Life is Like a Treadmill, You Never Know What You’re Gonna Get

You know those times in life when there is just way too much going on and you begin to question if you’re able to handle anything at all? I don’t mean externally; too many people to see, too many things to do. I mean internally; too many emotions to process, too much weight on your body coming from somewhere you can’t see or pinpoint directly, if even at all. Those moments when you find yourself gasping for air or praying for something to give. For just an inch of space to open so that you might be able to breathe, to steady yourself and get a grip on things. 

I always imagine these times are like when I was little and thought that playing on my parent’s treadmill was fun. It occupied my mind and it was an interesting machine to use. I remember loving how I could control the speed and change it whenever I wanted. When I increased the speed, I had to move faster. When I slowed it down, I could stop. It was all in my control. 

There were times on that treadmill that I would pump the speed up to an amount that excited me. Would I be able to keep up? Who knows! Up one notch and then another, I would feel my adrenaline pumping and I knew that my favorite part was coming up. The part where my legs were moving far too fast, almost machine-like, just before I pulled the safety plug out and stopped the mechanism entirely. I would push myself to a place where I knew it either had to stop or an explosion of chaos would occur. In the moment just before I would lose control and fly off, I would shut it down. Just like that. From speed to silence in only a moment. 

Sometimes life feels like that treadmill, only I’m no longer in control. It feels like the speed goes up without warning. Faster and faster, I begin to panic. Can I handle it? It’s much less exciting and a lot scarier when you’re not the one with the safety cord brushing against your fingertips. It’s much more uncomfortable and overwhelming when you can’t control the speed but you still have to run because you can’t get off. Not without falling. Not without hurting yourself. 

My life has been an out of control treadmill recently. I found a brief pocket of peace last winter and rode it as far as it would take me. I was safe, comfortable, and stable. My life was easy and predictable, quiet and void of any deep emotions or connection. I was numb but I told myself I was healing. Maybe I was. Maybe I needed the numbness, the quiet and the space to find equilibrium once more. But when I was ready to step out of that bubble, life hit me like a freight train. 

At first it was exciting! Spring was here and I was reborn. I was finally vaccinated against Covid-19 and for the first time in over a year, I felt freedom and I felt alive. Little did I know that embracing the spring I felt blooming within my body meant stepping into an extremely dark and harrowing journey. It meant hopping on a treadmill that I did not have one ounce of control over. Because I had no idea what I was entering into, I began to run. 

At first the pace was easy. A brisk walk, my lungs were expanding and my heart was beating loudly once more. It felt like how I imagine it must feel for a big grizzly bear to leave its hibernation and run in an open field for the first time since the beginning of winter. It felt refreshing and it felt good. 

Then the speed picked up. I felt excited and raw, like I was free falling into a cloud! My business was booming and my dreams were finally showing up. My social calendar was jam packed and I began to greet the world in a very confident, energetic way. Sometimes I feel like I became a brief extrovert and to be honest, it was kind of nice to expand out into the world in a way I never have before. It felt powerful and that power called for more speed. 

My legs were moving fast. Too fast for me to question if I could do it, so I just kept moving. I let my muscles take over and I cruised. At first it felt good but then it began to take too much. Too much breath, too many heartbeats, too much movement. I was ready for the speed to drop but it never did, so I kept running. Only now, there were cramps. Aches. Trouble breathing. The freedom I felt was slowly turning to fear. The confidence I had in my grasp was floating away, just out of reach.

I began to doubt if I could take it. I doubted my legs, my feet, my muscles. I doubted my belief in self and the more I doubted myself, the more my feet began to trip. At first it was just a fumble but the fumble gave way to falling. The handles on the sides of the machine allowed me to keep up and get my feet back on the ground. But eventually those handles began to disintegrate. 

I suddenly found myself reaching for something that was no longer there. Without those handles, I was sure to go down and it wasn’t going to be pretty. I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I wanted that emergency plug to be pulled. For the machine to come to a standstill and for my legs to just get a break. Even if it was only for 5 seconds, I needed that break. I was constantly praying for that break but it never came. 

So I ran and I stumbled and I ran and I stumbled. At first I tried to make it look like I was stumbling on purpose. In my mind there was an audience and this audience was full of harsh critics sitting in their comfortable seats. The fear of their shameful judgements fueled me for a bit, keeping me going. I was surely going down but maybe if I ran hard enough before falling, no one would hold it against me. 

My mind was convinced that I could keep going but my legs were ready to admit that I couldn’t do it anymore. Since I wouldn’t allow myself to fall, my body fell for me. It crashed to the ground and was thrown off of the moving floor in a violent, painful way. Bones cracked and muscles strained as the hard ground caught my weak and tender body. I had finally found stillness. I had finally pulled my own emergency cord. 

Of course, this is only a metaphor. There was no single moment where my body gave out and crashed, but rather weeks and weeks of my body crashing and my mind chastising it for not being able to keep up. There were many days -and nights- spent lifeless on the couch. Hours of mindless tv and social media scrolling. Days on end of isolation and solitude. A harsh sentence for such an inevitable crime. I was punishing myself for falling.

