You and your life are not problems to be solved. You are not something to be cleaned up and made better, to be repaired as if you were broken. You are a flower ready to blossom. You are a treasure to be uncovered, sparkling gold and silver, gems beyond imagining. You are a song ready to be sung, a dance that only needs the right music. And the music is drifting across on the breeze right now.
Rather than think of your life as endless circles of disappointment and shame, where you seem to repeat patterns helplessly, think of life as a long road. And on this road are many things to be discovered and experienced: times to meander through fragrant gardens; times to walk through an orchard where the ripe fruit is ready to pluck; times to climb a high mountain, using every ounce of your strength to pull yourself up to the next ledge; times to wander into a forest in the fog, uncertain of your bearings; times to step out of that forest into sparkling clarity, as you see a seemingly endless stretch of road ahead; times to encounter vast boulders, obstacles so enormous that it requires you to mobilize an entire group to clear them; and times to walk across sharp rocks that bite into your thin soles, only to emerge into a meadow of daffodils, nodding their heads in the spring sunshine.
This is your life. And your so-called problems are the doubts and worries in your mind and the burdens you carry on your back, out of active choice, a sense of obligation or simply because they have always been there. And though you sometimes dream that you would be happier if you had taken the other fork in the road, your happiness is influenced more by the drama in your mind than the pathways you walk.
In fact, the external choices you make have little influence compared to the choice you make each second with your internal world, whether to allow the weight of those burdens to overwhelm you, whether to allow your worries to dominate your mind, whether to gaze backwards in regret or march forward across the snow, full of faith that the daffodils are just around the corner.
Stop trying to solve your life. Stop trying to analyze what you did wrong and why you do not have everything you want in life. Stop torturing yourself minute by agonizing minute.
Instead, embrace this road, this life, this journey, these obstacles and yes, even these mountains. Enjoy the meadows then they come, eat from the orchard when it is there, but draw strength from the other challenges in their time as well, allowing the snows of today to make tomorrow's roses smell all the sweeter when they emerge in their spring glory.
This is your life and it is glorious and you are glorious within it. You are everything you need to be. You are standing just where you should stand. So right now, stand tall. Straighten up. Lift that chin and pull those shoulders back. Take a deep breath. Drop the burdens you can and use your internal strength to carry the rest, with all of the heart and muscle that is yours.
You do not carry more than you can handle. Just relax, shift the weight a little, take a deep breath, clear your mind of regrets, shame and worries, and look at the road ahead. And then, one step at a time, walk that road, knowing that the sunshine of faith and the raindrops of unending love will form a rainbow above you, a rainbow to show you the great loving presence that surrounds you always. And now walk, walk under the rainbow, knowing in your heart that you are treasure at the end of that rainbow. The knowledge and acceptance of the great wonder that is you: that is the prize.
Here is an inspiration for today
I walk my road in deep understanding and joy. I have eternal peace as my companion I am like a deep well filled with peace and love, unending.
I walk, knowing that I am blessed deeply by love, surrounded always by the benevolence of an abundant universe. I walk with my head held high, knowing that I am deeply deserving of the love that is showered on me every day of my blessed life.
I am love. I am the abundant universe. I am peace abiding. I am.
*****
Carrie Hart
