If I could give anything to the people I love this holiday season, I'd give openness to change for the better. I'd give courage to embrace the immense power within. I'd give trust to take care of each others hearts and our own. I'd give hope that trusting won't be for the worst. I'd give joy as we travel our journeys, no matter where they take us.
But sometimes all you can really give is understanding. Compassion extended from your heart to theirs. Empathy and the patience to be with whatever, however. Deep knowing that we're all in it together, each struggling in our own unique way to make peace and be love. These things take time and gentleness, and they don't come from nothing. But they're not impossible.
Each day we have a choice, no matter our circumstances: to see or to shield, to judge or to gaze softly, to accept or to resist, to act or to shut down.
Some days we bounce between choices like a ping-pong ball--unsure which side of the table we'll fall from, until by the slightest stroke of chance and skill, one side wins.
The winning team isn't always love--even for the most skilled players. But it's not all about winning, is it?
Because we're all really on the same team, aren't we? The team that wants, more than anything, to be seen, heard, respected and cared for. The team that doesn't want to divide and conquer, but wants to unite and uplift. That's us--the humans. We're mostly common people, wanting common decent things. We can be in it together, if we choose to be.
Wishing you these things this year, because they're possible, because you're worth them, and because even when they don't come true--we have each other to fall back on. We have each other to unite again and try again, for the ideals we were meant to embody. For a kinder kind of love. Let's do this thing.
you believed that whatever power you have right now is enough to make a real difference in the world?
you don't need to know how to begin in order to begin?
your fear is smaller than your divine purpose on earth?
you stopped holding on to stories that keep you small?
you're being held by something greater than you?--what if we all are?
you believed that perfection is overrated and you are enough?
you knew that there are no mistakes that will kill you?
you opened your heart to tenderness and forgiveness?
you decided that nothing matters more than choosing love over and over again?
you knew how much you have to give?
would you begin giving?
if you're here tonight feeling the profound need to step into your power--the power that knows, wholeheartedly, how much you have to give--know that you are not alone, sweet friend.
it's easy to forget and there are 1,000 things we could blame for our forgetting: the job we don't have, the pay we're not earning, the help we're not seeing, the system that's not supporting us, the sleep we're not getting. i see it. you're talking to an anti-oppression, anti-capitalist socialist over here. these things are true and there is plenty lacking. but amidst all that's lacking and all the ways we're made to believe that we are broken, hopeless victims to life, what if we believed that our race is stronger than that? that our spirits are fiercer and our souls wiser than believing the lie that we are powerless? what if we revolted, together, with tiny acts of courage in the name of hope, in the name of kindness, in the name of the kind of humanity we want to belong to?--a powerful, generous and loving one.
i'm asking myself these questions tonight and finding daring answers. are you with me? will you answer this first question, too?
what if you believed that whatever power you have right now is enough to make a real difference in the world? what kind of difference would you make?
i really hope you share your answers with me. i've got something brewing that i'll share with you, too as soon as i can. i would love it if you let me know that i'm not in this process alone! remember, when you dare to take your power seriously, you can do powerful things. i'm so looking forward to revealing our power together!
The other night, Brian and I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the first time since the beginning of our relationship. Back then I had little belief in true lasting love. Really. I was a hopeless romantic full of doubt. I wanted to be in love so badly, but I was terrified of coming close to it. Coming close to love had a way of triggering all my worst fears... If I start to love someone they surely won't love me back, If I want to be loved I can't be authentic, If I let my true self show it won't be enough, I am incapable of loving without judging and my judgments will ruin you, me and our love so let's just quit while we're ahead, I will break the heart of anyone who falls in love with me.
I can wholeheartedly say (and have said to many people) that Brian picked up all my shattered pieces and taught me how to love. And he did it by accepting me. He sat with all my neroutic fears and bundles of terror. He saw through them to the heart of who I was--a brave and hopeful girl who wanted to be in love but wasn't quite sure how.
I will never forget those nights, my first semester of college, sitting up late at night on his twin bed in his tiny apartment room, street lights flooding in through the blinds, tears flooding down my face and Brian simply listening. Those nights saved me. They gave me the chance to expose all my broken parts and have them held in tenderness. It was the biggest relief.
Us back then
But still, I tried to break up with him over and over again -- for no rational reason except that I was terrified, and that changing habits takes time. When that happened, he'd look me in the eye and ask, "How long do you want to hold on to your fear? You could refuse to commit for the rest of your life in the name of fear. But one day, you'll be ready to choose. And that day, you'll realize it's not all about who, but what. Love or fear. Do you love me?"
