ACCEPTING THE MYSTERY, LETTING IT BE, & BEING STABLE WITHIN ITS DISCOVERY

I took a few weeks after Dad passed to submerge into grief. I don’t actually remember a lot from that period. What I do remember involves my first series of panic attacks that didn’t evolve due to illness. 

One moment I’d be sitting, maybe even feeling ‘fine’, and the next I’d think about something that had happened leading up to Dad’s passing and I’d be on the floor gasping for air. The first one happened days after Dad was life-flighted to the TICU. We had just gotten off the phone with one of Dad’s nurses who was telling us that his progress was improving, and before I knew it, I was head in my hands, on the floor of my parent's kitchen, crying inconsolably, unable to breathe.

The first panic attack was unfamiliar and scary, but the third was by far the worse. One day after Dad had passed, we had to contact the funeral home to make ‘arrangements’ for his viewing. We made the call. Someone from the administrative staff said they’d have a director of the facility call us back.

I remember walking away from the telephone, which was on speaker phone, circling the kitchen table, and feeling a rush of coldness come over me. I reached for the sweater my husband owns that I have claimed as my own, and wrapped it around me while saying the words, “Well, that was one step forward. That’s positive.” And, in the next breath, I was on the floor next to the chair I had been sitting in, sobbing like a reed pipe, scared and confused about how I got there.

At that point in the experience of Dad’s heart attack, struggle to heal, and ultimate, untimely passing, I was having panic attacks every 2-3 days. Some were uncontrollably in front of an audience of my entire family. While others were on the floor next to my bed, alone with just my inhaler, a cup of tepid water, my two shepherds, and Scott. 

The last panic attack I had was about 10-days after Dad had passed. It was on this day that I recall having a realization that I needed help. I didn’t know what the help was going to look or feel like, but I needed it. 

In contemplation of what ‘help’ looked like, I had already been in and sustaining therapy. I didn’t know what I needed more than that, so I decided to take some time to think about it. I didn’t tell anyone that I was in an SOS state with myself, because I didn’t really know what the SOS was, meant, or what I needed. Therefore, I wasn’t sure how to explain it to others, either.

One afternoon, while sitting in my room, crying. Tears billowing out of my eyes, I laid stoic in bed thinking about how this happened and in shock. A thought came to me that said, maybe all that you need is just to Be with the mystery. 

No more work than what is necessary. 

No more advertising or engagement on social media. 

No more than time with you through this tragedy and to patiently, as best you can, sort yourself out.

In that thought, a sense of calm blanketed me. And, a resounding YES, came with it. It felt like the weight of doing any more than grieving this tremendous loss was granted, and the pressure lifted off of being anything other than what I needed at this moment was ordained.

All the probing questions of how and what were immediately answered. All the regularly Shannon-scoped “what ifs” and “what will people think” were removed. A blessing of seeing the way and validity to do so was granted.

That night and several after, I would go to bed asking Dad what this means and to give me answers. I’d ask him what I was supposed to accomplish by taking this time out. I’d question how it would be made possible. And, nearly every night thereafter, I’d awake middle of the night with a flurry of thoughts, write them down, and fall back asleep, only to awake the next morning with a heavy-hearted certainty that I didn’t have to know all of a mystery at one time in order to let it be and be with its discovery.

It was while stirring in the middle of the night, one night, that Scott happened to be awake too. I was mid-typing a poem that came to me. I was writing without aim, through crocodile tears, and letting it lead me. What it lead to was a poem about me and living to my fullest potential, to the continual, glorious discovery of my inconsistencies, and learning to live according to Shannon, which felt like it had been channeled through me from Dad.

I let Scott read it immediately. It felt so important, I even shared it with my brother. And, in my next therapy session, I discussed taking a pilgrimage with myself in honor of learning to love myself; the first self-love affair journey I have ever embarked on.

Admittedly, at first, I did discuss in therapy the idea of having a guide of sorts. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a shaman or spiritual teacher. But, my therapist, encouraged me to see past being guided and into trusting self-guidance, and when encouraged, instantly I knew she was right.

A self-love affair journey cannot be guided when one is on the path to individuation. It is one that we must take on our own in order to truly learn to identify what we’re good at, what we’re about, what are our limits and boundaries, and how to listen inward to decipher.

