I’ve been feeling like my words have all been coming for me recently, echoing back at me … both reproachfully and hopefully!

All the various deep intentions I challenged myself to practice and to be …

Being mindful, practicing deep listening

Being an includer, practicing radical inclusion

To nurture belongingness for those who have felt a sense of not belonging

Being peace

Being stillness, being a healing presence

Choosing abundance

Living these words has felt painfully hard recently, feeling like I was failing to live my spiritual practices. And yet these words, these intentions have still anchored me …

In mid-October, I gave a reflection at my church home about choosing abundance and gratitude. How I learned to choose abundance, abandon the myth of scarcity, the one that said that there wasn’t enough and I would never be enough or have enough. How I’d spent years in poverty-thinking and I was done with that …

But even though I passionately declared myself done with it, I guess it wasn’t done with me!  I found myself mired, struggling to remember abundance or to have the strength to choose it, day upon day. And I felt like such a fraud … teaching what I was struggling to do/be!

And what I wrote recently about coming to see my life-mission as being peace, being stillness, being a healing presence? Certainly, there’s truth there, regarding that as a calling, but how it was presently showing up in my spirit?? Mmm, not so much maybe! Even when I published the post, I was thinking, my dear girl, this won’t ring right  … because right now, your energy, your spirit doesn’t match these words!

I certainly wasn’t feeling like I was a healing presence, because I definitely didn’t feel still or serene within. I was aching, hurting, grieving, feeling lonely, unsupported, burdened, overwhelmed.

It’s not been an easy year by any stretch … yes, there has been much blessing, but a profound collection of losses, and an accumulation of layers of grief and sorrow.
The specters of depression sprang up … anger, fear, shame, despair, loneliness. Self-pity, resentment. Seeds I didn’t want, didn’t want to water. They made it difficult for me to remember abundance, to choose it … and they’ve caused me to begin redefining what choosing abundance looks like, in different circumstances. How does one draw abundance from dark emotions? It’s a (lonely) labor of love!
And I’ve tried, oh, I’ve tried to remember abundance in this hard, valley season … if it was hard to choose it, at least to remember it! To remember the gift of belovedness.
I’ve tried to nurture my spiritual practices, and let them nurture me. I’ve tried to rest in this posture, difficult as it is (more of my words that came back to me).

In all of that, I think the theme of this year has become redefining! Redefining – and refining.

Redefining myself, redefining my spirituality/spiritual practice, redefining my intentions and expectations. Redefining abundance and what choosing abundance looks like.

Redefining even the act of defining things, learning to let go of my need to define things!

Redefining everything …

There was the divorce … and learning to live life as a single, working mom (while continuing grad school!). And I’ll not sugarcoat it – it’s been hard and deeply overwhelming. Yes, sometimes such a triumphant feeling to realize what I can do and what I can handle, but also – overwhelming!
And yet, so many big decisions to make on my own and so many responsibilities and obligations (like, managing finances alone!), and so much uncertainty, and so much on my plate …  and so little time!
The busyness and fullness of my life – on one hand, satisfying, and yet on the other, feeling like it robbed me of friendship and connection time.
A cold and searing loneliness confronted me.
And the voice of poverty told me that I didn’t have enough support, care, love, affirmation …. but oh, how it told untruths! I do know that, because the voice of abundance brought again to my heart the many beautiful things that dear friends have done for me, big and small:

•                 the friend who got a family photography session gifted to me
•                 the friend who organized a clothing drive for my children at the beginning of the school year (and the generous response to that)
•                 the long phone conversations with one friend
•                 the friend who sat with me as I cried in shock after losing my job earlier in the year
•                 the friends who have picked up my son from middle school several times when I was working
•                 the kind, loving words here and there that have added up to a sweet bouquet

Too, there was also the felt weight of withdrawal in some long-time friendships (from my past church), heavier in my heart as silences made the sense of emotional distancing more tangible. This weight has lightened, though.

Redefining friendships, connection, sisterhood, community … learning what my village looks like. It might not look like what someone else’s looks like, or the ideas that society and social media have given me, but it doesn’t need to! If I open my heart, if I see with different eyes, if I look right next to me, it’s there … you’re there! Friendships, community, sisterhood – they are for me just as they need to be for me for this season. And are enough, if I let them be!

And then there was my first girlfriend experience, and then a break-up. To be clear, it was a special experience, rich in many ways! I’m thankful for what I learned from her and the relationship, but the break-up really rocked me.

Redefining love-relationship needs and desires … learning to be content unpartnered, for now.

Then, I lost one job – but found another, one that has been good for me in so many ways. Loss = gain.

Redefining my professional value and competence. 

Hopes humbled and dreams deferred …  A niche that I had had the idea that I might fill, but became clear didn’t belong to me. Some dreams and passions that I had to say goodbye to, at least in the form I had envisioned them.

It turned out to be a long, hard goodbye, and it’s been hard to find the hellos that follow the goodbyes. Even though I know about letting go gracefully of that which is not meant for me, and that letting go of old possibilities opens up new opportunities, I still felt the deep sting of loss, all the way into my core.

And it shook me, badly, unexpectedly. It stirred up resentments and fears that surprised me with their presence and power. I think it showed the depth of my attachment to those expectations and ideas, too.

(So much for learning to practice non-attachment! This quote comes to mind: The mark of a moderate woman is freedom from her own ideas. Alas, I am not (yet) a moderate woman, then! But it’s a life goal!)

I’d made the mistake of attaching my identity to my idea of what my role, my calling was. I’d tied my sense of belongingness to it. So, I felt unmoored  … another loss, another grief. One I didn’t really receive with grace or gratitude, I tell you!

Redefining calling, role, identity. And – letting go of the need to be defined by them.

So yes, the last while, loneliness and grief have been familiar companions.  So familiar I simply decided to befriend them and make peace with them. (I think that’s how you draw what abundance and healing there is to draw from them, anyway!)

I know that this is the holiday time, the season of joy to the world and peace on earth, and it’s not festive to speak of loneliness and grief and sorrow – but these are also a part of the holiday experience for many, because they’re a part of the human experience.

Redefining the value and reality of grief and loneliness.

Don’t get me wrong, I do know joy still, I know there’s a place of joy deep in the center of my being; I know there’s light within! There’s still stillness …

Redefining ideas and expectations about being stillness, being peace, being a healing presence.

I have learned and am learning still that I need not judge myself for not always knowing equanimity and stillness. There’s no need to define myself by the presence or absence of any emotion or experience. I’m human – part of being human is feeling deep pain, experiencing grief, sorrow, loneliness, dark emotions. As I’ve written before (more words that keep coming back for me!) sorrow is a sacred part of belovedness. So is grief. So is loneliness.

Redefining my whole emotional experience.

Redefining my journey, my story.

Redefining everything …  refining everything. Being refined.

Further and deeper, learning to let some things be undefined … learning to let the journey and the experience be as it is, in this moment, this season!