Imagine yourself at the beginning of a trail that looks like it will be effortless because in the distance you can see the sunlight streaming through the trees, that the edges of the path are lined with small grasses as well as blooms, and that the walkway is level as well as free from debris. So, with positive feelings about being there and the hope that it’s going to lead to a beautiful place, you move forward with curiosity into what is unfamiliar with the idea that it will be a relatively easy task and that you’ve got this. You admire your surroundings along the way and smile as birds happily flit from tree to tree and you breathe in the fresh air but as time drags on and the location remains out of your view, your excitement and pace begin to slow down. Suddenly you realize that the uncomplicated trail has evolved into twists and turns and has periodic cliffs and that those little clumps of sweet grasses on the sides have been replaced with dense weeds that are narrowing the trail and somehow seem to be moving even though it’s a calm day. The question of “why did I even commence on this journey?” starts to creep into your thoughts, distracting you, and you stumble over a rock that you didn’t even notice. So, now you lower your sight to keep from tripping again, but instead end up falling into a bush that has prickles because you didn’t see a tree branch that was hanging across the path. As you pick yourself up, you get a glimpse through that thicket of an individual on a different trail who is holding a bouquet of flowers and smiling. You don’t know what that person had to go through to get those blooms, but that grin feels like a thorn in your heart and the emotions that gave you the courage and the belief to begin your journey slip silently into the shadows. You turn and look at what you went through and wish you were back at the start where safe enough existed and life was at least familiar. You then rotate and look towards the unknown, wary of what has yet to be, and doubt whether you can continue especially since there isn’t a guarantee that you will like what you find. Even that powerful voice of hope that you heard so clearly for so many steps has become merely background noise while those weeds are thicker, and you can’t move without them touching you. Do you go through, or do you go back? Or will you walk in circles for your matter of time unable to commit to either? Now replace the details of this imaginary story with the particulars that can be found in your kind of life. It seems like life is easy when we only have positive emotions but without the negative ones, we wouldn’t even be able to recognize and enjoy the favorable ones. Our difficulties lie not in the emotions that we don’t want but in our not giving ourselves a moment to be curious as to why they are there and when we don’t pause to hear them, our personal experiences turn emotions into feelings whose voices are really loud and get expressed in ways that immobilize us. It seems like life is easy on a different trail or in a narrative where you can just skip the parts that you don’t want or at a new location but then that wouldn’t be the better story about you and all the authentic ways that you have encountered life. Today is a good day to be curious about the debris that has been tripping you up. Feel it because it is always all right to not always be all right just like it is in all grand narratives and then ask yourself “how would I like to see myself dealing with it now” while giving yourself some time to answer. After all, we share more than you realize through our emotions but it’s the particulars of our personal experiences that makes us who we are and it’s why we have to show up for ourselves. Oh, hell and the movement of the weeds can happen on a calm day because they are like just like unseen rocks on a trail or dragons that appear out of nowhere that cause us to stumble and fall no matter where we are or how positive and hopeful, we are. Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
We apologize for the delay of including a link to our partner website. We had some serious weeds to move through and while we are still dealing with some debris, we are excited about the possibilities and the tools that Skywriting.net can bring to our journeys.
