Tell

I want to tell you that this journey of self-discovery just keeps getting more and more beautifully complicated with its feet dipped in the pool of a calming simplicity (I hold the two somewhere near my rib cage).

I want to tell you that my self-confidence has been consistently at an all time high. I speak up and my voice is filled with a million lessons about how to never let myself feel less than. Lessons born of experience, lessons modeled to me by strong, confident women, lessons whispered (by the people that have loved me) over and over into my ear even when I wasn't able to hear it.

I want to tell you that my readiness to leave Cleveland is not rooted in any sort of discontent or bitterness- only satisfied anticipation for a new journey.

I am becoming more authentic and less afraid of the cost of that authenticity.

I am letting people inside the deeper chambers of my heart and I have not been disappointed by my self-disclosure.

I believe in community again (and I get to believe in it again with the very people who have embodied it since the beginning).

I want to tell you that my faith is tangled up in my soul, knotted and stitched to the fibers of my person hood. I thought I had lost it, but then I figured out I never really had it to begin with. No hyper-religious feel-good bullshit here. Just something that pulls me forward and deeper into the precepts of love and peace and grace and...

These days my mantra has been composed of the stuff of openness and a gritty determination to move always-ever forward. I breathe in deeper and expel every self-defeating thought like an annoying bug. There is no room in my heart anymore to house hate or fear. I am embracing the "tender vision of my heart" and it feels fantastic.

I just wanted to tell you.

A Quote

I love coming across profound things unexpectedly. This one came from a friend's facebook post, originally written by  Courtney A. Walsh. I have been sending it to folks all day, so chances are you have already seen it. 

“Dear Human: You’ve got it allllll wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.”

Going Confidently...

Confidence. 27 years old and I finally have enough of this tricky element in my life to change my perspective. Confidence as a result of knowing when to walk away from things. Confidence as a result of learning to listen to the ins and outs of who I really am.

It has been a difficult journey but I'm here and I'm less afraid (or learning how to respect fear in a way that circumvents it into something positive). It has caused me to write more honestly, to speak up more and to know that things can change if I just choose to move forward.

And the things that would have kept me from stepping out- worrying what other people might think, what would happen if I chose not to do what others wanted me to do, not trusting my voice- are being met instead with life giving things. It has been incredible and it has been healing.

It is even as simple as feeling free to actually talk in an academic setting without over-analyzing my every word. Or allowing people to compliment my work without feeling the need to put myself down in an effort to support feelings of worthlessness. Or the work I am doing in my apprenticeship that will allow me to collaborate with women on campus so that they can find their own voices (I will give you all more details on that later).

I am so excited to be at this place. Instead of feeling regretful for lost time, I am thankful for this long journey and hopeful for my future.

And in all of this, a poem one of my favorite people shared with me has been ringing in my ears: 

We Have not Come to Take Prisoners 
We have not come here to take prisoners 
But to surrender ever more deeply 
to freedom and joy. 
 
We have not come into this exquisite world 
to hold ourselves hostage from love. Run, my dear, from anything that may not strengthen your precious budding wings,
Run like hell, my dear, from anyone likely to put a sharp knife into the sacred, tender vision of your beautiful heart. 
 
We have a duty to befriend 
those aspects of obedience 
that stand outside of our house 
and shout to our reason 
"oh please, oh please 
come out and play." 
 
For we have not come here to take prisoners, or to confine our wondrous spirits, But to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom, and Light!  
Hafiz, "The Gift"

Poets Who Know-It

Better Part 2: A Revelation of Implosive Porportions

I am chronically incapable of standing up for myself.  Life experiences have taught me that you can survive almost anything. If you just put your head down and shut up, if you just close your eyes and go someplace else- you can endure the most extreme situations. The key is to submit. The key is to endure.

And so I have developed a level of endurance that has marked/marred my life path. It’s good to weather storms, to push your body against the wind and pull your hood around your cheeks. It’s good to know how to survive and how to maintain a level of homeostasis that makes day-to-day functioning manageable. But when it starts to seep into everything- into the relationships that are safe, into how you love and how you hope- it becomes something toxic and self-depreciating. It shuts you up and gives people permission to disregard your worth.

And so here’s the truth- I am terrified of standing up for myself. I am afraid to be honest. I choose submission every time. I choose to let myself become less. 

I had a great conversation with a wise friend. I was explaining that I hate having to stand up for myself because my first response in those intense moments is to cry. And then I feel weak when what I had been feeling inside was something bold and honest. My insides don’t match my outsides and I feel… small. She told me that it would make sense for me to respond that way- the buildup of courage and honesty being held back so that the pressure builds and builds. And then in that moment where I decide to be passive, my brain freaks out and reminds me that there is something interior-ly that wanted to be heard. Something that was worth being heard. 

Makes sense, right? I am imagining my closest friends shaking their heads at me in “I’ve told you this a million times” kind of way. There are people who fight tooth and nail for me. But when I don’t fight for myself I tend to unravel all of their love and protection, all of their encouragements and validations. And I allow those people who have not really earned the right to speak into my life me feel "less than."I give them power they have never deserved. 

So, what now? I’m ready to sign that contract. I’m ready to commit to speaking. I’m ready to freaking stand up for myself.

Better

We try so hard to be better versions of ourselves. Hoping and hoping that if we “fake it til we make it” there will be some reward for our tireless pursuits. It’s an affliction of the brain not connecting with the heart in the most genuine way. And it’s exhausting, isn’t it? The day-in-day-out routine of convincing ourselves to try just a little bit harder. We create vacuum tight illusions around ourselves and are surprised when the grime finds its way in again. And again.

The people around us are victims of our self-loathing. The disconnect forming disconnections. Community is lost because we refuse to infuse honesty and trust into the circulation of its beating heart so that all there is left is to amputate. To break away. Loneliness is sometimes composed of the times we fail to be authentic with the people that deserve it most.

I say “you” and “we” because these pronouns are safe and the reality of my daily struggles are not. I am afraid of the pieces of myself that want to please the people who fail to see me and push away those who not only see me but love me anyways. I am that person too busy trying to become a “better” version of myself at a cost so great it has left me in a very viscous cycle. I am always so afraid of being selfish or hurtful that I fail to recognize when it is time to stand up for myself. To be brave. To realize that I don’t have to feel small or unimportant, but I do have to connect my head and heart in the most genuine way. I have to stop wanting to be “better” for all the wrong reasons. I have to realize that “better” means letting people love me and fight for me when I’m not at my best. And to let that grime find its way in so that I can learn to wipe it away and move on again. And again.

Clavicles & Rib Cages

Tomorrow.

We will become whole again, having grown up around our persons the resolve to fight the right battles. To look on with compassion and gently carve out the possibilities so that the light can seep through. Slowly. Surely. We will remember how to love fully without expectation of mortal woundings and we will hope in that ancient way. There will be laughter and weeping and becoming whole again. 

But now we are setting ourselves against the tides, barricading our heart and steeling our minds. Holding joy beneath our clavicles and weaving peace between the ridges of our rib cages. We are fortitude and perseverance and the will to always, always survive. Gritted, grinding teeth. Cheeks burning and heart pounding viscously in our chests. 

It has not always been this way. It will not always be this way. It has not always been this way. It will not always be. This way.