Unconditional Love – A Daily Practice

May 9, 2015May 9, 201512 Comments

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love. ~ Oscar Wilde

“To give and not expect return.” How many of us know how to love like that? How many of us have been loved like that? We are imperfect beings in an imperfect world. We may think we love unconditionally but anytime we are disappointed by the words or actions of one we love, we may not be loving as unconditionally as we like to think.

I have been reflecting on this because it is almost Mother’s Day and there are so many posts and images that speak of a mother’s unconditional love – as though all mother’s love unconditionally, all the time. If we are lucky, we experience moments of unconditional love from our parents, as parents, as partners in a relationship, with friends we hold dear. Rarely are we loved completely unconditionally all the time; rarely do we love unconditionally all the time.

We are born with unconditional love and complete trust. As babies, we learn very quickly what behaviours and actions get rewarded and what don’t. It is a matter of survival to adapt to the expectations and conditions of people around us.

“We know our soul qualities when we are very young, before we learn concepts of right and wrong, good and evil. We know our soul qualities before we build constructs around ourselves that we fool ourselves into believing are truth and essential to survival. We shape life to fit in and shape ourselves in trying to make other people happy.” Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness (p. 13)

Loving unconditionally is a practice that starts with loving self unconditionally. The more you can be in a place of loving yourself unconditionally, the more you open up the portals to receive love unconditionally. Can you love another person fully, without judgment about who they are, what they say or how they act? Then you offer unconditional love.

I have been learning about unconditional love through recognizing the times I have been “loved” with conditions – conditions that often asked me to be someone I am not, to be there for another person at the expense of myself. These relationships showed me who I was not and where I was not loving or accepting myself.

I have been learning about unconditional love through my cats who also come into the world loving and trusting unconditionally. They remind me of the simplicity of life.

I have been learning about unconditional love through my children, the hopes and dreams I have for them to be successful in life. When we examine what that means, often we have an idea of what success means and looks like and it carries expectations or conditions we are not always aware that we are carrying. Letting go of the expectations and personal hopes for our children’s lives is an act of love. We also hold hopes and expectations for our parents and our siblings and how we want them to be in life and in relationship with us. Letting our expectations and our judgments go is an act of love that opens the way for unconditional love. And I say this in full awareness that there are some relationships that are so toxic there is no opportunity to heal them inside the relationship – just the opportunity to heal within yourself by loving and trusting yourself unconditionally.

And I have been learning about unconditional love through my relationship with my partner and our love for each other. It is as close to unconditional as any partnership can be, infused with mutual love, honour, integrity and respect. And it is a daily practice.

Unconditional love. We get there through awareness, intentionality and practice. Daily practice.

Untangling the Messiness of Transitions

May 2, 20157 Comments

My mother died on February 8, 2012. That night, as I drove from Lunenburg to Halifax by the light of the full moon, I felt her dancing spirit, free of the confines of a deteriorated physical body and I felt joyous and euphoric, recognizing the beauty and tragedy of transition all alive at the same time in the same moment. ~ Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness

Last night I awoke to the light of another full moon and I had a flash of insight. Full moons signal times of completion. In my life and my family right now we have been experiencing a number of life transitions and I am celebrating the five year anniversary of a significant life transition. Some of the transitions are easily named and obvious, some lie in the more intangible spaces and are not so easily named.

In the last few weeks, having been at home for an extended period of time (for me), I have been experiencing a whole gamut of emotions and they are all tangled together in the messiness of transitions. Celebrating and reminiscing. Joy and grief. Delight and general malaise. Acknowledging life and loss.

In my family, we are celebrating graduations, new jobs, new cars, moves and the animated energy of new pets. We are also grieving the loss of a beloved pet a few months ago and I am grieving changes in my household as a result of one move while celebrating the next steps in my son’s life just as much as I am appreciating the alone time for reflection and my own rhythm of life’s patterns.

