Tag: courage

Animals and Nature, Authenticity, Awakening, compassion and trust, courage, Mystery and Magic

On how a crow gave me the courage to be myself

ravenhearthealing

Recently, with all that has been happening in the world, I find myself scrolling through my news feed and on social media much more than usual, certainly much more than I like to be.  I try to limit my exposure because I don’t always come away from my time on social media feeling great.

These days, I come away from it feeling like I’m not doing enough to help this broken world, and everything seems urgent, the more I read the less I seem to know, and I start to feel smaller and smaller, so that by the time I disengage I am almost completely paralyzed and overwhelmed.

Perhaps you know what I speak of – I want to be informed, I want to be engaged, I want to take guided action and yet for the sake of my own sanity I have to sometimes just shut it all off.

My own particular Achilles heel in this area is that in my effort to stay in the loop, I inevitably start comparing myself and my posts and my efforts to others.

And I know better.

I know that comparison will either make me feel superior or make me feel like less, or not as good as. I start to believe that I’m not trying hard enough, not doing it “right,” not doing all the things.

When this happens, I know I need to re-focus my gaze inward, not outward. I need to look to my own work and my own calling and my own journey. I need to give some healing to my own heart.

So, as I offered myself the rest of the day off from FB and IG and turned off my phone, I prepared to step out into my backyard with a cup of a tea and a good book. I could still feel my sense of “less than” creeping up my back like a shiver, that odious voice in my head telling me “you’re a failure, you will never succeed at this, everyone is doing it better than you are” and just before I pushed my screen door open, there he was.

A little crow baby on the grass just a few feet from my back door.

Because I was in the house and behind the screen he couldn’t see me. I quietly sank to the floor and watched in wonder as he leapt around and crow-walked through the garden, over the grass, under the ferns and around the hostas without any concern.

And I got to watch him, drink him in with my eyes and my heart. I could see a few tiny, light downy feathers near his tail, which looked so sweet and quirky.

I confess that I wanted to squish him and love him and kiss him.

I wanted him to stay forever.

I grabbed bird seed, dates and corn chips. I followed him down the garden path as he hopped slowly towards the front gate, keeping his eye on me and watching as I fought off the resident chipmunks in my effort to bribe him with treats.

I don’t believe in coincidences anymore, and certainly not when it comes to nature. The last time I was crushed by comparison and doubting myself and my work, I had a life-affirming visit from a hawk.

So I knew immediately that there was an important message for me here, and that I needed to pay attention to this crow.

This perfect and comical little crow stayed in my backyard all afternoon and evening as I sat outside. Once I thought he was gone for good but then suddenly he flew past me where I was sitting, so close I could feel the air move on the back of my neck as he swooped in and almost crash landed on a rock a few feet to my left.

He looked back over his shoulder at me.

I opened my heart to him, I beamed love from my heart and eyes into him, I was so grateful that he had come to be with me as I worked to soothe my battered mind and heart.

For certainly the raven and the crow are birds that have walked with me for as long as I can remember.

They are birds of mystery and harbingers of internal change.

This crow child was asking me to remember who I am, who I really am. To honor my own magic, my own true self and my own divine potential.

He was asking me to protect my fledgling confidence, to honour all my efforts and small steps towards new things that felt uncomfortable. To embrace it, to own it, to walk it like one who knows that growing into her potential is inevitable, because she’s already walking it. And, that I need no one’s permission to do this.

Crow made time stand still for me. He said – ignore all the noise that is the world right now and just be yourself. Walk with me, walk like a crow – unapologetic, confident and curious.

And please laugh.

With him beside me on the rock I wrote, I wrote poetry for my family, I wrote the crow, I laughed and cried. I wept for the darkness and the light, for all the pain and suffering and beauty moving in this world, for all the ways that I am the fragile, merciless author of my own suffering.

And I realized then that in my backyard on a Saturday afternoon with a baby crow, I was communing with the divine. In a dark moment had come a beautiful, dark bird to show me the light. To show me the light within me, that is also within all of us.

