I M Perfect lady

Tag: soul

  • The Artist Way

    On the CD of “Romancing the Ordinary” by Sara Ban Breathnach, she mentions Julia Cameron a few times. She is the author of the book, “The Artist Way”.

    My brother sent me the book and notebook that went along with it a little over six years ago to begin discovering the Artist within me.

    Julia wanted us to write “Morning Pages” just a simple practice of writing a few pages each morning, putting to paper our thoughts.

    They could be just stating what we had to do that day, how we were feeling, just ramblings but getting them out of our heads and on to the pages, cleaning up the space to be creative.

    I was a beginning student to this Way, when all hell broke lose in my life, and what surprised me greatly, is that I clung to these morning pages, which often grew to day long pages, for sometimes I wrote morning, noon and night.

    I filled that first book in a short time and then bought my first journal and after four years of writing longhand, I began a blog.

    I still write most days, sometimes more depending upon the unsettledness of my soul; writing is now part of who I am.

    What is so synchronistic is this book came to me just a week or so shy of a major event in my life, and it helped me find my way.

    What also has happened simultaneously my Artist arrived, she is having a ball playing with ladies, fabric, colors, designs, and is going places Artists go and her work is in an Art Gallery.

    I don’t know the way, but it seems to happen anyway.

    Perhaps that is the Artist Way.

    (I will have to go back and read in her book to see the marks I hit unbeknownst to me.)

  • Felt Its Worth

    Before beginning yoga today, I cleaned the mirror I stand in front of, it was layered with weeks of dust, and I appeared fog like behind it. Today I felt the need to wipe it free, as I did so the line from a song arose in my head, “I can see clearly now the pain is gone…”

    Then into yoga I went.

    I was on the third part of the Awkward pose, where I go from standing up to squatting down, and Bikram asks us to descend slowly, and I lost my control and fell into a squat and smiled as I did so.

    This smile took up my whole face, my cheeks, my eyes and my mouth rose into a delightful bend, and inside I felt its wonderful wave of joy.

    I smiled at my rendition of his yoga; I smiled at me and the transformation of my face and received fully my smile about me.

    A smile about me isn’t something I have any memory of ever receiving.

    I was shocked first at the way this smile changed my look, and even more stunned to receive its full value inside.

    To feel myself worthy of a full-blown smile.

    I froze for a half of second to feel such sheer delight inside myself.

    My smile quickly disappeared and I struggled to smile while tears of sorrow dampened my face.

    Imprinted in my minds eye is my smiling feeling being over swept by sadness as memories flung themselves upon me, one on top of the other.

    A 50 year long life review flashed before my eyes, all the places where I mistook myself for being bad, wrong, and despicable, how I had not seen my own worth or how I had lost sight of myself inside myself.

    The simple fact that I was unworthy of a smile from me about me is so harsh and tragic; yet it was never my smile I sought. I didn’t even know I was missing my smile for me.

    The mouth I tried to change was my mother’s.

    Before putting my words to paper, I spoke to my brother and then did some mindless cleaning, and it came to me what love I had for my mother.

    I literally gave my soul, my insides away in order to bring a smile to her face and to keep it there.

    How tragic that she wanted my smile more than she wanted my tears and my sorrows, and even more dreadful for a little girl to be left with such sorrow inside, such darkness.

    In denying my abuse, she left me in the dark.

    It is funny in a sad way, how I wanted her to have a smile, more than me.

    I could cry a river of tears for the little girl who wasn’t allowed to feel her sorrow out loud, to be heard and valued as abused.

    Valued as abused and not having to hide this fact.

    I can see I took up my mother’s view of me.

    My mouth and facial images reflected hers in my mirror and even more tragically inside.

    Inside I knew my mother blamed me.

    I took away her sunshine, I stole her lovely story, I was darker than the darkness that abused me.

    I changed her smiling face to anger.

    And it was my job now to put her smile back.

    And I tried and danced, and pranced and worked and slaved and toiled to bring it back, and to keep it in place.

    When I was tired of holding up those cheeks, when I simply didn’t have anymore to give, or when I tried to tend to myself, I heard her angry response, “How dare you Beth Ann…” and up I got and began dancing again.

    Six years ago all my dancing for her was over, done, finished, the end.

    I stopped where I stood and in the middle of the darkness began to see what I did for me and what I did for others.