Once I knew who was leading, I also knew how to let go and trust wherever I was about to go. It wasn’t easy decommissioning myself from external engagement, accepting that the privileged position I was in was one I had worked for, to embrace where I was embarking as something I had put in many years of practice with presence, discipline, and resilience to prepare me and secure. It wasn’t easy to acknowledge that the path I was taking to begin to appreciate, love, and know Shannon, was accessed, made possible, and being allowed by me due to the untimely, horrendous passing of someone I loved, and now, longed for immensely; my Father.

Every day for several days after I committed to my self-love pilgrimage, I had to recommit to it. I had to allow the thoughts of laziness and judgment for needing so much time. I had to create space for the deconstruction of what had been Shannon, to release it with gratitude and love for all the ways in which it had served me, to create a welcoming space to the mystery of whatever was, or could be, blooming.

As days turned into weeks, I nestled more and more into the commitment, to my pilgrimage, by easing into a guided meditation. With meditation came processing and with processing came thoughts, feelings, and realizations about what I was going through, who I am, and what I believe. The more self-practices I engaged the more self-aware I was becoming. 

Meditation progressed into follow-up journaling practices that felt like someone was breaking my chest open with a crowbar. The energy prompted by journaling moved into my body like a rushing waterway filled with nectar. And, the bodily energies that flowed into every crevice, engaging thought and emotional processing, enticing me to move through a practice within the ancient, mindful mysteries of Yoga.

Every day a new awareness. Every day a new processing. Every day another presence with myself that felt like meeting me for the first time. It was all new, yet, familiar and the more I continued to center, the more centered I felt in how I was feeling despite immense, unpredictable, layered grief. And, the more grounded I found myself, the more stable in the unstable, in the mystery of all that was and wasn’t, I became.

It was approximately two months after my father passed that during my regular meditation something new happened. It’s not unusual for me to meditate and become emotionally moved and mentally charged. It’s not unusual for me to alchemize the experience by making a connection between the conscious and unconscious. 

What happened during this 22-minute meditation practice was a new encounter with Self. In attuning to the great mystery, and engaging it for peaceful enlightenment, I asked for help in calibrating my voice. When I grounded into receptivity for whatever would reveal it, what I witnessed shocked me.

I expected to hear or learn what was in the way of listening to myself. I expected to see how to access it. What I didn’t expect to discover is that what had muted me to its pristine clarity was me.

In looking inward for attunement what I was shown is that I had disfigured my truths. I had maimed myself in such a way that anytime a truthful advisement would be offered, the way I processed it was through the lens of making myself a monster. What I found is that what I had done was abnormalized not only the sound of my voice, but also any mental or physical representation of it which caused me to rebuke it, reject it, and recoil from it and any possibility of finding value in it.

I was so certain and humbled by the information of this meditative experience that I cried for nearly the whole 22-minutes. I cried for what I had done to myself. I cried for the obstacle I had made of my truth and voice. I cried for all the time I had lost in self-damaging me, and all the ways in which I’ll never get to relive experiences for that truthful, maimed side of me, and with all the people, like Dad, whom I never got to be full, and all of me. 

Sometimes, when I exit a meditation, I’m immediately compelled to write. This did not happen after this session. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t, couldn’t. 

What I decided to do in the absence of absence was to allow the mystery and discovery to be. Again, I leaned into the idea that I didn’t have to know all of a mystery at once in order to let it be. I didn’t have to know all of a mystery in order to be with its discovery. 

Up to this point, I had experienced what I consider to be tremendously insightful introspection. I had been with many repressed feelings, awarenesses, pangs of sadness, and unexplainable occurrences suddenly coming to the surface to reveal themselves as triggering, yet undeniable, truths. But, I had not been with one so big as to admit to Self that the monster who had blocked me from hearing me, listening in, and attuning to appreciate the truth of my truths, was none other than Self.

I think I needed a few days to process what it meant to have such an alarming internal discovery. 

I think I needed some time to grieve how I had prevented myself from living whole alongside the grief of losing such a massively important energy in my life, like Dad. 

I think I needed time to be with how much processing everything all at once was; seeing and accepting where the sidewalk ended on my Dad’s life and letting it sink in as an impetus, a siren wake-up call, to seeing that while his physical path had ended, mine is still going, and how in grieving him, daily, I am with how much he loved living, and it is serving as a necessary reminder to start walking on and living wholly in mine.

