To reconnect with our deeply caring selves,
We must slow to a stop.
We must slow to a stop and connect with the earth breathing beneath our feet and the air that is life passing through us.
So let us close our eyes and just land in this moment,
In the now,
And focus on our breath.
Sometimes when we are in deep suffering,
We might wish for life to come to an end.
And this feeling,
Though it sometimes feels like disdain for our life,
Is not that at all.
It is a call to reconnect with our hearts.
We must be careful not to focus solely on what is hurting within us,
For you are alive and well under this pain.
Alive and in love with your beating heart.
I want you to bring an in pain part of you forward.
It can be a memory or something going on for you right now,
Even a physical pain.
Please believe me when I say this pain can become your portal to the divine.
You must learn to see it as a kindness,
An offering,
An outstretched palm guiding you to healing water.
A wise woman named Ruby Sales taught me to ask the question,
Where does it hurt?
So tell me dear one,
Where does it hurt in you?
Feel the ache of all the unaddressed discomfort or shame,
Lingering sadness.
Feel the discomfort of general malaise that sometimes comes with being alive.
And let yourself meet it,
Not avoid it.
Let yourself be okay with not being okay for right now.
Let whatever it is be in you without condition.
Now,
I want you to look at this ache and begin to awaken a sort of pleasure response.
Take a deep inhale and let out a gentle sigh.
Hear and feel the sound of that sigh.
Notice how it brings a relief and a type of grace comes to wrap itself around your suffering.
Now placing a hand on your heart,
I want you to gently sway,
Rocking yourself as you would a newborn babe.
We are still staying with our pain but we're now tenderizing it.
And once the edges of your pain begin to soften,
Let them slip down and away from you.
Drop them from your arms,
Your thoughts,
Your mind.
Just let them become impersonal.
There is no need to keep holding them or to pick them back up.
These sweeping waves of pain and heartache are very real feelings,
But they are not who you are.
They are but wind passing and waves crashing on the shore of your great beauty.
Keep rocking yourself gently evoking joy even in this challenge.
You are alive.
This too is a gift.
You and all your weather are in some way a blessing disguised.
It brings you close to source if you are willing to receive in the midst of it.
And I want you to recognize that feeling in any form is a gift.
We are lucky to feel so deeply for behind each feeling,
Even these hard ones,
Is love.
We hurt because we love so deeply.
Your suffering is not despair dear one,
But desire.
Desire to meet the divine within you.
Desire to know your great strength.
You are alive and well dear one,
Under the chaos.
You are alive and in love with your beating heart.
When suffering comes,
Know that it is your own self-love you are lonely for.
You are trying to awaken your capacity to care for your own life and self.
Do not be fooled by the voices of your discontent.
Let yourself be wise to the needs that lurk behind the guises of those voices.
It is always love asking to be seen.
Always love asking to be held.
Open your eyes,
Still holding yourself with warmth.
Be wise in your power by introducing the sigh of grace and your potent loving presence to everything that asks.
This is how you tenderize your pain.
