Hello again!
Hello to you beautiful,
Apologetically, It has been 2 month's since I've blogged but I am here now and so are you and I want to thank you for that. Honestly and vulnerably, 2022 has presented me with challenges that were once so unfathomable to me. I have so much to share with you and I can proudly say that on the other side of adversity, is a feeling of wonder about my own strength... the strength that is in all of you.
Fear is a topic I don't think I've ever properly spoken about on here but it feels very necessary to do so. These past few months I felt like my life was happening to me and I had no control with how that played out, and ultimately i was really scared. Scared for the unforeseeable future but also scared of how powerful my mind could be. Sadly, I know that this feeling is universal. I am writing this because I know someone who's reading, is showing up even when they're afraid and I here you, see you, am you. So what I want to say to that person is that you will be as strong as you need to be for what comes your way. You will learn, you will rise and you will be okay. Find the people or the pockets of the world that make you feel safe and stay there for as long as you need.
I am right by your side always.
Inadvertently, I have learnt a lot about compassion too so let's chat about it...
"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognise our shared humanity" - Pema Chodron
I believe whenever we experience hardship to any degree we deepen the understanding of ourselves and by extension, human's at large. And because struggle is an inevitable part of the human condition I think we all leave this earth as more compassionate being's than when we came. I see compassion as looking into someone elses pain and sitting there with them, whilst knowing boundaries are what make compassion possible. Prentis Hemphill acknowledges "boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously" and what a beautiful thing that is.
In the past few months I feel like my younger self in that i am still figuring out the world and where I fit in it. In awe at what is and what is not and what is loved and what is lost. In some ways, I think we always will be figuring it out, one day at a time. And maybe that wondrous feeling never actually leaves us from when we were children. To lean into this feeling I try to remember that as much as the hard days feel big and all-consuming, you will always find peace again - that is certain.
With all my heart thankyou for checking in,
You are loved, you are love.
Jess xx