light work

It is important to go slow, to make use of the changing weather. It is important to reassess our actions consciously. Important things can sometimes be easy. They can occur as you go along. Important things will flow in and out of our lives, and guess what? Sometimes they can be smooth. We do not always have to go to battle. We do not always have to resist the changes, the outgrowing of things, the certain losses, the new information. I often forget. I often feel I need to ACT RIGHT NOW, as though time is somehow getting away from me. Like so many others, I was raised with a story of lack and the rarity of opportunities. In many ways, I was raised to fight, to stalk, to hustle. Growing up, I was taught to grit my teeth and get on with it. I was taught to keep it going and never to show how uncomfortable I was. I was taught to show up clean and well organised, be diligent, seem conscientious, smile and have good hair, and perform a kind of respectability. Of course I was. In my formative years, I was raised in an old Jamaican household with strict rules on deportment, expression and engagement. I could not be too vulnerable or ‘weak’ or too free with my feelings. There would be hell if I spoke out of turn.

I thank God for this life all the time, every part of it. It taught me much stamina, drive and resilience, which has kept me going in some truly desperate times. But my acquired ‘strength’ cost me dearly too. My stoicism came at the expense of knowing when I had been hurt and when I was hurting myself, hearing my inner voice. Yes, it cost my honesty. It also prevented me from relying on instinct, trusting and allowing, and letting myself be carried. I did not always know how to feel when something did not want me. It quietened my intuition. I thought you had to effort, to push against the grain for anything to work out. I thought you had to achieve each thing by force. I thought you had to evade, people please, strain, perform. I thought you had to fight the tide forever. Thank God for the years. Thank god for the learnings. These days I am more called towards momentum, and whenever I can remember, I try to work alongside the things that are working. I try to listen to what is speaking to me, the things I gravitate to, the areas where I have received the most love and inspiration and the things that fortify my heart, the things that make me happy to be here. They are the portals to everything else. When the winds are strong, ride them.

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photo Michel Jean Paller on Flickr