    Life offered up to me a million situations for me to choose again, their pleasure or mine, their smile or mine, their feelings or mine.

    Each and every time I found the strength to disappoint my mother and chose me; I opened up inside, made room for that smile.

    Today, I feel that I have made it to the other side, to the side of worthiness, or at least I have felt the wave of joy lap at my feet, I feel that I am worthy to now frolic in the ocean and swim to its depths.

    I look forward to seeing another one come out of me and shine upon me and for me to welcome it in!

    I have been waiting in vain for her to arrive and tell me that I am a good girl, that I am of value, and that the abuse didn’t change who I am, in her eyes.

    I wanted her to smile that it was okay that I was abused, it didn’t matter to her, and she loved me any way.

    Again, the smile I sought was hers and the one I found was mine.

    What I love is that the first smile I was able to receive was mine!

    A smile in full acceptance of all of me, the darkest dark and the brightest bright.

    I smiled at me and felt Its worth.

  • Move Accordingly.

    Friendships and relationships are very interesting to me, and me in them.

    I used to put stock in friendships and work really hard to be a good friend, and even take up the slack of the other, and try harder when things became shaky.

    Now I just accept them.

    When the person oversteps or steps upon me without a thought of my feelings, I accept.

    I accept who they are, and I accept myself.

    I accept my feelings.

    My feelings that want to turn away, to put space between us, to let the friendship fade.

    I honor its death or return to social pleasantries.

    The reason we came together is over.

    The lesson is learned, a part of me was returned.

    Most relationships have given back to me a stronger self then I was before I entered.

    In the past, I would spend time and effort to drag an ended relationship along, disrespecting its demise.

    It is my belief, that if we are to remain together, there is nothing we can do to tear us apart; we will be friends for a lifetime, if that is meant to be.

    And if we are not, there is nothing we can do to keep us connected.

    Once the reason is fulfilled, our interests fade, our common ground slips away, and we move on.

    It almost seems that there are people who serve the same purpose for multitudes of folks, that they serve the soul’s lesson in many.

    They give the same part of us back to ourselves, they are angels among us who never change, for we need their exact nature to find our own.

    Their strength is of an unchanging quality that we recognize and honor.

    This wall of unchangeable energy or source of power isn’t within our power to transform; yet we are transformed and changed in its presence.

    Friendships to me are unknown, until they are known.
    The length of time we spend together I can’t know.

    Is it a season, a reason or a lifetime?

    Only my soul knows.

    I listen and move accordingly.

  • Joined them back together.

    The way I described this past Christmas was an ugly beautiful one, where inside I was so dark and the outside so light, how mental psyche steers my world, not the decorations on the outside.

    I was clearly shown that no matter how I orchestrated and decorated and baked and made perfect the outside, it had no influence upon my inner world.

    It wasn’t even a blue Christmas it was black.

    Frozen darkness inside…is that called depression?

    Yet it was a moving depression where I was working on the outside to cheer me up inside.

    I always pictured depression as sitting in a stupor, unable to move. Is there a moving depression or a fallacy that if you can create a warm peaceful atmosphere you will have the same inside?

    What I think I thought, was that if you were dark inside you could change it up on the outside to help alleviate the feelings, yet what needs to happen is that you have to go deeper into the feelings, leaving the outside alone.

    When I started to spiral into darker feelings, I kept
    cleaning, instead I should have stopped and sat with my feelings.

    Writing and exploring why I felt the way I felt.

    I wonder if depression is repressed feelings, if denying them and focusing on changing the environment you live in, instead of investigating your feelings and relationships is the cause?

    What I feel is I was given a real life experience, situations and feelings that represented the flavor of my childhood, and then a dream to show where the seed was planted, how my mental psyche was developed.

    A main piece of the puzzle was cleared up for me.

    My father was happy and desiring me.
    And I was happy to please him.

    The sheer terror wasn’t there, perhaps too young to know…in my mind no terror.
    And my head seemed detached from my body.

    My body and head separated.
    Hence, no memory in my head, but my body held on tight to the trauma.

    I am filled with admiration for the little girl who so bravely withstood such trauma, who did her best to please in the most horrific of circumstances, all she wanted was her daddy to be happy.

    When it is over, and the child seems ‘unaffected’ it is because they no longer are one.

    The mind and the body separated.

    The body holds the truth while the mind was elsewhere.

    Bikram Yoga is about bringing the mind back to the body.

