Fear, Meet Love

It scares me when I see your pain. It reminds me of my own pain and we can have none of that. I don’t want to feel my own pain let alone sit with yours… but I will, I will sit with yours,  because in the end it's easier than sitting with my own.   Allowing ourselves to feel our pain creates a sense of powerlessness and being powerless is scary too.

I think this is the point. Once I can accept my powerless over my or your situation I can begin to acknowledge true power. Yes, yes that’s it. And truth be told that scares me too.

I’ve struggled with my faith. I lost faith in religion along time ago - I threw the baby jesus out with the bathwater, yet I craved a relationship with the Divine. So for the last 15 years I’ve been following a spiritual path that did not appear to be dogmatic, did not seem to use shame or guilt to win my love… it brought me closer to feeling powerful again and here I sit, an ordained minister… one of them. Dispensing ‘God will provide’ idioms like a bandaid on a gaping wound. Wait.wait. How did that happen?

Of course that's fear talking too.  It wants me to think I'm powerless and lost, it wants me to be fooled into thinking I need to 'make it all better'. Perhaps instead of flexing my ‘I’ll help you fix this’ muscle, I need to build a ‘let’s sit with this even though nothing will ever be the same’ muscle.  That's where love comes in.  It sits with what is and loves it anyway and that's where we tap into true power.

“I’m sorry, forgive me, thank you, I love you”… comes to mind.
http://www.laughteronlineuniversity.com/practice-hooponopo…/

Of course if I'm not careful, this can be another 'fix' too....

Must.Not.Turn.Away

Lately I've been noticing how hard it is to be with someone else's grief and pain.  Do you have that problem too?  I know a woman who's been diagnosed with cancer and sometimes I just don't know what to say.  A young single mother lost most of her savings trying to build a house because her contractors were negligent and I have no advice for her.  And another young black man was killed by the police.

I know,  how can one sit with that and not have it completely destroy you?  

Something is really wrong.  And I have been taught by this culture I grew up in that when something is wrong it must be fixed.... but I can't fix these things.  Heck I can't even look at them for too long before my ego distracts me with something I CAN fix.

There in lies my problem... I think I need to fix something and I can't fix any of these things.

So instead I will beg your forgiveness and I will sit with you and see you and love you no matter how dreadful your situation.

I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.

Shields Down

I sit with my heart opened I notice how much I want to shield it from heart ache and sadness.  It seems I have been doing this for so long.  "I am grateful" is our topic in this lovely writing workshop.  We have been writing about our "struggles" and I've been revisiting my turbulent childhood.

I am grateful...  I have come through so many things and still feel whole.  Perhaps that is because I have not allowed them to swallow me up, perhaps it is because I have had a safe haven that protected me until I could ready myself to feel the measure of their significance.  Yes I believe that is it.  

I am grateful for all the support, resources and resilience I have been given, have revealed, and been shown.  

I am grateful to the man who held me and loved me until he couldn't hold me any longer without holding me back.

I am grateful that when I have been thrown into the fire of life that I have been protected.  Some part of me still feels whole and innocent and sweet, despite the ambiguous losses, the betrayals, and the challenges I've experienced.  

Yes I have seen and experienced things that no person, let alone a child, should; but it’s not so bad really - each time I have experienced the fire it has burned off some part of the shield I had brought with me into this lifetime to guard my heart.  

I am grateful for my tender resilient heart.  For this and so much more,  I am grateful.