7/4/14—Contemplating Freedom

It's the Fourth of July in the US, which means we're celebrating our freedom. But I'll bet most people don't think too much about being free. It's just a given for us...in the sense that the 4th of July is about. But how free are we really? 

I've mentioned here before about the weird experiences I had when I was 3, 4 and 5 in my creepy bedroom in a house about a mile or so from where I live now. Well, one of the things I remember contemplating there was freedom. I think I must have had a past life where I was somehow restricted, because my pre-school mind used to contemplate the notion that nobody can truly imprison you, unless you let them. What I mean by that is that freedom is a concept that resides in the mind. 

Sure, you can restrict someone physically—put them in jail or chain them to a metal stake you had installed in your basement (not that I would know anything about anything like that.) But, without drugs, surgery or electrodes, nobody can touch your mind if you don't let them. As long as you maintain your mind's ability to go places without the limits of body, space and time, you're free. 

Yeah, I know. It's an odd thing for a 3, 4 or 5 year old to contemplate. What's weirder is that I felt I had to be ready to face the eventuality of being able to find my Zen under any conditions. And, with the exception of torturous pain, I probably can. I don't know for how long, but it's odd that I still think of this so many years later. I have no idea why I thought some of the things I did in that house, whether it was my age, my imagination, some sort of spirit thing or what. But I know I had many sleepless hours trapped inside that creepy room to think about all sorts of things. And, for some reason, this was one of them. 

The way in which we lose the most freedom in our mind is by holding on. We grasp onto thoughts and fears and they become our captors. Maybe we're holding on to the need to be right or the need to control something. Maybe we're holding on to regrets or thoughts of the past. Or maybe we've told ourselves some story about the way things are and we refuse to consider other options. All of these are prisons that make unable to be free.

The bad news is that we're conditioned to hold ourselves captive to thoughts and mindsets that distract us from being in the only place freedom exists—in the present moment. The good news is that we're the people most qualified to save ourselves from this conditioning and experience freedom instead. 

Freedom doesn't come from tossing tea into a harbor or slaughtering soldiers in battle. It actually comes from the opposite. It comes from surrender. It comes from giving up the fight against "what is". It comes from letting a higher power take command of the reigns that hold your life together. And it comes from giving yourself over to a world devoid of preconceived notions and filled with infinite possibility. 

While things like hunger, discomfort and torture make it difficult, the mind is strong enough to transcend any restriction you place on the body. There is a place within you that can't be touched by anything you don't allow it to—it's a seed of God...a chunk of the most powerful force in the universe. And you know it's always accessible, because no matter what conditions people face in this world, there are happy people everywhere, people who transcend, people who are free. As the universe expands, so do we. Freedom is about being present to enjoy the ride. 

7/2/14—Passing the Gauntlet

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to a family event this past weekend. While there, I bonded with one of my nephews—a nephew I'd always hoped to bond with. 

He's either 13 or 14. Not sure which. And, since he was a toddler, it was clear he wouldn't be making conventional choices or walking a conformist path in life. At his young age, he is already set on owning a hair studio and spa. He doesn't shy away from being the center of attention. He has definite opinions he's anxious to share. He's very handsome. And he oozes Sadler charm. He's also blessed with two parents who support his individuality fully. If there's one thing I'm proud of with my brothers and sisters it's that they're all very good parents. 

This nephew is the first of my relatives to show an interest in the cards. I have some relatives who show interest in getting readings, but he's the first who wants to learn how to give them himself. I regret not bringing a tarot deck with me, because that's the system I know best. But I did have a Lenormand deck with me and, within a few minutes of playing around, he was picking up on it quite well. Tonight I will pack up my Keywordy Lenormand deck, my Everyday Lenormand deck and a copy of Rana George's Essential Lenormand for him. Between those three tools, he should have everything he'll ever need. 

Acquiring, then sharing, knowledge is something I enjoy. In a way, that's what my advertising copywriting career is about. I learn about a product or service, then I translate what I've learned into an ad that tells the world the best parts of what I know. It's the same with this blog. Here I'm sharing the knowledge gleaned from the spiritual and internal work I've done and am doing in this lifetime. 