    In the 360 days that have passed, I have missed 32 days, days in which I was working so hard to reconnect my head to the rest of my body.

    To live as mind body and soul.

    Yoga is the yoke that joined them back together.

  • Thank you.

    As I sit here on Thanksgiving morning, I look back at this year and find so many moments of gratitude, it seems I had a year full.

    My moments of gratitude are interrupted with moments of sheer pain, frustration, sorrow, confusion and tangled thoughts; it is only when I truly see the whole picture that I am overwhelmed with gratitude, knowing I was spared.

    Spared a lifetime stuck in that thought pattern, or held prisoner by that belief, to be forever at the mercy of another, while never seeing me.

    It isn’t so much that they didn’t see me, but I didn’t see me.

    Seeing and feeling me, learning how to respond that is respectful of me, what honors my soul, bringing forth a new version of me, one that is authentic and uniquely me, one that brings me to life.

    Gratitude of such magnitude, there isn’t a word that adequately expresses this freedom; it is like breathing or not breathing, love or fear, living or being dead in your life.

    To not be dead in my life is beyond what words can hold, to be alive in each moment, aware that I am connected to the Universe, that there are no mistakes, just opportunities to expand further and further, that even the darkest of the darkest moments are bringing me back to myself.

    The Universe only wants the grandest version of me; it doesn’t want a replica of someone else’s dreams.

    This past year I have been shown all the places I was still stuck, lost in the dark, and each time I become aware, I bring peace in to me.

    In peace I am overwhelmed in gratitude.

    I am thankful on this Thanksgiving Day for all the moments of pain, the untangled thoughts, the dark stuck places, and sorrow of what isn’t, for they all came bearing gifts.

    They all delivered a part of me that wasn’t free.

    Hell doesn’t seem like hell when it comes bearing gifts.

    I am grateful for my pain and for my suffering, for it was grieving the loss of me.

    It was telling me where I wasn’t present.

    In the darkness I mourned the loss of me.

    It was in the dark that I found me.

    On this Thanksgiving day, I thank you.

  • The Journey….

    In Kim Rosen’s book, “Saved by a Poem” she writes,

    “ I discovered how the separating lines of culture and age can dissolve in the presence of a poem the first time I went to Africa. In Kenya, at the Tasaru Ntomonok Rescue Centre for Girls in the Rift Valley, I unexpectedly found myself speaking a poem to a group of Maasai girls, only a few hours after I met them. I had long wanted to visit this miraculous place, ever since it was opened by Eve Ensler and her organization V-Day in collaboration with Agnes Pareyio, a Maasai woman who dedicates her life to stopping the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Tasaru, also called the V-Day Safe House, was created as a haven for girls escaping FGM. Fifty or so girls live at the house at any given time. Each has had to leave her family and community. Many have traveled alone for miles, barefoot over rough roads, spending nights hiding under the bushes for fear of being found by wild animals.
    My first few hours there were awkward. My shyness kept me from striking up conversations with the girls, most of whom though they understood English, did not speak it willingly. They were shy with me too, keeping their distance and watching me in twos and threes, whispering in Maa (the language of the Maasai) and giggling.

    Finally I decided to go over to the kitchen, where I heard a lively singing as a group cooked ugali (Porridge made of cornmeal) and cabbage over an open fire. I listened outside as the last song dissolved into gales of laughter and a cacophony of exclamations in Maa. But the chatter instantly hushed when I walked in. A tall girl who spoke excellent English came up to me and stood directly in front of me: “Do you remember my name?”

    I didn’t. I had been introduced to about 20 girls in the last couple of hours and could not for the life of me remember which beautiful Maasai face went with which name.
    “Salula?” I asked sheepishly, grabbing the only name I remembered. “No!” The girls shrieked with laughter at what must have been a big mistake on my part. “That is Salula!” They pointed at one of the youngest girls, who had arrived at the Safe House only months before at the age of 9, having been rescued in the midst of a forced marriage to a 42 year-old man.

    “I am Jecinta.” The tall girl spoke to me with exaggerated patience, as if to a two year old. “Do you know any songs?” Clearly she was giving me an opportunity to redeem myself.

    “I know some songs,” I said. “But what I really love most is poetry.”
    “I write poems.” An older girl with exquisitely chiseled features and piercing eyes was looking at me intently from behind a huge cauldron of steaming cabbage. She was dressed with more sophistication that the others, wearing a tight sleeveless shirt and matching short skirt that made her look more woman than girl. I noticed her gold necklace and earrings as they glinted in the light of the cooking fire.

