I woke up this morning with the thought, “just take the next step.” When you can’t see the future, just take the next step. When the world feels as though it is falling apart around you, just take the next step. When everything is beautiful and full of love and light, just take the next step. 

That’s all we have anyway. We can’t see into the future, though we plan and scheme and hope and insulate and dream. Our lives belong to God, we have no control. She can only direct us in this moment when we are Empty to Her, now. She can only guide our lives when we are Empty to Her, now.

Just Empty.

The truth is, we cannot know. How can we know how he day will go? Or tomorrow. Or the year. Or our lives. We must open despite the not knowing. We most open into the unknowing.

Just Open.

Only when we are empty and open can we listen to and hear Her.

Just Listen.

We don’t have to understand what we are hearing, we can’t. We don’t have to process and plan or do anything with anything, it is meaningless. We don’t have to do. No struggle, no effort, no try. We only have to surrender and take the next step, trusting it will lead where She wants us to go, which is so much unimaginably greater than our small human can dream for our small human selves.

Just Trust (Her).

Empty. Open. Listen. Trust. And take the next step. 

PS, the trust part is important. So is the surrender.

Amen.

Love, ch

Today I sat outside and did nothing. It wasn’t for very long, but it was remarkable. It was rest. It was space. It was ease. And it was uncomfortable as fuck, until it wasn’t. I went outside to eat my lunch on my restoration hardware indoor/outdoor couch that I have not spent enough time on, in the home that I love that I have not yet made my own in terms of décor and things on the walls, but is already my own by its sheltering of me and my kids and my beautiful life post shit storm. The cats were playing in their catico. Yes, that is a thing, and yes, I have one. It consists of a mesh tube that runs from a cut in screen door to a mesh tent. I put Timber’s old dog bed in there and a water dish which I’m not seeing at the moment, the kids must have moved it for some reason only they would know. Acorn and Topaz love their catico. 

Anyway, focus. After lunch, instead of rushing to the next thing, I sat. I watched the tall plants in my garden, a wheat like grass, a purple plant that I think is catnip, some pink flower looking things, and lots of green. MY garden. I watched the quaky leaves dance on their branches. I saw the mountain just out my door, the mountain I will hike later. I heard the lawn mower going on the property next to mine. I sat. And sat. And resisted the urge to do. I sat and tried to take in, this is my life. This is my house. These are my cats. These are my plants. True on the one hand, and entirely false on the other. Both perspectives necessary, like wings on a bird. It’s a strange thing to finally step into your own, in a deep and fundamental way, in a primal and feminine embodiment. It was my life before, but really it belonged to my human. It has been mine for a while now, mine since I realized I was nothing, I’m coming up on five years. It’s good to pause and feel the depth of my insignificance that also lives in this embodiment. This strange human vehicle that loves to do.

There is so much power in not doing anything. Nothing. Like, an entirely no-demand state. I know that because I resist it like a motherfucker. It is, in a word, hard. Very hard. One of the hardest things I do, and I was doing very hard things before Glennon made it popular. This rest thing, this space thing, this ease thing, this doing nothing, it is hard. 

And so fucking beautiful it makes my heart ache. And the fear immediately follows that it might go away. That this doing nothing might somehow be taken from me, obviously and only by myself and my human. But still, that is also a powerful force. If she can’t make me do something, she’ll create anxiety that I may not be able to do nothing. Or that once I start resting, I’ll forget how to do. Sweet funny human.

And so I sat. And I watched my mind want to write about it. Then want to make a list to get ant spray for the fire pit and check Grace’s packing list for Tetrathlon this weekend. Then check my calendar to make sure that my next client was still my next client. 

I watched her and I sat. 

For some time, this idea of building some space and ease and rest into my life has been quite appealing. It has appeared on multiple to do lists. Multiple year end recaps and planning. I’ve written about taking rest. I’ve read about taking rest. I planned a lot when I was going to take rest. I planned what I would do while I was taking rest. How would I rest, active, as if rest was a verb with various connotations of actions. I finally trumped it with I surrender. That’s kind of like rest, sort of, but not entirely, not really at all, and entirely if it means taking rest in the unfolding.

Today, I just sat. I jumped a fucking Everest of my own and just sat. It came without warning. I just did it. A spontaneous meditation of sorts.

It’s like when Jenny said, “Stop writing about writing and write.” Well, that’s a simple concept. The kind that lands like a thunk in your chest and reverberates through your body as truth. Yep. Just write. 

Yes, just rest. 

Yes, just sit. 

Yes, just see. Just feel. Just know. 

Just be. 

Empty and be my love, empty and be. 

And let the emptiness guide us. It’s way more fun that way. Weee. No hands. Be.  

Amen. 

Dear Grace,

Today I went searching for our friend W’s Instagram page to celebrate his engagement to his boyfriend. W is the ex-husband of the mistress who now lives in the home in which I lived, sleeps in the bed in which I slept, eats off the dishes I bought. That has to be a bit strange for her, but then again, maybe not. W’s divorce and my divorce ran parallel after I saw his then wife’s car outside my house while I was out of town. This is the story you lived, this is the story you know. And for that, I am sorry.

