Bold Is Love

Let’s start here.

You can read a transcript of what came to me while I was walking or you can listen to it. I suppose, if you’d like, you can do both. You could even read while listening….

I think it is so easy, it is so easy to kind of just dismiss the relative world in some of the spiritual teachings. The truth of it is, is that we are here, in body, right now on Earth, living this. These opportunities, this curriculum to be able to learn and grow. And there is this stuff that is showing up, showing us what we are attached to and what is still sticky, that klesha stickiness. And once we know it, we don’t just sit back and take it passively. If someone isn’t being clear to us, if someone isn’t being kind and if someone is saying one thing and then saying something different later that is not okay. It’s not. And, our role is to find ways to speak up for ourselves, to put ourselves out there. To be bold. And hold that space for ourselves. Not putting ourselves or inserting ourselves in someone else’s story and making it about us, but standing firm and grounded in our own self and saying “This doesn’t work for me.” “This might work for you, but it doesn’t work for me, so we need to find a way that works for both of us. It is not one or the other, I do not sit and passively take or give up or silence ourselves. I am done doing that shit, fucking done doing that shit.

It did not stop there, with each step I took, more came out:

It can be very one sided when someone doesn’t want to accommodate or do the work. And when their actions and their words say “This is who I am, you have to change.” That is very dismissive. It’s not really embracing or welcoming.

Still more:

It says in a way, I am in control, I am the one that has the power, you do not. And it is like “my way or the highway.”

Which by the way I have had said to me. Someone said that to me with actual words. Folks have shown that to me with their actions. I have also seen this with behaviors. And you know what, I stayed. Most of the time, I stayed. You know what it took to stay? I silenced myself. I gave up on myself. I stopped fighting for myself. I gave in. I succumbed to the fear, the threat of power and control. Not wanting to be shunned or ignored or excluded. I would take the reprimand and like a timid animal who has been beaten over and over again, I would put my tail between my legs and back away.

In this, through this, I am seeing that this is what I have been looking for. I have been looking for someone who is also interested in growing and engaging in conversations and learning and noticing patterns. This is what I have been longing for in any relationship. Intimate, friend, work, professionally.

I know it is possible, because I have accessed this with whom I have begun to call in my heart, my supportive sisters. These incredible women, whom I turn to when I am in the throughs of it or flying high. These women who sit with me in silence, who look me straight in the eye, who ask me what I need, who say, I have been there. I know this. Or, I do not know this and I know that you will carry you self through. These women who turn the music up loud and share a dance party with me, solo or together. Who make a cup of tea and say, give me 5 and I will be here. These women who listen to my audio messages, who call when they read a text or receive a Polo. Who send hugs from afar. Who write me love letters that arrive JUST AT THE RIGHT MOMENT. Who hug me in person. Who say, let’s sit for a practice or when was the last time you moved your body or sat for mediation. Who, when I share that I sit for mediation I want to wriggle myself away, say I know me too. Or who, when they dance with the moon say, ‘it is as if you’re here dancing with me.’ Yes, these incredible women.

So I know it is possible, because I see this. I’ve known this. I live this.  And today, as I saw the sun for the first time in weeks, as the sun kissed me all over and I saw it’s light, it is like the fog has lifted and I can breathe. Breathe in the air, drop my shoulders and soften in.  Yes, and. There is a fierceness that is here. A bold fierceness that is coming out in recognition of all of the shit I have taken over the years that hurt so much to feel. This hurt is being unearthed and excavated, accompanying it is all of the hurt that I did not feel, all of the hurt that I turned away from and would not allow myself to feel. Then. Which is now, requiring me to show up with a strong spine and a soft heart. Pain. Hurt. Yes, and the deepest of it all, betrayal.  Betrayal. I turned away from myself again and again. I put someone else before me over and over, and when I sit in this and REALLY allow myself to feel it- it is debilitating. Nauseating. When we do things we do not want to do, when we feel stuck with no way out and stay, our body takes this on as stress. There is disharmony. And the body stores these frozen in time sensations of wanting to run and leave, the clenched fists and jaws, the anger that wants to fight back and doesn’t, remains in the body. It had no where to go. It couldn’t move freely. Then. But now, this release has my whole body stressed and tight. This bound energy, locked in time now being released has my nervous system distressed. It is moving, thankfully. And it hurts. The hurt I didn’t want to feel, the hurt I buried away, crammed and stuffed out of sight and deep within my cells, caught up with me. And it is full on. Blocked, held, restricted, bound, contained now unleashed, untethered, the doors and windows open, flowing with force. With vengeance.

The knife I inflicted on myself, being pulled out and the blood of rage and anger and fury flowing. Although I am not angry. I am sad. Saddened. Is this regret? Why did I allow this? Why didn’t I care? Why didn’t I speak up?

I ask these questions so I learn the why behind it, what is under it all, at the root. I ask these questions so I can learn. Learn the patterns and trends, the tether that attaches all of this to me so I do not have to live through this, like this again.

Yes, this is what is here as the fog begins to clear and the sun kisses me all over.

You made it through another bout. You’re here to see, to experience, to love another day.

To feel love. To share love. To give love. To receive love.

These facets of love that are new. That feel like they are breaking me, revealing my foundation, me at my core.

This is the power of practice. This is the power of the tools and technology that have been gifted to me. This is the power of my practice that I turn to.

To meet love itself. Within me. As me.

This is my power.

Bold is love.

Love is bold.

To love is bold.

Loving you,

Sara

Post Script:

The title, Bold is Love, is a nod to Jimi Hendrix. I heard Phish cover his song today while driving and it got me thinking how it is bold to love. To act from a place of love rather than fear, especially when you have been accustomed to silencing yourself. Speaking from the heart, sharing matters of the heart, loving, which is the act of the heart, the essence of the heart, is bold. Many of us do not do this. We shelter off, close off and protect our heart space. For a long while I thought I needed to connect the head to the heart, now I am learning that I am meant to live in and from the heart. Accessing the heart’s intelligence, its knowing and be guided by it. Not my mind.

On Wednesday, during Qigong at my local community center, I held a posture that resulted with a tingling, a burst of energy moving. I have enough experience to know this now, in the beginning it felt like a spider crawling on my skin. It actually feels like energy moving, like a small firework. And this time it happened in the palm of my hand. Curious to know what energy center was there and the meridian, I asked my teacher. His reply, oh that is the pericardium. What is that, I asked? That is the protective shield, membrane of the heart.

I smiled wide, of course it is.