An invaluable lesson from my son

Yesterday I received one of my greatest and unexpected lessons from my son. I was driving my children to school and we started talking about love and falling in love. So I asked my fourteen year old son if he had ever been in love before. I figured it was a good time to do so because it was a spirited, nonconfrontational, and lighthearted discussion. We had the music blasting and we were all in an open and good mood so I knew it was the best time to get the most honest answer out of my son.

My son asked me what I meant by being in love. I said you know where you have strong feelings for someone. And what he said after that nearly stopped my heart. He said, “I have difficulty expressing my feelings because when I was younger and really sensitive and used to cry all the time, one day you told me to stop being so sensitive. To stop crying so much. So I did. I stopped crying and I stopped being sensitive.”

Even as I type what my son said to me, my eyes well up with tears at the thought that I had caused my son to shut down. To retreat into a shell. I had no idea I had done so. I took a deep breath and immediately apologized to my son. Telling him, it was not my intention to shut him down. Not my intention to desensitize him. That it was okay to cry. Okay to be sensitive. Okay to be who he is.

I told him it was better to let it all out then to keep it bottled up inside because if he did, he could cause himself to have a heart attack or stroke. I told him if he was unable to show his emotions he may be a lonely man because he would be too closed to allow love really and truly into his life. I told him I thought I was showing him love all the time because we hug and kiss a lot as a family.

I thought about the fact that my son does not allow anyone to leave the house without telling them he loves them. So to say I was surprised by his statement is an understatement.

All day I thought about our conversation feeling guilty as a parent for scarring my son’s life. Realizing just how easy it is for us to cause our children to retreat. How easy it is for them to shut down particularly as they are developing. So I decided to put my rather personal situation out there to remind anyone who is a parent how fragile our children really are. How they really take to heart the things we say and do. They may not express it to us right away or at all but we have to be careful with the things we say and do to our children as we may lose them forever or set them on a path we had not intended.

I am just grateful that my son felt comfortable enough with me to tell me how he was feeling so that I could be more aware of the things I say to him. So that I can encourage him to come back out of his shell. To trust me again opening himself to trust others with who he is so he won’t spend the rest of his life hiding from his feelings, suppressing his emotions. My son is a beautiful young man on the cusp of becoming a man and I want to give him the best tools to be the best man he can be. the most loving and open man he can.

And then I found this quote which is so true. “Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.” 
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

I am so grateful for being given the opportunity to reverse my son’s heart from gelling shut. To be given the opportunity to help him to open again. To feel. To love. To be proud of who he is whether that means he is super sensitive or not. And I am so grateful for my son and my daughter because they are amongst my greatest teachers as well as my students and for them and the lessons I am learning to be a better mother, wife and woman I am truly grateful. Namaste

We must trust others so they may trust us

Yesterday morning I nearly made my children late for school as I sat and watched the funeral of the great man, mentor, icon, Nelson Mandela. For some reason I was drawn to his funeral procession intrigued by the dreary rainy day for the sendoff of Mandela. Almost as if the Universe was weeping for the loss of one of its greatest.

I was mesmerized by the number of people, the diversity of people who were there despite the rain. Symbolic of the change he made by simply being who he was. Paving the way for the rainbow of people to be gathered to honor him. Not trying to be a saint but a man who believed that all men should be equal. To hear his grandchildren speak with such affection and admiration for their grandfather gave me chills.

To see the world leaders that had gathered as well as the common man all joined to say thank you to a man who understood that in order to be free, he had to free himself from hatred and pain. And then I heard President Barack Obama speak and knew I had been led to listen to the words of this very wise and conflicted man particularly when he said,

“It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well - to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth. He changed laws, but he also changed hearts.”

We are all given trials. All given hardships not to weaken us but to strengthen us. Not to cast us out but to help us to learn how to find our way back in. Our greatest jailers are our own minds. Our minds can free us or imprison us and it is up to us to break free of the limitations, prejudiceness and ignorance we carry around with us in order to understand our place in this world. In order to be tolerant, forgiving and compassionate because one day we may find ourselves in the position of the oppressed and when we do will there be anyone to help us because of how we treated them in the past.

I knew yesterday morning President Obama’s words had been sent to me to remind me of the greatness that exists within me even when I doubt who I am and what I stand for. To know I must trust others in order for them to trust me. I am not an Island but interconnected in more ways to my fellow mankind than I will ever comprehend.