Cartomancy (reading cards) and the psychic arts are something I've been studying for 25 years and I have transferred my style of reading to many students along the way.  But having a family member interested, even if he eventually grows out of it, is kind of like passing a gauntlet. I had never thought of it before, but as a childless person, I don't imagine I'll have many opportunities to start a tradition that goes generations. So many in the cartomancy world are second, third or millionth generation readers and they bear the energy and quirks of that. I'm a first-generation reader and am, largely, self taught. It's interesting to think that someone generations from now may echo my style for no other reason than because that's the way I did it and the way their teacher learned.

Everyone thinks it takes some special talent to read cards or communicate with spirits. The truth is, it doesn't. Some people, yes, are born with a natural talent for it. But I'm not one of them. Whatever I'm able to connect with in the great mystery out there has come through study and practice over many years. In fact, cards are nothing more than tools we use to help us access that inner knowing...in some way they're like really elaborate training wheels that most of will never take off because we like three-wheeling. Most of the readers I know could give people messages without using cards, but the cards help make the readings more detailed, imo. 

I'm grateful to my younger self that I developed a skill outside of my profession that I'm just as adept at as my profession. One day my nephew will be styling Katy Perry's hair by day and reading her cards by night, all while "just knowing" what decision to make next to fuel his life's success. I think one of the most valuable gifts a person can give themselves is to build and develop a strong intuition and a relationship with the divine. For me, the cards have helped me do both. And I can't tell you how much it means to me to help my nephew give himself the same gift. 

6/30/14—Remembering Who I Am

I just got home from a whirlwind overnight trip to Florida for a wedding. The bride was my niece. Her parents used to live near me, so I saw a lot of her when she was growing up. I joked that she's the only niece or nephew I babysat...more than once. It's no secret I have a low tolerance for children, but I always enjoyed being around this niece. I don't know how she went from being a little girl to a woman to a wife so quickly, but that's what happens over a couple of decades, I guess. And she was such a beautiful bride. So stunning. It brought me to tears.

Of course my whole family was there. I'm the youngest of six kids, so there are a lot of "family dynamics" at play when we all get together. This is hard for me, because I normally live my days as a woman who is fairly confident about who she is, proud of the choices she's made, and surrounded by people who think she's pretty darned neat. But when I get around my brothers and sisters, all of that changes. I become less secure. I feel like I don't fully belong. And I find myself wanting a level of affirmation, respect and acceptance that I don't think I'll ever get from part of my family. I think some of them just don't "get" me. Either that or they do and I'm just not their cup of tea. 

These days I don't put a whole lot of stock in the opinions of those who don't see what an all-around fabulous gal I am. But these family things...it's like, inside me, I revert to some version of childhood when I craved affirmation and acceptance from my big brothers sisters and never quite got it. The six of us are only 8 years apart, but we're all so very different it's like we were raised by completely different parents. There's a central core that ties us together, but we all diverged from that core like spokes on a wheel, each of us having ones close enough to our spoke that we can identify with each other, and each of us having ones on the opposite end of the wheel from our spoke. So, in that sense, maybe it's unrealistic to want all of them to really see who I am and agree I'm wicked cool. :D

Someone in my extended family (who shall be protected as innocent) was complimenting me and said, "You're deeper than I thought. I have a whole new respect you for you now. I always used to think you were just a flake." It's a bit of a backhanded compliment, but it got to the crux of how I feel around some of my family...I feel like some see me as a flake or superficial or some other such thing because of the things I believe in and the choices I make in my life. 

Again, normally I don't care what people think about that stuff. When people judge it's usually because focusing on others' shortcomings is less painful than focusing on their own. But I guess something inside me wants the people I grew up with, more than anyone else, to understand me and be proud of who I've become. And right now, I would venture to say that, if everyone was really honest about what they think, I'm batting somewhere around .350 to .400. That's a great average in baseball and maybe even in society, but not so good in family, imo. Even if I AM a flake. 

I don't know what magnifies this insecurity in me so much around family. Maybe it's normal and everyone feels that way. Maybe it's because my parents died when I was still fairly young, so I had never accomplished anything as an adult that they lived long enough to be proud of. Maybe it's because I'm just a sensitive person. Or maybe it's because my biggest support network consists of three four-legged beasts who, of course, never accompany me to these things and I feel more vulnerable—partly because I AM more vulnerable without my biggest cheerleaders in tow and partly because everyone else has their biggest cheerleaders with them...so we're not playing on a level playing field in that regard. Heck, maybe it's all of it. 