I so badly want to serve the world in some meaningful way. I ask how I may serve, and it seems that I am repeatedly reminded to be myself, to get out of my own way, to give up my self-doubt and surrender to the immense, unknowable design of things.

And that I need no one’s permission in order to do this. I can assure you, there isn’t a crow in the world that has ever asked for permission from anyone, including the sweet, young crow in my yard.

May we all find a way to serve the world by being true to who we are. May we know we are enough. May we know that our courage is needed now more than ever, the courage to offer what we have, however humble. May we have the courage to do hard things, to have hard conversations, to make changes. In the dark storm, may we realize we are the light – and that in order to bring it the question has to be not “who’s going to let me?” but “who’s going to stop me?”

Divine beloved…
May I know my own value, beauty and worthiness without question
Change me into one who can fully love, forgive and accept myself
So I may carry Your light without restriction
Let everything that needs to go, go
Let everything that needs to come, come
I am utterly Your own
You are me, I am You, we are One
All is well.

Excerpted from “The Full Abundance Change Me Prayer” by Tosha Silver

 

 

Awakening, compassion and trust, coronavirus musings, courage, gratitude, Mindfulness and Meditation

Musings on the meaning of it all

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These days I wake early-ish…before the rest of the house is up. I need those two hours to drink coffee in silence and to sit.
I yearn to be alone.
I read from Richard Wagamese’s One Story, One Song…it soothes me, roots me into the present.

Sometimes I pretend that this is a regular morning, that soon I will put my book down and wake my daughters and they will get ready to catch the bus for school.  In my pretending I forget for a moment that this is not a normal day, that my husband is still upstairs.
Today when he comes down my greeting is not warm…I silently wish he would go away.

The day before today I was awash with gratitude for my family, feeling so lucky to have those I love safe under one roof. I stood at the foot of my daughters’ beds and touched their feet and wept. I made pancakes and woke everyone with a smile and a song. I hugged my husband hard and told him how much I love him.

I still do.

But today…I wish he would go away. Go outside. Take a drive in the truck…a long one.

This is day 23 of sheltering in place…I think.

This is normal, I tell myself.
During a pandemic it must be normal to ride these waves of emotion and extremes of love and loathing and anger.
It’s normal to want to hide in my bed and eat nothing but toast with butter.
It’s normal to long to sit on my meditation cushion and burn sage and be still and breathe and then struggle to my feet because I am about to be engulfed by a tsunami, like I am already under water all the time, moving slowly.
So slowly.

Sometimes I think it is enough just to lie on the floor and breathe. I think of those in ICUs all over the world, on ventilators, and with purpose I breathe in and out…I feel the constant presence and comfort of my own breath. I breathe with gratitude, with love.

And this is all I know: that I don’t know much anymore except that these long days seem to be offering us an invitation – an invitation to stop turning away from the hard inner work that is required if we want to change ourselves and our world.
To learn how to sit still, and feel into the murkiness of this time with curiosity and love. To find in ourselves a willingness to undergo our journey with compassion and in total trust.
To listen.
To breathe slowly.

And if the virus offers us anything, it’s the opportunity to practice compassion. For ourselves, and for all the beautiful, imperfect people on this planet struggling in solitude along with us.

In all of this, we are never truly alone…as my dear husband would remind me.

But for now, it is enough to be breathing on this shore, on the edge of the tidal wave, I turn to the mystery with curiosity and love and trust.
What else can I do?

 

 

Authenticity, Awakening, compassion and trust, courage, freedom, Mindfulness and Meditation

This is what I learned when I stopped drinking wine

ravenhearthealing

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how this past year I have been working on noticing what triggers some of my behaviors around consumption – and by “consumption” I mean shopping, drinking wine, eating whatever is in the fridge, and escapist Netflix watching.

I started with what I had noticed about the relationship for me between food and fear.

And as I reflect on this theme, I realize that really, all my mindless consumption has it’s roots in fear.

