(on our way to see Santa on the polar express train ride, Mt Hood, Oregon)
Feels like I’ve got so much to tell you. About life around here lately. About all the Christmas fun we had last week. About how the magic of the season was in full effect in our home. As we move into more Christmastimes with True, I find myself reflecting on my own Christmastimes as a child. Truthfully, I had several Christmas years in my childhood that were especially tough as they were the anniversary years of losing Jerry Roberts who died during Christmas Break when I was in the 3rd grade. Although the magic of the season wasn’t fully lost after his passing, our home was grief stricken for many Christmas seasons, my family’s heart broken. Now that I have my own child who is beginning to understand the magic of the season, I’m can feel myself learning to lean into the full-on joy of the season that I missed in those years as a child. I am witnessing True’s joy and it’s giving so much healing to my own heart. So much. Honestly, friends, sometimes I’m astonished by the ways in which healing shows up for us. And I’m just so grateful.
But every season, without fail, my heart also feels pulled in the direction of all the people are in despair, and who feel alone. My hope is that they too can eventually find peace, and joy. And the knowing that our hearts aren’t ever truly alone. Our journeys and our stories – every step of the way – matter and nothing is ever wasted.
(screenshot of my blog)
In other completely different news, I’ve been thinking about this blog. A lot. There were many many years when comments were not open on this blog, mainly because I had a hard time keeping my writing personal and purposeful to my creative journey when I knew there was an audience – a little jedi mind trick I played on myself so that I could stay authentic to the original purpose of this space: to discover my voice, practice my courage, and writing as a means to reflect and grow.
When I opened the comments back up last summer, I had a vision for this space to be a place of community, of fellow Possibilitarians connecting with one another, finding one another in the comments, and on and on. And that has certainly happened (grateful). But what I didn’t realize was that I had lots of other online places where my community can connect with one another (my ecourses/ebooks, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) and that by not protecting this space just for my personal reflection, I sacrificed a critical creative expression for myself. Ooops.
I’ve really missed writing in this space without the pressure of writing for an audience. Truth be told, some of my best artwork was created just for me, and not for anyone else. I’m learning a big lesson here – that, in the end, what we do and nurture for ourselves inadvertently becomes a gift for someone else, in all capacities. And that we just have to stay true to ourselves and what is whispering to us to pay attention and TRUST that the whispers are for bigger reasons than we can even imagine, an orchestra of serendipity, and perhaps even divinity.
And so, it really is so much more than the decision of opening or closing comments, yes? My other social media streams (Facebook, etc) will be the playgrounds in which I’ll continue to engage with my community/tribe while this blog will remain sacred to my writing/creative process. This feels really good, like I’ve given a permission slip to my spirit to express itself freely.
Whew! Didn’t mean to interrupt this blog post with such a long explanation.
Back to things that have been happening around here lately…..
(John treated me to a morning at the Spa following some serious stressful days)
Speaking of TRUST, no sooner did I order it up and into my life, did I get a big lesson in its meaning. Last week while celebrating Christmas and working quite hard on my upcoming e-course classroom (a gazillion small steps [and people] involved, including building an entire new website/classroom), just about every single gadget I own (and heavily rely on) crashed, including my computer and iphone. Within hours of that, my entire website went missing – like full-on missing – including all the new classroom website/pages/etc that were just built. We are still trying to recover all the bits and pieces and the orchestra of people (developers, software support peeps, etc etc) trying to recover it all is dizzying to my senses. If that wasn’t enough, someone hacked into my online store, creating a 99.9% discount code, prompting several fraudulent orders that actually got shipped before we knew what was going on. I could go and on about all the various techie issues (large and small) that came up last week in a span of just 48 hours.
It was a sign. A moment. And I had to surrender.
It was not pretty. Or graceful. And all my issues around trusting the process, trusting other people, and trusting the timing of events were downright clumsy and exposed in all their anxious glory.
So.
I chose trust as my word for 2014 for a reason. And there is was, serving and teaching. It had my attention 100%.
I’m happy to report that the moment I surrendered and let go of the negative stories I have always told myself, I was able to engage in the practice of actually practicing courage and trust. There were some shifts, personally. And I also just love and adore my developer more than ever before. And I trust him, completely.
So yes, there’s been some intensity around here. Lots of soul work mixed in with all the lightness in a beautiful commingling of beauty with life. The brightest of lights being this little guy. I looked at these photos and saw a child growing up. And I know I’ve said it a million times, but I feel honored, every single day, to have the privilege of being his mom and having our souls evolve and expand and grow together in this lifetime. Grateful.
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