President Obama went on to remind us about how short our lives really are by saying  “For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe, Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate a heroic life. But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask: How well have I applied his lessons in my own life? It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President.”

Forcing me to think about my passing that will come soon. Forcing me to question if I were to die tomorrow would I be content with the life I have led? Could I honestly say I did my best with the resources I have? Could I feel like I had been of service to myself and to my fellow mankind?

Each one of us has been put here for a reason and what we need to remember in the passing of a great man being eulogized by another great man is that we are not perfect beings. We are flawed simply because we have been sent here to learn to grow and to understand we are all connected. In order to know this, we have to be knocked down sometimes, locked up sometimes physically and other times metaphorically, to know that we always know the way home. We always hold the key to our success – not yet material success but spiritual success as well.

Even in his death, Mandela symbolizes the gift of freedom of the mind. And now he has the wings to fly. To soar and remind us of our own personal freedom.

Mandela, your light has gone out in this world but will continue to burn in our hearts and minds forever - the internal flame of freedom.  Amen.

Sometimes I just don't want to filter

Thank you to all those who reached out to me yesterday. Those who were concerned about me because of the blog I wrote yesterday. I wrote that blog without thinking about it. I just let it flow from my heart. Exploring what was there and letting it come out. Letting jumbled thoughts present a hint to me about my start of mind. Bringing them from the recesses of my brain to the forefront of my brain then allowing them to spill out into the ether.

Sometimes I just don’t want to filter what is going on inside me. Sometimes I just want to let it flow and see where it takes me and that’s where I was yesterday morning. Monday morning having to deal with another week ahead. As soon as I wrote the words and let them go, I felt much better. More focused. More in touch with who I am. I thought about deleting the words and starting all over again but did not because I felt by expressing how I was feeling I could possibly touch someone else as well.

We are not perfect beings. None of us. We are human beings with a multitude of feelings, vibrations and tolerances. And some days we will be weak and by exposing our weakness first to ourselves then to others, we help to shift ourselves from the pit of darkness to the portals of love and light. By sharing our vulnerabilities and exposing them to ourselves and to others only helps to make us stronger because we realize we are not alone in our struggle. Not wandering out in the wilderness all alone.

Life is a process, a journey not a destination as is spirituality and surrender. There are times when we are more in tune with the process and other times out of sync but by just going with the flow and exploring it for what it is, for accepting who we are at the moment, we open ourselves to clarity. We allow ourselves to be free from attachment and expectation.

I felt really vulnerable yesterday morning when I woke up, really worried about some decisions I had to make and so I allowed my feelings to bubble to the surface and to expose them for what they were. I was not expecting the outpouring of support I got so I was surprised and pleased by the response and from whom because it showed me just who really and honestly cares about me as a friend, and I thank you for that.

Life is all about sharing and living. Giving and receiving. Loving and letting go. Fear and vulnerability are necessary parts of life because they teach us about what we want and don’t want. They allow us to go to places that we can’t access without first feeling a sense of foreboding. Fear is the barometer that gives us the space to challenge ourselves and there is nothing wrong with admitting our fears. Nothing at all. Some people look at exposing out fears as a sign of weakness but in actuality it is a sign of strength. A sign of not being ashamed of who we are from a deep and protected place.

No, I did not walk around yesterday feeling sorry for myself. Instead after writing that piece yesterday about my jumbled thoughts, I walked outside to take our rabbit out for the morning and as I did, I looked at the clouds, the greenness of the grass, inhaled the freshness of the morning air and felt a sense of detachment and surrender come over me as I repeated, “It is what it is, I am what I am and for it all I am truly and honestly grateful.” Surrendering it all to the grace of the Divine.

Nature has a wonderful way of opening us up to possibility because of it vastness and beauty. Because of its natural flow. Here’s to another glorious day. Another day of opportunity, abundance and surrender. Another day of jumbled thoughts that somehow will become coherent as the day evolves without direction, attachment or expectation. Namaste. 

A confusing start to the day

Where do I begin today?

When my mind is all over the place.

Trying to be everything to everyone

Trying to please everyone but myself

Trying to understand why one day I am up and the next day down

Why I seem to understand the meaning of life then something comes along and challenges my beliefs and understanding

How one minute I feel so confident about the direction I am going in then very insecrure the next.

