Picking Up The Pieces...

I have some big news :)

A few pieces actually...
You can learn more about all of them at my new website!
My latest blog post is about an e-book that features one of my poems from this blog.

And I have a new Facebook page too...
A few new places to hang out with me :)

I hope to "see" you there!

Gentle

North Shore Beauty ~ Summer 2011

Be gentle with yourself.

Yes, I mean you.

I hear the way you talk to you, the way you focus on one little itty bitty thing you don't like, the way you judge yourself, less than, too much, not enough, if only... stop it. 

Stop it now.

You are a radiant, glowing human being, deserving of radical kindness and abundant love. 

You deserve to be spoken to kindly by ALL who are in your presence- and that includes YOU!

Allow yourself the journey, if you were at the destination what fun would be left?  

Enjoy the process, be deeply human. 

You are a gift to the world.  

Your negative self-talk, your doubts are doing nothing but clouding your gifts... let your soul shine.  Sure, you will have moments of fear, or not enoughness... but from now on respond to them as though you were talking to your best friend.  

So be gentle today.  Learn, love and live fully.

And know that I love you.

Surrender

Surrender

There is a gentle power, a subtle shift, a sigh, 

when we surrender.

The time when we are able to release what we believe, what we hold dear, what we are fighting for.

We stand tall in the knowledge that they will remain until we are able to pack them up again.

Surrender to the fatigue, the tiredness, the exhaustion.

Release yourself of the idea that you are the only one, that you are the one that this fight depends on.

Relax into the gentle arms of the one that loves you, of the soft pillows upon your bed, feel yourself gently slip away into the sudsy warm water of a bath.

Let it go.

This is not yours to carry alone.

Stop fighting, stop struggling,

silence the chorus in your head.

Surrender.

Allow yourself the break, or the fatigue will break you.

For the moment just

          pause.

Restore.

Relax.

Rejuvenate.

Invigorate.

Find the strength in letting go.

You have permission. 

Hopes and wishes...

I wrote this birthday wish for a friend... but after rereading it I realize that it isn't just birthday's that we should share these sentiments and it isn't just "special" occasions that I hope these things for others... it is everyday. 

I hope that today you are simply soaking in all of the love and that you are finding lots of opportunities to laugh, to love and be loved deeply to the core of your being.

 

You are a bringer of light, a shining gem in the midst of the world... you are a treasure!

 

I hope you feel all the love that surrounds you today and every day!!!

Gossamer Threads...

Hold on to that feeling... 

that gossamer thread that holds you to the lightness of being... 

it is there... 

I promise. 

There are things that I know... 

That you are held, you are loved. 

That every fiber of your being is made with twinkling stardust, 

solid earth, life-giving water from the lake and the vast ocean, 

beautiful sunlight and the powerful wind... 

you are a part of it all... 

and it is all a part of you. 

That you will get through this... 

even though it doesn't feel like it now... 

your dawn will come... 

the dark night is intense, all-encompassing and so very real... 

but what you can't yet see is the glorious sunrise that is to come... 

the powerful sun of love that will gently rise bathing every cell of your being in the warmth and beauty of the new dawn... 

beautiful colors beyond your imagining holding, caressing and loving every inch of you, healing every hurt, mending every tear in your soul... 

leaving you full, at peace and lit from within. 

Of that I am sure.

The Work of a Lifetime...

It must just be that we mortals never really get life all figured out.  The brain may be overachieving and whip-smart, but the soul is a remedial, wayward student, forever forgetting yesterday’s lessons.  I’ve always known that one reason I write is to remind myself to do as I say.  Now, I’m also realizing that I have to keep learning and practicing the same things over and over again — silence, patience, acceptance, faith, gratitude for what is — until slowly, bit by bit, what I know to be true becomes who I am.  To say that it’s a process is an understatement.  

It is, I suppose, the work of a lifetime.

Katrina Kenison

I don't love you someday...

I don’t love you someday…

When you lose 10 pounds

When your house is cleaner

When your teeth are whiter

When you are wearing your best outfit with your new manicure and your roots just right

When you have it all “pulled together”

When you are whatever or wherever it is that you are striving for.

I love you now.



I love you now.

In the midst of your half done to do list

In the midst of your striving to be someone different than who you are at this moment.

In the midst of your valiant efforts to be a “better person” whatever that means.

In the midst of your beautiful, shining, sometimes pulled together, sometimes messy life.

In the midst of your teeth whitening, weight-losing, forever to-do list, whatever else frenzy.

I love you now.

Exactly as you are.

In this moment.

Without anything to change.

I don’t love you someday.

I love you now.

Holding...

A prayer for H~

May you be held in love.

In the moments when it feels as though you can't possibly continue let the love of your friends and family hold you until the next moment.

You will be faced with impossible decisions and moments in the coming days and months that most can't even imagine... and through it all there will be moments of grace to sustain you, love to hold you close when you feel your heart breaking open, and one breath after another to move you through to the next day.

And these days will string together, and somehow, you will get through this...
you will find solid ground again, you will get through this together. 

Holding a space for your pain, for your hope, for you.
With love,
Erica

Washing over...

So interesting how often when the loss washes over me in the very next breath I am held in love, and all of the blessings, all of the healing, all the love and the light that has been shared with me envelops me... such a sacred place.

Prayer...

Let all of your life be a prayer.

May joy surround you.
May love fill you.
May grace wash over you.
May hope shine its face brightly.
May peace hold you in it's gentle embrace.
May the light of love highlight all the blessings that surround you now and always.

Sometimes to be me...

