To the degree in which we feel flowers, happiness and sadness can be conveyed simply through their presence without our having to be vulnerable but beyond those displays that eventually fade, is the embodiment of the hidden existence of our genuine stories.
Some of my earliest memories of how flowers captured moments of my childhood came from the fragrant roses that stood tall in the warmth of the sun as I passed by them, happily, every day on my way to play.
At other times, flowering plants have illustrated the colors that I have breathed into my heart from what was easy as well as so difficult even though no one else will ever truly know the details that they encompass from my journey.
There have been flowers that unfolded their petals as I stood by watching while storm clouds filled with my tears blurred my vision making them appear farther away than they really were.
There were flowers that gently vibrated to the sound of my loud laughter at celebrations as well as the ones whose attendance were the silent acknowledgement of a life that ended and the beginning of a grief that would go forward with me forever.
There are the ones gathered by little fingers from the weeds whose residence I disliked but were still set in a place of honor because the value wasn’t in what they looked like or where they came from but in who gave it with such joy to me.
There are the blossoms whose familiar marks of blue depict the regret that has burned on the inside and yet that hue is also the color that masterpieces emerge from and I am a work of art in progress.
There are also the flowers that were given as the symbols of apologies that eventually wilted because for things to take root and grow, the stems can’t be cut and wishes have to be followed by actions to come true.
There are blooms whose rugged foliage protects them and I know that somewhere amongst my rough vegetation and thorns are buds that are working their way through to the light as well.
Over time, some of my blossoming has become irrelevant and as that hard-earned decay of mine falls away, my strength has begun to flourish from the nutrients that my fear once used to hold me back.
In the name of flowers, there is a variety of greenery that exist in a multitude of biospheres and the truth that they speak in those gardens shows the distance between safe and unsafe as well as how dark and light ebb and flow on any given day in their own stories.
Our mental health contains the levels in which we experience the debris and the blossoms of our emotions and thoughts. Not having the words to manage those exhibits on the inside allows our fear to capture pieces and encapsulate them in the foliage of vulnerability and pain. Keep speaking until you find the individual or group who can help you take the abundance of your mind and heart and place those seeds gently into your living system of strength.
Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
So many things happen as we are exposed to the elements of life and along with our resulting marks, seeds of distrust for ourselves are planted that have the ability to devastate the old growth of our experiences, dreams and hopes as well as the future ones.
We never forget the person that we were before, during and after an event because, prior to, we believe that we had some sort of understanding of ourselves that was changed when darkness began operating and we often spend a multitude of moments quietly wanting to get back to that familiar position of being.
Logic can provide a certain amount of safety in our everyday lives but when it comes to the complexities of emotions, that reasoning has no ability to help with the war of pain, leaving us stagnant in a lop-sided and vulnerable place in our very own homes.
We do not know how to feel valuable while containing things that we think depreciate us and the demands of the repetitive songs of sorrow have us seeking closure through the avoidance and the cloaking of uncomfortable feels in order to just to hang on.
If we maintain the expression of our natural language that has proven to not help us with processing previous grief, then how can we confidently go forward where unhappy weather is always possible while continuing to navigate from that same mindset?
We have been in overwhelming darkness not only because of situations, emotions and confusion but as a result of the magnification of the ideas that we are unworthy if we hold those marks and that silence is better for everyone else even though that means we carry on with the weight of the world.
To feel we are worth keeping, we have to want to validate what we have believed made us disposable because pain cannot be argued away or kept quiet but it is possible for us to learn to live in the absence of light without being miserable.
Words are missing from our pages despite already having the details and some of the knowledge to place them there and just because we don’t love all that can be written, it doesn’t mean that flowers won’t eventually grow from them nor that we won’t ever be happy because of them.
Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
Stacked within every person, including the one we see reflected in the mirror, are the artifacts that have been gathered along our journeys and what we don’t know about those items is how deeply we or someone else will feel on the inside because of the hidden and vulnerable relationship that we each have with the darkness.
Ultimately, we each grieve what we survive as well as the life that we think different would have made better and the more that we lean into that perceived truth, the more that we are trapped in the frames that remind us of what didn’t go right.
Being in the place that we are now while still feeling as if we are surviving our former moments and or mental health challenges, leaves us embodying the pain and the desire to withdraw for having parts that are under construction while also carrying the false idea that others are walking debris-free trails.
Spaces that aren’t pleasant, though, are not the things that anyone can truly be prepared for because until we have actually encountered the conflicts, what exists for us is the imagined strength that we have bound within our hope where storms and gloom are absent from the pages of our stories.
We are neither simply full of the colors of our unhappy events nor just the sum of the mementos that hold the bold reminders of how tears fall from laughter too because to know one side is to experience the opposite as well and what we wish for does not control the ebb and flow of either.
The light feels so special and comfortable with its encouragement for us to stay as we are but the unwanted, confining darkness that seems to hold us back is actually the creator of the movement of change that’s needed in all of us.
Its not about the yesterdays or about what we think has broken us but rather what we do, now, with the things that have borrowed time from us and whether we will continue to multiply our suffering in the tomorrows or learn to trust that while grief affects us, we are not the events or issues that have generated the emotions of sorrow.
This is you and this is me as well and when things don’t go as we want, who we have been is not who we have to continue to be controlled by because in the moments where there is an absence of light, it is in the darkness that the reflection of sometime warriors can be seen.
Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
When we say that everything will be all right, it does not mean that the entirety of what we wish for will assemble as desired but that no matter how it comes together, we hope that we will eventually find our way through even if that is more than we can imagine right now.
When we feel broken, it is for all of the simple and complex marks that life has colored our hearts with and while that state may fluctuate with reminders or for no reason at all, we also have the space within ourselves to allow the contradictions of sadness and happiness to voice their coexistence in our stories.
When what we know about ourselves feels like an unfavorable mess on the inside, it can be hard to have confidence in who we are but if we can be certain about that lack of belief then we can also trust that we are capable of believing, it’s just that what we accept to be true is what we get to hold onto or let go of.
When we find ourselves in the weeds, the vulnerability of needing help adds to the fear that we are already experiencing as we survive moment by moment but the reason why our tears have no boundaries is so that we may learn to show up in our laughter as well as our pain just as they do.
When the twists and turns of our emotions leave us unable to find the words to describe how we feel, the beauty of colors is that each has both a dark and light hue and whatever version we choose for this day can also be magically changed by us to let it be expressed differently on every following day.
When we don’t recognize what we should do from the point that we are at, our past successes, no matter the size, are inherently important in reminding us that we have been filled with doubt before and yet overcame to get to this particular location of trying without the proof that we would be able to do so.
Our yesterdays were once the unforeseeable future and while we cannot return to redo what is living there, it is in those moments that we developed our very important way of speaking hope into our own stories.
Our tomorrows will continue life’s ability to be unpredictable and when negativity threatens to remove our joy, that language created on our former pages will prompt us to recognize that it is still at home within us even though it was our wish to leave it behind.
Moving forth with the things that have held our defeat does not mean continuing to acknowledge the grief but that we change positions from carrying the pain to notice the strength and the courage that was also quietly developed in those same places.
Have your art whether simple is best or the sorrow rains from clouds because trust for ourselves is built through the truth of every single detail of ours and happiness is merely one particular in the stories of our lives that keep on life-ing in both the darkness and the light.
Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
Life is not a progression of successes but rather a series of moments filled with spaces, shapes and emotions where there is an expectation that we will move forward regardless of any areas that weigh us down and prevent the growth that we are seeking.
But being close to what did and didn’t happen keeps us living in all that we have lost and the reasons why we can’t believe in ourselves, enhancing our clinging to past places and feelings of unhappiness.
After all, our suffering surely is an indication that there is something wrong with us and yet life not going as we had hoped isn’t the evidence of failure just as having achievements isn’t proof that we are at home within ourselves.
Five years ago on May 31, my son, Ryan, lost his life after complications from a three week battle to survive an illness.
Even with the passage of time and being muddied by tears, I am able to relive every single detail of those previous pages as it’s that easy to breathe in what’s been marked in our hearts.
The outcome is a very painful loss to me but the light in that dark place of mine is the efforts that were made to succeed without the promise of a win or that different would have been better.
Prior to that, we battled for years, side by side with Ryan against the dragons known as mental health issues and addiction.
We had an idea of how our triumph should look and feel and there were so many times that it felt within reach as well as others that made it feel completely impossible to attain.
There were also a lot of regretful mistakes but with each try and fail that came upon us, our performance was able to grow, even in the moments that we walked in circles for long periods of time.
If we could go back with the hard earned knowledge that we have today, it still wouldn’t assure us that we would have been successful in helping Ryan but the achievements from all of that suffering is that we are getting better at being home within ourselves as well as for each other.
This is a story that is filled with what love and sadness feel like to me as well as a lot of other things that just happen to be mine.
It is not a progression of goals but a series of moments that also hold encounters that I didn’t want to learn how to live through on my pages.
The details are what make it my story but those particulars are also what makes it hard for me to move forward.
The best way to keep improving my performance is in treating all of my feels the same without being caught up in re-reading the storyline that I already know by heart.
I am always going to be sad over my losses but I am also always going to smile because this is a story that is helping me to come home in ways that I never imagined I needed especially in how I previously detailed what I thought triumphs should look like in my life.
Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
Replacing what’s going nowhere is the magic that dreams are made of but our wishes will never get that close to us if our accomplices are able to once again bring the feelings that something isn’t right with who we are.
After all, dreams don’t distance us from the things that have happened in the yesterdays nor do they release us from the marks of what didn’t occur there either.
They don’t take the familiar beliefs that have bent our reality and expand those positions to remind us to meet ourselves where we are in this moment.
They don’t encourage us to respond to our prior mistakes as being a part of the actions that are leading us to finding what will work.
They don’t help us to alter how we speak to ourselves especially about all of the emotions that we find ourselves lost in.
They don’t tell us how or when to implement different into our lives and yet pull at us to take the steps to do so anyways.
They don’t assist us in co-existing with the pages of fear that have prevented us from standing out all along.
They don’t provide proof that our movements will lead to the kind of happiness that we desire as we also have to imagine that they will.
And they don’t remind us that within the struggles that there have also been moments in which the right lighting, at times, has also been present in the darkness.
The more rooted that we can be with what we would do again, regardless of where we have been, the more we are able to let go of what is preventing us from creating space to untangle our hearts to feel the feels and to be happy as well.
Our travel companions make all the difference in whether or not our dreams feel out of reach so making sure that our stories contain the kind of allies that cultivate backing ourselves ensures that we are enough in the nowhere and the somewhere that exists along every one of our journeys.
Have the best day POSSIBLE for you. Love Always, Heavell
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