The life that is waiting for me is real and gritty and human
and full of struggle and love and disappointment and joy and connection.
The people there are real and flawed
and I still have to do my work
and clean the bathroom
and deal with my husband’s snoring and dirty socks.
It is not a sugar coated, glossy magazine styled life.
Will I quest for this life?
Will I give up the illusion that life can be,
is suppose to be, Pinterest and Instagram’s love child
for the sweat and heartbreak of the flesh and real,
growing older,
bones of living?
Will I give up my fantasy life for the one that beats here, now?
I don’t know.
Because it requires me to walk through the pain held in this body, this spirit, this life now.
These words came the other morning in response to a prompt.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~ Joseph Campbell
I filtered through many dreamy, transformed, glittery, visions of my life that is waiting for me before this truth spilled itself. The life I have been waiting for, the one that waits for me, is the one I have. If I let myself live it. Not because it is perfect, but because it is mine. It is imperfect and raw and tattered around the edges and within it beats my very real and vulnerable heart.
It holds, I hold, each of us holds, a universe of all things. I often say there is a sensuality to living and this is what I mean. That living this life brings us into our body, into our felt reality of grief and joy, beauty and pain, anger and forgiveness. This is the glory and grace that is full living.
It is the pain in your muscles when you have worked out. It is the puffy eyes after a good cry. It is the delicate breeze with just enough chill to send you for a sweater. It is a lover’s touch, a baby’s giggle, the smell of dinner cooking, the anger caught in your throat, the spinning thoughts at 2am, the break up, the death, the sun rising each and every single day no matter what and the warm cup of tea that will greet it.
In my journal I said I didn’t know if I would choose this life. This real and gritty journey. As soon as I set down my pen my elemental nature I knew I would, knows that I do. It took the self attached to perfection and doing it right, who is so tired of fighting, it took this self a bit longer to sort through her resistance. To set down her striving and forcing.
I will continue to collect what strikes my fancy on Pinterest because it is fun and inspirational. I will continue to court beauty on Instagram, mine and others, because it is a worthy practice of the sensual heart. Dreamy, glittery, inspirational beauty is not bad. In fact it seeds the path before us- if we make space for the inevitable and very human bumps and hurts along the way. I have been judging them as wrong and proof of my failing. I have been trying to make them go away instead of allowing them to teach me. Deepen me. Heal me.
When I say there is a sensuality to living, I mean the all of living. I needed the reminder. Because life has been dull and hard and I have been discouraged. I will continue to need the reminder because I am human and get pulled to shiny, glittery, illusions and judge myself by them. Perhaps you do too.
I needed to dive deeper than the false gold of perfection to find where my heart lies. I found it in the real and gritty glory and mess of this life, here.
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I have openings for a few new private coaching clients beginning August. If you feel that having support in diving deeper into your sensuality of living, your own bone and flesh life that is waiting for you, let’s connect and see how I may be able to help.