When I searched for W’s name, his ex-wife’s IG page came up. She really must change her name. And on per page, pictures of my kids. My kids have definitive feelings they have to hide, feelings not accurately reflected in the happy family photos posted. Their request to be asked permission before having their photos posted to someone else’s social media account was not met with understanding or emotional validation. They are props and they have learned how to navigate these situations and personalities. They understand the rules of engagement. Their images remained. I had heard she does this, from friends and moms and friends of moms who are incredulous and angry for me. I never cared to confirm. So this was my first viewing and I kept it very brief. My question is this: who uses pictures of the kids of the family they destroyed, the kids whose lives were deeply affected by her infidelity, the kids who have asked her not to post photos…who uses those same kids’ photos to market the ‘family values’ of her family financial planning business? This is bizarre. At best. Almost as bizarre as telling those same kids, “I didn’t want kids of my own, I wanted a family, and now I have you.” Maybe someone ought to explain that’s not normally how it works. But eh, tomato tomato. I’ll admit, seeing those photos pissed me off for a minute. Maybe five at the most. Five. Minutes. That is all I gave it. Five.

Do you know how proud that makes me? Of myself. That I can experience that kind of depravity and move right along with my day, revisiting it only now to write this to you?

This is what I want you to know Grace: there is a way to live where you trust yourself instead of the narrative nonsense of someone else’s distorted reality. Instead of, even, the narrative nonsense of your own insecurity and fear, desire and mad scramble to avoid suffering and seek pleasure.

The only word I have for this way of life is Freedom. Well, a few others.

Beauty.

Joy.

Gratitude.

Ecstatic bliss.

Deep Peace.

Profound Experience, Profound Knowing, Profound Meaning.

It is one thing to fabricate and portray a false reality. It is another to truly experience Life directly.

For almost a year now, I have had a mantra.

See what you see.

Feel what you feel.

Know what you know.

Buddhists calling it Just Seeing. My first blog was Just Seeing One. Just See. Just Experience. Just Feel. That is your compass, that is your navigational system. Please don’t gaslight yourself. I did, it’s what got me into that mess. And it is what made me stay. Just See. Just Know. Just Feel. I know that isn’t rewarded in some households, I know you are not allowed to See, Know, Feel, Speak. I was a grown-ass woman and I failed to do it, I played the role. You are kids, you are not allowed to voice what you See, Know and Feel without serious ramifications. That’s just smart, that’s adapting to your environment, that’s survival. But speaking isn’t the mantra. Feel what you Feel. Know what you Know. See what you See. Freedom is trusting that, and that alone.

I love those words. There are a few other words I love. Confidence and Surrender and Clarity. And Forgiveness. Of others, sure, fine, good. But much more importantly, of myself. For the comprises I made. For what I did to myself. For what I did to my precious human. For not seeing, not feeling, and not knowing, and for me, not speaking.

And so now I ask, why did I do that?

Why did I play the role, why did I agree to live (for a while) in a fabricated reality? Why did I pose? For the ease. To avoid the twentieth fruitless argument over the same issue. To reserve energy. For self preservation. Because I knew he wouldn’t change. But desire for ease became a prison, no fucking joke, a self-created prison of compromise. Eviscerating your soul to ease a stomach ache is not wise. It just ain’t.

I felt I had to compromise. I didn’t realize I was compromising myself. Why did I agree to play the role in somebody else’s play. It wasn’t a direct and obvious agreement, to that I would’ve said fuck right off.  It was a role I acquired one tiny compromise at a time. For the sake of love. For the sake of compassion. For the sake of forgiveness. For the sake of connection. For the sake of peace. For the sake of ease. For the sake of the kids. One tiny piece at a time, I swallowed an immense amount of shit. One tiny piece at a time I adopted the role in his play as opposed to the author of my own. Until I didn’t. And that’s when I saw her car outside my house on the home security camera. It wasn’t the first indiscretion, or second, or yada yada. But it was the last.

But still, is the question answered? Why did I play into the smoke and mirrors for so long? Because if I acknowledged what I Saw, Felt, and Knew, I’d have to move away from all that, and I wasn’t ready to break up a family. That seemed hard. If I Saw the flirting, if I Felt the lies, if I Knew the disrespect, I’d have to leave. So I didn’t, it seemed easier not to. At the time, it just seemed easier to believe the Love Bombing at the beginning of the relationship was real, the Devaluing thereafter wasn’t. Those choices were a slow belittling. A subtle boil. A slow loss. A steady death. But I am a survivor. I found a bit of freedom, a bit of strength, a bit of myself. What happened, you ask? Little by little, I remembered myself. I stopped eating shit. I stood my ground, I asked for a say in finances, I validated my own feelings over his and refused the role I was assigned to swallow from his previous family regardless of how they treated me, I asked him to watch his kids while I visited my dad in the hospital as he was dying, I wanted and planned adventure and began authorship of my own life for me and my family. I freed myself from the constant walking on eggshells, the sighs, the withdrawal of affection, the lies. And three months after my dad died, I chose to visit my friend in New York. I Saw the car on the Ring security camera. I Heard him say he was alone. I Felt the pain, betrayal, and rejection. I Felt the Discard. I Knew what I had refused to know. And it freed me. Freedom. Free.

See what you see.

Know what you know.

Feel what you feel.

It’s a beautiful world out here in reality, Seeing, Feeling, Knowing. It is so fucking hard and easy and ugly and heartbreakingly beautifully beautifully beautifully real. This is how I love Life now. And so I pass it on to you.

See what you see.

Know what you know.

Feel what you feel.

That is all you have to do. To Love Life and Be Free.

Amen girl.

Love, ch

The formless hides herself as form.

The unknowable manifests herself as the known.

The mystery obscures herself beyond revelation.

Yes, the one I love is beyond and within manifestation, accessed only through my own nothingness.

Isn’t that a kicker? To know reality, I must unknow myself.

Clever one, She is.

Only as an Empty canvas, may I know my Beauty.

Only in total Silence, may I hear my Music.

Only in the nothingness of the empty Void, may I know my infinite Presence.

She has quite the sense of humor, doesn’t She?