Again and again, I chose to find my way back to the silent spaces my mind once tried to escape. It was a gentle turning away from the constant inner chatter and outer struggles of mind — a sinking down into my heart — where mind, joined with heart, was able to reflect the quiet prayer of a love hidden safely within.
From a Higher View
I learned that creative processes held an element of messiness. I couldn’t really know when the pieces would come together — forming something more beautiful and tender than I had imagined.
It was tempting to look at the pieces and see only the mess. And so I practiced looking from a little higher view.
What Now
What Now was a gentle way of continuing on. It meant being okay with where I was. It meant being okay with where others were as well. It meant letting go of the need for outer stories to go a certain way, while still being present and offering my part
I found What Now to be a good place to focus in each moment. It was a saving grace to learn to keep my focus on the unfolding step in front of me. No matter what I wished I had done before or understood a little sooner, it mattered that I was taking the step in front of me. I liked the way this new found sense of self felt as I dropped the old stories in my mind and focused on the step in front of me.
All That Was Unhealed
Healing deeply was a little different than I had first expected it to be. I had to learn to hold and let go of all the pieces of my heart.
I learned to reach for my own inner healer — listening beyond stories and thought — holding space for all that was unhealed in me — respecting the tenderness, authentic beauty, compassion and peace I found there that couldn’t have been taught.
I began to notice all the ways I had tried to reach this place that had actually taken me in the opposite direction. Instead of trying so hard to work out the stories in my mind, I learned to be in my heart — where unresolved pieces turned into pieces of art and honored wisdom. Whatever was needed began to unfold a little more gracefully from there.
Silent Spaces
And so I learned to reach a little further into my own heart. I learned to reach for a little hidden magic and a quiet prayer to hold for as long as it took — until the softness I felt there began to spill over.
I learned to reach for healing words reflecting silent spaces in hearts that knew the sacredness of the journey back whenever old wounds showed up again.
I learned to soften my path a little more with each step as I continued on.
Whatever Remained
One day I realized the peace I felt had come out of the quiet moments, the insights that came that couldn’t be shared or explained. It had come out of whatever remained of the grief of being within a separate self and the grace of having found my way back to my whole heart.
It was the non-verbal kind of feeling my way through life that had saved me. It was the wisdom beyond stories and questions and answers I found in the silent spaces within that nothing else could reach.
It came out of the willingness to wait forever for words to form and outer forms to match the love I knew in my heart.
The Quiet Prayer That Carried Me
There were times when the stories around me were complex. I knew the only hope was a miracle — often more than one. And so I vowed to clear my own mind and heart and become one with the quiet prayer that had carried me that far.
I vowed to hold the remaining bits of trauma in my heart — knowing they would be transforned into healing words. And I held each new moment as it unfolded.
Words pointed back to miracles past, comforting pieces of my heart and connecting me in each moment to a timeless, unshakeable higher me. But my prayer had no words.
A Quiet Kind of Beauty
There was a quiet kind of beauty in allowing my heart to be in pieces. It wasn’t the mending, so much, that allowed my experience in the world to begin to soften. It was the gentle shift from being the pieces to being the whole Self.
It was too much at first to step out of the pieces. And so I practiced holding and letting go until the tenderness of tapping into my own true essence far outweighed anything else. There was a sweetness in noticing that it did in fact matter what I was experiencing on the inside.
In Unlikely Places
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.
A Place of Reprieve
There were times
when the most pressing work
to be done
was to retrace my steps,
to return to
a place of reprieve —
to soothe
my own heart
a little more.
Laurie's Notes 