You see, I was always going to fall. That’s what happens when life controls the speed AND the emergency cord. Falling becomes our only way out. Hitting our breaking point becomes our only way to hit the ground and bounce back. But I didn’t bounce back. I sunk into a deep depression where some days, taking out the garbage or making food for myself was impossible. I began to rely on take out and my safe spot on my couch to keep me alive. 

The treadmill was still moving full speed but I was lying on the ground next to it, motionless. Lifeless. Breathless. My body was still yet the world of weight spinning on top of me was beginning to crush me. I had fallen and I could not get back up. 

I’m not here to tell you some brave story about how I got back up despite how difficult it was. I didn’t. I still haven’t. I am still lying on that cold floor next to the manic movements of that machine. But for the first time in my entire life, I gave myself permission to break. This life is not easy or simple. In no reality will I get to control the speed or the emergency stopping of my journey. But I can thrust my body to the side and fall to the ground. I can choose to stop running and I can give myself a break. I can give myself room to breathe, even if those critics in the stands glare at me and scribble on their notepads with their own egotistical amusement. 

Not everyone can stop. Not everyone has the support, the resources, or the room to stop. For some, stopping means dying. It means losing their safety and their lives. I am grateful that I was able to throw myself off of that treadmill and just stop for a while. I am grateful that I have friends and family who came and laid next to me on that floor. They combed my hair, they fed me, and they dusted me off so that I could continue laying there for however long I needed. 

Now because of all that, I have the option to stand once more. Although my body is still recovering and will need more time before I can fully stand, let alone run again, I have the option. I have the chance. I have a choice to make. I can lie here and let my body waste away, letting people care for it and feel sorry over it. Or I can fight. I can fight every inch of my being that begs me to stay down and motionless. I can fight all of the doubts and fears that whisper “all hope is lost”. I can fight the urges I have to slip away into a permanent peaceful slumber and reject my responsibility to my own life force. I can fight for my life, so I will. 

Empath Pie

What does it mean to be an empath? Giving an objective definition for something that is entirely subjective by nature reveals that it probably means something different to us all. Yet somehow we can each relate to one another's unique meanings, giving us a pretty ironic look into how empathy serves its purpose in this world. Connecting the undefinable. 

Surrendering to our empathy gives us a secret power as both humans and spiritual beings in a physical world. It allows us to find common ground and understanding with others in an otherwise rigid and logical world while gifting us a break from the zoomed-in view of our own life and personally-focused points of view. It is our healing elixir for when the ego and life become too large of a presence, casting shadows over our true nature. Not only does our understanding expand when we connect through empathy, but so does our ability to connect to others. It gives us the space to back up and experience life from a much more important place: our spirits.

When it comes to defining what it means to be an empath, we must first look at what it means to experience empathy. Empathy is the capacity to understand what the other is feeling on a vulnerable, emotional level. It is the ability to connect to and share an emotional feeling or experience with another, something that the ego might often make difficult for us to do comfortably. Empathy is to internally bear witness to the rawness of another living being's emotional experience, presence, and existence without judgment and with a truckload of understanding. 

Empathy, to me, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary phenomenons to experience naturally in this world and in life. Empathy means we are not alone. Not even the ugliest or most painful of experiences can isolate us from the living because it is those very deep and shredding emotions we feel that bonds us to every other living being and what it means to be alive. Somewhere in this life, there is another who has felt the same sensations and frustrations that once moved through your systems or left you hanging on by a thread. There is somebody that has been through a very similar emotional state. There is somebody that understands. 

While empathy gives us the support we need as beings of love to move forward when life gets hard, it also gives us the gift of sharing the bright, big, and wonderful things with others as well! It links our experiences with one another; the good, the bad, and the entire in-between. Empathy connects us. It connects us to other humans, other beings, and to our very own soul. It transports us closer to our home frequency of love and connection by giving us the experience of both our own emotions and the emotions of others. It shows us how to relate, how to understand, and how to love. Through connection. Deep, authentic emotional connection. 

The term "Empath" is tossed around quite a bit, out in the world but more specifically in the metaphysical/spiritual communities. I have pondered what it means to be an empath for quite some time now and through my practices with mediumship and energy reading, I have discovered many different perspectives of what it means to be an empath. There are many subjective meanings and a whole lot of different ideas attached, so here I will share with you my own personal understanding thus far. Feel free to take what fits and leave what doesn't, as we all have unique and personal experiences/beliefs and every single one is true and valid!

I have learned that you cannot experience real, honest, pure love without empathy. Whether it's love you have for your dog, for a stranger, for your mom, or for your partner, empathy is the main ingredient. Without empathy, your love is not coming from a place of common understanding, from connection and relation, it is coming from a wound or from a conditioned belief. Empathy is how you experience Big Love (the term I coined to describe divine love which is the nature of the existence of the universe). Big Love is the feeling that you are one with the universe. It is the connection to all that is and the balance that surrounds us, somehow connecting all the right dots and doing it all in our highest good. Big Love is the purpose for which we experience hardship and growth, it is the understanding that we are beautiful, meaningful beings in whatever state we vibrate in and that healing can occur if we welcome it. It is also the promise that lives in the light and beckons us through our own healing journeys. The promise that if we seek to heal ourselves through love, we will endlessly multiply it in all the moments we have ahead.