The longer we experience something that is painful, the closer it stays to us in our hearts and our minds making even an event from years ago feel like it happened yesterday. Its then hard for us to imagine what we would look like beyond the place that we have found ourselves in. In a sense those very real memories get in our way and although our journeys continue to ramble on every day, we never actually move from a particular page or out of a single chapter in our own stories. It’s no wonder why our authenticity looks and sounds so much better as the details of a character whose trail finishes in a few sections of a novel then it does when we are living it. In other words, we are terribly misrepresented in the very accounts that we are the authors of while the thickness of the weeds, the sharpness of the prickles that cut us to the core and the dragons that wreak havoc are getting far more attention as the villains. It would seem then that we could all use a little love and a lot of understanding to take what’s too close to us and look through it so that we can actually see why we are always so possible wherever we are rather than continue to pass this way again and again hoping that the view will somehow be different without us having to be. After Ryan died, I found it impossible to move forward. The easy answer is because he no longer exists in this world and the complicated reply is that losing him was a painful experience that will always stay close by in my heart and my mind making it challenging for me to go ahead. He was, after all, “my substance” and continuing on without the benefit of him wasn’t what I wanted as a part of my journey which, perhaps surprisingly, has helped me to understand how difficult it was for Ryan to see himself coping in his life without the assistance of “his substance” that he had gotten used to. Of course, there is no comparison between a life and an inanimate object like a drug dragon or someone’s painful experience to another’s because the details are what separate every story just as they do us, but we can perceive of why letting go and moving forward is far more complicated in a little and a lot of ways for everyone. There are so many moments where any type of pain can show up and affect us, causing falls, without our realizing it or others for that matter. For instance, I am learning to belt out Ryan’s and my favorite songs without the support of his off-key voice and no you don’t want to hear me either. I do it for the both of us, but I could also choose to never ever sing again or move forward from that former comfortable duet into my somewhat embarrassing solo act, justifiably so because of my pain. I am also discovering that taking better care of myself means adding words to my story of love which apparently, I have needed to figure out although I thought only Ryan did because of his coping through substances. When we spend years battling any kind of mystical creatures and keeping painful memories close to us, suffering and grieving along the way, it’s easy to forget that loving all that we really are is an invincible tool that obliterates dragons, slices through weeds and knocks the points off of those damn prickles giving us those out of the blue wins even when things don’t go as we hope. It’s hard, scary and exciting not knowing who I am becoming as well as not having the guarantee that tomorrow will be exactly what I want especially since those yesterday’s definitely didn’t go as I had envisioned. The fear of the unknown and my pain has held me back, but I can truthfully say now through tears, a little laughter and a lot of tissues that what has already been, was an epic section of the ride of my life that is still being written. So how are you? Are you keeping things close to you that you need to change your view on? Yeah, I feel you and it’s understandable, but it also may be time to value it in a little and a lot of different ways. I get it, it’s complicated by the fact that you are used to it being by your side but start with one word of love for yourself and hold onto that as your sword while you are both kind and loud in all that you are, particularly in those moments in the weeds. Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
Throughout the history of literature, there has been no better villains in both spoken and written tales than the dragons who were powerful enough to wreak havoc in the lives of all living things and to prevent the completion of heroic journeys. Every single one of them has held the commonality of being typecast as the bad guys in those narratives regardless of their particular looks and skills. Of course, over time those stories evolved the concept that a hero would defeat the dragon, rescue the maiden, free the village or retrieve the sword or jewel that would end the suffering for everyone involved because the need for hope has been around as long as we have. Eventually though, a few epic tales transformed or changed to incorporate the idea that some dragons can be utilized to help us and really aren’t always the villains in a story. So, what about the different kinds of dragons that can be located in our lives that makes us the authentic characters in our own epic tales? Are they always the evil doers that hold us back and compel us to regret our lives while wishing we were in someone else’s story or could some of them have a place in why we are so very possible? Allow me to introduce to you one of my dragons that became my confident and helped me to feel safe enough every time I needed to hide behind it. It would be easy for me to tell you that I discovered it as a result of Ryan’s addiction, like that foil one, but the real truth is that I know it was already hanging around, periodically showing its teeth and claws, long before any of