Don’t you just love this?  The ironic placement of it I will keep a secret.  Enough to say it was just what I needed to see on the day I saw it.  Sometimes you just need a reminder to smile.  I have had many of those days lately. When I feel like this I turn to silliness; like for instance watching episodes of Ally McBeal such as this scene

featuring the one and only John Cage dancing to Barry White.  Life has been up and down and all around.  But humor has always been one thing in life that grounds me.   I have felt lately like it would be nice if the Universe would slow down.  But since it doesn’t want to listen to little old me, I won’t lament.  Instead I will sing, dance and show gratitude for what you are giving me an opportunity to see.  Seeing is what is happening the most these days.  Seeing things clearly with eyes wide open just like we spoke about in our last chat Clarity: Eyes Wide Open Things show themselves at the most unexpected times and often in the most unexpected ways.  I have had more sudden experiences happen these days than I can even count.  Both in the good column and the not so good.  The light has been so very very bright in a way that it is causing the dark to be ominous.  I woke up the other day with my mind saying to me “the light is shining the brightest against the dark.”  It’s the kind of light that feels blinding much like I described in our last chat.  But instead of turning away, as I sometimes feel like I want to, I am moving toward it’s illumination and allowing it to guide me forth.

Why oh why must this be my dramatic head says.  Why does growth always have to feel so painful?  My more mindful reasonable part says “it is only as painful as you make it.”  Hmmm what the heck does that mean?  I mean if I stub my toe or get a paper cut it doesn’t hurt sometimes and they not others.  I mean I can’t just DECIDE to have pain or not.  Or can I?  Deeeeeep Thoughts by Jack Handy I say.   Well it is true that maybe there is a way to make this growth spurt less challenging.  The light I believe is spirit.  It does feel white and it does feel bright.  When I am around anyone who embodies the light I feel like I am caught in a time warp.  Hours could go by and I don’t notice.  All I notice is how good I feel.  This type of bright white light feels much like getting a hug from my Gram.  Feeling that kind of love around me has caused me to begin to notice how I feel around the dark.  I feel insecure, scared, unsure of myself and often like I need to protect myself from the deep dark hole I feel myself slipping into.  Being in that place of trying to feel secure in a setting that counts on my insecurity has been challenging.  I have grown and I continue to grow but it is with a great deal of effort.  When I am around the light, life feels effortless.  Love is around me and love easily emanates from me.  I don’t have to worry about protection because it is the light that is there to provide a warm blanket for my shoulders.  The interesting thing that I have always struggled with is that this light has always been there.  While I have not always been aware of it, spirit has been guiding me through the maze of life.  How otherwise could I have dealt with the darkness in a way that didn’t totally take me over?  It is this light that has been a beacon in my life.  And now that I am ready to see, I see what has always been there.  Spirit has always been guiding me especially in the times that I didn’t know it was there.

It is with this insight that I move forward and begin to make the changes needed to free up energy.  I take with me what is needed and I leave the rest behind.  I move forward shedding the layers just like my winter clothes and move forward towards the light.  Just as it often feels when you shed the winter coat, I have been feeling a bit vulnerable and exposed.  But I know in my heart that this exposure is truly what I have always needed to be me; the me that was hidden behind my own darkness.  I am fully ready to continue to shed my skin and go where the wind takes me.   I hope there will always be some sense of struggle to life because it has been the struggles that have taught me so much.  It is the way in which I engage with life’s challenges that is shifting.  As we embrace these challenges as opportunities that help tell the tale that is our life story, we begin to detach from the details.  The less I react to life’s struggles the happier I become. The light illuminates the darkness and the darkness begins to fade away.

How do you detach from our pain and choose freedom?  For me tonight, it is not pushing myself one way or the next but allowing myself to be guided by what feels right in the moment. I have been working on letting go of the “have tos” and just doing what my soul wants to.  For tonight that will be remembering that a smile is free and readily available.  The smiles truly do help the light to continue to shine.

Be well!
Cheers!