For a soul who has dedicated this lifetime to a "solitary" inner journey, family gatherings can be a painful, but valuable tool for seeking out and honing in on any of your unhealed BS—BS you've managed to heal when among 7 billion other humans who don't happen to share your last name. These gatherings are also a valuable marker indicating how far you've come. That can be positive or negative. It can serve both to open and close chasms between you and the people with whom you share common core traits. Those common traits span generations, extending the dynamics and increasing the number of spokes nearest you, as well as the number of those farthest from you. 

When I checked out of my hotel room this morning, I stopped remembering who I was as a kid and started remembering who I am as a kickass woman. It's like I was kidnapped overnight and held hostage at the hands of my old stuff...a power that gets weaker and weaker each time I come into contact with it. And I couldn't wait to get home to my cheerleaders, not so I could bury my face in their fur and cry, but because I missed them. They're my family...the family I chose, my biggest cheerleaders. And, like all family, even though they drive me crazy sometimes, I prefer a life with them to one without them.

6/27/14—Slipping Into Another's Stream

Our last post was about letting go and trusting that what is truly yours will come to you. In it, I described surrendering as akin to letting a river's current take your body. Today I came across an older post of mine quoting Mark Nepo, who describes compassion as "entering the stream of another without getting lost." How amazing is that? Entering into the stream of another without getting lost.

If you consider there's an invisible hand guiding all of us down the stream of our lives, this is a pretty cool visual. And to understand another person is to experience their stream. As the author says, there is a danger of getting lost in another's stream. But compassion asks us to enter that stream without losing sight of our own...to allow their stream to run parallel to ours, but not spill over into ours.

After all, we're all born from the same waters. Someone may do something we'd never do, but that doesn't mean we're not capable of doing it. Compassion requires getting in touch with that part of ourself that understands ourself enough to know there is nothing anyone does or feels that is not somewhere inside us. In that sense, there is really only one stream, but maybe different currents to get caught up in.

There are many who think compassion is only for the "deserving". And someone, somewhere along line distinguishes "deserving" from "undeserving", I suppose. But compassion is for everyone. I've been criticized many times in my life for having compassion for "undeserving" people. In a conflict between two sides, for example, I'll be able to see the pain of both sides and have compassion for both. 

People always say they don't expect you to pick sides. But they do. And the side you're supposed to pick is the one deemed more deserving. Compassion should flow only to that side. And if compassion flows to the other, as well, you're a traitor, playing both sides or sitting on the fence. Well, I'm OK with being criticized for thinking that's a big, stinky load of bullshit. Everyone is equally deserving of compassion. We are all children of spirit. We all have pain. We all feel misunderstood. We are all. Worthy. Of compassion. 

When Mark Nepo says compassion is slipping into another's stream without getting lost, that's the same as saying "feel compassion, but don't bend who you are while doing so". Sometimes I see people willfully hurting others in the act of what they call compassion for another...using compassion for one as an excuse to be nasty to another. That's getting lost in another's stream. Unless, of course, being nasty is part of your stream.

Compassion is not something you have to prove to others. It's not saying "I approve of your actions." Nor is it a weapon you wield by witholding. It's something that comes from the soul part of you—the part of you that recognizes that even those who are considered "evil" are of God, like you, and suffering from their separation, like you. It's the part of you that sees their pain and sorrow, even when it's hard to find. And the part wise enough to acknowledge the thin line that separates "good" from "bad" and sane from crazy, and feels bad for someone who can't keep from crossing over that line. Even if we can't empathize or know how they're feeling based on personal experience, we can nonetheless, genuinely say "I'm sorry you're in such pain right now". Regardless of what we think of them as a human being.

We slip into someone's stream without losing ourselves. And I'd go so far as to say that neglecting to find compassion for another *is* losing ourselves. It's losing sight of our shared soul—the human struggle and the oneness we share as children of God and the universe. When we deem another's "sin" as too ugly to look at or when we fight against it, we're dishonoring that part of us that is universal. We're saying we're so ashamed of who we are that we have to deny it. We are really not all that different.

The more honest you are with yourself and the better you know yourself, the more you can see that the same dark corners exist within you, even though you choose not to bring them to light. But there are other dark corners you DO bring to light, so you know how others struggle. When you have grown to the point that you can own that, then you can see the struggle in others. And when you see the struggle in others, how can you help but have compassion?