When I came to a place where I could start thinking about myself as the silencer of my true Self, of course, all the experiences in life which prompted such behavior came flooding in. Not in an overwhelming way. But, in a way that was a reckoning for the long path I have walked to be able to arrive at such a place with poise, to acknowledge that my stability in the instability of this moment, comes with loving self-realization.

I am at this mysterious moment today, because many years ago, I didn’t want to be. I wanted to kill myself. But, I didn’t. 

Many years ago, I felt like I was a bug underneath life’s oppressing, depressing, and squishing thumb. And, it is because of my persistent curiosity for life that I didn’t accept it and began a journey to understand that if I am not the person who wants to die, then I need to discover the person I AM. 

It wasn’t because anyone stopped me. I stopped myself. And in this moment, I was seeing how the many moments in my life where I have chosen resiliency and persistence over and over have time and again reinvigorated my zest for life. It wasn’t because everything in my life has gone my way or has been sugar, spice, and everything nice. It was my resilience and love for being more alive than dead that decided, I’m not giving up; I know in my bones there is more to life than feeling like this; I am nobody’s victim; I am a resilient motherfucker who knows that life is the bees-knees and I want to get the most out of it; Goonies never say die. 

I had to come to terms with the fact that I was responsible for allowing my truths to be silenced, maimed, and disfigured, and I was able to do so, because my mind, body, and Soul carried me steadfastly, and at my own pace to this place. A space that I wake up in today to recognize how disparaging, unloving, and untrustworthy I have been with Self, as a sign that now is the time to change that narrative. Now is the time, because intuitively and physically I am ready to accept the respectful responsibility and honored commitment that comes with the vast mysteriousness of love, and with a reliability that I am ready to give it to myself by hearing into self-truths.

I am strong. I am resilient. I am capable.

I don’t think it was by accident that I gained awareness that I have been preventing me from listening to myself. I don’t think it was a fluke that it came at the same time as grieving my Father’s passing. In fact, deep in my Soul, I know all were destined to occur at the same time, no matter how much I wish it would’ve happened sooner so I could share in this knowing with Dad and talk to him about how he came to be the self-assured, loving human he was. No matter how much I wish he could tell me not only how one deals with such a self-reckoning, but lovingly shares in it with others in a way that doesn’t allow anything to, again, maim it. I wish I didn’t, but I do know that I have to do this alone.

As I journey deeper into my understanding of grief with my Father’s passing, I find that I’m also traveling further into knowing Self better. I know I am his child, but I never imagined that in the loss of his big, beautiful spirit, I would feel more connected to him and simultaneously, in tune with myself. In the immense and continual grieving of the wonderful human who I got to call Daddy, I find that the bittersweet sadness is because while I know in my bones, from experience, how magnificently radiant he was, I continue to discover all the ways in which I didn’t know he truly was a wonderful person outside of being the best Dad. 

The more things that need to be ‘closed out’ in Dad’s physical chapter, here, amongst the living, I get to know him more through all that I didn’t know about him, which continues to confirm not only how awesome he was as a Dad, but a husband, friend, family member, entrepreneur, business person, accountant, visionary, trip advisor, investigator, computer wizard, investor, bookkeeper, animal lover and protector, neighbor, gardener, MacGyver, poet, etc. And, in the amazing things I know about him, and the beautiful things I didn’t know but get to discover, I find the grief is even harsher because of the mystery of what I’ll have to wait for time to reveal or all that I’ll never find out, only makes me realize how much I loved him in my own little world of Daddy’s Girl, but how little I knew of his immensely, robust life.

Through the realization of what I know about Dad, all the things I didn’t, and what mysteries I’ll have to wait to discover, or those that I’ll never get to, I realize with deep sorrow and deep delight what a mystery this man was. He was my Dad and he was constantly surprising me. He had limitless energy and love and was extremely cautious about how sacredly he held those things for Self and Other. 

His zest for going all the way was infectious. You never knew what he was doing or what he was going to say, think of, or move on to next. He was unpredictable and encouraged that in you, too. He was excited about what was happening now and in the next ways you, he, and the World could take “it” to the limit, be over the top, happy, available, helpful, loud, creative, adventurous, curious, direct, different, and in enjoyment, in every way… all the way. 

