Taking a Break

A week ago, I was done blogging for the rest of my life. I decided to continue after considering the work I put into speaking my authentic voice over the last year. But since then, I'm slogging through mud to post my thoughts. Rebuttals are on replay in my head whenever I try to write. I'm too tired to stave off negativity, naysayers, and phrases on repeat said by people who still have too much weight on my care-o-meter.

I'm far too tempted to simply reprint the words of people more courageous than I. Who needs another blog post of a quote you can pull up on google? I'm in such a complete undoing and remaking stage that I often know what I want to say but only in raw form. I'd make a heck of a lot more enemies if I blasted those babies out.

I don't want to feel like everything I post is in defense of myself or a fight to live vibrantly or freely in the face of pain or misunderstanding. I don't want to ignore the beauty or pain. But I have no idea how to write about my life without making someone feel misrepresented and I can't handle that right now. I'm tired of my words being misconstrued and turned against me. I know that's the plight of a writer. I can't control what my readers think or do with my words and I'm not trying to. I simply don't have the emotional strength for that right now. Someday I will and that is when I will post again.

I was sincere when I said I'm not trying to share drama simply to get more readers. So I'm taking a break. I'm going to give my readers and acquaintances a chance to step out of my personal life for awhile. And I'm crawling in a hole to hide. All I can picture right now is the Penguins of Madagascar. 

THANK YOU to all who have checked in on the view from the window of my soul somewhat regularly over the last year. Thank you for your loving and gracious comments and for valuing the view from here. I deeply appreciate you.

Quote of the week

"The things which the child loves remain in the domain of the heart until old age.
The most beautiful thing in life is that our souls remain over the places where we once enjoyed ourselves."

Kahlil Gibran

Personal Development Class

I teach a personal development/mindfulness class to high school students at our charter school. I LOVE THEM. I love how they are unfolding before each other. Fun personalities, depth, vulnerability, laughter, encouragement, kindness, hearts and struggle out in front as we attempt to truly see each other and the beauty of the world around us.

Last week some of them courageously took the media fast challenge I presented. This week we are intrepidly embarking on a sugar fast together. There is no way to fail. This is just an experiment to observe ourselves when we take out one of the most addictive substances in our world. I am so proud of them. I am honored to share a tiny bit of space, learning with, growing with and sharing my heart as they authentically share theirs.

Thank you, precious people. You are world changers. I smile every time I think of you. My life is richer because you're in it.

Be Thankful

Sometimes being thankful is the best way to kick out of a slump. Sometimes being thankful is the best way to LIVE. Thankfulness works. I'm thankful today.

Favorite Song of the Week: Unpack Your Heart

One of my dearest friends sent this song to me and I can't stop listening to it.

"Oh, I'm on your side. So shed your shadow and watch it rise. 

Into your darkness, I'll shine a Light."

Excerpt of the Week

I found this piece and resonate deeply as to how I feel toward the world in general. Enjoy. By Toko-pa Turner written in 2013.

I Want to Be Alive with You

  "I want to be guided by older-ups. I want babies to be born where old people die. I want to be sandwiched in the middle of a messy togetherness. I want to be warned before I do something stupid. I want to be forgiven when I do it anyway. I want wisdoms to be tapped out on my eardrums and not Googled. I want transitions to be recognized by fire. I want gifts to be coaxed from children and teenagers and adults and I want to mean something to my community. I want to get drunk on substance morning and night. I want to hear your dreams. I want to raise a revolution for gentleness. I want to call out the bullshit on consensus reality. I want to get rich so I can billboard the highways with validations. 

  I don't want to be another faker. I don't want to show you my good side and hide my humanity. I don't want to dole you out my Self in digestible status-chunks. I want to challenge you in long, drawn-out rituals and still find you interested. I want to feed you seventeen course meals made with spices I crushed. I want to recite you circular poems, each beginning cutting a deeper grasp. I want to make you feel something, even if it's awkward. I want to sing you songs which are ancient and new. I want to carve stories in trees with tools my elders fashioned. I want to keep sharpening them. I want to find places we've never been. And then, I want to return there, but backwards.

  I want to shuffle up words so we don't sleep through them. I want to learn things and then be splashed into never forgetting. I want to make you feel seen. I want to hold your pounding heart in my gentlest of hands. I don't want to miss a moment. I want to dig at the bottom and find it false. I want to turn up unknown depths. I want to stand in this hurricane and sing the sweetest, most naked song you can bear. I want to be alive with you."

Living and Writing

Yesterday I was finished blogging for the rest of my life. Then I woke up today and asked myself why. After fighting for a year to figure out how to say what I'm really wanting to say, now I'm going to stop?

I want to write about Life. Even though I'm going through an extremely difficult season and some days feel like hell, many days I feel alive, hopeful, and full of peace. I want to write about what's real for me. The beautiful, hopeful things are often more real than the pain. But when I start writing about the beautiful things, I feel guilty. Like people are going to think I'm smoothing over the pain and pretending that everything is ok. That's not it.

That's not it at all.

I process the pain with my closest friends. I cry. I sob. I feel it all. But then I move on to the beautiful things. Beautiful connections with my amazing kids. Beautiful moments in nature soaking up Life all around me. Beautiful moments pouring out life on those I'm working with in craniosacral and massage therapy. Beautiful moments using my brain to learn clarinet, bones and muscles, aromatherapy, and how to start my own business. Beautiful moments with friends talking about LIVING and BECOMING and CREATING magic in our world.

I refuse to let pain and difficulty steal, kill or destroy my life. I believe in a LIFE GIVER. I believe in a Redeemer. I believe in a CREATOR God who is ever at the task of creating life out of nothing, life out of chaos. And that's what the Beautiful Spirit of God is doing in, around and through me. It's what He did for the last 39 years of my life to get me to this place, to mold me into the person I am today. And this is simply one more piece of my story that contains pain and seeming death. But with God, life is the focus . . . even in death. So I will continue to write about Life.