    “Do you know any of them by heart? Can you recite any of them here?” I asked.

    “I am too shy to do that.” Her beautiful accent made even this simple statement sound like poetry. “I cannot.”

    “May I recite a poem to you?” I asked her. “Then maybe after you will want to recite yours to me.”

    She nodded. Suddenly I panicked. What poem might these girls relate to? I pored through the archive in my mind. Not one seemed remotely appropriate. Their life experience was so different from mine.

    The kitchen became strangely silent. The clatter of washing and cooking had ceased. The whispering and giggling that had been a constant soundtrack in the background was quiet. All the girls stopped their work and were waiting for my poem.
    Out of nowhere “The Journey” by Mary Oliver, a poem I hadn’t thought of in months, burst to mind. Without even taking the time to run through it silently to see if it was appropriate, I began speaking: “One day you finally knew / what you had to do.”

    The poem is about leaving home, turning away from the many voices that demand that you stay, risking the anguish of those who need and love you, and walking alone into a wild night in order to save “the only life you can save.” The girls listened, transfixed. Each of them had lived through such a turning point. Each of them, at a very young age, had defied tribal tradition and left her parents, friends, and community to save her own life. Who could understand these lines better than they?

    It is difficult to describe what happened in that crowded smoky kitchen as I delivered the poem. There I was, a white, middle-class American woman, speaking words written by another white, middle-class American woman, surrounded by Maasai girls who had grown up in tribal villages in the Rift Valley, in families so poor that two cows their parents would get when they gave their daughter to an old man in marriage were their only hope of a better life.

    But as “The Journey” filled the kitchen, there was no separation between us. We were transported into a timeless, placeless, languageless realm where we were the same. By the end of poem, tears were running down my face and several of the girls were crying as well. Several of them dove toward me, wrapping their arms around my waist. There was a long silence. The Jecinta asked, “Who is this woman, Mary Oliver? Is she Maasai?”

    I shook my head, barely able to speak. “American,” I whispered. “Mzungu. Like Me.”

    “How did she know?”

    In the silence that answered her question, the girl with the gold necklace and piercing eyes came from behind the cauldron of cabbage into the center of the dirt floor.

    “I am ready to say my poem,” she announced.

    In a single wave, the other girls and I moved to one side of the kitchen, spontaneously creating a stage among boiling pots of food.

    “I am just a girl child.” Her voice was surprisingly strong, pulsing with a natural rhythm as contagious as any slam poet’s vibe. “It sounds good but oh no-/ To my father I’m just a source of income.” She continued through the list: her mother who sees her only as a “beast of burden,” the boys at school who objectify her beauty, and “the sugar daddy,” for whom she was just “a juicy fruit to be eaten raw.” The poem ends with the wise and heartbreaking question, “Who cares for me?”

    By now there were about two dozen girls packed into the smoky kitchen or leaning in the windows. As the poet spoke her final question, we all cheered and burst into applause. I looked around the crowd that had gathered. Most girls were melted into each other, their arms draped around their friends. Two girls had maneuvered me into the space between them; one rested her head on my shoulder. For a long moment of silence gazed at each other through the smoke, our eyes full of light.

    In these moments of poetic communion when life comes into a harmony, miracles happen organically: the stroke victim’s brain starts making new synaptic connections; a sense of uncanny peace and joy pervades the Freedom Space as bombs explode in the surrounding streets; the armed Sunni soldier embraces the Shiite poet in tears of joy to discover they feel the same grief and longing; a runaway Maasai girl hears her own story told by a white
    American writer, and she is empowered to find her own voice. When you speak a poem that is written in the language of your soul, you become a voice for the heart in the world, and everyone around you is blessed by a sudden grace.
    Kim Rosen

    The Journey

    One day you finally knew
    what you had to do, and began,
    though the voices around you
    kept shouting
    their bad advice —
    though the whole house
    began to tremble
    and you felt the old tug
    at your ankles.
    “Mend my life!”
    each voice cried.
    But you didn’t stop.
    You knew what you had to do,
    though the wind pried
    with its stiff fingers
    at the very foundations,
    though their melancholy
    was terrible.
    It was already late
    enough, and a wild night,
    and the road full of fallen
    branches and stones.
    But little by little,
    as you left their voices behind,
    the stars began to burn
    through the sheets of clouds,
    and there was a new voice
    which you slowly
    recognized as your own,
    that kept you company
    as you strode deeper and deeper
    into the world,
    determined to do
    the only thing you could do —
    determined to save
    the only life you could save.

