Quiet Reflections and Prayers
It was sobering to find tenderness in unlikely places — to be willing to listen to life — tossing up thoughts and stories gathered and held so carefully in exchange for a new kind of emptiness and the courage to regather pieces of my heart again and again — each time a little more sweetly.
It was a relief not to need to fit the many pieces of my heart together all at once.
Following a prayer from
a deeper part of me
felt more like listening than
creating plans of action.
It meant turning down
the volume on old patterns
of thought and trusting my own
inner resonance in deciding
where to place my feet.
It was comforting to feel
the familiarity as I moved
a little closer to my own
quiet prayer.
A new kind of thought began to echo within. No longer believing old rambling thoughts to be worthy of so much attention left a space for the new.
The echo of new thought soothed and guided ever so gently.
There was a willingness to show up in each new moment — letting go a little more of the continuous narration of mind — a deeper surrender into the silent space of What Now? It took a bit of adjusting to the inner quiet — a retuning to more subtle thoughts and experiences.
What Now wasn’t bound to old storylines. It was a place of possibilities and seeing from a higher view — where I was free to listen to and follow a quiet prayer instead.
There was peace in the delicate way I learned to hold all thoughts and emotions and find my way through challenges — not alone, but with a hint of inner grace and trust I hadn’t known before.
I had gained a respect for the sacred journey back to our hearts. Tender places where old wounds lived reminded me of where I had been and the purity of love able to reach through dark places. The intensity of this love remained and softened the need for such extreme contrast.
There were times when the most loving thing I could do was to let go of all the pieces I had been trying to fit together. I learned to toss it all and trust the right pieces to come back down in each moment.
I learned to trust the part of me that could hold and let go of all of my experiencs. I liked the tenderness of subtle insights and the feeling of connection so much that I was willing to risk taking a path I couldn’t see.
There was peace within the complete surrender to my own offering in a time of uncertainty. It was understood that there were no guarantees of particular outcomes, but I had found those to be precisely the times when the purest love shines most brightly.
What mattered most was my resolve to show up and offer the highest thought I could in each experience. Every single negative experience was met with the intention to allow it to become something beautiful, not by trying too hard to analyze, but because of the resolve that grew organically out of necessity to transform darkness into light within and wherever it touched me — whatever the outcome.
There was something
tender about walking
through intense darkness
and intense light.
There was a
very real choice in
each moment to reach
more deeply into my Self
and to offer my love
more intensely to the world —
to align with all that was
beautiful about being alive
and to live as a prayer —
no matter what.
For a while it seemed
the magic had been
forever lost.
But it was
there within
the subtle way
I learned to
start again
and listen a little more
intently —
this time with my
heart.
I found life wasn’t
as black and white
as I had once thought.
I found I was made up
of many parts.
And so was
everyone else.
I found that
not only was I not
any one part,
my parts contained
their own potentials.
There were pieces
of denial
to be released.
There were parts
I judged
and pushed against
and later embraced.
And there was
the day I realized
I was more
than the many parts
of the whole.
And I became
determined to remain
unsorted.
Laurie's Notes 