(Song Dedication: Can’t See the Light by Reuben and the Dark)

I was going to call this write My 2 Cents, but since the Canadian Mint no longer recognizes pennies as currency I had to round up, so here’s hoping this tidbit of writing holds its value seeing as I had no choice in the forced higher valuation.

I used to write for me only.  When I needed to vent, when I needed to process my mess of thoughts and mistruths, laying them out in the sunlight to dry after accidentally spilling them in a muddy puddle of sorts. Lately I feel compelled to post a blog only when absolutely necessary as I consider what I am putting out into the ether as a cause and effect situation.  And right now, our human experience feels very hyperlinked by cause and effect.

This morning I was struck with an overwhelming need to write.  This is not meant to be yet another inundation of Covid-shelter-in-place content – but this has been written with the fervour of inspiration that collides with my brain from time to time and I simply must obey.  Today I write because I have to. For me. For you. So, if you happen to be reading these words right now, good.  Welcome, I am glad you found them because I was asked to write them for you.

Have Hope.

This may seem trite or cliche as we fumble our way into our second consecutive month of #stayhomestaysafe, without a definitive end in sight.  We can best guess our way by tracing the Virus footsteps through Asia and Europe – watching as they pioneer this uncharted novel landscape but there is still the ‘but’, isn’t there? And that ‘but’ is so looming, and not in a Sir-Mix-Alot celebratory kind of way, it is eclipsing and difficult to ignore the shadow it casts over our lives at this very moment in human history.  Our now.

If you are like me, you didn’t plan for a global pandemic this year or even in this lifetime (but we can’t all be Bill Gates can we). So now, you might feel like you are at the mercy of political and health figure heads, chiding you and imploring you to stay home and know you are doing the right thing.  This can feel hopeless.

Each day, or at least 9 out of 10 days I get out of bed in the morning and am still shocked that I am able to locate my gratitude.  Really.  I am astonished that someone, like myself, who religiously use to rely on cynicism to survive the cruel world and a need for outward approval of others is somehow thriving through this.

If you have followed my blog, you have held witness to my nearly two-and-a-half years of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical training that has prepared me for this marathon we now find the entire human race running.  Again, I had no idea something of this magnitude was going to occur for all of humanity to navigate.  But somehow, here I am putting one foot in front of the other.  And I am okay.  I am okay because I believe deeply that we – you and I – are going to be okay.

I hold so much hope for all of us and it overwhelms me to tears of joy.  I feel the gratitude in my bones, in my genetic material there is something written in this vibrational frequency reminding me to hold onto hope.  Trust in what is.  And so, I do. I have no other option but to surrender to this.

I believe this deep-seated hope stems from my son.  I started my work back in 2017. Back then, it was a desperate need to change what I had established as our Mother-Son relationship. At the time it was unsteady, insecure and unpredictable – much like what we are currently experiencing as a society.

But as desperate as I was to rework our foundational bond as child and parent, I didn’t know how.  That too, felt hopeless.  I felt lost.

So I turned inward.  I watched how my son acted out.  How he mirrored my self-doubt back to me and I began working on myself.  I began to see my detrimental thought patterns of abandonment, unworthiness and imperfection as my weaknesses.  As my brick walls slowly crumbled, the ones I had built for a time as security and survival; a more vulnerable person emerged for my son to finally feel the light of his Mother shine upon him in compassionate embrace, just as he had been kicking and screaming for during most of his formative years.

The kicking and screaming suddenly stopped.  He allowed himself to be held because he recognized the trust that I had been withholding from him, and myself.  To establish this trust, I had to find the key, for me it turned out to be self-compassion.  I gave myself the love, the trust, and the acceptance my son was begging for.  When I learned how to apply this to myself, I then could offer it to my son.

So in this second month of quarantine when some of us are feeling like all hope is lost, or we ourselves, have lost our way – with loss of human connection, maybe jobs and livelihoods, our freedom of choice beyond the walls of our homes I am NOT suggesting you need a kid or two to lift you out of this.  Gawd no!

On the contrary.  If you are losing hope, if you are flailing in troubled waters and don’t see another soul around to throw you that life ring hanging helplessly just out of arms reach; hope asks you to look inward. Keep treading, keep your head above the water line.

That is where you will find him or her. Your inner child who has been with you through it all.  Watching, absorbing and assembling meaning from all you have endured in your life and will continue to do so, until the day your body leaves this Earth.  Children see everything.

Your inner child needs you right now.  They may be fearful, lonely, worried sick, bored, dissonant or detached.  So much unrest.  You need you, to bring perspective, to show yourself this will be okay. We, adult-me and child-me, will get through this together, as long as we are open and accepting of what each brings to this troubled table.  Have hope.

This may seem contrived at first but if you have the time to explore this relationship with yourself, and something tells me you have a butt-load of time right now, like me, you might find that glimmer, that little light you thought had flickered out shortly after all “this” began (or maybe you just recently thought it had extinguished after so many days of trying to illuminate the situation).  Bottom (sorry for all the ass references today, not intentional) line is, it never went out.  The light of hope always burns brightly, like one of those magic birthday candles that make you spit all over your cake in an effort to put out so you can serve spittle cake to all your friends…bet they’re out of business after all this pandemic cancel culture racket).

As I was saying, hope burns bright, its footholds firmly planted within your heartspace.  Any child will tell you this.

Thinking of you, holding your inner child compassionately.  Have hope, stay the course, I believe in you.

Love,

Sarah