It is the five year anniversary of moving into my house, post divorce. Five years provides a significant marker for reflection on all that has transpired in that time – new growth, what was achieved, what was not achieved, the joy of finding my way, my voice, my life and the disappointments of not realizing all I dreamt possible in this time while feeling immense gratitude for the unexpected gifts that showed up, particularly my new partner with whom I am in an intentional, whole hearted, cross border, life and work journey. With new and inspiring visions for our work together.

In this moment, there is a transition working its way through me yet again. It is intangible, energetic, spiritual. It is another aspect of my soul journey manifesting itself in physical form. There are not adequate words to capture the essence of the moment and sometimes words are not what is needed. While this is going on I am struggling with my current body image as I reinstitute my fitness regime that has been sadly lacking over the last few months of interrupted patterns.

Mary Ritcey Jourdain, 1970s

And, I find myself missing my mother – unexpectedly and deeply. This might not be the “right” thing to say, but mostly I don’t miss her much. We are connected in spirit and in soul journey. She is in the next stage of her soul journey and I am cool with that. Partly sparked by family friends posting pictures from another moment in her life when she was young. Partly sparked by upcoming consulting work for a long term care facility – not the one my mother was in for four years, but sparking memory just the same. Partly sparked by mother/daughter Mother’s Day promotions and my mother’s birthday being in the month of May. You never know when these moments will hit.

All of these things (and maybe more) are tangled together in this moment of new and old transitions. I am grateful for the full range of emotional experiences because our emotions are our guidance system. The contrast of emotions helps us know we are alive, helps me know I am alive. Each moment is temporary. This too shall pass. The sight of the full moon last night reminded me about completions. I am ready to cross the threshold that is waiting now. To welcome what wants to flow while honouring all that has transpired in the multitude of transitions all alive in this moment.

Dementia and Death Illuminates Choice to Tell Stories Through Soul Journey Lens

April 12, 2015April 14, 20158 Comments

My mother with the beauty of youth.

My mother with her mother in 1990 (the year my first son was born)

We make meaning of our lives through the stories we tell. We can tell those stories through the lens of human tragedy or the lens of soul journey. I learned what this means through my mother’s journey with dementia and in long term care. I share a bit about that in this 2014 interview with Terry Choyce:

Drumming and the Soul

February 11, 20159 Comments

In 2000, I experienced my first drumming circle. At the time, it was a brief, but profound experience and even then I couldn’t imagine how profound it was, would be, as it reverberated through the next decade of my journey and beyond. It was so profound that my book, Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness, begins with a description of the drumming circle.

I did not deliberately seek out the depth of spiritual journey that showed up – at least not all the time – although the spiritual journey was persistent in seeking me out. At times it felt like I had no choice but to respond, to follow the nudges and to give in to what kept wanting to show up. This journey for me was an opening to gifts and talents I did not think possible for me or available to me. I had imagined only “special”, “deeply gifted” and “powerful” people would have access to these kinds of gifts. The realization over time is that we all have access, we all have gifts. Most of us just need to find our way through the persistent story telling that tells us otherwise, that tells us that these experiences are not real, that we are making them up. The mind does not know the difference between what we imagine and what is real – which is why visualization is so powerful.

In this audio clip from an interview I did with Terry Paul Choyce, she asks great questions about my soul journey and I share snippets of my experiences and understandings that have emerged through this part of my life journey.

My favourite picture from when my son and I made our own drums in 2009.

Observing the Passing of An Authentic Man – Rob van Soest

January 18, 20152 Comments

At 6’4″, with a direct, no nonsense approach, Rob van Soest did not suffer fools lightly. Which made him a surprising mix of intimidating, daunting, trustworthy and likeable. You knew where you stood with him. He was clear about his values and lived them. With an often gruff exterior, he was a a kind, caring and loving man who stood by what he knew were the right things to do and the people he cared about, especially his wife, Deb van Soest. The evening of January 15, 2015, he left a big hole in the hearts, minds and souls of so many as he transitioned back into spirit to continue his own soul journey, supporting, cherishing, loving from a different dimension. He was just 65 years old.

