soulrise

I keep thinking of what my friend asked me weeks ago and which I wrote about… she asked me if I have allowed myself to still dream.

I laid between my girls as they napped, while making me feel like I was steaming in a sauna, and it seems to always be in these unpretentious moments, the lightbulbs go off.

My dream.

Not to demean anyone else’s visions of champagne wishes and caviar dreams but even when I was younger… my sights were never set on extravagance. It really never was.
I dreamed of love. Family.
I’ve always been akin to simple.
Call it small, but I would rather have experiences that set my soul ablaze than a palace of things.

It always revolved around one thing.
I want love. Give and get it.

Filthy rich in it!

So rich in love with my life and specifically my people and relationships and oh yes, experiences!!!, people look at me and my life and rather covet my possessions, just forget chasing the shiny things, even if just for a moment. Lose themselves in fantasizing about how to give and get more love in their life. Chase the experience.

And by showing up with it in my own choices, give them permission to be more loving in their interactions with themselves and others.

That is what I want to aspire to live. Dream life.
How do I do more of that. How do I do that, BIG?

That is coming from a core desire I think I have always wanted, but never could define. Its taken me losing the only love I thought I would ever know and need, to realize this.
It took me being in the most robbed and hurtful place I have ever felt, to find that definition.

My dream, big life (after death), is to love like I’ve never been hurt.
Myself. My life. My people.
To let go of the anxiety, anger, pain, resentment and guilt that has taken up space in my mind… and really, let it go. Not allow those horsemen to dictate any decisions or choices. Let love lead.
Let my heart do the guiding, courage be the driver.

Allow it to pour out of me, unfiltered. From a genuine place of peace.

Permission granted to love myself, family, children, partner or spouse, like I had never, ever been hurt or hurting, guilt-ridden, ashamed, anxious, heartbroken, scared, alone.

Not ignore that I have been in pain, and will inevitably feel the pangs of heartache again, but be intentional to make peace the goal. Peace of mind. Peace of heart.
Radiate that. Give that. Offer that up.
I am confident in assuming… not too many people want to be around someone who radiates anxiety and anger. Raise your hand if this has been you…. me! me! me! Truthfully, stiiiiiiiiiiill battling the anxiety… but definitely in an uphill trend!

Contrary to what I have thought I was being consumed by in most of my days hand-in-hand with grief, I realize it’s not rage and anger about his death that was bubbling below the surface waiting to erupt from me…. I know now.

The anger and angst arose from the frustration of holding in all that I have to give and want to give and not having a solution or funnel, or courage in deciding how to place it.

Picture yourself sitting at an easel, magnificently pouring into your greatest masterpiece and suddenly someone snatches up your canvas and lets say for dramatics, decides to light it on fire… that glorious manifestation of hours and hours of meticulous consideration and patience of communicating your vision.
And suddenly, you’re left with the ashes of your greatest work, but yes, thankfully, sure… you’ve got the paintbrushes and colors, you’re still equipped with everything but the outlet to spill your creative gift.
Where the Hell is my canvas? Are there anymore?

What do you do with all these brushes and paints, this love, you’re holding for someone who’s not here?
Find a different canvas or start painting the walls, right.
But thats not what I know and have known, is it….

So… instead of leaping, sounds much more productive to keep myself in my terms of small, by not loving to my heart’s potential. Yes?
After all, damnit, they took my masterpiece. The only one I could possibly ever paint, I wasn’t done with that one! Do I start another?

Or, plot twist!, pivot, look in the mirror and start painting, and loving, that canvas.

How many of us do this?
How many of us don’t speak up, reach out and hug, touch, stay vulnerable or accept ourselves… expressions of our love. Our deepest, most important and crucial human gift to and from one another.

How many of us stuff it down? Afraid.
That’s all it is.

When we decide, you know… I do want to love myself fully but I just don’t know what will happen when I do, and I’m scared I just might break into something amazing. Because, fear of the unknown. Who will that person be? What will it require to be them?
So many unknowns. And trying to figure all that out just inspires anxiety. So breathe. And let the universe figure out the whys and hows and you just focus on the next peaceful thing now.
It’s scary, sure… but you might just blow your own damn mind!

And bust through expectations.
And yeah, maybe disappoint people.
And change.
And you’re ready for change, but not everybody might be ready for you to change. Tough shit.

Because we’re just going to have to trust that the love for ourselves is big enough to cloak us when the opinions and expectations from everyone else try to intrude.

Our own self love is our protection. And some days the only protection we need.
Doubt and fear will not be able to permeate that titanium shield.

The love is too big, too great, too whole.
Even when we don’t feel whole.

No matter what.
No matter how we were hurt and have hurt and might still be hurting or in pain.
No matter how alone and lonely we think we are.

I love myself. I am worthy. I am capable. And I am complete.
Becoming, just the way I am and need.
So equipped, there has never been a time since I have been on this planet I wasn’t, to love.

And so capable of honoring myself with each decision I make.
Not to self-serve. But conscious that my happiness bears gifts beyond just to me.

And you’ll know and be confident in making decisions. Smiling in the free fall, full of trust.

I don’t know much, but I have learned this…
When making decisions.. I have heard people say (and I’m certain there’s a voice memo of me in digital world saying this), “You never really know when you’re ready to do something.”

Yes, yes you do. Turn it in to tune in. Listen.

Whenever you want to honor and love yourself completely with a decision, you’re ready to leap when you are also ready for all the consequences of making your first grand step onward down Honor You Ln… THAT’S when you know you’re ready for something.

When you are completely at peace in yourself and with whatever comes down the otherside of that road in opposition to you, that’s when you know you are ready to make a decision that truly honors you.

No matter what happens after that decision.. you’ve already won, because love won.

Losing Shayne has reintroduced myself to me. Its forced me to stop looking to him to find myself and finally come to know who I have been all along and let her rise.
Contrary to what I previously thought, we don’t define each other for each other.
We have a pretty amazing opportunity, responsibility and privilege to uncover our own truths and gifts about ourselves and reveal them to the world and accept each other for them.
I am my own soul, woman and light.
I am not going to fit into a box of just a broken heart, damaged goods or his widow. I am in a season of my own becoming, too, now. Relearning love and acceptance and life without him.

And I am just starting to love who I am rising out of all this to become.
Love (& dream) on.

joy+health+peace,

caroline