Safety

There was a term that my sister and her husband used in the first couple of years of raising my niece that always caused me to hold my breath : Safety.  As L was learning how to walk and hold and stand on object other than the floor, the common phrase was, 'L make sure you have safety'.  This 'safety' was a warning to her to make sure that one of us was with her as she explored but it was also a signal for her to look around and trust her instincts to make sure she was in a situation she could handle.  It always made my throat rise not only because I was nervous for her to be perched like a baby Koala bear precariously dangling upon heights unknown and unregistered by her, but also because I was nervous of the responsibility to trust in her, to let her make her mistakes and find her victories without taking away the awe of explorations by cloying her with this innate watchdog like fear of fiercely protecting her.  I did not want my own worries, my own lack of feeling safe to pass on to this beautiful and new light in the world.

One day, when she was still a wobbly peanut, L was standing on a chair and lost her balance and fell to the ground.  It was the first time she had fallen in my charge and she just looked up in my eyes, stunned, then confused, then slowly drawn into tears as she read the terror in my own eyes  and on my own frightened face.  The reaction a reflection that cast ripples on a calm pond.  She was more affected by the reaction than the fall itself.  My sister, C, had to talk me down from the ledge of feeling like I failed L in some way but she made me realize that there is was no way to protect any one person from every possible scenario, but only to offer them support and guidance as they make their own choices to fly or fall but most of all to learn while having unwavering faith in trusting under the watchful eye of the Universe.

On a recent visit to my spirit counselor,  my counselor  helped me see that from a very young age I never had this feeling of safety.  I did not have an outlet to find anchor during stormy seas to feel surrounded by safety, to reach out for safety, to intuit in my own self, this sense of trusting within my own ability to just let go.  My father would tell us to not cry when we were in pain and this pain, inflicted by the person I wanted to trust the most, was a shock wave. Year after year, like a tree with concentric circles of armor, I grew very much able to let others trust in me to be an anchor, but retreated hastily when it came time to trust others and show them the soft underbelly, the Achilles Heel, my tell-tale heart, -the tracks of my tears: my fears, my joys, myself.     In her healing work with with me she literally tapped me like a tree, an incantation to Spring and rebirth,  as I lay crying on her table...... -the image of a tree powerful because it represents a guide to me in life.  All of this fear and compressed emotion that had lain dormant like a fly caught in fossilized amber started to loosen in my body and started to flow out.  The effect of this has been a tidal wave of experiencing and being OK with feeling.  The past two days, with a full moon on hand in a period of high transition, I have been feeling wildly erratic.  I have feared putting myself in contact with many people but I realized today as I was babysitting L and she was expressing anger, that I was unwavering.  I didn't love her any less because I wasn't judging her or condemning her for being true to her moment.  I told her this but then a light went off in me as she hugged me and continued to do her puzzle, she trusted me, I trusted her, she loved me, I loved her and despite momentary conflict, peace was still there because trust and love and openness had always been there.  

My closest friends and family have been near and unwavering in their love and undeterred communication and I thank god for them.  I finally am starting to understand what it is to be able to let go, let live and trust another.  No one is judging me but myself and to open up the clutch of my hand and heart to trust and give away in order to be able to be receive life has been the blessing of faith in learning and trusting in the Universe and trusting in myself.  Props to ,C,J, J, D, A, A,S and of course L.  I give to you all my love and life always.