole piece. Sometimes they are choppy. Sometimes they’re lacking because it’s a day when I can’t quite figure out what it is I want to thank. Some days I choose something but have no idea how to address it. Some days I just don’t get around to writing a Love poem at all.

But I try, and it’s a process that has shifted my outlook considerably.

You don’t have to write poems. Find your own way to express gratitude each day. Each day choose one thing or person or situation to thank.

The most important thing we can ever do is express gratitude. Not just for the things that go our way, but for the things that don’t. Ultimately, those things aren’t working out the way we had wished simply because something better is in the works for us or because we just weren’t quite ready.

Trust the process.

The more you express gratitude, even for the challenges and lessons you encounter, the more of what you want will begin to show up in your life. You don’t have to take my word for it; try it. Try it every day for 40 days. And then tell me what you see in your life.

I’m choosing miracles. I’ll share one of mine:

TO THE CRAB APPLE TREE

Today, gathered rain drips from tips
of your leaves, your red fruit
complimenting a green world.

I’ve only known you for one year, and still
you stand gently before my home
begging me to emerge, to walk
into your aura, to feel sky on my face,
to put Light into the world.

Patient, you wait, bringing me bright pink
blossoms in springtime. Unconditional,
you love me. Yet just today
I noticed I matter to you.

Last winter I watched blue jays
holler and tease on your branches,
speaking their truths, but never did I

realize, until this rainy autumn morning,
that you’re on purpose for me,
that you hold me, blue jays, and apples
up against the sky

as if to say: all of this is yours,
when you’re in it
it becomes alive.

Love vs Self-Sacrifice

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HafizI disappeared for a few days from cyberspace because I was nurturing my relationship with my partner. Somewhere around Monday, I started to feel a strong pull to get myself back home and back on track and back to writing and back to being focused on my son. Dating as a single mama is it’s own can of worms. If you’ve done it, you know what I mean.

One of my best friends asked me this week what I thought my followers would say if they knew I was so focused on my relationship. I hope what you’d say is I’m human. I’m a work in progress. I mess up. I mess up royally at times.

But here’s the thing: I’m still moving forward. Each moment when I lose myself, I actually learn something about myself, which means I grow, which means in those moments I have the opportunity to see myself, to know myself, to find myself.

What I want to share in this post doesn’t have to pertain to a partner or a romantic relationship; it can apply to any relationship in your life that you nurture first before you nurture your relationship with yourself. I’ll be honest; this life lesson is still tricky for me to balance.

This week my partner and I faced a conflict. And there we were, ego to ego, like two dogs fighting over a rope toy. Neither of us wanted to let go.

I’ve always been an action person; letting go seems the opposite of action.  The concept was foreign to me when I first began my practice of it about five years ago (at the time I was going through divorce after eight years of marriage). If your ego is strong enough, sometimes you need something life altering to sweep in and force you to let go. It was divorce and infidelity that forced me to let go. What choice did I have? I could fight and make myself miserable, or I could let go and choose to create the life I’d always dreamed of. It was that first time that I let go in my life that I began choosing miracles, though in the midst of it I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. At the time I was merely trying to survive.

In my current relationship, there are many moments when I must let go, when the argument of who is right and who is wrong doesn’t apply. There isn’t a right or wrong, no matter how much your ego wants to convince you otherwise. We are all on different journeys.

This recent silly battle went on between my partner and I for about 4 days. My ego was so justified that it almost convinced me to walk away. And then somehow, I let go. And I got in my car and drove to his house, and we barely discussed it again. Because as soon as my ego stopped it’s fight, there was no conflict.

I don’t say this to make it sound simple. It’s not; at times it’s excruciating. But Love is the ongoing act of forgiveness. Love is the letting go. Love is choosing something Higher. Love is hitting the reset button.

This doesn’t mean you sacrifice yourself.

Yes, our partners need us, our kids need us, but when your energy is continuously going into your family, you start to unravel and lose your center. How does it work in your house? In my house, I become irritable. I get tired. It’s physically draining to give of your energy without refilling your tank.

So many of us think that our partners should refill our tanks. Certainly there should be an even exchange of energy, but the most important thing you can do is refill your own tank.

Shortly after the separation from my husband, I was blessed to meet a man who held up a mirror for me and reminded me of my beauty. His time in my life was brief, but he was sent to me to teach me something very profound. Aside from any romantic attraction, I felt pure Love. For the first time in my life, I realized that it was in my loving him that my tank was filled. We didn’t need to come together; he didn’t need to love me back. The hole I felt from my husband leaving wasn’t filled with this man’s attention or time. It was filled with my ability to love purely with NO expectation of return.

It reminds me of one of my favorite Hafiz quotes: “Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth: ‘You owe me’. Look what happens with a Love like that. It lights the whole Sky.”

I’m glad I got in my car and drove to see my partner the other night, but the real truth is, had I been nurturing myself with self-Love and had I been sending him Love with no expectation of return, I wouldn’t have had to make that trip in order to let go. I would’ve let go right from the comfort of my own home.

Always learning, always growing. When conflict comes, it’s a chance to find myself. I forgive myself when I fall down. Learning ME is the miracle, and I’m choosing miracles.