He never stopped singing, going, creating, setting standards, and loving. I think that’s because it’s just who he was in his heart and there was no way ANYONE was going to stop him from doing what he felt compelled to, being who he was, and listening to that giant blood-pumping muscle enclosed deep within his strong chest. To love life, and live it to his level, all out, go all the way, was who he had to be. My Dad was a ring-out-the-rag-on-life kind of person and because he was, he believed that everything was good then. The known, the unknown, and the ever-allusive mystery, to him, it was all good to the last drop.

The mysteriousness of the man who raised me has blown my mind and heart wide open. It has prompted me to notice mystery in a way that I don’t think I ever have before and to allow it (the mystery) as another wonderful gift he has bestowed upon me. But, also as a lesson to not only allow in but look for the mysteries of me and life, to have the gall to transparently face it, gladly take accountability for it, and to continue to explore and judiciously share what it is, isn’t and how that translates in me. 

Learning to see the mystery and actively seek it, has only further solidified within me an understanding of not only how mysterious Dad was, but I am, and the beauty in knowing I get that from him. But also in knowing that we get to be it, mysterious; that we all are. And how damn exciting, liberating, and calming that is. 

Acknowledging the mystery, through Dad, has given me such permission to disrobe all that isn’t me. It’s invited me to listen in curiously, with bated breath, wide eyes, and an open heart, to what is life, what is Shannon, and what Shannon wants for her life. It’s like realizing you’ve been wearing shoes two sizes too small, skin that isn’t your own, and a 5,000-pound backpack that you get to take off and immediately, unloading everything that isn’t just right. 

The mystery of my Father has shown me that while I thought I knew him, there’s just no way I could’ve ever known everything about him and that isn’t bad. It doesn’t mean I didn’t love him immensely. I did. I do. I will. Always.

It just proves how robust he and we all are, that even in his passing, I’m continuing to see his mysteries expand. I get the blessing of knowing more of him the further I look into him and the deeper I do, the more I know and love him, and also, somehow get to see more, know more, and love more of myself. I get to know that what I’ve always known is true, that this mysteriously awesome human never ceased to amaze me because he was amazing with his uncanny ability to shine such a magnanimous light that exists even in his departure from this plane. It continues to radiate love and gentle teachings that our mysteries are not only meant to be understood but shined. That, to appreciate life, we have to live it from our truth. You can’t do one without the other.

When I realized that for most of my life, the difficulty I’ve had in listening inward to hear the truth of myself is because I had made doing so a monstrous offense and unsafe, it broke my own heart. It made me sad to think that any time I had heard what I needed or wanted, I turned toward what I felt persuaded to do based on externalities, popularity or what I ought to do, or who I felt I needed to be because the mystery of how I couldn’t predict it would turn out was too great to trust myself in it. It made me realize that I was looking at mystery as a curse and not as custom, not as something designed only for me (and you) to hear, understand, and lovingly carry out.

The longer I sat with Self, mulling over why I’d deny my truths, the more I started to hear them. The more I started to identify them, the more I started to recognize how accurate they are for me. The more accuracy the self-truths developed, the more I started to appreciate that the maimed individual speaking wasn’t some hunchback of Notre Dame character visualization that I had concocted in my head or I needed to allow perpetuate. It, self-truths, were already in me because I am it and it is me in all of my inconsistency and mystery, but it was me in hiding so as not to ruffle any feathers with my truths and stand out too boldly, mysteriously, thereby becoming a target. 

It was me any time I spoke My Truth and it was denied or disputed and I felt the need to acquiesce to maintain quantity over quality in relationship.

It was me any time I dressed a certain way or moved in a certain energy and it was rejected or judged and I felt the need to curb my personhood so as not to overshadow, outshine, or offend.

It was me any time I became subject to argument and I felt the need to be invisible or pretend so as not to take up too much space.

It was me any time I allowed my independence to be disparaged and forgot that I wasn’t up for debate.

The more I allowed the voice within to have volume, the more the maimed presence resorbed, and stopped being separate. I befriended it. I apologized for shunning it. I opened my heart and mind to the beauty and security within it. I allowed it to become me.

The more I allowed listening in, the more I heard the truth. The more truths I heard, the less I looked for appropriateness and even reached to consider it. The more I considered Self, over what I ought to be or what I felt I needed to be, I appreciated my own resilience for how my true Self had hung on. 