Sometimes to be me means to be blindsided by delight, to be tangled in joy, and lit from within with love.


Sometimes to be me means to be reverent and quiet, just drinking in beauty.

Sometimes to be me means to have my eyes tear up because I am so grateful for all that I have, all that I have been given and all that is waiting.

Sometimes to be me means it is inordinately hard to figure out how to be my idealist self in this very mucky real world place.

Sometimes to be me is painful... to see so much love, to see so much pain, to let so much in and out of my heart.

Sometimes to be me is to have to let go to things I would much rather hold on to, and sometimes it means I need to hold on when I would just prefer to let go.

Sometimes to be me means the weight of all of the world is just too much and I wonder if it is worth it, to love this much, to feel this much, to know this much.

But always...

It is best to be me. No matter what... because the pain comes from denying myself, from trying to fit into places I don't fit, from making my soul or my love too small or fitting myself into places made for someone else or someone else's version of me.

I am meant to be radiantly joyful, beautiful, and perfectly me.

And I am learning....

I am learning how to live in this body and claim it as mine.

I am learning how to be radiantly joyful in the midst of pain and to make room for blessings when I am frozen in fear.

I am learning when to hold on and when to let go.

I am learning to ask for help and then be willing to receive it.

I am learning that often the right choice for me is the one that feels effortless and I no longer need to push boulders up hills... that sometimes the easier choice is the right choice

I am learning that we all stumble, we all fall, we all need grace and everything we need is right in front of us.

You are more than your pain...

A friend talked about how she was listening to a John O'Donohue interview where he had said "you are more than your pain"... and it occured to me that that is something I need to remember now.


I am more than my pain.

I am more than this moment.

I am more than my losses.

Yes, they have carved their presence deep within my heart. But even larger yet is the love that has tended my wounds, the grace that has washed over me daily, and the hope that holds me in the midst of the darkness.

I was reminded...

I was reminded tonight of a lot of things.
Gathering with good friends can do that.

I was reminded of how beautiful my friends are, on the inside and out...
I was reminded how sometimes we tend to forget our beauty and it is nice to be reminded...
I was reminded of how much we crave authenticity...
I was reminded how we are all so different~ yet we each bring something so unique and needed to our little hodge-podge mix of friends...
I was reminded of how healing it is to laugh with friends that have laughed with you, cried with you, who know you in all of your moods
I was reminded how spending time with them is like slipping into a warm pair of your favorite pjs.
I am reminded of how much we need each other.
I am reminded of how truly blessed I am.

Love...

The only answer is love.

The only question then becomes "what does love look like in this situation?"

Eyes of Love

What would happen if you looked at yourself through the eyes of love.
If you were willing to offer yourself the same kindness and compassion you so freely give others.
What if you settled into the knowledge that you are enough,
right here,
right now,
just as you are.

No fixing, no perfecting, no mad dash to hide anything.
Just simply showing up, just as you are...
Enough.
Bathed in love,
Held in light.
Surrounded by grace.

Enough.
Right now, down to the depths of your toes.
Just as you are.
Enough.

A thought...

Bravery begets bravery...
sometimes it is good to be reminded.

Letting go and making room...

I have been doing a lot of soul work lately... diggingly deeply with honesty, vulnerability and more than a little trepidation and looking at things that I want to let go of.  And as I list all of the things that I am letting go of and feeling all of the emotions that come along with that tonight it struck me that this should be my journal prompt "What could you make room for?"

And I realized that although I have been looking so intently at grief and loss and what I am letting go of, what I am losing, what I am releasing in focusing on that, I haven't given myself the opportunity to dream... I haven't stopped to think with all of this emptiness in my heart- what could I be making space for...

I am making space for love, for deep connections.
I am making space for the ability to move quickly to meet people where they are at, without having to pack up everything in my heart before I leave to meet them.
I am making space for possibility, for compassion, for light, for grace.

I am making room for light to enter, in the cracks of my certainty, in the crumbling walls of my defenses light and beauty have found their way through.
I am making room for healing.
I am making room for me stepping more fully into myself... into my power, into my own skin.

What are you making space for?

Holding space...

I will hold a space for you.
Large enough for your pain,
wide enough for love,
deep enough for grace.

What I have learned...

I have been crabby all day. 

A friend listened to me, didn't try to fix it, but just held the space for me as the tears fell...

and what do you know my crabbies went away...

I am learning the crabbies are usually just tears in disguise...

What if...

You are enough.


Stop striving, stop trying to reach perfection- you are losing yourself in the process.

In your endless quest for prefection you have given up the opportunity to deeply drink from life, you have bypassed joy because it didn't come packaged how you thought it would, you have missed out on love that was right in front of you because it wasn't wrapped in a pretty bow.

What if you stopped- stopped reaching, stopped emptying yourself saying it was your repsonsibilty to fill another.

What if you were able to simply focus on nourishing you, what if you loved yourself in the same way you love your child, your partner, your best friend.

What if you treated yourself with such kindness, with such love, with such compassion.

What if you were able to forgive yourself for what you had done, what if you could forgive yourself for what you hadn't done...

What if you gave yourself extravagant love...

What if your love was contagious, what if it was so full, so beautiful, so full of light that people couldn't help but want to be around it, what if it was so contagious that it spilled over onto whoever shared your presence.

What if you made coming alive with love a priority?

What if you decided to seek out beauty like it was your mission in life?

What if you shared the gifts that you were given for the sheer joy of it?

What if you held yourself and your heart more gently?

What if you were able to see the beauty I see in you?

What if...