The famed and no doubt fearless writer Elizabeth Gilbert espouses that “your fear is boring” — which is likely true, but I also believe that it serves an important purpose.

When I turned my attention to my habits around consuming alcohol, here’ s what I noticed:

Whenever I crave a glass of wine on a Friday or Saturday evening (or, let’s be honest – on any given night of the week), it is usually because I am having trouble relaxing and allowing myself to flow with ease into the evening or weekend, because I feel like I haven’t been productive enough.

I didn’t cross off everything on my to-do list (today’s list, for example, has 16 items on it).

I didn’t tackle that project that will be hard because I’ve never done it before so I might fail (fear) or just not be good at it (perfectionism).

In short, I didn’t do all the things, so maybe I don’t deserve to rest.

I feel like less, like I’m not enough.

As though my to-do list is the criteria by which I am to be measured by, as if my success as a human being depends on my output, my productivity. I want the wine to help me forget that I’m a failure.

This is a battle with fear and perfectionism that I have long waged and I am slowly relinquishing my tight grip on it.  I can tell you that whenever I am able to be self-aware and notice my triggers (mindfulness), I do choose differently.

But this has not been easy, my habit of turning to wine to relax me is so ingrained, has been with me for so long, that I have had to really work at not casting about for a different thing to consume as a distraction (like the t.v., or way too much coffee).  Instead of a glass of wine, I make the effort to go for a walk outside, I play a board game with my kids, I write. I offer myself compassion whenever I can because some nights I have to sit on my hands to keep them from reaching for a wine glass.

And as with any habit, the more I choose something kinder, including offering myself kinder thoughts, the more often I am happy to forgo the glass of wine.  If I’m completely honest, I can see that the wine doesn’t really help in the end anyways. My “not enoughness” is still there to greet me in the morning…now accompanied by a sulfite-induced headache.

A friend told me that her glass of wine at the end of the day gave her “something to look forward to.” Another has told me that she is able to justify her habit of having a Manhattan every evening because she only ever has one.  I don’t know what the answer is and my intention here is not to offer permission or judgement or advice of any kind, only to share my own experience with alcohol at this time in my life because I suspect I am not alone in my habitual and often mindless relationship to it.

I don’t want to do things mindlessly anymore. I don’t want to be chased through the long dark winter nights by my habits, with my fears and insecurities snapping at my heels, driving me to the liquor cabinet, to the Amazon website, to the endless episodes on t.v. where you never have to come up for air.

I want to turn and face the demons, to understand them, to put them to rest…with love.

I want to be able to relax in my own home at the end of the day or the week without a glass of wine.

I want to be enough, just as I am, with all my flaws and weirdness and beauty residing happily and soberly together.

I want to live on purpose, to realize that in every moment I get to decide.  To be fully conscious or to go below consciousness (which is where alcohol takes you) – where there is nothing to be felt, or resolved or gained.

Because that glass of wine is simply a way of courting oblivion. And I want to be fully awake to this beautiful life.  My life. I want to hear what pain and fear have to teach me.  I want to welcome them with compassion and love and heal them, not run from them forever into the dark night with a bottle and a corkscrew tucked under my arm.

Now when I feel like I might like a glass of wine, I pause.  I breathe.  I ask myself: why do you need a glass of wine today, what edge are you walking that feels so uncomfortable that you want to blot it out, what imaginary failure are you courting?

Breathe.

Have some tea.

Write it down…with all the love and compassion in your trembling heart, write your way through this habit that numbs you from the pain and then also disconnects you from the joy of your one beautiful life.

So here it is: I am working on understanding my relationship with alcohol and I am slowly changing it, finding that I need it less and less because – and I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating – I really do want to live: fully, energetically and with purpose.

Maybe you do to?

Xo Shona

Awakening, courage, gratitude, Joy, Mystery and Magic

This is what happened on my way home from Mexico.