Rob van Soest, 1950-2015

I first met Rob in March 2008 when I went to his home in St. Paul, Alberta to meet his wife, Deb – my sister – in person for the first time since we were children. I was arriving as he was leaving – on his way to work on a post-retirement contract in Fort McMurray where he and Deb had each lived for about thirty years. They worked for the same company which is how they met and they retired together to spend time at their home in St. Paul, to travel together and to spend time with family and friends who mattered.

Since retiring, Rob was in demand for contract work. Employers trusted him, knew his sense of integrity and knew he would get the job done well. Rob enjoyed the contract work because he was beholden to no one, could speak his mind openly and clearly and take or leave the work depending on the circumstances. If he thought it would compromise his integrity, he would not commit to do the work. He and Deb had many and deep conversations about the path he and they wanted to walk.

He was, of course, curious about me and how it would be for Deb to meet me and be with me for a few days and discreet enough to give time and space to the new – renewed – discovery of relationship. By the way Deb talked about him and their relationship and some of their many stories of family over the years – between them they have ten kids – it was clear they had a solid, loving, respectful, mutual relationship.

When I met them, Rob and Deb were living on their property in St. Paul – remote, woods and fields where the dogs could run and they could go 4 wheeling or snow-mobiling by themselves or with visitors, like kids or grandkids, friends or like me and my son Shasta when we visited – which we did together twice. Rob had rules for the operation of 4 wheelers and snow mobiles, for fires, for guns. His rules were for safety. The kids and grandkids obeyed the rules. As long as they did, it was all great. If they broke the rules, there were consequences and not a single person doubted that would be the case. He commanded respect and received it because he gave it.

Roaming the property – with Shasta and me and their two dogs. First time Shasta went 4 wheeling was under Rob’s guidance.

Shasta and I first visited there in 2010. He was eight years old. With a three hour time difference, I was a bit concerned about him waking too early and waking the household – not wanting him – or me – to get on Rob’s bad side. I was surprised in the morning when I woke up and Shasta was being very, very quiet. I commented on how quiet he was being. That’s when he told me that if he wasn’t quiet, Rob had threatened to throw him in the beaver pond. I looked at him quizzically and said, “Rob wouldn’t do that.” What I didn’t realize was that Rob’s grandson who was also visiting at the time and was in his teens, corroborated Rob’s threat. He looked at Shasta in all seriousness and said, “That’s where my brothers are.” I could tell that Shasta was trying to reconcile in his eight year old brain his sense of Rob and Rob’s integrity with this threat and clearly Rob was not beyond pulling a good prank on someone.

On their deck – a regular occurrence – with one of their dogs – overlooks a beautiful back yard, the fire pit and the beaver pond.

I also remember standing on the deck with Rob, watching Shasta occupy himself by running from the fire pit down by the beaver pond up behind the house to get a piece of wood and run it back to the fire pit when Rob would just as easily have brought the wagon up behind a four wheeler to load it up and take it down. Rob and I both shrugged as we watched him do a little dance every time he headed back up.

I am grateful that Shasta and I (and my other two boys as well) have memories of this extraordinary man and I mourn the fact that I did not have more time to know and experience him and that my life partner and Rob did not have a chance to meet. They would have liked each other. And then I know there are others who had the privilege to know him and journey with him for much longer and who will miss him deeply.

Rob and Deb with two of the grandchildren – mutual adoration.

The quality of Rob and Deb’s relationship – of strong communication, openness, mutual support – is a quality I now experience with my own partner who I did not know at the time Deb and I first met. While the four of us won’t have the opportunity to meet, raise a glass together or spend time together, their relationship is an inspiration and an aspiration for me. Love them both. Might even raise a glass of good Alberta Whiskey in honour of a man who blazed a true path.

Rob and Deb – the joy of their relationship evident in this photo

Redefining “Til Death Do Us Part”

October 18, 201411 Comments

By now you have probably seen the photo (like the one here) of a very old couple with some version of the following question and response inscribed across it: “How did you manage to stay together for 65 years?” “We were born in a time when if something was broken we would fix it.”

