Quiet Reflections and Prayers
I began to notice moments
of unfolding tenderness.
It was okay if there were
challenging moments.
I had learned that experiences
were always transforming
and, like the wind,
could change course
in an instant.
And it was enough to know
I could, in any moment,
hold or allow myself to be carried
by the sweet, gentle breeze
of my deepest heart.
Somehow, a little beyond
what I had thought possible —
subtler than expected,
experiences in my own self
and in the world
began to soften.
Words flowed from a different
place and echoed long after
the brief moments I felt pulled
to write or remember.
It was a familiar kind of echo,
the kind of echo I had felt
from the difficult path that had
brought me to this point.
But this new echo,
this unending quiet prayer,
soothed and softened
places in my heart that had once
seemed unhealable
and carried me softly
toward a gentler path.
Again and again
I found my way back to my heart,
it was a relief
to be free of all that had
seemed like too much.
I came to recognize the feeling
of too much
as a sign I had attached
somewhere other than my heart.
Again and again,
I found my way to
the present moment
and gently reconnected
with my heart —
refocusing on each moment
as it unfolded —
regaining my trust in life
a little at a time.
It made no difference
how many times I seemed
to lose my footing.
It didn’t matter how many
times I fell.
After a while,
I understood I could
always find my way again.
After a while, I realized
I was, in fact,
this space within my heart.
I came to understand I had
survived something difficult
and landed in a lower vibration —
for a while
where the sound of my soul
seemed faint.
But I could find my way
again.
It was a little risky to dare to understand tenderness. It meant first knowing the opposite. It meant knowing bitter coldness and disconnect, the only way out being back through painful layers of healing as each healed layer began to let in a little more light of hope and courage to continue on. Aiming to get to a future place or remaining stuck in past stories became courage to drop more deeply into the present. It was an extreme path — the result being the capacity to hold and love the most traumatized parts of the human experience. There was accumulated trauma from painful attempts to heal the original trauma, and there was a love and compassion nothing could ever touch or take away.
And so the unfolding continued,
along with challenges.
It took a bit of reorientation
into finding calm
in the midst of challenge,
but it was possible.
Finding creative ways of
meeting challenges and triggers
head on and moving through
quickly became a valued skill.
It helped to be okay
with having a tender space within
where it was understood
that some things might not ever
be completely resolved.
It helped to understand the difference
between resolution and transformation.
This quickly shifted the focus
onto the tenderness of meeting
the present moment without attachment
to future results.
It helped to remember that it was
this tender space that had
been the source of past healing
and creative processes.
Laurie's Notes 