Get comfortable.
And enjoy a long breath in and a relaxing sigh out.
Spend a few minutes with me slowing down and being present.
Do watch till the end as all the little stories tie up.
We spend so much of life trying to keep things prim and proper.
We keep our emotions in,
Appearances polished,
And worry way too much about what people might think of us.
But the richest parts of being human,
The parts that feel like real living.
Are usually messy.
Love and grief are messy.
Growth and healing are pretty chaotic and not linear.
Gosh,
I think it's shaped in a spiral.
And stay safe.
Enjoy!
Joy is wild!
It spills over the sides and even that we are embarrassed to express.
Joy doesn't wait for things to be perfect.
Sometimes it arrives in the middle of the mess.
Not in spite of it,
But because of it.
Think of children and ducks playing in mud.
Utterly absorbed,
Faces smeared cleanliness of clothes and feathers ignored.
Joy uncontainable They're not worried about the cleanup.
They're not ashamed of the dirt.
They're alive in it,
Free.
Somewhere along the way,
We started to believe we needed to be presentable before we can be happy.
We have to have all our ducks in a row before we are worth anything to society.
But joy isn't a reward for perfection.
It's a companion for the whole journey.
To embrace joy in the mud is to give yourself permission to be fully human.
It's saying this is perfect even with the stains and splatters.
It's letting the laughter come even as the tears are drying.
It's loving yourself not once you've got it all together,
But exactly as you are.
And boy do I know this is easier said than done.
So how can we let go and get dirty and let life be lived as it is?
How can we judge ourselves,
And therefore others,
Less?
We do not have to be perfect to be whole.
The mud and the mess might just be the most sacred place of all.
Years ago,
I heard the phrase,
No mud,
No lotus.
It is a powerful metaphor,
Suggesting that beauty,
Wisdom and enlightenment,
The lotus,
Can emerge from difficult or muddy circumstances,
The obstacles or struggling.
The lotus is a symbol of growth,
Beauty and resilience because it grows and thrives in mud.
The mud isn't a mistake.
It's not something the lotus escapes.
It's the very condition that makes the bloom possible.
You We often think we need to get out of the maze to become ourselves.
To find peace,
To be worthy of joy.
But like the lotus,
Our strength and beauty come through the mud,
Not after it.
The hard seasons,
The confusion,
The failures,
The heartbreaks,
The hurts.
These are also nutrients.
The muck and weight of life press in,
But still,
Something in us reaches for the light.
To be a lotus in the mud is to hold both truth and tenderness.
It is the quiet power of choosing to unfold.
Even in the midst of difficulty.
It's dignity that doesn't depend on polish.
Grace that doesn't require ease.
The mud doesn't define the lotus.
But it is part of the story.
And it's the same with us.
Our struggles are not stains on our worth.
They are the very soil of our becoming and are a part of what shapes us.
My mom taught me to knit when I was a child.
And about four years ago we needed to learn to knit a square for a uni project and my elementary knitting skills came back to life.
I really dislike using wasteful,
Plastic,
Non-biodegradable dish sponges.
Or any sponges for that matter.
So my solution was to knit my own with jute.
Which is a biodegradable and natural material that breaks down naturally over time.
Unlike synthetic plastics.
This means I can discard this jute cloth directly into my compass bin.
When it's been used up.
It will return to the earth with a minimal ecological footprint.
Making it an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic.
This cutie,
The white duck called Luke,
Has been severely bitten by a dog and a mongoose on two separate occasions.
He stayed in the house for a month and was deeply loved and cared for.
As we watched him survive both events and bounce back like nothing happened.
This little dude has been such a warrior.
And has shown me the real meaning of resilience,
Strength and grace.
I have compared myself to others and wished I had it all together.
I wished I had an easier childhood.
I'm Lacey N Thames.
And had less spikes of ups and downs.
But I've learned if I did not have those struggles.
.
.
Present struggles and the many that are still to come.
I would not be the person that I am.
It has given me empathy and compassion towards myself and others.
It is the soil that my episodes and meditations are right stemmed from.
And it is the mere joy that I'm able to feel that bloomed from the sorrows.
And I would not take that away.
Our struggles are needed.
They shape and inspire us.
And just like this jute cloth I knitted,
Every stitch became part of making the cloth into a whole piece.
And every struggle and everything that's ever happened to me in my life.
Is a stitch that has made me into the person I am today.
So nothing is in vain.
It's all part of the journey.
So when you're knee-deep in the mess,
When nothing feels clear and the way forward is murky,
Remember the lotus.
Remember that beauty can rise from the darkest waters.
