Many times people talk about the joy of the holidays. Yet for many the holidays represent the things they’ve lost or the things they yearn for… and so I can understand why some may choose to sink into depression. But it is a choice in the end, and choices sometimes can mean struggle.
And… the struggle is as real as our minds make it to be.
People including myself quite often fail to understand that dealing with emotions (specially ones own) requires a deep desire to become better than ones version of yesterday, requires going deep into the hurt and pain and sitting with it for a bit, requires developing skills to help cope with those emotions.
November 2018, surrounded by family around a wonderful bounty of food and Love, we held hands and bowed our heads for prayer only to experience ‘the pause’ – a pregnant pause which for a moment became sacred – the pause where we all waited to hear the voice of my dad fill the room with hope and gratitude.
No one spoke for that precious moment as we all remembered Thanksgiving of our yesterdays when he was with us.
Even though we were at my brother Frankies house… all there looked at me to fill those big shoes for our Thanksgiving prayer.
The choice to be okay with what is, the choice to accept the inevitable and mostly the choice to honor the story and the blessing to have had so much and realize that we are a part of so much more… is worthy of Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving… spirits much lighter. Is it because we survived the pain or rose higher in appreciation for the delicate balance of life? Which ever… both bring comfort knowing we are more than our emotions.
The clock of Life keeps spinning as we connect again to all those things that remind us of those precious moments that fill us with awareness of the present.
These moments are the dots that connect us to the big picture. Time with family and friends. Gazing at the stars or listening to the whispers of a breeze. Or simply feeling the affection of a darling family pet.
There is also acceptance and honor. Accepting and honoring others for who they are and their journey in life. Not to force a situation just because we want things picture perfect (or ones version of picture perfect).
To accept and honor Life is to flow in and out of the emotions, not to sink in but to allow the expression of self as it evolves in self-knowing.
Life. The story continues.
