Think8 Women

 

Life happens.

 

In us. Around us. Because of us. Despite us. Beyond us.

 

Life can be so crazy-jig-happy that we can’t stop grinning.

 

The joy of simply being alive makes us float.

 

We all know those victory shouts when we nail something that we had previously thought impossible.

 

We revel in positive energy vibrations, our body humming that pops eyes open before alarms, steamy showers filling us with brilliant thoughts.

 

Then there are other times.

 

Slammed to the mat.  Hit from behind.  Didn’t see it coming.

 

Hurts to take a breath. Can’t feel your toes.

 

The light blown out.

 

Takes many forms… a relationship falls apart. A passion project needed and deserving is trampled.

 

We’re misunderstood. Unfairly judged. Knifed.

 

Fear stomps in, hurls everything to the ground and sets up shop.

 

Fear that we might always feel this bad. Fear that there is no way out. No solution. Fear of being hurt so badly we might not drag ourselves off the mat to stand up straight. Might never walk again.

 

So we withdraw.  Silence deafens. Laughter chokes. Breath held tightly. Eyes strained. Dark.

 

Recently, my middle son was in a motorcycle accident. Bruised, he was physically fine, but for the forty-five minutes before I could see him with my own eyes at the hospital, I stopped breathing.

 

Trevor is an exceedingly careful driver. Quietly sitting at a red light, a taxi lined up behind him, an out-of-control car slammed into the back of the taxi pushing it up over Trevor and his bike, shoving them both into the intersection.

 

As Trevor said, “I did everything right and still got hit.”

 

As I write this, my sister’s ten-year-old precious granddaughter has already undergone three weeks of radiation for a brain tumor.

 

How does one even make sense of this?

 

Despite all optimism and bravery we can muster, fear grips hard.

 

I looked up this familiar passage from Marianne Williamson’s book, Return to Love:

 

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment—or unlearning—of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts. Love is the essential existential fact. It is our ultimate reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life.”

 

“I choose love.”

 

As I said these words aloud the fist in my chest relaxed.

 

I choose to embrace love. I choose to send out love. I choose to flow love.

 

I took a deep breath.

 

Does that mean everything will be fine? Everything will be solved? No more fear? Suffering?

 

Of course not.

 

Love is light. One candle lit in a dark room dispels darkness.

 

To choose love illuminates our dark places of fear.

 

In love’s light we can face what we need to face and move forward.

 

I choose love.

 

I send you love.

 

Nancy