If your loss was great, your grief will be just as great. Yes, you might grieve this for the rest of your life, but the intensity of your grieving will not be constant. The way you relate to your loss will change over time, too. As you grow and evolve, you will relate to your heartbreak differently, accessing new layers of grief and meaning along the way, further integrating your experience.

It was always your calling, you see,
to find a way to love yourself deeply,
to not beg for love, or seek it externally,
or wait for it, or try to hold on to it,
but to drench yourself with it, moment by precious moment.

Do not abandon yourself when you feel abandoned,
for there is a pain worse than abandonment:
The abandonment of self, the flight from where you are.
Running from yourself when you most need yourself.

Talking about it helps! Talking about the thing gets us closer to feeling resolved about it. But I’ll be the first to admit that talking about it won’t always help us move through it entirely. At some point we need to put down the discussion of it and let the feelings catch up and be felt.

A transcendent poem by spiritual teacher, Jennifer Welwood

No one is coming to rescue you.
No one is coming to make
the sea of your life
any less rough.

All storms and beauty and miles of water undone.

It is this way for each of us.
We all get swept away
tossed around
face in the sand
gasping for air.

Alive, almost gone, alive, alive, alive.

You will learn lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called “life”. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate the, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

What is shadow work?

Shadow work is the willingness to study one’s blindspots.
Shadow work is the awareness that I always have areas where I can grow.
Shadow work is an owning of my triggers as teachers.
Shadow work is a departure from victim mentality toward a radical embrace of self-responsibility.

“A wound not fully felt consumes from the inside. We must run very hard if we want to stay one step ahead of this pain. Exhausted, we try to bury it with drugs, alcohol, overwork, television, physical activity. We are a very creative species—we can use just about anything to anesthetize ourselves. But in doing so, we also remove ourselves from feeling the joy. Life becomes less, and if we are even slightly numb, it is hard for us to find the wisdom we need in our lives and our world.” - Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation

We are designed as relational beings. We need to be in all kinds of relationships in order to get any traction on this healing journey of self-discovery. Our friends, parents, children, lovers, ex’s, neighbors and everyone else under the sun are all our mirrors for the purpose of providing us reflection so we can better see and know our Self.

Note to self: Life is both. ⁣⁣It is gorgeous and grotesque. ⁣⁣It is immaculately intelligent and painfully nonsensical. ⁣⁣It is comforting and terrifying and awe-inspiring and confusing. ⁣⁣It is both. ⁣⁣And it is the in-between. ⁣⁣⁣⁣We are both. ⁣⁣We contain both. ⁣⁣We contain multitudes. ⁣⁣

𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠. It's contagious. When we witness someone else transforming, evolving, maturing, it does something to us... we get the signal that it's okay, and even life-affirming to change. In watching others grow, we are given another model and road map to use in our own personal growth journey. ⁣⁣

One of the many blessings of hardship is that it brings us closer to the good ones in our life. We find our soul family when we see who shows up when things get messy. And the added bonus is that our friendship is changed by the opportunity for depth- it expands, develops, matures and gets juicier. ⁣⁣

There is an intelligence at work here in this glorious mess of a life. There is a function to our fumbles. There’s a sense that we are so much more delicious when we’re just a bit broken… broken open to release the richer flavors of our life, broken open to reveal meaty authenticity.

We know this yet we contract when it comes time to lean into the opportunity that our struggles afford us.

Hello friends new and old, my name is Kadhi. And I, like you, am a Lover.

Yesterday’s post was shared and saved more than anything I’ve ever posted, and I really felt it’s ripple out there. I spent the day thinking about why Louise Erdrich’s words struck such a chord with so many of us. “You are here to risk your heart,” she tells us. How terrifying! (and exhilarating!) “You have to love, “You have to feel” through it all, she says. “You are here to be swallowed up.” [gulp]

And if sitting by an apple tree and tasting its sweetness doesn’t do the trick, reach into the pockets of your community and ask to receive the sweetness of being held, heard, accepted and loved.