6/25/14—Floating on the Breath of God

I came across this quote today while poking around in old posts on my blog. It's for all of us with trust issues or who get held up on wanting to know WHY something is happening. 

I'm going to quote someone who's quoting it, because that's the only way I know the quote. Richard Bruxvoort Colligan* quoted St. Hildegard by saying:

"Hildegard of Bingen said a faithful life means 'to be a feather on the breath of God.'

And what does a feather know about wind?
What does a kite have to understand in order to fly?
How much knowledge of meteorology does a sailboat need to feel the strength of full sails?"

This quote is so great because it captures the essences of trust, letting go and surrender all in a single, beautiful snippet. Personally, I usually visualize letting go and surrender as laying, arms stretched, in a river and allowing the river to carry me to where I need to be. 

The river is God or the Universe or whatever higher power you believe in. If you try to swim upstream, you'll waste a lot of energy and not get very far. That's what happens when we try to control situations...when we fight against what "is". We may make some progress in the direction we think we want to go, but eventually we end up where the universe wants us to be. And, from my experience, where the universe wants us to be is generally a much better place than where I think I want to go. And the more I fight against it, the less benefit I receive at the ultimate destination. So letting go is really the smartest way to get there. 

The quote also captures the "why" aspect. "Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening now?" Have you ever noticed the answers to those questions never come until you've reached—and embraced—your final destination? So the whys are just more wasted energy to add to all the swimming against the current we tend to do. 

Finally, though, this is about trust. It's about lifting all the questions up to the universe and allowing the answers to come in their own time. It's about trusting that you're being led to a place that will serve your higher benefit. That doesn't always look like a winning prospect in the beginning, but my experience in life is that we have no way to lose. If you believe everything happens for a reason, then withholding trust is, again, more wasted energy. 

What's key to know here is that things like trust and letting go aren't necessarily talents you're born with. More often, they're skills you develop. So when you say, "I wish I could be more like you and trust in the future," you can. If you work at it as hard as the person you're admiring, that is. Trust and letting go and surrender are all practices. They're things you work on every day in your relationship with your higher power. 

So when you notice yourself letting fear creep in, stop yourself and visualize yourself floating down the river toward a magical light or soaring through the air as a feather on the breath of God. Just absorbing the idea of floating on the breath of God alone will fill you with the faith you need to weather the storm. Over time, the trusting and letting go will become more and more automatic as you begin to see the wisdom in the practice. 

We don't need to know or understand why things are happening the way they're happening. We just have to let ourselves be taken away by the breath of that which has always looked after us, whether you call it God or Allah or Yaweh or the Universe. It has never failed you yet. And if you think it has, then you haven't yet embraced where you've landed. Regardless of whether you like an outcome or not, though, it is what it is. And you can live there in bitterness or gratitude. That's your choice. I choose to let go and trust. 

*If you want to read the Christian sermon this quote came from, follow this link or the link above (you'll find the links on www.tierneysadler.com.) The sermon goes on to help you with a prayer you can say and it references scripture and stuff. It's a good post.

6/23/14—Letting Clouds Pass

Cloudy, gray sunset.

Tonight's post is a rerun of one I did earlier in the year. It popped into my mind recently, probably because it's something I needed to read again myself. Hopefully it will catch you at the right time, too. Also, if you missed this week's bonus post, head over to www.tierneysadler.com and read "Choosing Joy and Love." Here's today's post...

Last Friday we talked about how clouds make the sunsets more interesting and colorful, as do the "clouds" that come along in our lives. Last night's sunset kind of expanded on that. 

See, it started out all overcast and gray. And I was pretty sure the sunset would suck. But then I saw a tinge on pink on the bottom of one of the clouds and thought, "well now". Then minutes later, the sunset exploded into fabulous color. 

This reminded me of what happened at my last job. I said the wrong thing at the wrong time to my boss and she, in turn, completely handled the situation poorly and it became clear my days were numbered. So the skies on that day seemed pretty gray. But almost immediately it occurred to me to become a freelancer. The gray clouds got a tinge of pink. Then days later, I gave my notice. And, since then, it's been one wild, colorful, spectacular sunset! 

Kinda. :)

A hint of pink lines the gray.

It has certainly resulted in the best years of my professional life so far. So the very best thing that ever happened to me started out as gray skies. For some, the very best thing started out with a spouse leaving them. Or catching a disease. Or like something that happened as a result of an old friend's actions many years ago.

