With Every Moment That I Am Present With You…

A little over 3 weeks ago, I woke up and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do this life thing anymore. I’d gotten so far away from my center and rather than dealing with what there was to deal with in the present, I was doing everything that I could to escape, looking for every semblance of sweetness outside of myself. I’d consumed myself with a vision of a future that did not exist. I overlooked what there was to see in my relationship and suddenly, I was forced to face reality. Poof. He was gone to face the circumstances of his own reality. It felt sharp, and cold, and devastatingly painful, and there was no escape.

And so I found myself actually going to that place I never imagined–and it’s hard to even write it now. I didn’t want to be me, living this life. I wanted desperately for the pain to end. I wasn’t so sure that I could endure anymore…something closely resembling rock bottom.

And I chose to get up. My mom was recovering from surgery in the hospital, the dogs needed to be cared for and the last thing in the world I thought I wanted or needed…I had an in-person Soul Purpose Astrology Session with a client that afternoon. I literally cried up until about 5 min before that session. Something inside of me wouldn’t let me cancel.

Thank God.

It was in that session that I found myself. As I held up the mirror, reflecting her power back to her, I found my power. As I created a space for her to soften into love for all of her many parts, I fell in love with my many parts. I was offering up the gift of my existence, and receiving the gift of existence at the same time. No need to escape. I walked away from that session enlivened by the present, and suddenly the circumstances of my grief had some distance from my heart.

These past few weeks have continued to challenge me, have had me wanting to run away from myself and yet, with each passing day I’m surrendering to the present. In fact, I’m hungry for it. The past and the future only exist in my thoughts. Suffering only exists in my thoughts. Story. Illusion. Unreality.

With every moment that I am present with you, I feel grounded, alive with a growing sense of peace for what is. I actually want to deal with what there is to deal with–I’m in my power and connected with my capacity to not only cope but, even further, to create. To be present with you is to be present with myself.

To be of service, to give my gift, to show up for you, to hear and see you and shine the light on your brilliant beauty has, literally, given me my life back.

I’m teary as I write this. I don’t have any more words, just a heart full of emotion, full with life.

©2015 Melissa Simonson

I Am Learning What Real Love Is

There is a life-altering gift emerging from my family’s recent challenges, and it is a gift I am receiving with an open heart and deep gratitude.

I am learning what REAL love is—what it looks like, how it acts, how it moves.

You see, I used to cringe at the concept of “sacrificial love”—particularly that of the various Christian traditions that I was exposed to through the years. I interpreted this sacrifice as sacrificing one’s own happiness for the sake of another’s…which would add up to nobody actually being happy in the end. This kind of love sounded dis-empowering to me and at the heart of a whole lot of people not taking care of themselves, not pursuing what matters to them all for the sake of another. It sounded like entrapment, imprisonment. It sounded like a perfect recipe to lose one’s self.

And as it turns out, sacrificial love IS the perfect recipe to lose one’s self, and not any of the parts worth keeping. It turns out that through all of my resistance, sacrificial love is what I’ve been praying for all along.

I now see that this kind of love has nothing to do with giving up happiness, and everything to do with risking my SELF—all of the beliefs & stories I cling to, the past, the desire to be right and hold resentments, the drive to seek safety, control, and approval—true love asks me to give all of that up and surrender to a will far greater than my own. Not my will, God’s will. “Thy will be done.”

Sacrificial love means that I’m choosing to make myself so vulnerable, so open, so present to who you REALLY are to what REALLY is, that all I want is what is best for you…which as it turns out, is also what is best for me. It means seeing you beyond my stories of you, my perceptions of you, the past that my ego wants to project onto you. It means true forgiveness and healing.

So yes, sacrificial love requires letting go, and letting go, and letting go…but not of that which brings me joy. It simply asks me to let go of all of the illusions, all of the barriers that I’ve built that limit my capacity to actually experience joy and blind me from the truth: That love is the most natural, effortless expression of my soul. That loving you, SEEING you and showing up for you beyond fear and story is what I was born to do. It’s what we were all born to do.

Thanks to having the dad that I have and the mom that I have, I got to receive the precious gift of this growing awareness over this past week. I love them beyond words.

And oh yeah, when tragedy seems to strike in your life or to those dear to you—let my shared awareness be a gift and reminder to you that there is nothing wrong, ever. At any moment you can surrender and recognize that even those challenging experiences are loving you and giving you exactly what you need.

Peace, Y’all.

Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Let Life Crack Me Open

Melissa

Let life crack me open
So that the truth leaks out
Like liquid light…transforming
The darkness

Let me be filled up to the brim
With more than I can handle
So that I may discover that I am
Limitless

That love is limitless

There are no hurts too big
No joys too messy
To mess with the heart of me
The bones of me
My soul

Use me
Challenge me
Stretch me
Grow me

So that I might fully
Know the gift
Of my life.

Poem: Sacred is Sexy

wrap

There is something so sexy about the sacred
being 
all in 
naked
open
exposed
seen and fully known
I want to be drenched in the mess of discovery
to be with you
to be with all that brings you alive
to be touched
by your light
to mingle with
the divine
in your wild eyes
this passion lives in everyone.
it’s what I live for–
to ignite hearts and minds
and to find
the soul beneath
the pretty paper
to drink in the sacred
beneath
the surface of
your sweet skin.

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Love Revelation: Creating 2014

The words that come to mind as I begin to create 2014: Surrender, Ease, Play, Presence.

Sacred Flow.

This year, I’m committed to filling my space with people, activities, places and ways of being that fill me to overflowing. I intend to serve from a deep wellspring of generosity & compassion, and I’m committed to being so nourished that creativity pours forth from my spirit like a sparkling fountain.

I’m committed to feeling so surrounded by love that my presence inspires others to know that they, too, are surrounded by this same love. I want to know myself as capable, powerful and limitless, so that others might know themselves in this same way.

And ultimately, I want to be in FLOW–trusting in the Divine that speaks through my inner knowing, trusting in life’s miraculous unfolding. I want to surrender so deeply that I can’t help but giggle at how silly I ever was to harbor a single worry. I intend to be giddy with delight as I discover how infinitely supported that I truly am, as decisions unfold with ease and I create my life, effortlessly.

2014 is the year of discovering what’s possible when I simply let go. I’m choosing to let the current take me, and I’m ready to live in awe of this journey as I listen & follow the deep call of my soul.

It’s gonna be a frickin’ extraordinary year. I’m already smiling with awe and gratitude. And so it is.

:)Melissa