Change is normal. Growth is a choice. How are you responding to life and all the changes happening in and around you?
There have been slow subtle changes happening within me over the last 18 months. The outcome I am feeling more truthfully within myself, there is a fragile rooting happening that has me feeling more comfortable in my skin. Yes, this is closer to who I am. On the outside I have gone from speaking emotional intelligence safely in the space of science and the rational, safe harbour topic for me. Through cautious tentative words I have begun to speak more of mysticism, poetry, silence, the sacred and the Holy. What I notice is I feel more honestly me than ever before in my life. Are your words or choices taking you closer toward or further away from the truth of who you?
For years I wanted to write a book called “Lost on the Road to Inner Peace”. I knew I wanted to live from a place that felt harmonious and peaceful no matter how diabolic, desperate or chaotic the world (or my world) appeared on the surface. I wanted a sense of living from a still, spacious, surrendered space in the middle of my being. It’s been a long and turbulent journey and I cannot say that I am there yet but for the first time I feel like I’ve found the path that means I can sense the stillness and what may be possible.
Recently, my family and I, went away on holiday down the wild coast for a celebration of a my mother‘s 70th birthday. About 15 km’s from the coastline on the potholed and bumpy road I could feel, sense that something had changed. Nature in many ways was now the primary occupant of the space we were in. And in it there was a rest, a stillness, room to breathe. I could sense the peace quiet easily, it was a lot more accessible than in the busyness of life in the city. This physical experience in many ways mirror the journey I’ve been on since April this year.
I have been on an exploration of what it means to live from a place of freedom. The paradoxical outcome is oddly a recognition that the ultimate freedom is to follow that still quiet voice within, that sacred holy whisper. To quote John O’Donohue — ‘I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.’ Or I like to use the example of a murmuration of birds to illustrate the idea. There is no leader and yet everyone moves together so harmonious that it appears orchestrated.
I have now spent five months in Room to Breathe, meeting four times a week to be still for 15 minutes. Sometimes the stillness, the silence is a contemplation, sometimes it’s a sort of meditation, sometimes it’s the writing of poetry, sometimes it’s reflective journalling and often it is just presence, silence, stillness, prayer. And now I have been called to take another step and this is my sharing with you should you feel called to join me along the way…
For the next two weeks beginning on Sunday, the 17th of October I’m going to commit for my own journey to meet three times a day at
5:05am CAT (8.05 pm PT)
9 am CAT
8 pm
From Sunday evening to Friday 9am for two weeks. I’m not suggesting anyone is crazy enough to want to join me three times a day Sunday to Friday for two weeks. I am suggesting that if a time works for you to consider joining once a day, once a week. See what arises when you commit to being present to the Silence. In the silence of Thursday’s Room to Breathe this little poem was born.
A disclaimer the silence hasn’t created a harmonious life, the journey since beginning this has not been easy for me in many ways. It’s been tougher in places but what I have noticed is the silence, the connection to that ultimate breath of life that offers a rooting so that even in the chaos there is a still centre that makes everything more digestible and keeps me connected even within the sometimes overwhelming chaos of life. Trust. Faith. Hope.
In Thursday’s silence this little poem was born:
Open.
Open.
Open.
Allow yourself to channel life.
Witness the still stream: gentle & calm.
And the raging waters that flood.
Allow.
Trust.
Be held as you open to the full blessing of who you are.
What would it take to allow the full blossoming of who you are?
Let me know by reply with just two words … yes please / open me / Im listening if you are inviting in more of your own blossoming.
Perhaps consider what one tiny action or thought you are going to take toward that blossoming? Share with me if you feel comfortable.
Feeling open, trusting and radiant
Cands