Tag Archives: Waking Up

Til Next Time, Madison

Posted on by
Reply

I’m waking up one last morning in Madison, WI before heading back home to Brooklyn, NY later tonight.

Home–such an ephemeral experience for me, right now.

I arrived in Madison 2 weeks ago to discover just 2 days into my time here that life as I knew it in NYC was now forever altered. My relationship and our blossoming plans for a life together lay dead in the ground where moments before they had their own heartbeat. I was devastated, my ego grasping for some illusory semblance of control where there was none. I felt utterly alone and struggling to make sense of it all.

I wake up this morning, two weeks later, still in pain, my mind playing its games and weaving stories that make my heart ache with longing and anger and sadness…and yet something has transformed.

I have been blessed to work with 9 extraordinary women in this time. Women who I have been privileged to support as they blossom into their own truth and power–and in the process they’ve unknowingly realigned me with mine.

I’ve had the opportunity to connect with my best friend for the past 21 years to be reminded of the kind of unconditional love that transcends time and distance, and to witness her on fire with passion and purpose as she continues to expand on her path–such an inspiration to me. And then, there are her amazing kiddos–sleepovers with miss JJ only get better through the years.

And at the heartbeat of this trip, I have been here each day, supporting my mom, caring for her doggies…shoveling snow, of course…and finding myself.

I now pass the torch of care for my mom onto my sister who has also been a godsend in helping me process my grief these past 5 days.

I head back to Brooklyn with a heart that is filled with complex emotions, with visions of a future lost, and new ones emerging. No longer part of a “we” or an “us” and also more excited and empowered to be ME than I’ve felt in a long time.

Just me, finding home in the depths of my own being. It’s not as exciting as finding home in a place or another person, perhaps, and yet, it’s more dimensional…more real, somehow, more spacious and freeing.

With each day, with each losing and letting go, I’m coming home to my own heartbeat and discovering little by little what is truly meant for me.

Til next time, Madison.

:)Melissa

A gift from recent sessions with clients:

Posted on by
Reply
I invite you to imagine all of life and the universe as one large body that is constantly ebbing and flowing in a process of maintaining homeostasis, just as our own body is in a constant of ebbing and flowing in an overall state of balance with itself. There is no “good” or “bad” functioning of the body, there is just…function.With every loss and gain of my ego’s desires, I find that I can get so mired in the details of my experience that I see duality everywhere: Fall in love–Yay! Relationship ends or transforms–heart-wrenching grief. Money in–yay! Money out–stress. Feeling strong and healthy–yay! Develop illness–heartbreak, once again.

When I step back from a higher vision and understand all of life operating as one body, suddenly I see that my pain or my pleasure, my having and letting go are all part of a larger process of ebb and flow. Life is living itself. Constant. Ever-changing and yet, always the same.

There is an emptiness in that awareness–my ego loves to attach uncomfortable emotion and create an experience of that emptiness–and yet there is great freedom in embracing how arbitrary and also necessary are the happenings of my life.

My life is in a constant state of balance with itself, and when I surrender to that, I find my center, I find peace.

So, I invite you to join me in the dance, Dearheart. There is an adventure to discover in this surrender.

I exist. With each day, I’m waking up further to the precious gift of that basic truth.

 :)Melissa

You have to lose all…

Posted on by
Reply

A gift texted to me this morning: “Listen to your heart, move according to your heart, whatsoever the stake: A condition of complete simplicity costing not less then everything… To be simple is arduous, because to be simple costs everything that you have. You have to lose all to be simple. That’s why people have chosen to be complex and they have forgotten how to be simple. But only a simple heart throbs with God, hand in hand. Only a simple heart sings with God in deep harmony. To reach to that point you will have to find your heart, your own throb, your own beat.” – Osho

With every loss, I find my heart.

:)Melissa

Grieving

Posted on by
Reply

Every painful loss I have ever endured has only been the loss of an illusion.

And it fucking hurts in every cell of my body as I grieve and resist. I get angry at God, like my wants were a perfect plan ripped away, like I’m being punished for something, like a spoiled child screaming, “You never let me have ANYTHING!!!!”

And then, somehow, I surrender. I pick up the pieces and move on. Life goes on without my illusion.

Today, I’m not there yet. I was really attached to this illusion.

No victims, no villains…and no heroes either.

Posted on by
Reply

No victims, no villains…and no heroes either.

Whole people living and breathing as whole people–this is the vision I hold in my heart.

Among the most challenging roles for me to give up has been that of hero, saving the world. I now see that where there are heroes, there must also be villains and victims…and those are all just roles we choose to play and project in response to our circumstances that do not empower anyone.

What’s left when we shed these stories of what’s happening “to us” or “by us?” Simply life, as it is, unfolding. A blank slate for us to add whatever meaning we choose.

So I’m not a hero or a victim or a villain.

I’m choosing to be a lover because for me, when I let go of those roles, I’m simply left with a desire to love with my whole being and let my actions arise, naturally from that place.

Nothing to save and a whole lot to love.

:)Melissa