Light At The End Of A Dark Tunnel
February 22, 2010 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Whole Health, divorce, emotional energy, personal growth, relationships, self empowerment
Pain. Sadness. Grief. Despair. Stress. “Uck!”, you say? I agree.
Unfortunately, that’s where I have been, to be openly honest.
Well, it’s where I was. Hence the lack of new words, in the last 2 months, on these pages.
Yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, I am IN the light right now. Whew……sooooo good to be here.
The journey of life is not always an easy one. Try as we may, sometimes we fall down. Sometimes we can’t get back up for awhile. Sometimes we need to rely on our friends to get us through the day, or even more, the night. Sometimes we wonder if we will make it.
One thing I have learned. The universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it, never gives us more than we can handle. And when it feels like we won’t be able to handle it, it is because we need to learn how to.
The last 8 months have been one of the most challenging times in my life. A period where everything that is my life came up for question, and got turned completely inside out, when my partner made the choice to end our relationship. I’ve come to understand that it wasn’t so much the break-up, or that my partner couldn’t show up the way I hoped he would, that threw me head first and screaming into the dark tunnel. Sure, that was painful and had it’s own set of tears and grief. What had more impact though, was what got called up with-in me, what I was forced to confront, how I chose to engage in the process, and how in the end I was the one that had to figure it all out and re-design my life. Your friends can only hold your hand for so long.
Having the opportunity to evaluate everything in your life and discern the truth of it for yourself is a wild and weird ride. However, when you wake up one morning and finally accept that things just aren’t what you thought they would be, you have to do something. While it is hard to recognize it at the time, such a cataclysmic event can be a real gift. The blessing for me has been about reconnecting to the essential elements of my souls requirements-what my soul needs to live a life of authentic bliss. Isn’t it amazing how we can lose sight of what those things are sometimes?
The re-design doesn’t happen over night. (Small manageable steps, as I tell my clients all the time!) It requires deep exploration, internal questioning, values review and lots of time for simply healing. In my journey I have given myself oodles of gentleness, self nurturing and space to just be. It’s not easy. I’m a go-getter, organizer and facilitator. To not have a clear sense of what is around the corner of my life drives me crazy sometimes.
But the truth is, do we ever know what is around the corner? If I had known that the fated relationship was going to end up as it did, would I have gone forward? And if not, then what would I have lost? Certainly the rich lessons of the journey. While they came with some heartache, ultimately, the gifts I am left with for myself are ones I am grateful to have. I do not regret the journey.
And today, well, for today I am just darn happy that I made it through that tunnel! And, I’m here to tell you, if you happen to be finding yourself in some dark tunnel with no light in sight, that you will too. I just know it.
Self Ecology, Planetary Sustainability
October 22, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Whole Health, nature, personal growth, sustainability
This Summer has involved a lot of pain for me on various levels, as you know if you have been reading my blog. Now, I’m not telling you that to get sympathy or elicit your feeling sorry for me. It’s just fact. It is, what it is, what it is, as my clients often hear me say. Now that I am over the worst of it, I can look back and see what an amazing process it has been and recognize all the growth it has produced. The hugged-to-hard rib is healing, and so is my heart. I’m able to see beyond the intensity of my emotional self and things are looking pretty good!
Recently I found a wonderful piece of poetry, in an old “We-Moon” dayplanner, that I glued into my journal because of it’s perfection with regards to my process. What I have realized, as the seasons change and I come out of this Summer, is that the most important and wise thing I did through it all was to practice radical self care above and beyond any other concern. As I allowed myself to grieve my losses, and cry with the pain, or scream with the agony, and rage with upheaval of it all, I was facilitating a healing process. Had I ignored or denied what my experience was, it only would have come back to haunt me in the future.
