The True "Yes"

There has been so much lately written about saying "yes" to life. I love this idea and practice it in my life but I believe first we have to know how to say "no". Saying "no" allows us to say "yes" to what truly feeds our soul and spills out to those around us. As women in our culture we have been brought up to say "yes" to every request. We have been taught that we must nurture and care for everyone. While this is a wonderful gift if it is not first given to ourselves we become dry and brittle and shreds of the woman we can be. Years ago I wrote this poem about coming to the true "yes":

Sometimes a woman has to say "no" a thousand times before she can come to one true yes. 

"No, I can't talk to you right now." 

"No, I won't join one more committee even if it is a vital cause." 

"No, I won't be the neighborhood baby-sitter just because everyone else works out of the home."

 In all of these "no's" we can finally come to know who we really are. 

We are not the volunteer who always works so hard that she becomes physically sick after the big event. We are not the friend who always answers the phone no matter what. 

We are not the mother whose door is always open. 

All of these "yes'" come at a price. 

The headaches. 

Breast cancer.

Fallen families.

 Lives unlived. 

Love lost. 

After the first hundred "no's" it gets a little easier. 

"No, I won't remain silent while an angry father slaps his two year old at the grocery store." 

"No, I can't share myself with 'friends' who are unkind and ungiving." 

"No, I won't accept something as truth without first asking my heart." 

At the end of that long road of "no's" we finally meet who we really are.

The "Right" Path

Recently, I've uncovered old writings that have been incubating for many years. I find it amazing that my voice from the past can remind me that I already know the answer to the questions that have been swimming in my mind again lately. This particular writing came to me in a time in my life when the question of being on the "right" path was very strong. I woke up one morning and heard very clearly, as if someone next to me was speaking to me, "there is no right or wrong path... whatever path you choose is the path you need to experience at this time in your life." This statement was so freeing for me. I could, all of a sudden, release the need for perfection and keep walking. This is the message from the past that I wrote over 15 years ago:


When a woman finally catches up with the woman she has spent a lifetime chasing she is shocked when this woman turns to face her and she realizes that she is eye to eye with the woman she has always been.

What is my destiny? What is my soul's purpose in this life? What have I come here to give? What is my heart's desire? These questions spin endlessly in a woman's mind like an enchanted top that never stops. The answers come at different points in each individual's life triggered usually by those shattering events that make you stop mid-stride and look around with compassionate eyes.

The question never seemed to leave her side. Like a faithful dog. Whenever she looked over there it was looking up at her with those pleading eyes. Is this the correct path? Am I fulfilling my true calling? Is this where I should be?

From the time she was a very young girl she knew she was destined to lead a special life. She was so loved and told often that she had an important destiny to fulfill. Unfortunately no one ever told her exactly what this specific mission was and so started her search for the meaning of her life.

During college her days were spent with exciting people and ideas. She knew that she felt most at home in the psychology courses and yet she heard a tiny  voice always asking for what greater purpose did she pursue this. After college she traveled from one job to the next learning many new things and the voice continued to grow louder. Her journeys to new places took her from her familiar rain forest to the dry desert and the questions burned hotter. 

Bead after bead she strung, each an inquiry into her fate. She looked into the eyes of birthing women and with the first cries of their babies she heard, "Is this my true path?" With each loaf of bread she kneaded all of her requests for clarity were created. Every poem she wrote asked the same question, "What is my spirit's aspiration?"

Finally, after many years of hearing this small inquiring voice she suddenly stopped and turned around and there behind her she saw herself, so tiny and unsure yet as persistent as the bothersome mosquito in the middle of the night. It was then that she realized that she had always been the woman who seemed so far ahead. She had been on the right and true path all along because in fact there was never one right route. Each tract she had chosen was in fact the correct course. She had been fulfilling her spirit's calling all along. And at that moment she felt her shoes on her feet and her feet on the path and knew exactly where that trail was leading.

Cravings

Craving - an intense, urgent or abnormal desire or longing.

What is it that we long for?

So often food became the misplaced object that I thought would satisfy my desire. For many years I had forgotten how much I needed joy and laughter and sweetness in my life. My days had morphed into a daily grind of serious, hard work for my survival. Most everyday I turned to food for comfort. I craved sweet, rich foods that I thought would soothe my ragged soul. Day after day I would find myself cradling bowls of creamy sweetness almost like praying before an altar of misguided devotion. There was never enough of course. I would feel comfort and satiation for maybe several minutes but the "dead" eyes would stare back at me from the mirror again quickly.

No amount of smooth, rich ice cream or soft, chewy cookies or pudding or cake or pie or pancakes would fill my overwhelming need for love.