I learned to truly accept, in a real way, the effort I had put in for years to arrive at this place with myself. I acknowledged that it didn’t happen overnight and because it didn’t, I was able to finally tap into what is Self at a time when I needed to feel me, not bypass what I was feeling, most. 

I was not only grateful for my full presence in this moment and to be with the fullness of my grief, but for the grief that I needed to process about how I had hidden myself. Despite shutting down to listening inward for years, I had internally maintained a truthful presence somewhere within me. Albeit it felt like it was dormant, it was sustained nonetheless, waiting patiently for the day when I was capable of coming back to my mysteries and again hearing them, trusting them, and recognizing them as not separate from me but simply, consistent in their inconsistency, and who I am.

The grief I encountered in my Father’s passing is like a magician. Some moments I think I know exactly how it is going to go. Others, I can’t fathom it.

There are many ups and downs. Moments where I feel turned inside out. And, areas where I feel so out of sorts, so lost and confused, that I feel no choice but to surrender to their mystery like one surrenders to riding a wave, hopeful to come out on the other side with stability and breath.

I think there are several reasons why in this moment of trauma, in the loss of my father, whom I love so much, I’m being asked to engage in a self-led pilgrimage. But, I’d be lying if I said they weren’t all just intuitive speculation. I don’t know how one knows with any certainty why some things happen the way they do. 

One part of me feels that the amount of work I’ve put in on myself over the past few years has naturally and Universally led me here and that energetically I created this self-reckoning. Another part feels like the buzzer on my Soul went off and it’s individuation o’clock, like it was preplanned and destined to always occur at this time. There is also a large part that feels when Dad passed, he saw the state of discontent deep within me and the many years in which I have lived in that space, denying my truths, ignoring my penchant for inconsistency, and desperately yearning for peace of mind, that he and all that is ancient has been guiding me back to Self. 

I don’t know that I’ll ever have an answer about why my journey is and has played out like this. I don’t know that I’ll ever understand why my father’s life ended, in what felt premature. I don’t know why now I am facing the truth of his passing along with truths about how I’ve bypassed myself. All I know is that when it comes to finding Self, we can’t do it without listening inward. We can’t do it without trusting we can be respectfully alone with Self. We can’t do it without befriending & falling in love with Self the way we do when we hand heart over to another.

We cannot self-actualize without seeing the mysteries within. We cannot because in order to hear what is true for us, we have to see, know, and understand, all the ways in which we’ve maimed, muted, and disfigured our ability to witness self-truth.

We can’t get to an honest space with Self, without being honest about how we’ve prevented it. We can’t allow what is true without some curiosity and compassion. We can’t accept how dissimilar we are to the world without acknowledging it, because we can’t appreciate what is different without appreciation for the horrendous beauty in every mystery.

Horrendous beauty, that we can be our worst enemies, but in its discovery, we can again learn to become friends and as lovers, build trust.

Horrendous beauty, that we can only know what we know, and that means everything else is simply what we don’t know. We can either be lovingly patient to the mysteries discovery or in our haste, in our ignorance, in our resistance, we run the risk of avoiding it, being deaf and blind to it, and missing it.

Horrendous beauty, that we are all uniquely made and thus, consistently inconsistent at best. We’re all going to be different. Seeing the mystery in that invites us into acceptance with not only who we wholly are and the needs associated, but the same for others, as a gift revealing that in our dissimilarities we are actually more similar than not.

In my father’s passing, I’m learning not only what it means to be Shannon, but also how important it is to operate in ways that support it as necessary. I’m learning to listen to Self the way in which I watched my Father do so time and time again, not to be indignant or ignorant in the World, but as a safety precaution to Self and all I care about. I’m learning that hearing what I need is not only to benefit my security in the World but also all with which I intend to expend energy and share space. I’m learning that if I don’t attune inward, then I’m not going to be my most capable, proficient, and loving outward.

I understand why my Dad made it his business to honor his energy, Soul, and spirit. I understand why he made it a nonnegotiable to listen to himself first and held it as sacred. It’s not only because he truly loved himself, which he did & was such a fucking privilege to witness. But, because he got that the only person guaranteed and responsible for the life he lived was himself. And, in order to get the best out of life, he needed to be able to hear how he was specifically and mysteriously created, to get the best out of him so he could know how to do that. 