Why sometimes fear is my best friend then the next it is my enemy

Some days I just want to stay in bed, not answer the phone, and not talk to anyone because I discover the people I thought were my friends are not

Then on other days I want to be out among people, hearing their accolades and seeing their smiles

Why it is that some days I am a really good mother, wife and friend and others days I am not

Why am I feeling like I can’t begin today

Why am I feeling that today is one of those days when my mind is bombarded by so many thoughts that I don’t know what is a distraction and what is truth

I just don’t know where I am today.

Not even meditation pulled me back from the bombardment of thought

Not even closing my eyes and going inside was I able to silence my mind, quieten my thoughts as I have so many people that are relying on me right now that I don’t even know how to rely on myself because I am so busy trying to be what they expect me to be that I have lost touch with what and who I want to be.

Today is one of those days when fear is my enemy not my friend.

So I am asking the Universe for guidance to help me to focus.

To be in the moment. To not project. To accept fear for what it is and to be still.

Today I am sending out a prayer to help me to be me before I become someone else and do something that does not resonate with me just so I can please others.

Today I am asking for the blessings of the Universe to remind me that life is always going to be up and down because that is how I am growing and learning.

That it will never be smooth sailing all the time and neither will it be easy all the time because if it was than I would stagnant and dissatisfied

To know when my mind is all over the place it is because I am being groomed to move on

To understand that every step I take, every action I make, every word I speak is where I am meant to be

So I am surrendering myself to the confusion I am feeling today, to the unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach to the Universe and the Divine to see where it takes me with faith, love and trust

To allow myself to move through another day on this Earth with gratitude that I have another day to explore my confusion and jumbled thoughts.

So to answer my own question today, where do I begin?

Simply, I begin with gratitude and allow everything else to fall into place – confusing jumbled thoughts and all. Namaste

The magic of the moon

Last night we were treated to the most magnificent moon on our drive back home. A perfect crescent moon. It lay on its back, majestic and seemingly filling the whole night sky. Yellow like the sun. Shining down on us almost like the light of a star guiding us home. As we drove along Ferry Reach looking at the moon almost felt an optical illusion, the closer we got, the further away it became but we still felt like it was so close we could touch it with our bare hands. Feeling like it was touching us with its magnificent light. Oh what a wondrous sight. Bright in an otherwise dark night.

I could not peel my eyes away from the moon as it lit everything around it. Mesmerising.  Its light shining on the black dark still water like a beacon in the night.  The water flat calm. Not a ripple in it as it glowed from the light of the moon. Romantic thoughts. Childhood thoughts flowing through me caused by the perfect still night illuminated by the light of the moon. Running through my head were the nursery rhymes, "The cow jumped over the moon" and "Good night moon". Filling me with joy and peace.

I found myself slowing down to take in the full effect of the crescent moon putting on a show for us as it filled the night sky.Preening for us. Thinking about how even on the darkest night there is light always. Shining down on us. Guiding us. Helping us. Some people on that drive home probably never even saw that moon last night because there were in such a hurry to get to their destination that they probably did not even see the magic of the night. One car pulled over to see the moon. Mesmerised as was I.

I thought about how the sight of that moon held my thoughts, slowed me down, brought out the magic that exists within me and made me realise just how beautiful my Island home is. Just how fortunate I am to live in a place where the moon can act as like guiding star. How blessed I am to feel the light of the moon on me, my family and my Island home. To live in a place where the moon is not obstructed by tall buildings and glaring lights obscuring the light of the moon.

As we rounded the corner and the moon was no longer in front of us, I turned to look at it for as long as I could. At how its closeness had come during the holiday season to show us we are never alone. That even on our darkest night, there is a light to guide us home. A special feeling of belonging filled me up with love and faith. As I inhaled the light of the crescent moon.  Knowing I am a part of this magnificent world. A part of a larger creation and existence.  

I wanted to capture its beauty on camera but then decided it was better captured as a memory in my mind because I would never be able to capture the feeling I felt from the moon on camera but could hold it in my heart forevermore. So I watched as long as I could instead. Letting me know there are some things in life that can never be captured. Instead they need to be experienced and treasured as was the light of the moon last night reminding me to slow down and enjoy the journey because the only destination is death so there is no need to rush to the end but to live as much and as freely as I can.

Namaste to the beauty and majesty of the moon. 

Nelson Mandela

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Nelson Mandela.

The world lost a great and powerful man yesterday, Mr. Nelson Mandela. And when I use the word powerful I use it not in the conventional sense but in the spiritual and symbolic sense. Mandela learned that fighting with his fists got him nowhere but fighting with the power of intention and the use of love opened the door to reconciliation and forgiveness. By forgiving himself for all he had done, allowed him to forgive those who had wronged him.