that specific mess occurred. I guess you could say that it helped me to believe that I was powerful every time I suffered but ultimately its fierce voice made it difficult for me to even hear myself let alone anyone else. I’ve come to realize that its once necessary protection has been feeding the hell within me as well as preventing me from writing on the pages of a story of love for myself particularly in the moments where I was falling which is exactly when I needed to keep in touch the most. It did serve a purpose for some time, but transformation doesn’t occur if we don’t see beyond what we are used to like how dragons were said to be invincible and would always win until someone decided to change those narratives with the help of sometime warriors and hope. That companion of mine is simply known as anger, but its armor is a complicated series of scales resulting from a vast emotion filled lifetime so perhaps my appearance of being stoic is really the visual of my inside dragon on the outside protecting me just as my smile has at other times. I hate that “flipping out” has been a response of mine even if it felt so justified but then isn’t that what the purpose of anger or even substance use is as a specific dragon that we utilize in order to keep our messes and our feelings, that vulnerability, hidden behind a door? In other words, this is one of the hardest cliff-hanging lessons that I have had to turn and perceive of but I’m going through with me, and that means all of the authentic person that I am not just the comfortable and convenient parts that I want. There’s a dragon within you as well and perhaps even a few of them but it’s time to feel because you are on your heroic journey and while there will be painful darkness as well as falling along the way, you have always been the best person to write your story so don’t let any villains or companions prevent you from keeping in touch with yourself. Use them to step towards you. After all, hope like light is always possible because we are, and when it comes to finding strength, it still isn’t just about the flowers. There’s a dragon here, in fact they can be located everywhere on any trail, but you can still have the best day POSSIBLE for you based upon what you say to yourself. I hope those words can be found on the pages in a story of love for yourself. Love Always, Heavell
Long ago in the yesterdays, President Theodore Roosevelt expressed his observation that “Comparison is the thief of joy” with the understanding that we often look at the view around us and believe that others are living dream lives, a particular location of happiness, while we are the main characters of the stories where there are lots of fire-breathing dragons to battle and it’s not a joyous place to be. In fact, these epic tales of ours hurt, are challenging and are scary so why would anyone want to be where we are when fables are an option? In essence, though, that thought is like assuming that someone’s smile can only be an expression of contentment or that fairytale narratives have monsters that are easily tamed and toe-stubbing trips rather than falls along their trails or that by seeing a part of an individual means that we really know the whole person. I can honestly say that over the years of Ryan’s addiction that I wished for, prayed for, begged for and hoped for a different storyline which of course is a normal response to the chaotic and painful details that I never envisioned being on my pages. Who dreams of substance use as a part of his or her life? Yeah, I don’t know anyone who wants that either, but it shows up every day to all kinds of people even those who smile or have a life that seems magical. My comparison of my life to what I saw on the outside of others kept me walking in circles and “flipping out” for far longer than it should have. Ryan felt that way too which only encouraged him to not believe in his story of love, leaving that part of his narrative blank as he read and re-read what he hated about himself also for far longer than it should have. Comparing ourselves to others, however, does have a place in our lives but not in the way that we most often use it which is to devalue ourselves. It is actually a part of the series of movement of our grief process where we feel scared and angry about what has been and deny as well as close the door on those things. That thief of joy will stay that way within us until we take the time to feel it with the understanding that it is the step that is meant to encourage us to write on the pages where our story of love for ourselves is located. What would you say there? This is your rollercoaster ride, your journey, your epic tale and leaving pages empty and not taking the time to feel all that you are is what is stealing your happiness not being in the wrong story or location or falling or BLAH. For me, Ryan’s substance use was a narrative that I wanted to run from but couldn’t and I eventually became grateful for that because he and I found ourselves there. Yes, the word is found because it’s easy to compare ourselves to others and to want what we think they have when the real truth is that we are going through with what we have and it is powerful enough to slay any dragon as long as we take the time to feel and keep adding to our tools; especially in the parts of the story of love that only we can each write about ourselves. Have the best day POSSIBLE for you and if your heart hurts, you are grieving so find one thing that you love about yourself and take the time to feel it again and again and again until you find a new word to add. After all it isn’t just about the flowers but sometimes, we need to remember that we have them as often as we view our weeds. Love Always, Heavell
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