There is so much implied in this statement. That all those couples that managed to stay together for all those years actually had good marriages, “fixing” whatever didn’t work. That for those of us who didn’t manage to “fix” our marriages that we never tried or that we didn’t try hard enough, left on a whim. It assumes there was something fixable or worth fixing. That we failed, maybe even that we were failures. I certainly know enough people, including me at one time, who took failure on as part of self-identity.

I don’t know many people who have left a marriage or other long standing relationship on a whim, without a great deal of reflection, pain or agony. Without understanding that an individual’s or couple’s decision has far reaching ramifications for their children, their parents, for other extended family, for friendships, for all the financial and asset unraveling, to legal procedures and more. It is not a simple thing to leave a marriage. Not the first time. Not even the second time for those of us who have been through it twice. (Can’t speak for more than twice but I’m sure others could.)

Every time I see that particular image, it gives me a quirky little pause. Lots of thoughts register. So much is implied, intentionally or not. Mostly I think about appliances and gadgets like televisions and radios that used to last “forever” and could be fixed that now seem to be designed for obsolescence, fixing them often costing more than replacing them. But marriages are not appliances. And the word “fix” always seems to need quotation marks as I think about it the context of relationship.

I find myself wondering, “Really? People ‘fixed’ broken marriages “back then”? All of those couples that made it to 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, longer?” I’m sure some of them did and I’m sure many of them didn’t actually “fix” their marriage but they found ways to stay in it – healthy or otherwise. How many of them lived in pain and hurt that was never addressed? Learned to co-exist because divorce would be a failure worse than death? Stayed together because of obligation or religion? Died inside and lived as hollowed out shells of former selves because it was the only way to stay?

Many of us have a keen sense and eye for the state of relationships. It is pretty easy to tell when couples are happy together, connected, loving each other, supporting each other, when they are working it out, appreciating each other or co-existing, living separate lives under the same roof, sleeping in separate rooms or when they are not happy, not working it out, hating each other, dying inside. The energetics and dynamics of physical interaction conveys loud and clear the state of the union, even to untrained eyes. Whether individuals speak about a significant other or not when they are in relationship also speaks volumes and what they say about their significant other is another indicator.

While one person can influence whether a relationship works or not or how it works, it really takes two people to want to be in the work of relationship together for healthy relationship to thrive. Healthy relationship needs healthy individuals. If one person or both have to “disappear” to keep the relationship together, is that “fixing” it? The dynamic give and take of relationship is hard work. Not all relationships are “fixable”.

Twice divorced, I’ve given a lot of thought to marriage and relationship. Had I known more in my first marriage, maybe it could have been “fixable”. By the time I allowed myself to see how bad it was, how unhappy it was, it was beyond repair. I thought my second marriage would be a dream and it was more challenging than I could have anticipated. And this one, this second marriage, I, and we, tried hard to “fix”. But for many reasons it was not fixable and the “cost” of staying together was rising as time went by.

We discovered we were each being invited into our own individual reflection and journey, which in the end did not bring us together but showed us the need to go our separate ways. We became aware that our relationship had come to a place of completion, that we had learned with each other some things we might not have learned otherwise. For me it was embracing the stranger in me – embracing all those elements of myself – the ones that wanted to make me small and the ones that wanted me to fly – to come to wholeness; to open my heart fully through strength and vulnerability and to find compassion for myself and for others in the journey; which is an ongoing daily practice.

With continued reflection and in conversation with friends also going through separation and divorce, I began to ponder the notion of vows and particularly the vow of “til death do us part”. I wondered about death taking forms other than physical death – like death of relationship, death of marriage, death of aspects of ourselves. And I wondered if the vow is not actually “until completion” instead of “until death”? Which then raised the possibility for me that completion might be something that happens in one lifetime – in minutes, over months or years or until physical death. And maybe it could also be something that crosses lifetimes – that some relationships and some patterns are not completed in one lifetime. Perhaps some of the things we are completing now are from previous lifetimes and some of the things we are in at the moment might not be completed until another life time – if you believe we have other life times. A long time ago a soul friend of mine offered to me one of the most heart wrenching but true things I had ever heard, “Kathy, some things are not meant to be completed in this life time.” And, it would seem, some things are.