The cravings were so strong that my heart was muted. The cycle of false fulfillment continued day after day, year after year and eventually I couldn't even remember a time when my heart spoke to me let alone sang a joyous song. What a silly idea anyway, I thought... that the heart has a voice!

Years of turning away, plugging my ears and soldiering through left me crispy dry and cracked. Still the need is deep and archetypal and will rise in the most disturbing ways. Some of us will break to pieces and fall to the ground before we listen again. But some of us will listen as I did.

What is it you long for?

Take some time thinking about what kinds of food you crave. Rich? Sweet? Salty? Sour? Dense? Light? Find some food magazines and cut out pictures of the foods you crave - this can be very illuminating of what is needed and missing in your life. Glue the images onto a large sheet of paper or poster board. This will be the beginning of a map back to your self.

Simple

Sometimes the simplest things make me happy. Creamy oatmeal with strawberries, bananas and walnuts eaten while looking out to the mountains in the distance. This is life really... simple, exactly what we want with endless horizons.

mermaid tales

As soon as she sacrificed her voice for the thing that she thought would bring her happiness the once gentle and loving voice in her head started to scream... You are nothing without a prince... Your stories don't matter... Your song is not beautiful... You are not good enough.

She could walk on the logical roads but she could no longer dive deep.

After one hundred thousand days spent on land she realized that she would rather sing to herself than fill her vacuous heart with empty regrets.

Soul Tales: Soul Hunger

Soul Hunger

There is a deep longing, an empty place, a wild hunger that no mortal food can satiate.

The longest night of the year had finally thrown it’s cover over the land. It was so dark as the clock struck 2 am that even the owl gave up his haunting song and tucked his downy head beneath his still wings. Only on a night such as this could one dive deep into the soul and come up gasping for breath into the hidden caves on the other side. One woman was exploring these dark caverns on a night just like this many years ago.

All through the past year she had been the loving wife, the patient mother, the strong sister, the devoted friend and the dedicated neighbor. The gentle spring breezes blew her scattered longing to the four directions. In the heat of the summer her selfish intentions melted into thin pools of forgotten goals. Her desperate pleas fell to the earth with the ruddy colored leaves as autumn settled over the fields. And now she sat here frigid in her neglected needs feeling the winter numbness spread slowly up her body.

Four seasons of spiritual malnutrition leaves one feeling ravenous for any kind of nourishment. Creative impulses ignored, long hot baths postponed, solitude denied creates a gaping hunger, a heart so empty that nothing is ever enough.

And, so she found herself in front of the refrigerator filling her arms with grapes and leftover chicken and cold mashed potatoes and sticky bottles of jelly to spread over burnt toast. One hand grabbing, the other offering like an ancient cliff side ritual. Nothing was safe. The green onions for tomorrow’s salad, the cottage cheese with just a bit of dusty green mold in one corner, the powdered sugar dissolved in 2% milk, even the tub of yellow miso found their way to her starving mouth. When every last bit of food, even the old spaghetti and the questionable Baba Ganouche had been wiped clean with shaking finger off of the glass shelving she turned, closed the door… and still she was hungry.

“Maybe just one nibble of the prayer plant will top me off,” she thought as she grabbed the plant and gobbled up the whole thing, soil and all. The weeping fig, the aloe and the rose scented geranium still didn’t satisfy her need. The poinsettia wrapped in artificial greenery including the shiny gold bow left her table and her soul empty. The table upon which they sat took no more than 2 seconds to maneuver into the vacuous recesses of her spirit… and still she was hungry.

Room by room she went devouring everything in her path. Couches, computers, ottomans, a king sized bed, even the bathroom sink and still the hole seemed bottomless. Outside she tossed cars like popcorn into her waiting mouth. Her strides became longer as she pulled telephone poles like fresh carrots. She chuckled as she gathered up a dancing stream and tilted her head back so that she wouldn’t miss a single drop… and still she was hungry.

As she lumbered from county to county popping hills like gumdrops and crunching on trees like pretzels she thought to herself, “If not mountains and streams what will fill me?” The rocky riverbeds like crunchy almond granola led her to the sandy beaches that needed to be washed down with the wind and the rain… and still she was hungry.

As she stood before the infinite sea planning how best to devour it she noticed the giant glowing orb teetering on the horizon. “Hmm, she thought, maybe if I eat the sun, the moon and all of the stars in the sky I will finally be finished.” With that thought she opened her jaws wide and in rushed heaven… and then she was full.

Process journey

I am in the process of remembering. Or maybe it's re-awakening. The door I once thought was closed was really only one threshold.

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