I did. I loved him so much and I knew it in my bones. It wasn't about him. It was about my inability to say "okay" to my terror. It was about my resistance to the way things were.
But Brian sat with me. And sitting with something, as is, will do incredible things. Open you to tenderness. Open you to the truth. Open you to acting with love over fear.
We watched Eternal Sunshine the other night, it hit me in huge ways. This is a clip from the very end of the movie. To catch you up to speed, in case you haven't seen it, Clementine and Joel fall in love, but after a year or so, Clementine decides erratically after a fight that she wants Joel erased from her memory completely. Joel finds out and decides the only way to cope is to do the same. The movie mostly consists of their beautiful memories as they're being erased by special neuro-docs. After both of their memories of one another have been erased, they re-meet and fall back in love. Only, a woman working for the memory doctor sends all past patients, Joel & Clementine included, tapes that were recorded pre-memory erasing, explaining why they wanted to erase that person from their memory. Leading up to this clip, Joel's listening to the tapes of what he said about Clementine, and she hears them. They're nasty and broken-hearted sounding. The way you would talk about someone who's hurt you so badly that you want them erased from you memory. But he's hearing them for the first time--his memory of her and their relationship totally blank. Reel the clip.
This scene in particular brought me back to those late nights on Brian's twin bed. My terror surfacing, his acceptance saving me. My fear jumping off bridges, his patience catching me. The act of saying "okay" is no small thing. I might need to remind myself over and over again of how beautiful and inspirational sitting with the messy parts of being human actually is. How it was that very thing, offered up by someone else, that gave me the most powerful relationship I've ever known. And how it is that very thing that can take me to wherever I dream of going.
Acceptance. Saying "okay". Knowing it really is.
A new habit worth forming.
So--in the name of practicing, I'll offer up some truth of how I am right now, as is. And I'll offer it with a quiet prayer for acceptance... May I hold myself with tenderness for all the ways my being manifests, past, future and present. Amen.
achey
tired
nervous about money
nervous about always putting myself out there
wiped
pensive
hopeful
over it
ready to take a bath and go to bed
Dear souls, how are you feeling right now? Feel free to show your true self in the comments below. Sometimes it takes being seen and accepted by another to begin seeing and accepting ourselves. We can practice being seen together. I'll honor you as you are.
i honor the dance you're doing between fear and faith. it's so hard to change patterns, isn't it? but you're doing a really great job. i know how easy it is for me to run you around without your consent, without checking in to see how you're doing. i want to be extra gentle with you during this transitional time. i want to extend my deepest form of love. i'm ready to ask, how can i be more loving? i have a feeling the deepest love i can offer includes persistence, patience and acceptance -- an odd combo, but an important one.
so here it goes:
i promise to persistently believe that you are worthy of gentle attention and slow breaths of awareness. i promise to insist that you are meant for calm strength and deep power. i promise to point you toward love-based action rather than fear-based avoidance over and over again.
i promise to be patient with the process of faith. i promise to give you all the time you may need. i promise to extend kindness and forgiveness as you inevitably fall into old patterns of fear and anxiety. those patterns are part of the process of faith. there's no linear end. there's a dance. i promise to let you dance as you will -- some nights sexy, some nights stepping on your own feet, some nights completely letting go with joy and freedom.
i promise to accept you for exactly where you are. to love all your sides and hidden parts. your shame, your pride, your ego, your humility. i promise to withhold judgment -- because judgment hurts us both. i promise to honor you as you are.
are you feeling any better? if not, that's okay. just know that you are in an incredible space of opening to the way things are. try, if you can, to believe that seeing is the very thing that points us in the direction of honest love--the direction of spiritual power. you're seeing. it's big. like, revolutionary big. you're there. trust me. just keep going.
all the love in the universe,
rachael
ps--if you're wondering where to go or how to move, dear heart, i'd say take one bold step in direct defiance of fear. fear's getting tired of hearing herself talk, anyway. it's true!
I want you to know that I am with you today. Right here, right now. Can you feel me breathing with you? Honoring the space you need and deserve? I am here with love and acceptance for wherever you are. I honor whatever state you embody because I recognize that they are all part of the miracle of life. Your saddness is the miracle that opens to lightness. Your tension is the miracle that opens to freedom. Your neglect is the miracle that opens to attention.
I see you for what you are. I'm with you all the way. All of you. And I love you til the end.
Yours,
Rachael
Wishing each of your hearts the tender attention they might need. May you know the simple act of choosing love, may you feel the profound affect of paying attention, and may you trust that it changes everything for the better. Truly.