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Last April I was in Puerto Vallarta for 5 days for my cousin’s wedding. The trip had been filled with the usual family joys and tensions, and while I enjoyed the beach and the pool and the margaritas –  I was at the same time having incredibly vivid and strange dreams, and was missing my husband and daughters, who had not been able to join me on this trip.

On my last day in Mexico, a feeling of foreboding had been haunting me, but I made it to the airport and had no sense of trouble when I got on my flight home to Toronto at 3:30pm that Sunday afternoon.

We knew at takeoff that there was stormy weather in Toronto. For whatever reason, our plane arrived early in Toronto air space, just in time to catch the tail end of the storm.  And so, since we were early, we had to circle the airport in rough turbulence the likes of which I have never experienced.  I am a seasoned flyer, and turbulence does not generally upset me, so perhaps it was because the turbulence went on so long (I think about 10 minutes although it felt like hours) and was so unrelentingly rough that in the midst of it, I started to cry. Not just a few tears, but hot streaming tears down my face and quiet gasping sobs I tried to pretend was coughing.  I buried my face in my book to hide my tears, embarrassed for anyone to see how upset I was.

As the turbulence went on and on, I took a moment to look around and I saw white knuckles clenched on arm rests and people with their eyes closed and their lips moving, and I heard people using their air-sickness bags.

So in that moment I was actually afraid for my life.

And I knew at one point that it didn’t matter to me if I died, I just wanted to see my children and my husband again, to tell them I loved them and hold them in my arms.  I knew they were waiting for me on the ground below…and dramatic as it sounds now, I didn’t want my girls to grow up without a mother.

It may not surprise you to hear that in that moment I started talking with God. Praying.

Mostly I hoped he would help me to stop crying.  And I promised him anything if he would make it possible for me to see my children again.  And then I heard these words in a loud, clear, almost booming male voice:

“Write the words, speak the words, write every single word.” 

And I heard this over and over again as the plane was tossed through the air. With every plummet and creak on the plane, every jolting movement I heard: “Write. The. Words., Speak. The. Words., Write. Every. Single. Word.  Hear my roaring words in your heart and write the words.”

So loud and clear and so unexpected were these words that I looked up and down the aisles to see if someone was speaking, I looked around to see if others were hearing what I was hearing.  They were not.  These words were for me.

And so, as you do when speaking with God on a storm-tossed airplane over Pearson, I promised him everything.  I whispered to him through my tears that I would write the words, write every single word, that I would speak the words, that I would hear and write and speak the words he has placed, like a roaring storm, in my heart.

And so I write…because this is not a directive that you ignore.

Certainly, when we landed (and everyone on the plane with me clapped and cheered when our wheels finally touched the runway) I was overjoyed to see my family, I laughed and cried to see them and I hugged them so tight they couldn’t breathe.  And they laughed at me because it had only been 5 days. But I have a renewed sense of gratitude for them.  I am less willing now to be parted from them.

And I wasn’t sure that I was ever supposed to write about this experience, which happened 8 months ago.  And perhaps today as I post this I will be able to laugh at my fear of writing about the very experience that drives me to continue writing. And since that day in April, in my moments of doubt, in moments of meditation, when I ask the Divine how I can serve not myself but a higher purpose, the answer is always the same: write. Write every single word. Write what’s in your heart.

I do not get the sense that I am supposed to write fiction or poetry although I am certain that I could.

I am supposed to write what’s in my heart because someone, somewhere is supposed to read it, to hear it…perhaps it’s you.

Perhaps you too have had a direct encounter with the Divine, and your purpose or the way forward has been revealed to you in a beautiful and transformative way.

Perhaps you have made changes, small or sweeping, to your life based on that encounter, so filled with wisdom, truth and love.

And perhaps, like me, you know how blessed you are, you know you have been changed by your encounter with the divine storm. In a moment of terror or grief or pain you were cracked open, and the light got in.

And so I strive to remain open to further direction and guidance.  Whether flying through a storm, or safe on my meditation cushion, or walking the forest trails…I listen. I write. I speak.

