bowin' to the process....

it took me a long time to fall asleep last nite.
a whole lot on my mind.
i think i had a lot of processing i had to do.

and this morning i'm feelin' a deep sense of okayness.

yeah.

okayness.

and believe it or not, the okayness feels profound.

for years now i've known that i wouldn't trade the dark
times in my life. i've known that those times gave me
some pretty amazing gifts. and i've known if it was
different, i wouldn't have gotten the same gifts.

i really have believed that.

i feel like i've got that same belief whirling around in me
right now...that it's been stirred up...only on a deeper level.

and what i want to put out here this morning is this thought...

the gifts i got thru my darkness didn't stop growing and happening
when the darkness got lighter. because the struggles are always there.
and some of the stuff left over from the really hard stuff for me
will always be there.

and i've been tired of that. i've wanted that to go away.
i've wanted me to be magically okay with it all and not struggle with
it anymore.

and yesterday i saw so clearly how those struggles that have been
with me all along, the things i feel like i just can't get to where
i want to get to inside of me, have toned me and shaped me and changed
me. in a way that i want to be toned and shaped.

it's as if i've been goin' to the gym for ten years and lifting weights.
not wanting to lift the weights, but they're put in my hands over and over
and i know i've got to do something with them and so i lift. and as i lift
i watch my form, i watch to make sure i do the lifting as healthy as i can.
and all the while i've been concentrating on the lifting, never looking
in the mirror at the muscles and tone that have been happening.

and it's as if i walked up to a mirror yesterday and smiled at the reflection.
and felt proud of the reflection.

i have never once embraced the struggle.
i have never once said with delight - hand me those weights, i want to tone.
let me see what i can shape myself into.

because i'm afraid of pain and hurt and sadness.

i've read plenty of times to hold these things, to embrace them in fact.

i've learned to hold them.
but never have learned to embrace them.

not sure i ever will...
but who knows?
cause today i'm filled with gratitude for those things.
i really am.
and i have never ever seen them like this before in my life.

they're okay.
all the pain and hurt and struggle and heartbreak is okay.
it's our weights. it tones us and shapes us.

right along with all the good stuff.
and what we do with that.

it's all okay.
and so am i.

i'm not only still standing.
i'm smiling in the mirror.
a real, honest smile.

and that is because of all i've been thru.

bowing to the process this morning and feeling gratitude and trust
flowin' thru me big time......