Let me begin with Amanda Gorman performing her perfect poem for living with life as it is right here and now… As, together, we embark on 2022, with our eyes and arms wide open:
Change. A new year calls us all, to come home to ourselves and take inventory of our lives. Life beckons us toward new adventures, challenges and growth.
Still, sometimes you must stand still, allowing your energy to come home — and settle deep in the presence of your own being.
Once you’ve gathered your wayward thoughts from the past and future, you can see clearly. Now you can allow yourself the peace of this moment, at home with yourself.
Now you can decide whether to move where action is needed to heal and connect or stay put. As a rule, I say, “Never move until you can move from peace.” Let joy be your guiding star.
Sometimes you must stay, face the thing you want to run from and bring presence and love into the equation, to see the path forward clearly.
There is a difference between running to safety and running away. There have been times in my life when running was the only way for me to survive very real, painful and dangerous situations. Like leaving a dangerous environment where everywhere I looked felt unsafe. Like when I finally left abusive relationships, including my life of addiction, behind. There have also been the times when I’ve run because I was too chicken-shit to stay and face myself and my choices. Using alcohol and drugs was running away from a chance to face myself, grow and make positive changes. But for me at the time, it was the only option I felt I had. I have no regrets.
We all have times in our lives where we feel we can’t take another minute of a situation and feel the emotional and physical need to “run.” Horrible situations like abuse, addiction, depression, or grief, but we feel trapped. Like we don’t have the internal strength to think, let alone move. But move we must. One step at a time. Get to somewhere safe so you can begin to breathe. Sometimes any change in our environment is just what’s needed to get out of the suffocating trap we feel we’re in.
Although it feels like we can’t live another moment with the pain or heartache that seems to be engulfing our lives, we must realize one thing: we are living with it. The truth is, we do live through it. We’re alive and we’re dealing. Life literally has never given you more than you can handle. You’re still breathing. You’ve been handing it. This moment you are okay. As soon as you can face this moment with that kind of clarity, a new kind of strength rises up within you.
Quit telling yourself you can’t deal. Look deeper within. Ask yourself: Where does the strength and love come from when someone you care about needs help? The answer is “you.” Let yourself feel that strength that rises up for you at those times. How you can find the right words or the patience to listen, to sit with them and honestly tell them things will get better. You have this will within you for you. Borrow the feeling of love you have for your loved ones and turn it on yourself. Give yourself all the time in the world — one moment at a time if necessary. Reach out. Look for your Yoda, like my Betty, someone who will walk with you.
If I were to come face to face with the Danét I was at 17, or during my first marriage or Danét during the tumultuous period when I was with an abusive boyfriend, these are the things I would tell her as I wrapped her in my love:
Quit telling yourself you can’t deal.
Look deeper within.
Ask yourself: Where does the strength and love come from when someone you care about needs help? The answer is “you.”
Let yourself feel that strength that rises up for you at those times.
Remind yourself how you can find the right words and the patience to listen to others in crisis, how you’re able to sit with them and honestly tell them that things will get better.
You also have this will within you for YOU. Borrow that feeling of love you have for others, and turn it on yourself.
Give yourself all the time in the world — one moment at a time, if necessary.
Reach out.
Look for someone who will walk with you.
Of course, I look back now from a much wiser place, having taken one step and then another, not only away from dysfunctional environments, but internally toward my true self. And truthfully, now I see that it couldn’t have gone any other way. In all honesty, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Each challenge, every heartbreaking disaster, all of the poor choices I made, are the fires that forged the life I have now. I hold them in my psyche as part of my transformation, and in my heart of forgiveness — grateful. Each led me to finally surrendering, led me face myself and my faulty belief system, led me to change those beliefs and feel the joy of change and listen to my heart instead. Each stumble and getting up opened me to the wellspring of love within me. To say yes to life, to living in the present moment — to who I am now. A woman I love and admire with all my heart. To the yummy life I live now.
You can’t run from the present moment. Wherever you go, whatever you do, the present moment is where you are. Circumstance and situations are superfluous to the awareness of being. In facing yourself and being fully present, you activate a power within you to deal with the situation and circumstances. It’s when we won’t look or we’re looking for something or someone else to blame that we feel stripped of power. Everything we need for this moment is within it. Within us. We are love. Within us the pathway of joy and peace beckons us. We are the answer we are looking for.
As we step into the brand new year before us, let us step with open eyes and hearts, bring ourselves fully in presence and love. Stop blaming, complaining, explaining and making excuses. Screw trying to figure out what other people want or need. Simply ask. Then check your yummy-stat. Does it feel yummy or icky? And trust what your heart tells you to do next.
Be YOU! Your presence is what the world needs right now.