Empathy holds space for love to exist in its purest and most authentic form. The kind that makes your entire body vibrate with warmth and softness, that lifts you up and leaves you tap-dancing lightly on air, the kind that holds your hand and says, "I am here. You are safe". Empathy is the room that births the most beautiful array of creations that life has to offer. Empathy is important stuff when it comes to our interactions, connections, and relationships with others. It connects us to our truest, most vulnerable self, and it is also the key to getting in touch with our spiritual nature and abilities (the metaphysical and energetic senses that come naturally to humans the higher we vibrate energetically). 

The metaphysical/spiritual communities often use the word "Empath" to describe one who has particular sensitivities related to experiencing the thoughts, emotions, and states of others. While I am certainly someone who uses it in that form, I am beginning to realize that that is just a short way of explaining it. An empath is someone who experiences deep and sometimes powerful psychic empathy BECAUSE they are sensitive to energy or a specific vibration of energy (emotions, thoughts, physical sensations, etc.). Because their heart is open to empathy and connection. All of us have the capacity to be empathic, just as all of us have the ability to experience empathy. All of us also have the capacity to be sensitive to the energies that exist within us, around us, and throughout the entire infinite universe. Some of our souls may have chosen to be unconscious of these sensitivities, some of us subconsciously or actively choose to block them or suppress them. Some of us (like psychics, mediums, and intuitives) have chosen to live fully sensitive and aware of the energies that surround and/or affect them. Whether we choose to practice this ability as a career is also up to us. The world needs sensitive, empathic ones in every position and corner, not just as practicing metaphysical messengers. At any point in your life you can certainly become aware of or turn off your abilities, as a spiritual being in a physical body/world, to sense the energy within and around you. The energy that makes up your world, reality and the universe around you is constantly there, detectable to those of us that choose (on a conscious or subconscious level) to sense and experience it. 

Those who are sensitive to the world of energy will be sensitive to the emotions of others. Those who are sensitive to the emotions of others are already open to sensing the world of energy. Read that one more time! We are all capable of being "empaths" if you roll with the theme of empathy and connection to others on emotional levels. When you consider the connotations of "empath" that comes with the spiritual/metaphysical version of things, you would be talking about those who are currently energetically sensitive. Some may only be open (again, on a conscious or subconscious level) to experience energy grounded in humans, such as in the form of the thoughts and emotions of others ( I call this psychic). Compare this to people like mediums who are open to experiencing and sensing the energy that surrounds them in all forms (thoughts, emotions, memories, experiences, spirits, spiritual beings, the energy that exists outside of our bodies, etc). 

There are many different levels and forms of experiencing and sensing energy in this physical world and considering yourself an Empath means that you are aware of and accepting of the fact that you are sensitive to perceiving that which is not physically tangible (energy, i.e. emotions). That in itself requires a certain degree of faith that some may struggle to discover within themselves. We are all on our own, unique journeys moving at a pace and intensity that we designed for ourselves and continue to create. 

No matter what you are sensitive to, be it nothing, the thoughts and emotions of others or spirits and the energies of the universe, you can turn it up or turn it down! You can grow it or shrink it if you wish. You can choose to stop it at the psychic level (experiencing other human's experiences) or kick it up a notch and sense the universe at large and all it contains. You can also choose to experience none of it, although, I highly recommend being connected in some form to anything larger than the physical experience. It gives life meaning beyond comprehension and sometimes that is what carries me through the tough days. 

To conclude this long and informative piece, I offer you a nugget of wisdom: it all starts with empathy. If you are lost or feeling overwhelmed, unsure of how to define what being an empath means for you personally, start with your ability to feel empathy for others as a human. Start with the emotions and the vulnerability, with the trust and the presentness. There you will discover your own unique definition of what it means to consider yourself an empath, and from there you can discover what it is you are curious to learn more about. I can promise you this, being empathic, being sensitive in whichever degree and form you are, is at its root an incredibly beautiful and honest experience. The key to balancing your empathic nature and your physical experience -and the topic for my next piece- is to understand the world of energy and the ways in which you are sensitive to it and experience it. This also includes how you can step into your power and become in charge of your energy and energetic experience! 

There is a whole invisible world that we live in but sometimes all we think to see is the physical world that lies before us. Solid and dependable. Until it's not! Learning how to navigate and understand our energetic nature puts us in control of the experience we work to create and sets us free. So, tune in next week for a Ponderer's take on THE GREAT WORLD OF ENERGY! Until then my loves, I offer you a slice of Empath Pie. May you treat yourself to the same sweetness that you bake out in the world, tirelessly! You are loved and supported through each and every moment. Stay beautiful! XOXO

A Rush of Blood to the Head

I have spent my entire life up to my 25th year missing the point. I have spent exactly 9,125 days treating myself as the little girl who knows less than the majority of the world around her. I have remained innocent, quiet, subscribed, controlled, and told how to be by every single human who crossed paths with me. Whether they meant well, told themselves they did or sought me out for selfish desires, everyone has tried to teach me or shape me in some way. I am tempted to take the stance of the victim and feel as though everyone but me was aware of this dynamic, feeding into it, and attempting to manipulate or control it. I would be doing an incredible injustice to myself if I allowed that victim-oriented belief to simmer inside my brain for another moment.

