In reviewing old blogs, I find recurring themes and revisited issues. This post is from 2009. I have added reflections following the original post.

Is it really going to be May in two days?? Where in the world did April go?

I guess part of my April was spent in the blur of grief. I chose to be with the feelings instead of trying to escape them this year and I am on the other side of them now. It was not easy, and it did not harm me. Being with discomfort instead of denying or avoiding it is a new behavior for me. Now I know I can do it.

Something interesting happened this morning. A friend meant to reply to an individual and instead replied to the group. Not that this is a rare occurrence, people do it, it is easy to do. The interesting part for me was the follow up post that the first post had meant to be private. When I read the first post, it seemed totally appropriate to the forum and spoke not only to the intended person, but to me and I would guess to all the members of the group. It spoke of frustration, disappointment, anger, grief, and doing one’s best to be with what is happening in one’s life.

I replied that I was glad that the post went out to the entire group. For me, it served as a reminder that we all need and deserve to be heard, respected and held by each other, consciously. Appearances are deceiving and it is common to assume that someone is strong, has it all together and is without problems, and that is never the reality. We are living in a time of major shift. Financial, health and educational systems are not working. In this time of upheaval our lives are mirroring the greater shift. Just as the social structures are not working, our lives as they have been are not working. It is time to release what no longer serves us to make space for all that will. It’s not just me, it is not just you, it is all of us.

When we come together around a cause, we make connection. No matter what connection we have, being members of a group or club, being neighbors, friends, family, we touch each others lives. We can strengthen the connections, think of each other often, send good thoughts, wishes and prayers to each other. We can hold visions for each other to be happy and content, well and strong. The communities we create can strengthen and can hold us during our shifts. We are creating the new reality.

And so it is.   Karen

All still true. The story I wrote for Harmonic Voices, Women on the Path from Chaos to Peace, “Confessions of a Starving Fat Girl” chronicles my efforts to coexist with emotion. Same stuff, different day…same stuff, different year. I continue to be in process. I guess peace is accepting that I will forever be in process.