For When You Feel The World Is Just Too Much To Take

Where did you come from? You were born into this world through the body of a woman…but before that?

The memory fails. Blackness…sweet blackness.

And now here, into a world of blinding lights, harsh sounds, murder, mayhem, and the rushing! Oh, the rushing! Here and there and late for this and on the way to the next. Did you schedule your dentist appointment this year? Have you done the dishes? Did you make time for self-care? Art? Philanthropy?

STOP.

In life, you can be a pebble grinding between two hulking spinning gears, struggling to stay in the mix, wearing down, cracking up…

Or you can be a lotus on a lily pad carried down the river of life, bumping gently into this and that, past cattails and brush, holding drops of dew that sparkle in the sun.

Choose the lily pad.

But the greasy, cranking, birling cogs could be within you…propelling you to succeed, be the best, fulfill expectations. Grinding you toward success, the next thing, p e r f e c t i o n. The metal on metal on rock squeals out the angry, scolding internal voice that says, “Not good enough!” and “You’re behind the curve!” and, most painfully, “Love is not for you.”

Even then — always, and especially then — that soft lotus flower on the emerald lily pad is inside of you. It is you.

When the inside voice goes dark and thorny, you must get on your knees and crawl to the grassy banks of peace. When you get there you curl up into a ball and cry the pain away until the stream rises to meet you. Then you open your arms and paddle broad strokes into the shimmering waters until you feel whole again.

The peaceful flowing river runs through every vein, cell, capillary. The white or fuchsia lotus flower streeeeeetches from your belly up to the crown of your head and then blossoms wide to the tips of your fingers and down to the ends of your toes.

Filled with clear water and floral sweetness and sitting in the seat of your power, you put your hand up to whisper, “Stop.” Then you turn your palm toward yourself and place it on your heart. You close your eyes and find your way back to the serene stream, the bobbing lily pad, the cool, crisp air and the warm sun on your cheeks. You choose to live here. You choose the tranquil riverbank of life. You choose to open your heart like a golden Jaws of Life and love yourself with every fiber of your being.

You will do this again and again and again in life. It will get easier over time but still, sometimes it will feel like the grassy bank is miles away through churning, tumultuous waters. But that lily pad, that lotus flower, that serenity and peace — it lives within you. And when the world gets crazy, when life feels like it’s just too much to take, you pause, place your hand on your heart, close your eyes for a moment and go back to the verdant, velvety lily pad in your heart on the peaceful, flowing stream of your soul.

Peace lives within in you. It is there for you, always.