You see the belief that no matter what I do or where I go I will be greeted by others who are attempting to mold me into their own version of myself may seem seductive and attractive to a spirit weighed down by the weight of the world around her, but I know in the depths of my being that this is not true. I am an active participant if I refuse to take responsibility for the runoff of others drowning my own soul. That is when I began to notice the point. That was day 1.

That day looked like an incredible amount of anger pouring out of me. I seethed from places I hadn't yet witnessed. I felt a burning buzz vibrate in places that had yet to feel active within me. I felt life spring up aggressively from places that I had yet to discover even existed within me. I discovered new life within myself on day 1 and more than anything else, I was pissed.

My body ran hotter than usual. My skin radiated a flame that would end up raging for weeks and weeks. That flame was a miracle that would set my entire world on fire, burning away each and every square inch of myself that has ever chosen to comply without asking why. Every speckle that has silenced herself in the face of others. Every molecule that has lived the role of a victim, never in control, never able to escape or end its suffering at the hands of others. Their shaping. Their unfortunate, overrated conditioning and layering that has suffocated them until this very moment.

This heat that emanated from my flesh and my spirit was hot and powerful enough to burn through many of these layers at once. The most important layer that caught fire was the layer that held it all together. Enclosing me and suffocating me in a bag of my own design and choice. A bag that contained the false belief that to be loved and accepted, I had to sell myself entirely. A belief that almost killed me.

So I stood on a nearby mountain and watched those layers burn. I watched closely for days, without removing my roasted eyes from the heat. I watched in awe as the structures that burned down within me revealed my own role in diluting myself and making myself so small that I was barely visible to the world. Then came the grief. The shame. The absolute disgust with myself and the life that I have lived with my head gently tucked beneath the soft, safe cotton covers. Using that thin membrane of seemingly peaceful shelter, draped with denial, the decision to hand out invitations for my own oppression was made.

I didn't know it yet but those 9,125 days that I spent buried safely in my own sheet and pillow fort were all building up to the moment that it would be mercifully torched to the ground. All that time I was beckoning a call to my deepest and truest self to wake up and see the ugliness that has built up around the outside of my fort. It was time for me to hold space for the truth so I called it in with all my power, from beneath those light sheets of mine. I was drunk on courage.

The truth steamrolled in, running over my life and my reality, as it does when one calls it in with such fervor, but it was not the end of anything. It was only the beginning and the discoveries that were on their way, close by and ready to unravel within, would paint the surfaces they were called in to paint. The surfaces they were meant to cover with their authentic truth and importance. After the fire within me raged and destroyed as much as it could, after the skies rained ash and the sun disappeared, when the thoughts that would usually get swallowed found their voice, when the space I had confined myself to exploded outward with no bounds, that is when the excitement of becoming met the tension of unbecoming. That is when my body hit the ground and disintegrated before my very eyes. That is when I chose to rise like a phoenix.

I have been met with many destabilizing and uncomfortable realizations in this life. Perhaps the most horrific to come to my attention was the realization that I have been giving myself away, in teeny tiny pieces, to people who neither deserved those pieces, earned those pieces, nor had a right to those pieces. You see, those were my pieces to give away, but I was never meant to give them away to someone outside of myself. The fear of going through this life, through this unforgiving world, without being loved, without being accepted, and without being supported by someone outside of myself, left me feeling empty. Worthless. Unlovable.

The longer I waited for salvation, for redemption, for oxygen to flow through my lungs, the longer I believed that I couldn't attain any of it until someone gave it to me. Until someone gave me permission to feel loved. Until someone gave me permission to be loveable. Until someone proved to myself and the world that there were things within me worth loving and celebrating.

I waited for 9,125 days for someone outside of me to tell me I was worthy enough to be my full, authentic, extraordinary self in this life. But on that 9,126th day, I woke up to a fire that could only go out on its own. A fire that would end up simmering within me for the rest of eternity. A fire that can never be extinguished; not by any exterior force, not by any other human or being, and certainly not by myself. Not anymore. I waited 9,125 days for that fire to be born inside of me and I called out to Gods I did not worship for the truth to be ignited beneath my world because although I knew nothing of the painful truths within the walls that would soon be engulfed in the flames of justice and universal balance, I longed for their existence. My own depended upon it.

My fires have not yet gone out, as they simmer on with the help of an unrelenting truth and a never-ending journey into the ash that it creates. That ash is the life, the world, and the reality that pushed down on me like the pressure of an inner explosion. The truth that I begged and prayed on my hands and knees for was the spark that lit the flame. The flame that solicited the explosion. The explosion that rearranged my world, my being, and my energy.

