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09
Sep
IMPERMANENCE: Life, The Journey, Death, Re-Birth, & Miracles
Impermanence. Everything comes, and everything goes. Everything changes in this temporal world. Love, however, lives on forever. Love never dies.Another miracle that I believe came from letting go with love was a flowering plant that returned to life. An orchid that David gave me over two years ago eventually lost all of its blossoms and appeared dead. I kept it anyway. The day after my letting go ritual, new magenta buds started to grow on what had appeared to be lifeless stems.
20
May
Living Well, Loving Well, and Letting Go
Re-Writing a Story of Grief in Just One Day
On Wednesday, I put out a Facebook post asking for unconditional love because it was the first day in as long as I could remember where I didn’t want to get out of bed and face the day.
The outpouring of love and kindness I received was beyond what I could have ever imagined. I learned again that the energy of love, prayer, and kindness travels unseen from the hearts of those who send it directly into the hearts of those who are ready to receive these blessings.
My heart was fully open and receptive and I am blessed beyond measure. My well of gratitude knows no bounds. Here are some of the things I was reminded of and I hope they will, in turn, serve you.
First, it was essential to take the day off for my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.
Mental — I gave my mind a mental break by choosing not to engage in the dozens of projects I have on the go. When thoughts of ‘must do’ came up, I consciously replaced them with ‘not now. I will come back, I promise.’ Acknowledging that I will return to those tasks allowed my critical mind to feel reassured and to soften. I gave that part of me (my ego) an official break as well. It didn’t need to stand on guard endlessly reminding me that this and that are awaiting my attention.
Emotional — My heart was heaving with grief and sorrow. The sudden passing of my dear friend, Joseph Martin, triggered anguish that has been sitting in my cells seemingly forever. I was feeling grief not only about those who have passed, but also about the dangers threatening our world today, from a man like Donald Trump who disrespects everything that upholds truth and justice and equality, to the state of our beloved Mother Earth, the air, waters, the animal kingdom, our plants, our inhumanity towards one another, wars that don’t end. I found myself ruminating on the lyrics to Where Have All the Flowers Gone? My heart felt like it was being split open as I recited the Ho-‘opono’pono prayer, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.
I also let the tears fall freely as different people appeared sporadically throughout the day on the screen of my mind. Some have left the earth plane, some have left because of disputes, family members who I thought would be the closest have been the furthest away, and others have left and never told me why. The last two were the catalyst for my deepest sense of heartbreak, triggering memories of abandonment from my earliest days.
As each memory arose, or even when it was simply a felt sense with no memory attached, I offered up what I, myself, was asking for—unconditional love. I also wrote a letter of apology to someone whose heart I hurt last week through hurried, unconscious behaviour. I asked Joseph’s spirit before I went to sleep the night before to write the letter for me. I know he would have done so with a full and open heart. I listened and the words spilled onto the pages of my journal which I transcribed verbatim into an email which evoked a heart-felt response in return.
My day and night ran the gambit of love and fear. Of aloneness and yearning, intermingled with acceptance, gratitude, and long sought out peace.
Physical — I allowed my body to rest. To meditate. To sleep. To eat comfort food. To listen to soothing music. To walk to the beach in the early evening without my phone. I felt blissfully at peace as I sat upon the rocks allowing the ocean winds and waves to cleanse and heal the melancholy that inhabited my body and mind.
I had an instinct to take my gaze away from the mesmerizing sway of the waves and look up. Directly above me was an eagle swooping unusually close. I felt like he was waiting for me to notice him and when I did, he soared and circled above me for a very long time. I was captivated by this gift, this miracle, this totem of freedom that came into my life at this exact moment. I laughed out loud and gleefully shouted out, ‘Thank You. Thank You! Namaste! Thank You’.
Then, I practically skipped home, stopping only once along the way to buy epsom salts to add to my long, luxurious bath of lavender. I settled for popcorn and a movie instead. Go figure! Then, just before turning out the light, I read another chapter, from Wayne Dyer’s book, I Can See Clearly Now. The book I have been savouring since he died.
Spiritual — Every breath, every thought, word, and action is spiritual, is it not? How can it not be since the omnipotent and omniscient presence of Love is always here? God is present in the pain and the glory. I knew I was being held in the arms a divine presence while I cried out my tears, just as I knew God’s hand was at play when the eagle soared above me, inviting me to hop on his wings of freedom. In fact, a part of me has always known I am never alone and never have been.
A perceived sense of separation is part of human existential yearning to go back to the garden. I have felt since I was a young child that the earth was not my real home. But I also know now what a privilege it is to dance on top of the earth and there’s no place I’d rather be.
In Summary
In summary, I can say that I am happy I was able to reach out on Facebook and tell my truth. It took a lot of courage, I must say, to have reached out publicly in that way.
I also believe even if I hadn’t reached out, reaching inside, asking God (or whatever name you wish to give that which gave us Life) for guidance, or calling a friend, or reaching for that one book that is a touchstone to our spirit—that can be the salve we need to heal our melancholy.
There so many ways to look after ourselves. And it’s essential that we do. Please see the writing exercise at the bottom of the page and tell us what yours are.
I am reminded that feelings come and go. That nothing stays the same. And that I need not be alarmed when they come up in wells and swells so deep and I wonder, ‘how can this be? Haven’t I dealt with this many times before? ’ And the answer is, ‘Yes, I have’. And this is simply another layer and it doesn’t take days, weeks, or months to process. It moves through so much faster when I just honour what is and let go.
How well did you love, how well did you live, how well did you learn to let go?