Every word.

And I am so very grateful that I can.

 

 

Animals and Nature, Awakening, courage, freedom, gratitude, grief, Joy, Mystery and Magic

This is what happened when I burned all my journals

ravenhearthealing

Several years ago, as I was leaving my corporate job and dismantling my former life in ways both sweeping and subtle, I felt drawn to look through the many, many journals I had filled over the years, that were lined up in neat rows on my bookcase.

Some were coiled note books, others were bound in pretty covers with ribbon place markers.  There were dozens of them.

As I leafed through them, I was shocked at the level of anger, vitriol, desperation and sadness that I found on the pages.  In many cases, I couldn’t even remember what it was that I had been so upset about, what situation or person or personal belief had inspired so many pages of furious writing.  Now forgotten.

And then the light came on.

These journals were full of pain, full of self-doubt, self-loathing and anger, full of the story of me trying to control the uncontrollable, railing against the way things were, wanting my life to be different, wanting me or my boss or my husband to be different. I didn’t want to hold this pain anymore, or to make room for it on my bookshelves or in my home or in my life.

Why, I asked myself, are these journals still on my shelf?

And so, one October afternoon, following a spontaneous urge, I gathered all these notebooks up. I had several boxes of them.  I lugged them to the car.  I took a lighter with me.  Without being absolutely certain where I was going to go, I drove them to a nearby conservation area and found a picnic spot with a fire pit.  Needless to say, there wasn’t another soul around on this cold, dreary October day, I had the park to myself.

I admit that I was half expecting the Journal Police to stop me, to say “Hey, we know what you’re up to, you can’t burn those journals, who do you think you are?  Everyone knows journaling is so important, you’re going to have to keep them, forever. No one can escape their past, lady.”

So with this voice in my head, I felt like I was being furtive somehow, sneaking away, or (quite literally) breaking out of the jail of my past. I was determined that I was not bringing this past into my future, I would claw my way to freedom if I had to.

I piled a bunch of the notebooks into the fire pit and taking a deep breath, I lit them on fire.  They ignited quickly, and I felt an intense rush of emotion while they burned, something like grief, and at the same time also like joy, like liberation, and absolutely like a great weight was being lifted from me.

I felt that maybe I should pray, or dance around the fire pit singing, but I felt exposed, vulnerable and somehow lonely, so I did neither. I knew this was an offering, a sacred offering – and I cried.

In the moment when my grief abated and I could feel something like gratitude for the urge to burn these books rising up in me, as I stood there, feeding the fire with more and more notebooks, watching them burn and smoke, a single crow flew overhead.

It felt as though she was looking right at me. She saw the fire, she saw the notebooks burning.

This black crow was the only witness to my old life, my former way of being, going up in flames. 

The only one who saw what it meant for me to sacrifice the old so I could claim the future. I realized then that I wasn’t alone, that by her presence she implied that my offering was seen and received with love.

And because I saw the moment when the crow saw me, it was as though my higher self was acknowledging this liminal moment, when out of love and compassion for myself I burned away the old and chose to be reborn, to start anew and follow with hope the new life I saw glimmering on the horizon.

I sat for a while next to the smoldering ashes of my journals, poking at the charred metal coils of the notebooks with a stick…it was all gone, all gloriously gone; all record of the pain, the outmoded habits, the old stories about who I was supposed to be and how my life was supposed to look, had all been transmuted to ash, a sacred offering to the future.

Burned. Cleansed. Free.

I can see now, looking back, that that was a turning point in my life. I started a new journey then, I started walking my way back home, and in many ways writing my way back home.

I vowed then that I would never keep another journal like that and I never have.  Instead, because the urge to write is in my bones, I try to write my way towards the light and not into the spiraling darkness, that having walked through the flames I would offer my humble stories to you, who may also be arising new like a phoenix from the ashes of your old life.

May you know you are not alone.

May we all be reborn in the fire, and may there be a winged one to witness it with love.

xo Shona