if its meant to be...

I have spent a lot of my life time believing that, what is meant to be, will be. I still do. What has changed with time and living is HOW I believe those wistful words to work their magic.

At some point I guess I believed that the universe would magically take care of everything, do all the work. I thought that breathing was all that was required on my part. Showing up, and being open. Well I do still believe that it's important to breathe, show up and be open... But I've come to realize that a more active type of openness is required for optimum workingoutedness.

At some other point I constructed a beautiful theory about the universe's persistence in offering us THE path to peace and joy. I felt that if we came to a fork and chose the path that turned out to be rockier and somewhat more circuitous in nature, the universe would give us another chance, as it were. We would come to another fork, get another shot at making a more favourable choice. So in this theory I gave myself some element of choice and ownership, but ultimately the end result was out of my hands. The so called 'correct' path choice would keep appearing, until my thick-headed self had the lightbulb moment. I even had some fairly significant anecdotal experience and observation to support this theory. I liked this. I was the master of my own fate, but if I got it wrong, I got endless do-overs!

More recently it has occured to me that there is no such thing as THE path. That is far too easy. One can find oneself on a path that is not easy, and leads nowhere good, but it's not necessarily wrong. That is too simplistic. That is still removing the element of personal responsibility. The path is 'right' if we want to use simple terminology, if WE are right. It's how we choose to run the race, walk the path. That is the part that makes the difference. I have walked what appeared to be gracious and easy paths, but felt somehow lost. I have walked identifiably challenging roads and felt grand. What's the common factor? Me. It's about how I choose to walk.

Each choice we make, leads us somewhere. And all those somewheres offer us something. It's up to us to take the best or the worst of what there is to take. It's up to us to flow with the energies around us, perhaps flitting along and not having to walk at all.

I don't mean to eliminate fate entirely. I like the idea of fate, it's quite romantic, and oh so guilt free :) We can still have fate, but we shouldn't depend on it. Maybe we can work with it? Identify our 'fate' and go get it? Not forcibly, but gently and with intent.

A thing is meant to be if we choose it to be.

We can’t help who we love…..

Really? I know I’ve said this before to girlfriends feeling caught in an impossible relationship and unable to wrest themselves free. I’ve said it to myself for much the same reason. It’s easy, it absolves us of responsibility. But is it true? Just the other day it was said to me, in the form of an explanation, and it struck me, this is not true.

We CAN help who we love, we have free will, it is our choice. We may choose to love someone who is not treating us as they should, we may choose to forgive the flaws of those we choose to love, but we have choice.

The argument is that if we are madly attracted to, or impossibly connected to someone, we just can’t help ourselves but love them and then allow that which we would not allow. “I’ve loved this person for so long” or “they understand me like no other” or “this person loves me as I am” or “they just get me, I can tell them anything”… so on and so forth. And so thus it must be inescapable. It must be true. And so we overlook, work around and tolerate.

There is nothing wrong with overlooking and tolerating, in and of itself. But there is something dreadfully wrong with feeling we have no choice in the matter. If we choose to do these things and live contentedly with the results, that is one thing. But if we are helpless to our suffering, this is another. Everything always comes down to choice, autonomy.

Why would we choose to love someone who hurts us, again and again. The same hurt each time. Endlessly. Why would we do this? Would we stick our hand in a fire after once being burnt? Of course not, it makes no sense.

 Physically we learn from our mistakes, we have an instinct to survive. Where then is our heart’s instinct?

How can we ‘help’ ourselves choose who we love? Easily described, more challenging to accomplish. We do indeed need to help ourselves. If we create a strong and confident self, identify our worth, then we can trust our heart when it is 'swept away'. If we have love for ourselves, maybe then we won’t be madly attracted to that which will hurt us in the end.

Finding love for ourselves, delight in our strength, acceptance of our weakness, these are the things to focus on. These are the things that will help us help who we love. Love from strength, love without need. Helpful love, not a love of helplessness.

and so it begins

Does every blog begin with something along the lines of "this is a long time coming" or "I don't know why I haven't done this sooner" ?? Ok, so I'll skip that, but I probably should have started this blog a number of years ago when my journey began.... perhaps I did not know it was a beginning? At any rate today is a great day as it is the 21st anniversary of the very first time I saw a new life birthing into our realm. The life was my baby sister, and the experience impacted on me in a way that I could never have realized at the time.

Over the past 21 years I have done a number of things, travel, work, play and become a mother, twice. Even though I distinctly remember, at the birth of my youngest sister, looking around the delivery room moments after she was born and thinking, "wow these people have got it figured out, this is for sure the best job on the planet!", it took until almost 2 years after the birth of my second child, to find my way back to that moment.

It was then that I stumbled across the Doula training course and signed up primarily so that I would then qualify to volunteer at a home for mom's needing support during labour and delivery. I had no idea what I was signing on for. That was in 2007 and since that initial weekend, everything in my life has changed. Everything. 

 And it is good.