I am not anti-marriage. I celebrate and see great hope in enduring couples that clearly have a healthy, loving, mutual relationship. And I am sad every time a relationship ends, even when it is clear that it needs to. And I bow to the journey of those who stay in marriages, able to make things work out with varying degrees of success and challenge; and to those who do make great sacrifice, if that is their path – who am I to judge?

These are the cycles of life, of relationship, of marriage. Would it have been that I could have been married for 30 years or 50 years, but not at the cost of dying a little every day, of losing myself, of never really living life to the fullest in the way my soul kept – keeps – calling me to. I followed the path that called me into difficult life choices because this was the path that called me to integration and calls me into living in the fullest authenticity I know how to live every day to varying degrees of success – in this moment and the next and the next.

Exposing Self: A Risk in the Journey to Openheartedness

October 10, 201414 Comments

One of the beautiful things about having written and published Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness, is the exchange I get to have with readers deep in their own journey. This post is a result of a question from a reader.

The Question

I have a whole other career inside of me that I have not exposed fully in this lifetime. Words of love and wisdom on how to get over the fear of revealing I am love? I have been abused, hurt, rejected, prejudged, all of the above…and through it all my intent is always how can I help…what can I do? I have found balance with my intent…now spirit is really telling me to move on and work though this fear.

The Response

The question you pose is a question of journey. It is the biggest question we hold as we begin to know we are on the path to allowing ourselves to be revealed. How do we give the best of ourselves without giving ourselves away, without opening the invitation to be judged, to be attacked? This is where the outer journey meets the inner journey. What is the work we need to do in and for ourselves, how do we host ourselves, in order to shine brightly in the world?

How do you learn to love yourself, not judge yourself? To be compassionate for yourself and your journey – not in a way that lets you off the hook for what you need to do but in a way that allows you to more fully explore all that needs to be explored?

Hold these questions for yourself from a place of curiosity, compassion and love. Notice the responses in you to these questions: where am I judging myself? Where I am hurting myself? What parts of me am I rejecting? What am I seeking from someone else that I have not yet found, or found in a lasting way?

What you encounter in the outer world often activates something in your inner world – your own voice of judgment or our own inner critic.

Your emotions are your guidance system. Learn to access and understand them to discover what the message is they are trying to transmit to you, how they are trying to guide you. Ask yourself: what am I experiencing in this moment? Where is it activated in my body? What is it trying to tell me/help me learn? What is it that is really bothering me? What am I really reacting to? Be in an inquiry to go deeper.

Here is some writing over on the Shape Shift Blog on what I’ve been learning that might also be helpful about your emotions as your guidance system.

And, take little risks at first, not big ones that feel like they are exposing you. You don’t need to jump in all at once – you can do it bit by bit. Start with people you feel safer with. Begin a dialog to get to deeper understanding. Seek wise counsel in the ways it wants to show up. Sometimes that might be through a friend, sometimes through a coach, sometimes through writing or experience that shows up in just the right moment. Nurture a reflective practice so you may be in some regular observance of your own experience.

You are love, not fear. Go quiet and listen to the whispers within. Fear is ego. It is wanting to keep you safe. You can acknowledge it, thank it and explore the ways of moving into your courage, strength and power that allows you to show more and more of who you truly are.

And, we never get it perfect. We are always in our learning. Love to you in this exploration and in your openhearted journey.

You Are Not Your Story

September 1, 201427 Comments

It is deeply heart-opening when people who read Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness share how the stories in the book resonate for them in their own journey. And then they thank me for being so courageous to share those stories as they feel they have glimpsed into my own vulnerability. All true. And it has generated a curiosity for me about what my relationship with this book is – because it doesn’t feel quite so courageous from my perspective. This book has its own life, energy and flow – thankfully and interestingly.