My friend drove drunk on New Year's Eve and it resulted in a young man's leg being severed from his body. She went to jail for a couple of years and hasn't lived a day of her life without torturing herself over that night. But this young man contacted her 20 or 25 years later and told her losing his leg was the best thing that ever happened to him. He was going down a bad path and it was just the wakeup call he needed. Today he has a wife and children and he doubts that would have ever happened had he not been in the "wrong place at the wrong time". 

The sky explodes into glorious color.

Sometimes our gray clouds don't show their pink edges immediately. And sometimes the pink edges are very subtle and hard to see. But I can't think of anything that's happened in my life—even the really bad stuff—that didn't end up with pink edges and even spectacular color. 

We tend to think of things in terms of winning or losing, luck or misfortune, or of whether or not God or the universe is on our side. But in the end, there is no such thing as loss. Nobody's being punished for anything. There is no such thing as an unsupportive universe. There are just people who prefer to live in perpetual victimhood. That sounds harsh, but the fact is that what you take away from an experience is your choice, not your fate. If you're deep in the "poor me's" it's because that's where you choose to be because it gives you an excuse not to move forward. It's natural to visit the "poor me's" when things turn tough, but wallowing there and making it your story is choosing to be a victim.

You see the choice to thrive in the face of adversity in the video of the guy with no arms or legs who turned his disability into an extraordinary ability to inspire. And through the young girl singled out and shot by the Taliban for promoting education who, after recovering her ability to walk and talk, took her fight to a much larger and more powerful audience. And through John Walsh, who used his son's kidnapping to create a national sex offender registry and the precursor to the "Amber Alert". There is no telling how many lives have been saved or criminals captured as a result of this man's gray clouds. 

All these people turned their gray clouds into spectacular shows. Really, what challenges do any of us have that compare to theirs? There is a win in every loss we have...a bigger plan than we can ever imagine when we're down. Last night I waited about 15 minutes to see why the gray clouds had to be that way. Whatever you're going through may take longer. But it will change and the beauty of it will be revealed. All it takes is trust and making the choice to turn your eyes towards the gift.

6/21/14—Choosing Joy and Love

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Today's post is special in that it is part of a Tarot Blog Hop in celebration of Litha or Midsummer or Summer Solstice. This means that, if you're reading this at my actual blog, you can click on the links above and hop from blog to blog, all focused around the theme of what brings us joy and how to bring joy to others. 

One of the things that brings me joy—or rather opens me up to more joy—is becoming the person I want to be. They say you're supposed to love yourself as you are but there have always been parts of me that made that hard. So half a lifetime ago I embarked on a journey of spiritual and personal development. While I have always experienced steady and satisfying growth, in the past few years I've taken a number of difficult leaps and experienced significant growth. 

Along the way, I have discovered a prescription for significant growth. First, you have to really know and understand your triggers, pains, fears and self-destructive habits. Then you have to start making different decisions than your pain and fear tell you to make. I think anyone who is truly self aware understands that many of the decisions we make are governed by things like fear, pain and self protection. It's natural. It's human. But being governed by them is not conducive to creating joy. 

Because this is a tarot blog post, I have a tarot story to help illustrate my point. As many of you may know, I'm the creator of the Deck of 1000 Spreads, a tool for creating your own spreads. As a creative person, I've heard over and over again that there are no truly original ideas. But it seems I lit on one. Nobody I knew of before, during or after its publication had ever heard of an idea like this. I pitched the idea to four publishers in the tarot world and they had never heard of an idea like this. So, as you can imagine, I was quite proud of what I created. It was something truly new and innovative. 

The Deck of 1000 Spreads made its debut in February 2013. For well over a year I enjoyed kudos and praise for my brilliant thinking. Then about a month ago, I see a picture from the Reader's Studio of people playing with something called The Dynamic Spreads Deck by BK Reichle. As you can imagine, I was all "WTF?" I couldn't really make out what it was from the pictures, but it looked like the same idea as my deck! 

So I messaged someone who had seen it, hoping they could describe it to me, but still didn't get the clarity I wanted. All I knew was that BK Reichle had apparently showed a prototype to some people at Reader's Studio years ago and was self printing (which is why none of the publishers had heard the idea before.) 

I didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to feel. If others knew about his deck, why hadn't anyone mentioned it to me? How is it my deck was out over a year and I had never heard of this!?