He was a man who symbolized that no one can break our soul unless we allow them. No man can cast stones at us and break our will unless we stand with our chests and heads exposed giving them the opening to break us, maim us. No one can deter us from our goal unless we allow them.

Nelson Mandela also taught us by example the power of forgiveness and the power of being a silent warrior. A man who lived by his words, “Hating clouds the mind. It gets in the way of strategy. Leaders cannot afford to hate." Allowing himself to become a true statesman.

Mandela was not without fault. And neither was he a saint. But a man who managed to transform from a man who believed in violence to achieve his goals to a man who saw there was a greater way to change the world he lived in from the most unlikely place – his prison cell. At the age of 44, Mandela was manacled and placed in a prison for life. He was released at age 71 – some 27 years of his life spent in a single cell. Instead of being bitter toward his oppressors, he moved on with this life saying it was the years he spent in prison that allowed to become a free man. That allowed him to realize the most dangerous shackles we could ever wear are the shackles of our minds.

Mandela learned through imprisonment that no man can imprison another unless he allows himself to be imprisoned. That a physical prison is far easier to deal with and shed than a mental prison. That there are some who walk around as free men who will never know the meaning of freedom because they are imprisoned in their minds and get so caught up in hate and revenge and spite that they never see the beauty of the world around them. Never see the opportunities that present themselves to us each and every day.

Many would have buckled under the oppression imposed upon Mandela but he knew from a young age he was a man sent to do something great – to help liberate his country from apartheid – to help them see that no man regardless of his skin colour is superior to another – that we are all created equal in the eyes of the Creator.

In a moving tribute to Nelson Mandela, President Obama so aptly said, "He no longer belongs to us, he belongs to the ages ... His commitment to transfer power and reconcile with those who jailed him set an example that all humanity should aspire to."

And I second that, I also say he belongs with the angels. With the angels who walk amongst us. Who help us to see no matter what, no matter where, no matter whom, we are one – created in the image of the One Source. Reminding us every once in a while an angel walks this Earth in the physical form becoming a beacon of hope, faith and love. Reminding us from whence we have come and to where we will return. Rest in Peace Sir Nelson Mandela, may your spirit continue to soar amongst us opening our hearts to forgiveness and reconciliation, peace and love, compassion and passion, to understand we are one.

I will always think in reverence of you Sir Nelson for your legacy is that of the peaceful and dignified warrior who looked fear in the face and moved through it and look back at it with appreciation for the gift it gave to you – the gift of self and love. I am so grateful to have shared this human space with you even though we never met, our souls touched in more ways than one.  Namaste.

The gift of life

The gift of life is to live it to its fullest, be who we are from an authentic place and never to forget where we came from and where we are going.

The gift of life is to be kind, sharing, compassionate and to love fully and unconditionally.

The gift of life is waking up every morning and shifting our consciousness even in our darkest hour to one of salvation and one joy.

When we honour our lives and who we are, we recognize we truly have the gift of life within us.

We realize we are here to serve ourselves and each other in the best possible way we can.

We realize we are not here to steal, to cheat, to lie or to stamp on our fellow brothers and sisters.

We understand we are here to support and uphold each other.

And when we recognize this, we understand just how much what one does affects us all. Our energy is from the One Source and permeates throughout our existence making us truly one existence.

There is no need to regret, to forget or to object to our lives. Each circumstance, person and action we experience has been created by the energy that we project.

Think about it. Everything we experience is because of our mindset and thinking.

Even when we feel stagnant or stifled, we have created that energy. That place of darkness and nothingness.

To shift out of that place, we have to step back and access what it is we are doing to stifle our growth. What it is that we are afraid of that is stopping us from becoming so we can be.

We are collectively one nation regardless of where we are and what we are. At the base of it all we all breathe, bleed and function in the same way. It is just our outer appearances that make us different.

When we remember the gift we have every single day of living, only then can we step into our own joy and bring that joy forth to the hearts of others by simply being who we are and being grateful for the gift of life we are given every single day we are living and breathing.

Life truly is the greatest gift we have ever been given so let’s not take it for granted because we are only here for a very short time in the form we are in. So let’s accept our gift and truly live our lives to the fullest, be who we are from an authentic place and never forget where we came from and where we are going.

Living fully, authentically, and compassionately gives us the ability to enjoy and accept our gift - the gift of life.