What if?

Something in my heart seems to have unlocked over the past 24 hours.  I sense the shift came today when I finally accepted I needed to have my tooth extracted.  I made the call to the dentist and she picked up while I was only 15 seconds into leaving a message.  I knew last night that I needed to accept due to the infection in my tooth it must come out.  I immediately stopped experiencing all the push pull symptoms in my body and I sensed a well of love from deep within but also all around me as I moved into surrender and acceptance.

I went outside to do some cleaning up of leaves and the thought came to me : what if I view every single thing that has happened to me as part of God’s plan to open my heart? What if I said an unconditional ‘yes’ to it all and stopped fighting it and complaining about it?  What about if I turned any pain I have over to a loving power and asked for the strength to endure?  What if I shifted my focus from how things are affecting me to how others are affected?  What if I opened my heart and just embraced life?

This morning I had the news that my sister’s daughter in law’s Dad is dying.   It wont be long now that he will end his struggle with cancer.  This afternoon I rang my sister as I knew she would not share the news with me, that she would keep it to herself but all the love I had in my heart made me want to be there and let my sister know I am here if there is anything I can do.   And I am aware that when my Mum opened up to me about it and spoke of my sister’s pain and distress, she was also suffering and being reminded of how it was to have lost a husband very close to her 60th birthday, too.

When I spoke to my sister she told me how cut up her son was. “I know everyone thinks he is a hard person, but the truth is, Deb he is so soft inside.”

I told her that my first therapist had once told me something I feel is very important.  She told me the harder the exterior of a person, the softer and more vulnerable they really felt inside, they just often have a very hard time admitting it and may have developed that hard shell like the proverbial crab to hide a tender underbelly.  I know this about my nephew that he is SO LIKE MY SISTER.  They both have strong Pisces energy opposed by Virgo, the Virgo side of being very organised and literal minded hides or defends in some way against the intense Piscean sensitivity that is so open.  I thought of what must be being triggered for my nephew at present.   He was only four years old when my Dad died and he was so sad.  He had these huge brown eyes that would look you in the soul and when Dad died this is what he said with tears in his eyes when he found out “why did he have to go and do that, we wont be able to go fishing anymore”.   I think his youngest son is now around the age that my nephew was when he lost his own grandfather.

Death makes us vulnerable.  It is the one thing that comes to us all sooner or later.   My heart goes out to my nephew and to the pain he is feeling in watching the wife he loves go through pain.  They live a very long way away and so that is putting pressure on them as my nephew’s wife left for the long trip to be with her father while my nephew stayed behind, unsure of when to go himself, unsure of how much to expose the children to.

As my sister and I talked about it this afternoon we were able to share about how we also struggled with death.  I offered to be there if they need any help at all with the kids, for it seems that these days due to the fact I have worked through a lot of my own pain I want to be there if I can and if it is needed.  If it is not then that is fine too.  And I am also becoming aware that working to accept the way things are is much easaier in the long run.  Surrendering to life’s wave, opening my heart and becoming willing to ride the tide of feelings which move me outside of former comfort zones of self protection erected against those things I can not ever really protect my self or someone else from is in the end a far better way to live in this life than just holding on and sucking in all the pain and energy in fear and resistance.  It appears to me that an open heart is a brave heart, it is the heart that is willing to be broken so that in and with the breaking new life and energy can enter and enlarge the heart’s expanse to accompany more of the good stuff, compassion, acceptance and unconditional love.

And I am beginning to understand that there is no pain that is too large to hold if and when we surrender it in open hearted non resistance to a loving God or Goddess energy that is always there ready to hold our hand and help us transform through the pain

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