How are your stories working for you?

And I get to remember, again, what I already knew and now know more deeply. I am not my stories. I am not my book. I am not the stories other people tell (or think) about me. And, you are not your stories. They do not define you – unless you choose to let them. Of course, they shape you. And, you have choices as to how they shape you – looking at life through the human tragedy or drama perspective or from the soul journey perspective – that which we are seeking to learn or experience at the soul level.

There are moments in my life that are seared into my memory as pivotal moments. One such memory, complete with date, is March 1998. I was halfway through a severance period, having been royally fired from my job, in the middle of a divorce and having bought a home, for me and my two young boys, predicated on a salary I no longer had with no idea what I was going to do next to support myself. I was in the highest anxiety of my life – to that point. I could only focus on what was right in front of me – the next moment, maybe the next day, but certainly not weeks, months or years down the road – because otherwise the stress was overwhelming to the point of being debilitating.

I was sitting in my kitchen, making a choice of which book to pick up and read – the practical What Colour is Your Parachute or the transformative The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I didn’t know it would be transformative when I picked it up, but it was. I was transported to another world. Mesmerized. It moved me to tears and to laughter. And I understood maybe for the first time: I am not my stories. I am not my failure. I am not my divorce. I am not my job loss. These are things that have happened in my life. I have a choice as to how I view them. The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore offered me a different, expansive option for how to view these things that happened to me. The author, Alan Cohen, offered that I had attracted these things into my life. If I had the “power” to attract those life altering “negative” things, I had the equal and opposite capacity or power to also attract more life affirming circumstances into my life.

What I understood is that I had been increasingly drifting away from the things I hold true in my life, the things I valued – or said I valued. My actions did not always support my beliefs and what I thought I valued. I was in increasing dissonance and did not know how to live a fractured existence anymore. At the time I felt like I was looking out a picture window at my life as it unfolded, I was so dissociated from my experience and my existence. And I did not have the skills to know how to navigate it – or relationships – in a healthy way. It made me believe the human tragedy/drama perspective – that I must be a bad person, maybe even evil. Otherwise, why would these things have happened to me?

In this one day, I was liberated. I was invited into choice. I wish I could say it was only a generative upward vortex from then on but of course it wasn’t. It was, and still is, a human journey, fraught with the rollercoaster of emotions and experiences. It took me another decade to surrender into the journey with a greater degree of fullness and I’m still learning about surrendering.

The book was and is intended as an offering of stories for others – for you even – in your own journey. An invitation to journey on, journey deeper, journey more lightly. An invitation to view your stories in a different way from different perspectives, ones that generate more expansiveness, spaciousness and choice. An invitation to trust what you doubt, to know someone has navigated similar waters with varying degrees of success, sometimes at peace and sometimes in turmoil – because this is life and this is how we grow. To understand that life is more than just the physical experience and to trust the non-physical as you experience it, as you surely do. To treat yourself with compassion, love and forgiveness and to invite that into your relationships – all of them, even the ones where you would prefer to hold onto a bit of resentment.

When you live your stories as if they are you, you disempower yourself. When you understand your story shapes your journey but is not you, you show up more fully in your strength and your power and it is a thing of beauty to behold.

All Things Are Here – In My Life and Experience – By My Invitation

August 20, 201419 Comments

When my youngest son was a toddler and a preschooler, he could throw a temper tantrum like I had never experienced before or maybe even believed possible. He could throw them in private at home and he could also throw them in public places, equally well. I once did my whole grocery shopping with him in a fit because my options were limited. When he was in a tantrum, which could be set off by seemingly inane things, he was beside himself, working himself up into more of a tempest with each minute that passed. Yelling. Screaming. Throwing himself around. He was truly inconsolable and, believe me, we tried many different ways to soothe him. Nothing worked. Anything tried only made him worse, as well meaning friends and strangers sometimes found out. He needed to exhaust himself from whatever swirl of emotions was in him. When he was done, he was done. He was ready for apple juice and a snuggle, to let go of where he had been and to move forward – almost as if nothing had happened.

