welcome to ur happy place : a refuge for body, mind and soul for 6/29!
a good story can heal
"storytelling is the oldest teaching/healing art found in all cultures. worldwide, stories are used to transmit important ancient values, themes of healing, love and wisdom. stories are containers for creative problem-solving and show us ways of overcoming obstacles and challenges."
angeles arrien
the first heart teaching i have received from my angelic guide, lilah, is embodied enlightenment. she stresses the importance for us to become increasingly aware of our Selves in our body and recognizing that it is through this conscious awareness of our soul selves, our spirit in body, that we advance and ultimately create the circumstances of our own ascension. i think sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the idea of ascension being something elite or lofty. that it means we 're special or highly advanced. the ego likes that! also we can be swept away from the moment by imagining ourselves at a future date when we have accomplished this feat, placing much attention on the space when we'll be enlightened, free, unburdened of our dark thoughts, irritating co- workers, unreasonable child or stubborn parent, forgetting all the while that the work of enlightenment is here and now.
my friends, we are in magical times. times that many of us know we have been waiting for- to come back to earth and play a deliberate part in. many of us know we are in the process of embodying enlightenment, we accept we are here at this pivotal time in earth's history to lend our service and in this, be amongst the energies, the experiences, the day to day events that will usher in our conscious awareness. however, remembering who we are often eludes us as we ride the waves of chaos and mayhem. as we are pulled out of ourselves and into the drama of a friend, the heartache of a sister or tragedy of a woman in the congo we've never met but whose story disturbed us the other nite on 60 minutes. we lose consciousness when we churn that heated conversation we had with our mate over and over in our minds, worry ceaselessly over the assignment in pakistan our journalist daughter just accepted, judge ourselves ruthlessly for the "stupid" comment we made at the staff meeting yesterday.
one of the surest ways to enact a remembrance, to carve a way back to yourself is thru connecting with a good story. we all have life stories to tell, or listen to. some of them may be just what another might need to hear to spark a shift inside him or her, to lift their spirits or to bridge a gap in understanding. recently i had a story to share with a friend that gave her a single sentence, a question, i once had to ask myself. it's one i still use quite alot to prompt me into making the best decision i can when i am challenged. here is a mini-version of the story:
when i was a junior in high school, i somehow strayed onto the radar belonging to a group of hostile girls. my guy friends had a descriptive nickname for them that kind of spells it out,"the sweats". it wasn't that i had ever done or said anything directly to them or gossiped about them behind their backs. we had nothing in common other than being in the same high school, the same grade and were of the same gender.
i don't recall how it began but it lasted most of the year. each day the janitor came with his bucket and sponge to clean off the profane graffiti they scratched down the length of my locker. my father bought me a brand new white thunderbird in my junior year. i lost count of the times i found it in the student park lot, marinating in a coating of red wine that they'd poured over it, sometimes "decorating" the radio antennae with the bottle turned upside down. keying the side of the car added another nice touch.
my friend 's fifth grade daughter is a target for a clique of bullying girls right now. as we were talking about the situation, my days with the sweats popped into my mind. i began to retell the story... the sweats numbered about twelve or so and the chance of seeing a few of them clustered together shuffling down the hall between classes was excellent. i told her about how my heart leapt into my throat each time i saw any of them down the hall moving in my direction. oftentimes i was alone to face them. would i glare at them? look them in the eye or glance away? would i return the insult they would surely whisper as they passed?
by far the scariest thing they did was to create a voo-doo doll of me. scary that they would lavish attention onto an object with such malicious intent. scary that they used it. it was a handmade doll and scrawled across its various body parts were obscene descriptions.:c*unt, ugly t*its for example and lots more. my guy friend, roy, noticed it with the sweats at a party one night and overheard what it was and what they were doing with it. somehow he manged to get hold of it and brought it to school the next week to give to me..i felt sick to my stomach experiencing the dense and thick, black energy of the thing and thinking about the investment of negativity they placed into this little doll. and wondering why. why go to such lengths, what will it bring them? my mother and i reported this to the principal, who was friends with the parents of several of the girls. nothing was done, the doll was taken from me and the sweats kept on.
but here 's where the question comes in. whether it's my friend's daughter or me or any of us, the question to ask is "who will i be?". who will i be in the face of such blatant hatred? how will i respond? will i remember who i am? this is the question i asked each time i passed them in the hall. it is the question i used to stay strong within myself. it is the question my friend took with her from our conversation. i hope when the timing is right she'll plant that seed in her daughter's brave heart. and i hope that her daughter will choose to embody her enlightenment and draw deeply from her own flowering wisdom and stand claiming her space and beauty.
perhaps it's no surprise that i am so deeply drawn to the woman's journey, and that i've just signed on to be come a facilitator -coach with imagine a woman based on the poem, imagine a woman by patricia lynn reilly. perhaps my year with the sweats was a soul orchestrated event made to put me on this very path, who knows? come late fall, early winter i will be ready to offer you online and in person facilitation/coaching sessions, courses and support for your journey.
here then, i leave you with two of the stanzas from the poem that is changing, empowering women all over the world. a poem that is inviting them to embody their enlightenment as i invite you to do as well:
imagine a woman who has acknowledged the past's influence
on the present.
a woman who has walked through her past.
who has healed into the present.
imagine a woman who tells the truth.
a woman who trusts her experience of the world and expresses it.
who refuses to defer to the thoughts, perceptions and responses of others.
patricia lynn reilly-
from imagine a woman
until next time...xx