He understood that a self-love affair wasn’t selfish. It was absolutely necessary. Because, when he was good to himself, he was poised to show up for others in a genuine way, too. 

He loved himself all the way. He did so despite what others thought, even the naysayers, even those closest to him. He held space for his consistently inconsistent evolution and appreciated that who he was would be calibrated from moment to moment, situation to situation, and person to person because that is life. 

Life isn’t predictable. Life isn’t one size fits all. It’s situational at best. Those who didn’t understand that didn’t understand him, and he was OK with it. That’s some of the coolest fucking shit to be present to & it’s because My Dad was cool as shit.

I think he was so okay with the difference, indifference, and mystery of not knowing because he genuinely believed that eventually, everything worked out the way it was supposed to. That’s not to say everything in life went his way. I’m confident that he’d say it didn’t.  

I’m also confident that even in moments of discontent, Dad believed that how it went was how it was destined to go. So to the situations that didn’t pan out ‘perfect’ or to the people that didn’t "get him," he was ok with it. I know he was because often he’d say, “I’m a great guy” and I know he said it because he knew it. I think he might’ve used it as a reminder to stay true to Self & as positive internal reinforcement.

To anyone or anything that didn’t agree with Dad, he still held love that eventually it or they would come around. And if not, I witnessed him time and again practice love from afar, because that was his journey. That is the courageous mystery of life, holding loving respect for who people are and aren’t, even if and when they don’t hold it for you. 

We’re all evolving at different speeds. We’re all evolving as fast as we can. We’re all calibrating to understand what is life and how its mysteriousness has or will teach us about the mysteries of who we each are. 

On my journey, into a never-before intentionally experienced self-love affair, I’m learning that the best we can do is listen, grieve, evolve, appreciate, and consistently-inconsistently progress. We can learn to see the ways in which we block ourselves from hearing self-truths, and in learning to hear the voice within, trust it, love it, understand it, and in doing so, time and again, become more and more Self.

It does not mean that we’ll always be loved, appreciated, or understood by the world. It doesn’t mean that everything will go as we like, according to plan, or perfect. It means that it is our job to understand who we are, what we need, and how we need to go about securing more of what we need to understand who we are. 

It means accepting that we each are a mystery. We are a mystery to ourselves. We are a mystery to each other. And if we can learn to accept how wonderful and intimidating that can be, the challenge that it is in the continuum to witness, know, and respect, then we can establish some compassion for what an immense responsibility and unpredictable journey it is to undertake.

The mystery is the magic. It is because allowing our mysteries is where we are most welcoming to nuance, unpredictability, and inconsistencies. It’s where we can see that how we treat ourselves is how we treat other people. And, it is where we can humble ourselves to take the time and space necessary to look in the mirror, look inward, listen and face the truth of how sometimes we aren’t so nice to ourselves, and that not only genuinely has an impact on interrelationship, but how we see the World, what is available to us, and the mystery of it as not only intimidating, but supremely, and radically, fucking awesome.

When we can see that how we see ourselves is how we see the World, we have an understanding of our relationships with each other. And, in that level of true transparency, there is power. There is understanding. There is acceptance, celebration, awareness, gratitude, and inevitably, some grief.

In the mystery is where we get to experience the fullness of what it means for us to be alive. It is where we are most whole. It is where we get to face harsh truths and the truths of our ability to lovingly, willingly, again and again, face them, face us.

In the mystery, we get to be complex and creative. We get to peer honestly and courageously into accountability. We get to see life through the lens of Self and Universal fulfillment, pose and answer the question, what creativities will source your creativity? 

Honesty comes from exploring clean energies. It comes from being clear about what sources and resources you. It comes from an understanding of not only what we’re good at but what we like to be good at; what makes us happy; what brings us joy; and, having the audacity to build our lives around it as the best, most plain, access to acknowledge that what we love, when loved, fuels us.

In the mystery is where we are most likely to forgive, offer compassion, recognize the beauty in difference, accept knowing as momentary, and celebrate variability. It is where we recognize with humility the true impermanence of our humanity. It’s when we learn to trust, with gratitude, that who we were, are, or ever will be in an instant, was probably who we needed to be, is what we were capable of at the time, and is to the greatest and highest good of the moment, within the knowledge that being is even bigger than any singular moment and this is what makes individuality incalculable, indefinite, curious, and a mystery.  