I have no idea how many temper tantrums he threw. Enough to observe a wide range of reactions and responses in myself. Learning, as difficult as it was, he needed to be left alone, to be in his own journey of discovery of how to self regulate. It was challenging to bear witness to and challenging as a mother to seem to have no strategies of success to help him feel better. So many things activated in me – disappointment, frustration, my own rage, sadness, despair, feelings of failure – as a mother and a person. Also fear when that moment became projected into the future and images of this child as a temper tantrum throwing adult made me fear he would not find his way in the world, find his way to maturity. Learning not to personalize his behaviour, not to make it about me instead of about his experience. Learning patience, to move at the pace of guidance – one of the seven whispers in Christina Baldwin’s book of the same name.

Maybe the most significant learning was in letting go. After what could sometimes be an hour or more of a temper tantrum, my son was ready to let it go. An awareness and curiosity arose in me as I pondered what seems like typical adult reactions – the desire to make it about the relationship, to see it as personal attack, to want the other person to suffer as much as we perceive that we have suffered at their hands, as a result of their behaviour. “Just because you’re done, doesn’t mean it’s over. Now you need to bear the consequences of what you just did – to me.” We want to stay grumpy even when the other person has moved beyond it. Why do we do that? He was not angry at me. He was not deliberately trying to ruin my day. He was caught up in his own experience.

Staying grumpy, staying mad, seeking retribution, sometimes seeking apology, wanting the other person to admit they are wrong, are ways of externalizing our power – giving it away to someone else. A toddler in a temper tantrum. A person we care about in their own disruption or projection. We want them to make it better. We want them to pay. And who does it serve to be that way? No one. Especially not us. Not the relationship either.

“In my life, I have told many stories that externalize or give away my power. Learning to own my own experience and my own power has been and continues to be a significant part of my journey.” Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness (Chapter 1)

All of this has me reflecting on relationships – the ebb and flow, beauty and challenge that show up, sometimes in equal measure although sometimes it just seems that way, because of where we focus our attention. When we have an argument with someone dear to us, sometimes that argument and the energetic imprint of it takes precedence and becomes the defining energy of the relationship. If we focus on it, focus on how wronged we feel, that is what we grow. But we have a choice. We could choose to focus on the beauty, the joy, the qualities of the other person that we admire, adore and love. They are there in equal measure and often more. These could be the defining qualities of the relationship.

To know we have choice invites us into self reflection and self hosting – to discern what is our own to take care of and what needs to be taken care of in relationship, so it does not become the shadow underbelly given life by trying to repress it. This is a discernment and we may not always get it right. But what if we could be in relationship in an attitude of appreciation, love and forgiveness? How would that change the dynamic, flow and connection in relationship in contrast to when we focus on the moments of hurt, pain, disappointment?

I often need to remind myself that “all things are here by my invitation or attraction of them in one way or another. If I were not attracting these experiences, the insights that arise from them could not be in my experience. This includes people, events, situations, timing and flow.” Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness Chapter 1. This is the invitation to hosting myself, to be self reflective. If I can find clarity in this, then I can know how to show up in relationship, what I can heal within myself and what I need to bring to the relationship, not through righteousness or justification but through generosity and curiosity to understand how to deepen relationship, to create the invitational space to show up in the fullness of who we both are as human beings – in our strength and our vulnerability, to not feel the need to hide or the need to defend.

“With great intentionality, I have been shifting my focus to tell more and more of the stories of appreciation, gratitude and love. I am telling more of the stories of the way I want my life to be rather than of how I don’t want it to be.” Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness Chapter 1. And this is an ongoing, often daily practice. It would be so much easier to live a cocooned life but people are always going to show up in one way or another no matter how hard we might try to shut them out. Easier isn’t necessarily better. The opportunity for growth shows up in those moments, invited whether we think they are or not.