    ~ Mary Oliver ~

  • Peace Inside.

    It occurred to me yesterday, that I was like a ghost who refused to leave the scene of a tragedy, a tragedy that I died in, that I was not aware yet that I was dead, that I was lingering around waiting, not willing face it was over.

    Facebook allows me to have a portal into lives I am not a part of, and they in mine, without fully connecting in a real one on one, face to face, heart to heart, truth to truth, feelings to feelings, actions to actions, a real life body & soul connection.

    We are ghosts in each other’s lives.

    I am sure we can be haunted by these exchanges or we can be inspired.

    It occurred to me, what would happen if I did not have these portals what would I really know about my family, for in reality I don’t have body-to-body interactions?

    It is both a blessing and a curse to have this window into their worlds, I had thought that I was better off than Edna and Thelma, that I had this thread into their worlds, and now I am re-thinking that.

    What is it keeping alive?
    A relationship or the evidence that there isn’t one there?

    I am sure it is as hurtful to them as it is to me, the misunderstanding that cuts deeply each time we see their written words.

    Words online, the ghost connection, with great amounts of energy connected.

    It’s the energy I feel more than the words.

    The energy is alive and electric, cutting and decisive, very much a one-way street, no U-Turns here it screams.

    No one is willing to turn around and make a new choice, not me and not them.

    Our streets are running parallel but disconnected.

    A cement wall running between us broken now and again with facebook, a portal opens and we can see what the other is doing.

    Two roads.

    One road traveled by many, one road traveled by few.

    How can I know what it feels like to travel their road, I can’t. I can only write about mine.

    My road is leaving a family of dysfunction.
    Their road is traveling with family.

    Each of us took the road our hearts and souls directed.

    They say I chose this road, but the road chose me.

    A road that began as a very little girl…

    This road I am on was not an option then, but it was offered to me on December 4th.

    Something within me came alive, aware and alert; a voice of truth woke up.

    It spoke and I followed.

    The Universe and I walk this road, the road back to my true self.

    I am sorry we can’t agree, but it can’t be so, you can’t win the world and gain a soul.

    I know to the depth of my being you all can’t see and understand my walking, that what I say is hurtful and it is not intended to be, that my blog say things that don’t feel good, but guess what, the truth first hurt me.

    It hurt me to know what I had to know, to see what I had to see, to feel what I had to feel, yet in doing so it put me on the road to my soul.

    The soul of me, the spirit of my little girl is alive and well within me…even though this road is hard and misunderstood, it is the only road for me.

    I hope your road fills your soul, makes you dance and shine, gives you life and feeds your passion, that you are walking hand and hand with your truth. There is nothing more I can want for you is for you to be at Peace inside.

  • Reposting….Naked and Imperfect.

    Who puts Perfect in us? What makes us Perfect? Who are the Perfect maker people, where do we find them and how does it work?
    And how do we know we need Perfect, how do we know we are missing Perfect?

    It seems that all are seeking Perfect? It seems that it is the prize and I want to know where is the Perfect store, the place where all Perfect is stored, I want to fill up on Perfect, for without it seems we are doomed for failure, failure without Perfect.

    Perfect, boy for such a nice word, it sure causes a hell of a lot of grief, we lose ourselves for it, we cry for it, we die for it, we kill for it, we lie for it, we steal for it, my God, it seems to be a motive for a life of hell.

    And I am not swearing just to be dramatic, I literally mean hell, if you are not Perfect you are in hell. And if you let go of that word, Heaven!
    That now seems mental, and upside down and backwards, for all our lives ever since were little, Perfect was what we wanted.

    Perfect baby, Perfect girl, Perfect mom, Perfect wife, Perfect friend, million and one Perfects! Until Perfect stands before us, always, and not just sometimes, like we can’t see us for the forest of perfects.

    How in the world have we gotten lost behind perfects? Lost behind Perfects, so we are there, just that Perfect is standing in the way?
    Who put it there? How long has it been standing there? And why do we want to hide behind Perfects? Why?

    We hide ourselves behind Perfect, so Perfect is a mask?
    The mask is Perfect? That is the mask? We pretend to be Perfect?
    That doesn’t seem right, but true.

