“If you are always trying to be normal,
you will never know
how amazing you can be.”
~ Maya Angelou
 Relationships are much like sunlight flirting with shadows or like the scurry of bird’s feet speaking with the earth -- just before flight. Relationships evoke emotions that ride with waves that kiss the tempest inside of us; with learned trust, we are rarely not too far from a lighthouse that will bring us closer to the sea caves of our awareness. This is a place of fierce love. That bold, shy, quiet, raging holiness where we see for the first time, again and again, that our mistakes are our gifts. Our heated complexities double-bind us until we stop running from our shadows and embrace them as one of us. Instead of exquisitely trying to deny and displace them. Such are the projections we narrate that ‘they’ could not be ‘us’ and yet ‘they’ are ‘us’ in the most extraordinary way. This isn’t easy. However, when we begin to see clearer, we can step into our shadows and befriend our personal eclipses.
Our conflicts, distrusts, poignantly distressed relationships, as well as golden ones are almost certainly there to teach our soul the colors are within. And maybe, as we continue to walk along this bridge, we will understand that this love is real as it is whole and holy us.
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 Photographer: Nsey Benajah, Source: Upsplash What is stress telling us? We juggle and multitask and wipe up real and metaphorical spills while being placed on hold to antiquated tinny music. We answer texts and messages while simultaneously making breakfast, and pouring coffee, while sweet honey soaks over our oatmeal. Mountains of laundry vie for our eye and the weeds grow and grow and grow. The everyday demands of self and others can feel endless: “Where are the band aids? MOM, the cat is in the dryer! Is my favorite shirt washed? I think my tongue is swollen. I’m hungry. When is dinner? Do I have to go to school? I have a flat tire. What happened to my binder, shoes, cat, and soccer ball? I thought I left you a note because I need the car too!” Morning becomes night, and the email’s sharp blue-glow rests waiting to be opened. We instinctively start to triage: What is most important? Who needs more and sometimes more and more? However, we might start to ask, “What and where our limit is?” Combine all of this with the world’s outcry and ache for justice. Where equality is not seen or heard and sexism, racism, homophobic and anti-Semitism trumps loudly. Justice screams from behind the orange pale of closed eyes and sleep may evade us: if only we could do more. On the downside, when all the stress starts to pile up, we snap or collapse. One more query is one-too-many, and that last person may get the full throttle of our mighty — or tears, or cold shoulder. We’ve overstretched our ability to give and give and give. The well of our sensibilities and kindness are shaken empty. Too often we forget to take care of ourselves. Pushing our needs down, down, down because we are the only one handling it all, all, all. We turn the key and go, go, go. We tentatively try the word no and stop but that’s not always enough. Sometimes we need to voice a stronger, ‘No more!’ These overstimulating, constant and demanding situations, are a built-in warning system and can lead us to find flat spaces of refuge, or a ledge to scream: ‘Leave me the f*ck alone!’ And yet many of us don’t have someone to support us and protect our solitude. Therefore, we have to strengthen our own resolve – our own inner self-solitude – and fiercely protect it. Our various roles often morph into infinity. Be it parenting, divorcing, partnering, soloing, and paying bills, caretaking, working and too often ignoring what makes life meaningful, soulful, and joyful. That butterfly flutters inside of our heart that sings with passion and knows – THIS is it. I must do x and y to also find the space to rejuvenate and listen to the answers inside. With practice, we can recognize the signs of our daily grind and exhaustion and set boundaries to protect that much needed solitude to kindle our creative juices. This is a place of honoring our soul and spirit. The same place signals to us, a more sustainable practice of self-care.
And so, I sit here clicking away and it’s all misty and grey and crisp in the Pacific Northwest. I’m holding space for myself, and it is not one bit selfish or wrong. It is a necessity for me to carry on.
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