Now I am bigger, bolder, and hotter than ever before. I have scorched through the layers of untruth that have been told to me, by others and myself. I am liberated from the need to trade abuse for tiny drops of love and acceptance. I am no longer chained down by the belief that whatever form of love, no matter how tainted and poisoned it may be, will quench my thirst for worthiness. I don't need false or fraudulent love to define my worth for me. I don't need a fragile man, who hates himself with overwhelming shame, to dish out partial, plastic rations of love and whisper to me that the more perfect I become, the more love he will give me. I don't need the acceptance and validation of anyone to feel loved and accepted within my own being. Not the person who judges all from their sheltered tower, not the person who casts shadows over others because they think they must dim all the light around them to experience their own shine. And most certainly not the person who thinks that no matter how selfish and hateful they are, I am bound to continue working myself to the bone to extract love from them. I don't want their love. I want mine!

So I end this dramatic yet powerful piece on a simple note: where there is love, true and empathetic love, I will never feel as though I must lessen or extinguish the flames of my fire. Where there is kind and compassionate love, I will never feel as though I must be better to earn it. Where there is vulnerable and authentic love, I will never EVER have to question my own truth or my own self to feel it. Not for a single moment. I will feel safe enough to embrace the truth within, no matter how hot the flames burn. I will feel supported enough to know that I am worthy, just as I am. I will feel seen and accepted enough to know that there is never a thought or a feeling that arises within me that is not meant for this world to hold.

How do I know what this love is supposed to look and feel like? Because on the day that my entire being burst into flames, I was met by a small girl sitting crosslegged in the dead center of the flames with her head bowed in reverence. When I asked her who she was and how she was still alive, she replied with an unwavering voice, "I am you, and nothing can keep me from showing up for you. Not even the flames of hell are enough to burn through the love I have for you. The scorching heat and yellowish-orange glow of revolution reunite us once more. If you sit down with me in the middle of these flames and take my hand, I promise that I will never leave your side". So I sat down with her and now I get to carry pure love with me everywhere I go. I don't need to search for it, beg for it, or trade my worth in for it. I am me, and nothing can keep me from me.

I AM LOVE!

The Day to Dine With Death Has Dawned

 Death and rebirth are no strangers to me. I have hosted death in my own home, uninvited but eventually welcomed. I sat across from him, stared into his deep and lifeless eyes, and faced the burden in my mind and my soul of the truth that is to come to us all eventually. The truth is that we all die many times within ourselves while our body still breathes and our heart still beats. We die, again and again, reduced to ash within our hollow bodies and transformed through a gentle process of healing, where we are eventually born into a new version of ourselves. Alive and true. It happens more for some and less for others. Sometimes it leaves us more powerful and true than before, sometimes it leaves us exhausted and weak, in need of more deaths until we decide to pick ourselves up again. We wake up each day and sometimes we know that it's coming and sometimes we don't. We cannot control when and how we die within, but we can control how we are reborn. Sometimes being reborn is the only option and sometimes it is harder than life itself to get back up and carry on. Lucky for you, I sat down with death and he told me all his secrets.

We wake up one day, usually unaware of the soul death that is coming our way. The day seems oddly normal, perhaps even joyous and bright! We grab a breakfast sandwich from the cafe and we label it a treat because we got to abandon our regular oatmeal or smoothie and fill up on something delicious and not made by us. The sky is already bright even though it is only 8 AM. People are hustling around you, moving from place to place as they always do. Nothing gives you the slightest idea of what lies ahead until the energy drops and things shift immediately. The news breaks and you know that you have no choice but to walk away and leave a world behind entirely. You may teeter for a bit, in shock and attempting to grasp at anything coming your way for stability, but eventually, it sinks in that the woman you woke up as earlier that morning, the woman who ate her sandwich and stared at the commuters thinking nothing but, "I hope they feel loved", is now dead and a new you must take her place. There is no going back, it is instantaneous. She is gone and the only way from here is forward.

There will be a period of shock. For some, it could last hours and for others, days. Already your mind and body begin to prepare for the birth of a new you from the ashes that you are currently sweeping and tending to. Your stomach purges, your eyes clear your soul of all the heaviness that has been cooped up for years and years. Your adrenaline pumps and your blood courses through your body, hot and thick. You begin to form a plan and percolate the steps that must be taken. There is a long road ahead of you, but somehow you know that this brush with death will sink all the way through eventually, just as it has time and time again, and you will peak out from the soil, on your way to a much bigger and brighter bloom. For now, however, you are saturated in pain and grief. Buried under a heavy coat of land. The blooming feels an eternity away and the pain can begin to set in as the shock wears off. Unbearable. Unconscionable. The darkness and depth without the sun is devastating.

The quiet of your home plants nightmares in your mind that won't cease. The images come floating by, without warning and unwelcome. Life becomes about filling your time and you can struggle to balance feeling the pain with surviving and caring for yourself. Numbing to a certain degree is helpful, especially if you are struggling to get out of bed each morning. But you must face the pain and carving out the space to feel safe enough to feel is what will bring you to your healing journey as soon as possible! So, reluctantly you oscillate between feeling total despair, sinking into your heavy, uncomfortable, and painful emotions, and carrying on. You go to work and suddenly have more energy to put into each task and movement. You somehow have the motivation to work harder than ever before. You cry when it comes, you feel angry when the heat surges, and you smile at each and every minuscule thing that presents itself because smiles are a precious resource at this time. They carry you in the moments that you can't catch your breath. They ground you in the absurdity of it all.