A beautiful example is my son. Not a toddler anymore. A young person who has been learning how to self regulate his emotional experience who no longer throws temper tantrums. Now it is a beautiful journey to witness. He is such an old soul teacher for me in this journey to openheartedness, embracing all that shows up on the path.

Not Just Cover Design: Sacred Art

August 15, 20145 Comments

Like the book itself, the artwork on the cover of Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedenss, has a story of its own to tell. It is a story of synchronicity and timing, one of flow, one of channeling and of ritual or initiation. It is the story of two things, each percolating for years, each on their own. The book, of course. And the artwork. And not just any artwork – sacred art. Sacred art for me and for the book.

The genesis of the artwork was a long brewing curiosity and interest in possibly getting a tattoo. Around 2009, when I felt the birthing of the second half of my life, I began to imagine getting a tattoo. I didn’t know what image I wanted, nor did I know where on my body I would want to put this image. At one point, my son’s girlfriend found a fabulous shamanic image of a woman and a power animal – which I bookmarked and then lost when I got a new computer.

When my interest in a tattoo renewed itself, I began searching the internet for images, knowing I wanted a lion as part of the image. Nothing ever emerged that resonated deeply for me or that I wanted to put on my body in permanent ink. And then, early in 2013, at the same time my book was moving to its publishing phase, a Facebook friend began to blog about her journey to a sacred tattoo and I knew I was supposed to pay attention.

Through this friend, I got in touch with sacred tattoo artist Tania Marie. The tattoo was to represent the spiritual dimension of my journey so I shared a couple of chapters from the book that reflected this journey as well as other reflections on what I felt the tattoo was to represent. Tania meditated on me and my journey and began to channel the design. What she channeled, before even reading what I sent her, was very consistent and resonant with what I shared.

Around the same time, the publisher started asking me about any ideas I might have for the design of the cover of my book. It was the first time I put the two things together. Without even seeing the design, it occurred to me that the spiritual skin just might become the artwork for the book cover. When I saw the artwork, I knew it was so.

Artwork by Tania Marie

There is much story contained in the elements of the art which embraces the elements of earth, fire, air, water and spirit and I will share some of it here, largely in the words Tania shared with me.

The medicine woman is in the process of shapeshifting into the lion who is my journey partner since my first drumming circle experience in 2000. The medicine woman wears feathers of the eagle or owl in her hair, entwined twigs and leaves of Mother Earth, his mane and her hair and shawl all merging and integrating.

A lotus essence, almost like ethereal fire, emerges atop the swallowtail butterfly, with energy integrating into the lion’s mane, the medicine woman’s hair and shawl. The butterfly is releasing and freeing its creative abundance and joyful breadth of life-giving and is a messenger of powerfully transformative healing and regenerative energy and symbolism across time of the precious miracle of life, hope, love, transmutation, magick, joy,

The art is hugely rooted in shamanism, centeredness, balance, groundedness, empowerment, expansion, opening, releasing and honoring, as well as deepening emergence – all symbols and allies in deep journey and in transformation which is in continual motion. Such a humbling experience to be offered this gift to be put at my back as a symbol of deeper healing, gifts, growth and protection.

Photo by John Coleman and Michelle Murton

When it was time to have the tattoo inked on my skin, I went to see Kyle Bowles at Soul Harbour, the same tattoo artist that my friend had used. It was done in two sessions, the first to do the outline, the second to do the colour. Many people have asked me if it hurt. It is hard to explain. It is pain and not pain at the same time. The only way I could think of it was as an initiation – like I might have gone through in a previous time, as the medicine woman depicted in the art, ritual, something that had to be done.

I love the colour version of the tattoo on my back – Kyle and I picked out the colours and it is even better than I imagined it would be. And it was the black and white original art work that was to adorn the cover of the book. I sent it off to the publisher and the design team there sent it back with the colour and shading that was just perfect for the book.

The interweaving of story, synchronicity, beauty, love and joy. A depiction of one aspect of the stranger in me showing up in the fullness of the openhearted journey.