This is true for our planet as well. The longer we deny and ignore the undeniable problems we are being confronted with, such as radical climate change, the larger the problem will become. If we accept what is, and set about changing it, then there is some prayer and hope that we just might heal things. In the process we also need to grieve our losses, rage with the absurdity of it all, and shed the tears of despair that rise from the depths of our spirit souls. Arne Naas calls this our Deep Ecology. It’s the place were we realize that we and Earth are one, and in caring for ourselves we care for the planet, and vica-versa.
The poem in the We-Moon calendar (http://www.wemoon.ws/), by Mary Steel, is called Self Ecology, and it speaks to the same thing.
Self Ecology
Without reverence for my
ecological self
without my own inner balance
where I find poise between
the skies of my ambitions
and the requisites of my earthly state
I cannot be that warrior
Without the quiet place reached
in grace and thanksgiving skywards
while the daily needs of my body
her bones, her flesh
draw me earthwards
I cannot engage in planetary survival
Without opening the portals
cosmological to base
in my own energy systems
I cannot go forth
and open the portals
for survival
of our planetary systems
And without standing aside to
watch in peace
the quiet flow of the energy
in my body
and the soft waterfalls of my mind
I cannot be that warrior.
Practicing Self Ecology is a radical act of planetary health care. For, when we understand our own micro-systems and bio-regions and changing seasons, we can better relate to, and want to protect, the natural environment around us.
Here, at Bliss101, we encourage the design of sustainable lives, relationships and environments. Self Ecology/Deep Ecology is a primary cornerstone of the philosophy that motivates and drives my engagement with, and support of, my clients. I invite you to join us on this journey as we move into this critical time on this planet. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves!
Loving What Is In the Lessons of Love
September 22, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under divorce, personal growth, relationships, self empowerment
The Summer of 1967 was known as “The Summer of Love”. I was only 6 yrs old, and undoubtedly already learning some lessons of love, or the lack thereof, within the strange realms of an alcoholic household.
42 years later, as yet another Summer season draws to a close, I wouldn’t exactly put this years Summer experience in the high love category. However, as I navigate the tumultuous waters of lost love (do we ever really lose love? I mean, how can we? Love resides within us, not outside of us…) and “divorce”, I certainly have learned a lot about love.
I’ve also been reading, and working with, Bryon Katie’s fascinating ideas about “Loving What Is”, which is also the title of her new book. With the basic premise that the root cause of suffering is the identification with our thoughts and the stories that we have continuously running through our minds, Katie offers a process of 4 questions that can turn around our thoughts and give a new perspective, allowing us to stop fighting reality and accepting what is (http://thework.com). Exploring The Work has allowed me to look deep within myself and discover the stories I have been operating under as I struggle to make a transition that I didn’t ask for, or want.
When your life is made up of certain ideas about the future, commitments, and partnerships, a sudden change, even with all the pre-warning signs, can be traumatic. I have cycled through so many levels of grief, anger, sadness, righteousness, blame, acceptance, and letting go, and am certain there are many more to come. I’ve spent moments hiding under the covers, other moments strongly empowered. I’ve supported clients in their love relationships, witness to the magical unfolding of their journey, a fellow traveler on the path.
Rumi says, “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” I know this, yet, I do grieve. I have to. I can’t help it. Moving through the grief allows me to accept, to let go, to dive deep into the wells of all the love that I am, that I have given to others, and that I yearn to share again. It reminds me that I am alive, that I am feeling, and as I give permission to myself to feel, to grieve, to rage, to just be in what is, I learn the largest lesson of all about love: that ultimately we must love ourselves unconditionally, in the weakest, darkest, I’m-so-small-and-lost moments, if we ever hope to fully open our hearts to love again.
“Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” Hemingway
What’s happening in your life with love and relationships? Join me for a 6 week teleclass series “Loving Ourselves While Loving Others” starting in mid-Oct, where we will explore belief patterns and habits that keep us stuck in unfulfilling relationships, identify sabotaging behaviors, and learn specific techniques for embracing a new way of being in healthy, authentic, co-creative relationships. . If you would like to go a little deeper, plan on participating in the 6 month relationship support group where you can take advantage of personalized coaching for half the cost. Details coming soon.