You continue to care for yourself the best that you can. You clean up around your space, you shower and moisturize, and you prepare food that nourishes your body. You have no choice in this matter, you are your only hope at surviving, and caring for yourself is the least you can do at a time when you are so tender and vulnerable to the world around you. The moments come and go, the despair is countered more frequently by friendly faces and warm embraces. Before you know it, you instinctually find yourself drawn to people and places that bring you such warm and uplifting love. You surround yourself with softness and comfort, you give yourself more breaks than ever before, and you tend to your wounds and bruises like an angel sent from above with only that as their task. You surprise yourself more with each breath, at the sheer strength and capacity to process, not to mention the willingness and discipline it takes to decide to show up for yourself and take care, rather than give up and bury yourself under a pile of can't and won't. 

You could have given up on yourself like the world seemingly had. You could have decided not to move forward. But you knew that there were better things ahead. After all, if this death released you from the mirage that was never truly the dream you had in your heart, that means it is still out there somewhere. Probably sipping tea in a small cafe pondering the same dreams. You begin to realize that what felt like death and a final ending of something that belonged to you, was actually you holding onto the wrong thing. Usually disguised for learning purposes, you were actually saved from taking a wrong turn by fate with only moments to spare. How lucky are you?

This thing that you thought you lost, this dream that had seemed to perish before you, was lost so that you could find yourself once more. Because darling, you were lost before you died. Before you lost a piece of your heart, before you entered the world of grief and healing, you were already lost and needing a new start. You needed to die and be reborn long before life stepped in and handed you the tools. And while the loss remains as is and deserves just as much honor as your own sacred journey, it is now time to be reborn. You can choose to ball up on the floor and cry until your eyes run dry, but you will always be faced with the choice to stand up and be taller than before. Don't you want that for yourself? 

Now you are beginning to understand the importance of such a heavy and volatile time. You might be able to feel the energy rising within you, like a kettle heating above a freshly sparked flame. It is time to gestate and heal, to be reborn into this world a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger, and a whole lot more closer to your true and authentic self. It will be messy. It will be scary. It will be harder than quite possibly anything you have ever experienced until this point, but you will move through the dark and heavy soil towards the light and you will rise tall and proud once more, reaping the harvest of the seeds of healing. And that dream that you thought had died too? The loss that hit you like the wall of a storm never intended to kill your dreams. It was placed in your path to kill the part of you that was holding you back from your own dreams. It was set loose on your life, wreaking havoc in the name of destiny and the highest good for all, just for you. Just for the dream you hold so dearly. 

When tragedy hits, when betrayal or loss strikes, you will fall down, crumble into pieces, and die. But that is the point and purpose in it all, for when death comes along and dines with you, he intends to shake your world up. He intends to take the life that you thought was meant for you and redirect you to the life that illustrates your deepest dreams using golden and pink hues. Death intends to keep you from settling for anything less than magical and what you truly deserve. So remember that when death comes knocking and you let him in, be sure to ask him all the questions you want to be answered. Tell him of your deepest and truest dreams. Watch as the colors around you become saturated with warmth and the feelings in your gut grow stronger and more true. Death never shows up empty-handed and the night is long and winding, but the morning that follows is filled with a brighter and deeper sense of being in all ways you could ever imagine! 

When death comes knocking, please let him in. Let him tell you of the life that is planned that you would have unknowingly passed upon if you had not answered the door. Let death teach you of fate and truth, let him hold you as you cry, crippled by pain and grief. Let him sing to you as you find love and peace once more. But most importantly, let death come back again. Even if you know it brings pain, even if you know it is such a long and tiresome journey back to life again, let him come and bring you a new world for his novelty will bring you to people and places you never felt worthy enough to ask for. Once you arrive here you will look back on your death with reverence and majesty; a life well lived and a whole life yet to come. All because you let death in that fateful day. All because you watched yourself die once more, knowing full well it was time. All because you knew it was the only way. Take your steps forward and never look back. The life that died has been buried and exists no more. You are safe, you are free, you are on your way to bigger and better things. Let death show you the way, he has all the good trails mapped out, and most importantly, he knows how high the mountain truly goes. What you thought was your view spot and turn around point was actually another leap up. 

Clink your glass with his and know that by killing you, however painful and horrible it was, death was the only way to save your life. 

A Funeral by the Sea

 I once knew a soul that was as kind as could be and found me just in time. They were lighthearted and full of play, curious about the universe around them, and trusting of the world with eyes big and bold. Truth was always the answer and joy was the means to arrive there. They considered all that was around them. Observant and fair, they watched the world spin day after day, never ceasing to learn something new. Something profound that would change their world as they knew it. 

