A Lesson on Abundance
A few days ago, my sister and I were talking about our family and our history, and the ways that we love each other. Every family has its own recipe for love, and in our family, like in many, worry is a love language.
It sounds sweet and harmless. When a father says "I'm worried about you", he's saying that he cares enough to worry. When a mother says that her children's worries are at the tip of her tongue, she's expressing how much of her heart they occupy.
But what happens to children when they conflate love and worry? And how does that affect how we grow up and parent, love, and work?
I took this contemplation into ceremony a few weeks ago. As I dropped into the medicine, I saw and felt a kaleidoscope of visions, vibrations, and voices. In some shape or another, they said "I am bad, there is something wrong with me". The vibration and visions were so overwhelming, I was losing myself, drowning in the cacophony of criticism.
I was enraged. I didn't need to go to ceremony to hear this, I fought years to shed this shit!
I begged for mercy.
But all I could see down the tunnel of mercy was a younger version of me, trying desperately to be seen through the mountain of critique. Because of course, the mercy I was seeking was my own.
The medicine, in her infinite wisdom, raised a mirror for me to see my own mercilessness.
You see, I misunderstood our family's love language for something other than true love.
If worry = love, then I need to be doing something wrong all the time so people could worry about me. I mean love me.
I finally understood the journey.
The medicine was daring me to believe that there's nothing wrong.
When you feel something "wrong" or "bad" coming, it said, don't shrink. Don't prepare.
Open your heart even wider.
Because receiving my abundance is an all-in game.
Abundance is the overflow of flowers in the spring AND the overflow of snow in the storm. It is the tremendous joy of birth and the devastating grief of death.
When we're constantly in "wrong" mode and "fix" mode, we block abundance because we're bracing for what's next.
Anxiety and fear tell us to prepare for the worst while faith, trust, and love tell us to say YES.
Because we're not being asked to fix it. We're being asked to be with it.
True compassion and peace do not come from fixing what's wrong. They come from feeling what's here.
In our quest to "fix", to cure the pain and suffering of genocide and ecocide, we cannot skip the fist step: feeling the immeasurable pain of it.
Because the truth is, if we can't feel the pain, we can't feel the joy. And these feelings, our birthright, are our portals to freedom.
It takes courage to bring the darkness to the light. But we cannot do it alone. There's a reason we do ceremony in community. To be witnessed, to be held. To be reminded that everything we experience is part of being human.
A THREE-MINUTE PRACTICE
The next time you feel the grip in your body that signals "something is wrong" - maybe it's a clench in your neck and jaw - take a moment. On your inhale, say a long slow three-count YES. On the exhale, let it go. On your next breath, allow a smile to cross your lips. And on the exhale, another YES. Where does the clench in your body live? Go right there and say THANK YOU. Tell your body and your nervous system that this too belongs. I dare you to feel it, and to name it. And if you're brave enough (you are), to whisper a little prayer: "May this feeling live inside me long enough to teach me what I need to learn. And may I learn that this too, is my gateway to freedom".
