Mark Nepo, today on Super Soul Sunday, shared an experience and described it this way, "I went through a door and when I went to go back out that door, it was gone. There was no way to get back to the life I had lived. Everything had changed." Though I have been fortunate and never experienced the personal scare of cancer, I feel that this quote exactly expresses my own feelings of being transformed by life events.
I agree that so many times I have walked through doors and had been changed immediately, even though I didn't always recognize it immediately. Years ago, during my 40th year, I had some life changes that did shake me to my core. All that I trusted was changed forever.
For years, I worried far too much about all that I wasn't and all that I can't do. And I wasn't alone. I had people in my life who felt the same way about themselves too, so for a time it felt normal - until my first wake up call came at 40.
From that moment on, I began to wake up. I began to look at all my relationships differently and made a commitment to really take responsibility for my 50% of every partnership (especially my marriage), friendships and colleagues. The problem of course, is that it doesn't happen overnight.
Cut to eight years later, my father has passed away the year before and my husband, kids and I were on a Shabbaton (weekend retreat). My Rabbi and Cantor offer a new meditative morning prayer service and I jump at the chance to have a new prayer experience. As the Rabbi and Cantor led the most soulful hour of prayer I had ever experienced, what followed was unexpected. I noticed by the end of the experience, my hands had unclenched and were now fully released of the tension. My body felt unburdened, free and joyful for the first time in so long ( months even - so long I can't remember). I was completely unaware that I was holding that much anger, resentment, internal strife.
When I returned home from that weekend, a friend that I had reconnected with called and I shared my weekend awakening. She invited me to a meditation that was happening at my synagogue (which I didn't even know). That was almost two years ago and I have rarely missed a meditation since. And I continue to wake up and show up.
Also today on Super Soul Sunday, Mark Nepo also said, "To be broken is no reason to see all things as broken." And as I have quoted Pink before, "We're not broken, just bent, and we will learn to love again."
And here again today, in a few short moments with two quotes, Mark Nepo wakes me up. We are made up of millions of moments. And for this one, I am grateful.
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