Hello there lovelies!! You probably noticed that I haven't been around much....turns out, I've sort of been on a self-prescribed hiatus the last several months trying to figure out what makes sense for me, for Ruby and for life in general. Sounds serious, right?
Well, I'll be honest with you because frankly, I don't believe in sugar coating or beating around the bush, so here it is....this past nine-ish months have been nothing short of a massive Shit Storm for me....and I mean that with a capital S!! Blech!
There were two major turning points in my life this year...one of them I knew was coming and the other completely blindsided me and left me feeling a lot like emotional road kill. Nothing felt real and I woke up every day feeling as though my own once laser sharp instincts and judgment had abandoned me without warning. I was doubting almost everything I had once taken for granted....
For a while it felt like every time I turned around I was getting sucker punched and for each step forward I took I was taking 5 more backwards... I'm not going to bore you with all the gruesome details, nor am I sharing this with you so you can feel sad for me....quite the contrary actually. I'm sharing it because with all that pain has come what will probably be one of the greatest lessons of my life and if that lesson can help even ONE person to feel better about their own SHIT STORM, then that means we will be able to use it's power for good!
Admittedly, I had been quite lost the last several months and questioned pretty much every detail of my life....I'm an over-thinker by nature so for me this meant repeatedly turning over every rock and looking into every single nook and cranny of my life trying to figure out how it had all gone so terribly wrong. I didn't realize it then, but I now understand it as sort of a "Soul Audit" (my new phrase for 2017).... a really DARK and painful audit, but an audit none-the-less.
The trouble was, the more I searched for answers, the more I kept coming up empty and was literally stuck. I couldn't move forward, there were no clear paths to help me put this all back together again and I was feeling pretty f'ing broken. But then, as can typically happen when you decide to ask for Divine help, I was given one of those clarifying life moments that slowly started to turn things around for me.
Having been left with what felt like nothing more than a million pieces of my own broken heart scattered all around me, my knee-jerk reaction was to act fast and without thinking try to scoop up all of those pieces and force them back together again before they were lost forever. I spent months trying to do just that; I was desperately trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together ( I was Humpty in this story)....and it never worked. Not once...not even close. The harder I tried the more pieces kept disintegrating and it was almost too much to bear....
One day with all hope seemingly slipping through my fingers, I shared my painful frustration with someone I consider to be very wise and she looked at me and said, "Heather, what you're doing is emotional suicide...the pieces will never fit the way they used to because there are too many tiny little shards missing that you can't even see. There are slivers and even chunks that are broken beyond repair or shattered to smithereens... your heart and your life will never look or feel the way it used to because it can't; it's physically and emotionally impossible."
WOW...in an instant, the light bulb was ON; it was blindingly bright and just when I thought my head was going to explode, she went on to say, "Instead of trying to grab every single piece, why not take a step back, take a good look at what is scattered around you and just pick up ONE piece. Pick up the one that calls out the loudest, the one that is still relevant and makes sense to hold on to. Take that piece and use it as the NEW foundation to slowly start adding additional pieces...and then if another piece still seems to fit, pick up that one...one at a time slowly and intentionally until you have all the pieces you still want. The rest you can just let go of...you can't use them and you don't need them anymore....they are no longer part of your story. Wherever there are holes now means you get to create and mold new pieces...you choose what they look like...you decide what fits."
Oh my gosh....this is the stuff that has the power to change everything right? Of course it does....but not immediately...nope, not even close....until recently. I've been playing those words over and over in my head for the last several months because they made such profound and beautiful sense but I couldn't make them work for me. I was not ready to let go of what didn't fit. I was not ready to trust myself enough to know that I had everything I needed to create whatever I wanted to use in order to fill in those holes. All that old stuff I was carrying along with me, the shards and slivers; they were too familiar...they were comfortable and so even though I kept cutting myself on all the sharp, chipped edges, I kept trying to make them fit anyway. I was terrified that if I left them behind I would wind up with a cold, beat-up, swiss cheese looking, broken heart...
Turns out, I was wrong.
One day after months of being absolutely terrified that my creativity was gone forever, I suddenly felt like creating again...I designed a pattern for myself and made some simple fabric flowers...and I didn't stop, I just kept making those damned fabulous flowers and I LOVE it. Without any warning or even effort, I felt a tiny spark ignite somewhere deep inside of me that I believed was snuffed out forever. I also started journaling about possibility again. I allowed myself to write about positive things other than what I thought was broken...and I felt the spark getting a little brighter... I began giving myself permission to jump in and devour things I had always wanted to study like Kabbalah, the Hebrew alphabet and even dusted off my 40 year relationship with Tarot Cards.... I started doing things for no reason other than they made me feel happy.
Then one day I took a step towards offering forgiveness....I didn't fully embrace it, but I moved a little closer to it and I actually felt a little lighter. Every day since then is like a dance; two steps towards forgiveness, one step back...cha cha cha...no rushing, no pressure, just intentional movement in the direction that sustains that lighter feeling for me...
I didn't realize it until just recently, but all of those things and even those tiny steps are the new pieces just for me and they are literally bringing me back to life....one little piece at a time is slowly filling in the holes.
I used to think that once something was broken it would never be as good as it once had been. Now, and for the first time in my life, I truly understand that with a lot of patience, some serious soul-searching and learning to nurture and heal ourselves, there is real hope. If we are willing to do the work, we might just put ourselves back together better, stronger and more beautiful than we ever dreamed possible.
My heart has a long way to go, but each day I work my ass off to be intentional about how and what I create to fill in the holes. These days, instead of something I believed was forever broken, I'm starting to see my heart as a never-ending, always evolving art project that's growth and repair is only as limited as my own imagination and potential.
My hope, my prayer is that if your heart has suffered a bad break you will remember that with time and intention, you are the only one with the ability to put it back together again. You can't expect it to look the way it used to because all of those old pieces just don't serve you anymore but when you are ready, your new pieces will be fabulous and wonderful and full of amazing and happy possibility! This I know for sure!
Thank you so much for taking the time to walk with me for a moment!
I wish you unlimited bliss and blessings!
Heather