    WE hide behind the Mask of Perfect…so Perfect is not real?
    Perfect is not real? How in the world did we go seeking something that is not real? Not real?

    So what is real? If the mask is pretend, fake, untrue, and it’s name is Perfect, than what does that make us behind the mask of Perfect?
    Just us. Just us being ourselves, what is wrong with ourselves?
    Who told us we could not be ourselves?
    Who wanted us to be different and why?
    Where did this all start, what is wrong with being you?

    Somewhere along the way, we had to hide behind the mask of Perfect, somewhere we had to pretend. Someone didn’t like us as we were, why? What happened that they didn’t want to see?

    It is shocking even as I write this to see that Perfection is a screen to hide behind! I knew I was ok as an imperfect person, but now I am way way way ok!

    For now I know that my mask is no longer needed, for I am ok without it. I stand alone, mask-less and proud.

    Our El Camino has a window sticker “Ride Naked” and I loved that saying from the beginning and now I know what it truly means, ride without a mask! And get this, my license plate says UBEEU, ride naked and you be you….

    When my parent’s masks fell, so did my world, for I was in love with their perfections, not the person behind. Imagine I was in love with a mask. A mask, and I wanted this mask to change, to do this and do that and to love me back. Oh my Goodness this is good.

    No wonder I made sense when their mask fell, for I never fit the mask! My mask.

    A mask of Perfection….that will stay with me awhile.

    Standing here naked and imperfect!

  • Love after Love, by Derek Walcott

    The time will come

    when, with elation,

    you will greet yourself arriving

    at your own door,

    in your own mirror,

    and each will smile at the other’s welcome

    and say, sit here. Eat.

    You will love again the stranger who was your self.

    Give wine. Give bread.

    Give back your heart

    to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

    all your life, whom you ignored

    for another, who knows you by heart.

    Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

    the photographs, the desperate notes,

    peel your own image from the mirror.

    Sit. Feast on your life.

    —Derek Walcott

    I heard this recited by Kim Rosen on Sirius Radio with Ed Bacon, she wrote a book called, “Saved by a Poem”. I have it on hold at the library. Until then, I have browsed her website and found this poem.

  • Family is Relating.

    In the past weeks I have had sister relationships with ladies not related to me, yet we related. 

     

    And when I tried to relate to those related to me, we failed.

     

    What I failed to focus on were the ladies who related to me, and instead part of my head was with those who I could no longer relate to, struggling to find the words or phrases to make us match.

     

    I failed. 

     

    We don’t match.

     

    It isn’t them or it isn’t me. 

     

    They are fine alone and I am fine alone, but put us together and negativity pops out of them and out of me.

     

    We are not what some would call each other’s better half.

     

    Last night I was with two women who are not related to me, and we related beautifully. 

     

    We tossed conversation back and forth and held each other’s truths easily, we matched, I fit in their worlds, there wasn’t a struggle to find a little glimmer of commonality, and we flowed with each other effortlessly.

     

    It was as one said, ‘family that is not family’.

     

    I believe that we match or we don’t match and there isn’t anything we can do to force a relationship against reality, any more than we can stop one that grows organically.

     

    As I sit here today and look backward upon all the wonderful spirited wise individual ladies I have had the privilege to share my journey with, I am in wonder of these relationships.

     

    Some are just forming, others were formed a while back and are growing deeper and more meaningful to me, some seem to have gone ahead and were waiting for me to arrive with open arms and hearts.

     

    How grateful am I for their journeys that coincided with mine, yet years apart.

     

    Ladies of strength and willingness to participate in life fully not shying away when their truths lead them from their comfort zones. 

     

    Ladies of integrity, who use their voices to speak for themselves always, these are my sisters, the ones I relate to, the ladies whose footsteps I am following, who give me energy and hope.

     

    These sisters are bold and follow their north star no matter where it leads and who they have to leave behind; they are willing to let go to hold on to what they know is their truth.

     

    How lucky am I to have them sprinkled along my journey to share this experience, to enhance my life, to lighten my load, to brighten my day, to inspire me and cheer me on as I continue to build a stronger me.

     

    Thanks to each of my soul sisters for the relationship we have, the braveness you show in sharing yourself with me, and the inspiration your story lends is hope to me.

     

    Family is relating.

     

    My chosen families are those that relate to me.