Their heart was bigger than their mind, encompassing more than they knew. Capable of cultivating a love so bright that it blinded them from understanding the extent of their shine. How could such a beautiful and expansive being know nothing of their light, yet see the sometimes near-invisible light in all that is? They were far more worthy than what they knew. Mistreated by others and the world, they retreated into their own to heal and were secretly even more beautiful in their times of spiral and darkness. Even their shadows felt of great power and importance, like the leap to step back into the light would make that person even more loving and strong, if only they knew. 

This person was caring, considerate, and empathetic with natural grace and ease, directing the flow of love from some mysterious, heavenly source into the hearts and minds of those who crossed their path. They were poetic and filled with the majesty and royalty of the divine, entrancing their space and identity with purple light and a warmth that radiates from their skin. They were something I tried for so long to capture, to learn from, to become inspired by. 

Until this person died, I had no idea who they really were. I set their limp and lifeless body onto a cedar pyre built for the end of this being's life and I gently pushed it out to sea without a tear in my eye or a thought in my mind. Finally, there was silence within as I watched the floating pyre drift further and further into the rising, blazing sun. A single tear fell peacefully from an otherwise dry eye, I drew back and paused pensively. A deep breath of salty air filled my lungs with love and my grip ceased to hold. The arrow flew, aflame and angry with passion, striking the pyre in a matter of moments. The cedar caught fire and became a bright and burning mass before my bow hit the ground. I turned and began to walk away from the water's edge, no words or prayers needed. For I watched their burning body disappear just moments ago, and I knew that this being was gone. 

But the soul that I saw the world in? The soul that caressed me with healing love and showed me to a place of life inside once more, the soul that helped me to align all of who I am and solidify her in proper gold? Well, it turns out they were but a reflection of my own. An imposter that only knew how to show me my own. So instead of having a funeral for the being that burned out at sea, I had a christening. A ceremony that dedicated all of the love and all of the credit I gave to someone who didn't exist, back to its rightful place. Back to me. Because it was always just a reflection of me. Every feeling, every beautiful thing I experienced and admired, and every drop of magic I felt was coming from me. Drawn out by a soul who only knew how to reflect mine, but never how to be love in their own. And you know what I hold my glass up to in celebration today? The death of a fatal belief that would have killed me if I did not push it out to sea first. 

It was always my own love, it was always me. 

The Age of the Dark Night

 I have a superpower. I cannot fly, I am not bulletproof, I do not have iron fists. I don't shoot webs out of my wrists, or swing from building to building. I don't fight crime, I don't save children from burning buildings, and I most certainly do not know how to wield a weapon. But I have a superpower that is perhaps the greatest gift of them all. It guides me when I am lost, reminds me how to come back to love when I have tilted way too far towards fear, and it connects me to all I meet, all I love, and all there is. I am not the only one with this power. In fact, we all have it and we all struggle to understand it. It can weigh us down like a ton of bricks, but it can also connect us to the Big Love that we spend our lifetimes cultivating. It is the secret to understanding relationships, friendships, enemies, misunderstandings, and accidents. It is the antidote to loss, grief, suffering, injustice, and evil. It is a golden gift to us humans, the source - and reflection - of such harrowing pain. It is empathy. It is superhuman.

If you've ever watched or read a superhero story, you know that there is often great suffering and challenge as both the birthplace and collateral of such amazing superhuman abilities. There is usually some level of personal difficulty that paves way for the abilities to emerge, or to encourage the individual to indulge in such strange and mysterious powers. Aside from profound suffering and a lifetime of struggle, this hero is made just that through endurance, pure will power, and most importantly, the responsibility that comes with their superpower. 

The responsibility. "With great power comes great responsibility" was once said by the very person that inspired Spider-man's journey to become the humble hero and vibrant vigilante of the streets of NYC. Those words were life-changing for Peter Parker and they hold such weight and value when it comes to empathy, too. Empathy is a great power. It also comes with such great responsibility. There is not one without the other, just ask Spider-Man.

You may be wondering why empathy is considered a superpower in my world. Well, my friends, it gives you the precious and golden ability to place yourself in another's shoes. To feel WITH another, to be WITH another, on levels that transcend the physical and ego. You aren't just feeling bad for someone, you are feeling bad with someone. That connects you on levels that you cannot even see, and that will change the world. We are not meant to do this alone. The struggle, the challenge, the conflict, the hurt. We are not meant to bear it alone, to hold it in silence as it rips through our insides. We are not meant to die in sadness or despair, to feel lost and unloved. We are not meant to do this alone. The darkness is no match for the dimly lit light of a hundred hearts that burn in passion for your pain. Life is a circle, everything always comes back to the beginning. To the fact that we are not meant to be alone in this world. We need each other. 

Empathy is a gift that we all contain. A magical, wonderful thing that allows us to feel connected, seen, and understood by others. This gives us the ability to know love and to know comfort in such a dark world that finds us all afraid from time to time. This is bigger than all of the wealth in the world. Something this big, something this powerful, comes with an equal amount of responsibility. Empathy gives us the gift of connecting to the joy, love, and even the pain within others. While that puts us in a place where we are not alone, where we can feel understood and cared for as well as provide that for others, it also sets up the cruelest of mirrors, directly in front of our innocent eyes. This mirror shows us the pain, the hurt, and the wounds that lie within us. That is why I believe so many people pass up the gift of empathy. They bury it so deep, they sometimes can't even remember where they hid it. Years will go by and the feeling of being understood and loved for all you are is a distant memory. The person that needed empathy the most has given up their power to use it; because the responsibility was too much. The pain was too much. Feeling it all was too much. The power that was going to save them, well, it scared them. It was too much. I'll tell you why, and then I'll tell you why it's not. 