Despite my fears and insecurities, I did my best to calm down and just wait and see. Logic told me this guy wouldn't be pouring his own money into a nice, self-published set with a box and book and everything if his intention was merely to snatch a share of the bustling spreadcrafting marketplace. :D If you've ever created a deck, you know even the popular ones will barely pay for the time you put into them. So while my insecure self felt threatened, my reasonable self did not. 

And while I was "waiting and seeing", I ultimately realized that I really just wanted to know this wouldn't turn into a "thing"—a thing that would spark my paranoia and insecurity. A thing that would compromise my happiness. A thing that would take away from my deck or its success. I really just wanted to know I would be OK and my deck would be OK. And I realized that there was only one way to ensure that would happen—I needed to let go and make sure *I* didn't turn it into a thing. That's when I put both my fears and the unhealed pains of disappointments from a lifetime as a creative person aside and wrote BK Reichle.

See, the experience I had creating the Deck of 1000 Spreads was probably one of the best creative experiences of my life. Working with Llewellyn was great. I got things the way I wanted. My kit is beautiful. People have given me a website full of ideas for using the deck in ways I never imagined. Everywhere from Amazon to Aeclectic I have five-star reviews. And on Facebook feeds around the world, I've been lavished with praise. There has been nothing about this experience that, even for a moment, compromised my joy at having birthed this deck. The entire experience has been a spiritual experience for me through the practice of letting go, handing my baby over to the community I created it for and letting whatever praise or pushback just be. My entire career has been about birthing creative ideas for the inspection of others and it isn't always a fulfilling process. But this was. And letting BK have his turn at a joyful experience was part of that letting go. 

It was both difficult and easy for me to reach out and congratulate him and let him know I was on his side. Difficult because of ego concerns and also because he was a stranger and I had no idea what he thought of me or my deck. I can be a polarizing person...either you think I'm the bestest or you think I suck eggs. I had no idea which end of that continuum he might fall on. The decision was easy, though, because I genuinely wanted him to enjoy the amazing experience I've had over the past year. He and I share an entirely original idea we both conjured at roughly the same time, thousands of miles apart. Without knowing it, we have been energetically connected in this venture for four years. We both share a passion for this innovation. And regardless of how it all turned out, I knew I respected his decision to continue moving forward with his self published kit, even after he knew mine was on the market and widely distributed.

Gratefully, my message to BK didn't sit in the ether very long before he replied, relieved that I was friendly and supportive. The ice was broken and I discovered we're two nice people with creative minds fully deserving of our victories. Nobody is out to get anyone or resentful. We've exchanged many emails now. Both of us have made ourselves vulnerable to the other in regards to our creative lives and the decks, and both have received nothing but support in return. And it happened because we were able to put our baggage and competitiveness—our fear and pain—aside and just be kind to each other. 

Both of us decided to choose love over fear and pain. 

In the past I would have probably quietly seethed and resented. I might have allowed it to sully the whole experience for me. But instead, the wonderful experience of creating my deck just continues. In fact, now I get to share it with the only other person on earth who can truly understand how I feel about this whole spreadcrafting thing.

So the advent of BK Reichle's Dynamic Spreads Deck has been a gift to me. No jealousy. No animosity. Nobody stole any ideas from anybody. We just had the same idea and, in my mind, executed it in very different, yet impressive ways. I think each of us has something we admire in the other's deck, but both of us have created the deck that suits us best.

My ability to let go and welcome anything that comes throughout this entire process has not only been a huge leap for me, it has also been a revelation. For one thing, I managed to silence that voice inside me that allows situations (and myself) to "ruin" things for me, which surprised even me. For another, I held my insecurity and other triggers at bay long enough to make a different decision, a conscious decision—a decision that includes and embraces, rather than tries to control and hold others at arm's length. 

This particular lesson is something I've been working hard on for a couple of years and, of course, I'm still working on it. The process has been difficult and, at times painful. I won't lie. Because so many act from a place of fear and segregation, acting from a place of love and inclusion can be an unpopular decision. But I have found that the support you may lose by making it is so significantly outshone by the freedom, self respect and spiritual growth you receive in return, that it makes all the pain and struggle well worth it. On this midsummer's day, I'm embodying more and more of who I want to be. And that is what brings me joy. 

To read another post on the topic of joy, click on one of the links below. Happy Litha/Summer Solstice!


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