Being in and of itself is a mystery. It is a larger lesson than any one person, in any one reaction, or any one decision, at any moment in time. It is a vast and ancient wisdom that is a compound effect of many moments, many motivations, and many energies, all contributing to the best of future moments even if it doesn’t seem like it, even when we can’t find it, or even when we can’t understand in that circumstance, how it applies, helps or is going to shake out to our benefit. 

It is bigger than me. It is bigger than you. It is bigger than all of us. And yet, it is in who each of us are, the truths we allow ourselves to be, and how supportive, accepting, and loving we are to knowing it; that what is good for one is not good for all, but even when it isn’t, it is.

I think that’s why recognizing that grief is not only palpable, but always in motion, is necessary and a valid teacher. Because it is as constant as breath is to our bodies, as blood is to our animation, as destruction is to creation. We’re constantly grieving the end of something, but the degree to which we notice and value it becomes the variable that needs noticing. 

In my grief, it makes sense that the seismic shift of losing my Father invited me on an escapade to seeing not only how deeply I grieve him, but also all of the current and residual ways in which I have yet or needed to grieve the abandoned relationship I’ve existed in with myself. That not being able to hear myself was much more than not hearing self-truths, but noticing what it means to understand my own voice, to trust it into revealing the value I find in my own mysteries, to see myself in my truths not as a disfigured monster conspiring to sabotage me, but as a beautiful, independent, mystery, uniquely and specifically calibrated, so that I can know who I am, so that I can know what I need, and become responsible to discerning how to fulfill what I need so that I can continue to become more and more in trust, love, and self-validating discernment of what is me, in every evolution of me, in every relationship, response, lesson or lack-thereof, as more key codes leading to the fullness of who I am.

Learning to see how you’ve maimed Self, disfigured truths, and muted discernments reveals not only self-intolerances but resistance & prejudice to all mysteries. It identifies the ways in which you require sameness and reject independence. And since there are billions of people in the world, it also reveals not only how you do that with yourself, but that with others' differences, inconsistencies, needs, unpredictability, change, curiosity, spontaneity, and adventure, too.

A self-love affair leads to self-understanding which creates tolerance for Self and Other. It allows us to respectfully shake off what isn’t a fit without a fight. It allows us to walk with love into the future mysteries with trust and knowledge that all that is required is we be Self, and when we are allowed to be Self, when we are allowed to be flawed and fabulous, when we are allowed to be without pretense or performance, we find the security to travel with purpose without knowing what will happen next. 

While a self-love affair leads to an appreciation for life mysteries as magic, it reveals where you’ve accepted them as tragic. It also reveals where there is resistance or lamentation to perpetually finding our edge, with an appreciation for our purview, and deep respect for that of others. It allows for all this whether or not we are the same, consistent, or agree. 

Learning to hear yourself means learning to dance in the moment of your expansive and ever-evolving mystery. Hearing yourself means respect, trust, and love for your truths whether agreeable (to Other) or not. It is true embodiment of Being without malice for mysteriousness which encourages all to do, be, and dance with mutual respect for our unique mysteries. 

Hearing Self means respecting self. It means a willingness to be different, interesting, weird, or a mystery despite what others think about it. It means courageously holding space not only for the mysteries of you but of others as what unites us. It means accepting that you don’t have to know all of a mystery at once in order to let it be and be stable within its discovery. 

To honor a self-love affair, you can’t get there without committing to love Self, and you can’t love Self without hearing self and you can’t hear self without a willingness to hear your truths. It means committing to respecting how one loves Self without malice. It is taking accountability for one's needs, stability, nature, mystery, boundaries, and discernments, without the intention to harm Self or Other. 

Through the continual grief processing of my father and how I’m learning I have bypassed Self, I’m discovering what it means to observe truth. Being a witness to one's life means allowing it to be your teacher. It means acknowledging that we are all in this together and yet on separate journeys, and we should be safe to explore that with Self, with Other, and as Self with Other. It is the transparent observation of the ways in which one needs, stability, nature, mystery, boundaries, and discernments do teach us the compassion needed to learn from and honor Self, as the ways in which learning about you, learning to hear you, learning to love the inconsistent mysteries of you, teaches you compassion for others self-loved, self-led, self-validated mysteries, leading them on their own journey to honoring their needs for fulfillment, wholeness, and self-respect. 

With Blessings,