Some people walk this earth holding an unfair, monstrous amount of pain. Most of us have buried experiences, feelings, and even traumas just to function in this life. We did it to survive. Our instincts to survive coarse through our body like an invisible part of our DNA, ingrained in our being. These instincts to survive come forth, even when we are impervious to it. It could be years - or even decades - later before we realize we buried something deep within, just to keep moving forward. This is who we are as humans, but it isn't who we are as souls. As a soul, as a spirit, as a celestial being, we hold onto everything that is not recognized and integrated. If you haven't processed something, it is not because you do not need to, but rather because your human instincts have buried it deep within your psyche, deep within your soul, in a box that is labeled, Pandora. But this box still lives within you. It will follow you until it is opened and all its contents are released. Until it is recognized for what it is, what it gave you, what it took from you, and how it left you. Until all of that is integrated into the person that was meant to grow from the contents of that box. To heal, to learn, to love themselves deeper than ever before. 

When we look into each other's hearts, with loving and caring eyes, we are searching for innocence and humility. We are looking to feel the parts of one another that leave us feeling connected, understood, and loved. We are looking to cure the feeling of solitude and the loneliness that comes with the complexity of our emotional body and the experiences that splatter it with darkness. We are looking to feel safe. To feel loved. But what we often find, is the inevitable pain in others that remind us of the box we buried within our own, long, long ago. We don't want to think of this box. We don't want to see it, we don't want to remember that it exists. It is challenging to even remind yourself of the events that built you by first tearing you down, especially if the rebuilding has been nonexistent or persistently challenging. We are afraid to look into each other's eyes because we are afraid of what might be reflected back to us. 

When I look into your eyes, my sweet friends, I see the pain. The pain that has yet to be held gently, cradled with love and reverence, healed and released from the box. Turned into love for yourself and for life. I feel the pain that has been ignored, kept hidden, chained away from the light of reality. This only reminds me of the pain that has been hidden within myself. The pain that I fear, on the deepest levels of my being, will tear me down indefinitely. The mirror that is your eyes reflect a world of secret pain. It lives in my body and it wreaks havoc on my soul. It is connected to all of the beliefs that have somehow made this journey with me, softly whispering in my ear, "you will not make it any further". 

You see, this great responsibility that comes with empathy is really just a reflection into your own being. A unique and painful view of the parts of you that hurt and cry, like a scared little child. When I see your child, screaming and crying for love, for release from the pain that they have endured, I feel my inner child respond. The part of me that is innocent and just wants to feel loved. And when she does respond to the call of pain, I feel weak and unreliable. I feel unsteady and unsure. I feel confused and chaotic. But you know what your child told me when I saw them so vulnerable and wounded? They told me that I am not alone. They told me that there is pain deep within them that needs love and the same thing exists within me. They said that, together, we can face what makes us ache deep into our soul. That we can shine our light on it, reveal it, and heal it. We can love it until it stops throbbing, and love ourselves until the bleeding stops. 

These wounds we have hidden, the pain we have stored in our little, tiny box within will be addressed at some point. That is the inevitable part of existence. The sooner it is opened and seen for all it is, the sooner you will find yourself and the innate joy that shines out from within you. The sooner you will feel the full extent of love that you most certainly are meant to experience. Take my words as you will, but know that this is always easier, better, and a whole lot more beautiful with empathy. With connection. With somebody who understands. 

We are all these magnificent creatures, walking around with the weight of our world resting heavily on our sweet and innocent shoulders. Empathy may be difficult and challenging, it may reveal the bugs in you that have found solace in the darkness, away from your conscious eye. But it is far more extraordinary and freeing to see these critters and the darkness they inhabit for what they are. To integrate the things they are meant to teach you and then let them out into the world as truth and as love. But most importantly, to release the pain that keeps you from feeling more love and joy in this life. 

As a superhero, you will see the parts of life - and yourself - that are far harder to hold than you know. But as a superhero, you will get to swing to such great heights with the most amazing of views and swing through the world that brings awe to your entire body. Empathy is your superpower. It may not be your only ability, but it is perhaps your most precious and sacred one. It is a great power and with great power comes great responsibility. The responsibility of seeing what truly lies within, of facing the darkness that is easily buried. The responsibility of feeling that same darkness exist and torment others, those you love and care about deeply. The responsibility of knowing your own pain so that you may sit with those you love and their pain.

In the end, however, that responsibility is actually a gift in itself. Although it makes your world heavy and uncomfortable at times, know that the ability to feel ever so deeply, the pain and the pleasures of life, is a priceless gem. Don't take my word for it though, discover your superpower and know that you, my loves, are never alone. Not even in the dark.