I have a tapestry hanging in my hallway. Embroidered upon it are these words, ‘In the end, what matters most is, how well did you love, how well did you live, how well did you learn to let go?’ On Wednesday, I did it all. I just need to remember to repeat it on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and every day, to the best of my ability. One precious day at a time.
Thank you for sharing in my journey. May you have the most awesome day and for all the days and nights that follow, may you be blessed. Love, Junie.
Re-Write Your Life
Most of the time it’s better to let people say things in their own words rather than trying to paraphrase and explain.
Please watch these videos to learn about the profound transformations that completely liberated these people as a result of participating in my Re-Write Your Life signature program.
You will hear Jan Falkowski share his riveting story of how he went from blind rage to being able to fully forgive the man who caused the car accident where his daughter was killed.
Next watch Annie Lavack as she talks about her fears and insecurities of not knowing what she wanted to do in her life. She states that it was the processes that she learned in Re-Write Your Life that enabled her to reclaim her voice. Today she is the Minister of the Centre for Inspired Living in Victoria.
The next video that Shaw TV filmed some years ago will show you what happens in a real group setting.
The program hasn’t changed, nor have the results. What has changed are the people who have made the commitment to go forward with their life in this way.
After watching the videos, take some time, then ask inside whether you too are ready to re-write the painful storms of the past and make peace with them. Every story, no matter how painful, can become the elixir of healing, transformation, and ultimately joy!
Above: Jan Falkowski’s experience with Re-Write Your Life
Above: Annie Lavack’s experience with Re-Write Your Life
Above: Shaw TV’s The Daily visited a Re-Write Your Life class
and interviewed participants
Re-Write Your Life
An 8-Week Workshop That Will Transform
Your Life
Early Bird Price extended to Monday, May 23rd!
Wednesday evenings 6:15 – 8:45 pm
NEW: Beginning June 8th
8 Weeks
Investment: $395
Early Bird: $345
Book included!
Find more information and registration here.
Writing Exercise
Write a list, or better still, draw a mind map, about the different ways you do or can take care of yourself when you are feeling sad, lonely, loss, grief, or despair. Then write about a time you did take action using one or more of these tools and what the outcome was. I just wrote about mine. Your turn!
As always, please leave your comments below or join us at Junie’s Writing Sanctuary to contribute to the conversation.
06
Apr
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change (Wayne Dyer)
Below is an excerpt from my book,
Re-Write Your Life:
It was written over 6 years ago and it’s about what happens when the symptoms of my bi-polar illness kick in. Luckily, since the time of writing, the poem you see at the end has become truer for me.
I see the value in all of it, and these days I can quickly turn things around . . . by simply not sweating the small stuff, loving what arises in me, and using my newest tool—a free app called Mindfulness Bell (Thich Nhat Hanh).
It rings periodically and when it does, I put my hand on my heart and tell that little girl in me, “I love you, Junie”.She’s becoming quite accustomed to hearing it and becomes really insistent when she doesn’t hear it enough! I invite you to download this app and join the “I Love Myself Revolution”. After all, the more we can do this for ourselves, the more it spills over to everyone else!
Here’s my story (and I’m probably not sticking to it)!
I have lost count of the times when I couldn’t feel my heart—neither to love myself, another, or especially to receive love. I also couldn’t understand how someone could love me when I felt like I was giving nothing back—those times when despair and hopelessness crippled my days and nights. Such is the peril of bi-polar affective disorder. And sometimes that’s what frightens me the most.
The fact that even when I’m well and I believe the anxiety and debilitating depressions won’t return, they still do. I used to be smug because years could go by without an episode and I would think I was out of the woods. But then, seemingly without warning, the old foreboding would show up. I’d wake up with it. It’s a frightening and shameful place to be when I come from the philosophical outlook that I create my own reality . . . create it by the thoughts I think.
Talking to myself
So believe me when I say, that in those times, I talk to myself overtime to re-create the positive ones but sometimes in vain. Both my ego and my brain chemistry have their own force and often win out. During those times I even forget that my soul has chosen this experience before I incarnated in order to assist me in my spiritual evolution. Instead, at best I am grasping at the tools I have honed just to get me through another day, minute by minute.
Right now I’m in one of my good places. A place where optimism reigns high. I am loving my work, my friends, my choir, my writing, my pets, my just-about-everything. For the majority of this calendar year I have felt grounded, relaxed, happy, motivated, confident and in good spirits. My groups and therapy clients help to ground me and keep me honest and sane. I love what I do. I believe I am living my life’s purpose. I’m in one of those places where I am filled with gratitude for being so abundantly blessed.
Taking ourselves less seriously
It’s during times like this that I take myself less seriously and can relate to a poem I wrote years ago. I wrote it to help me through one of those dark times and it became a song that was performed in Madness, Masks and Miracles. I thought about all the phobias and fears that we all seem to have—me, my clients—the world! As much as I honour and respect the feelings that come up for me and others when the fear and panic takes over, from this perspective, you just have to laugh!
Phobia Song
Fear of dying and afraid of life
Fear of flying and afraid of strife
Fear of losing and afraid to win
Goodness-gracious where does one begin!
Claustrophobia, agoraphobia and phobias we can’t spell
Pathophobia, xenophobia, hydrophobia, zoophobia
We know ‘em well.
Now what would Freud or Jung say
If they were in this room
Their likely fear would be to get out of here
In case they caught the gloom!
Are we crazy; no we’re not,
We’re simply concerned by what we’ve got
Fear of hunger, afraid of fat
Fear of wars, chores and doors
Can you imagine that!
Fear of Satan and afraid of God
Is there anything here we’re not afraid of?
Between our birth and dying,
We have so much to fear
Was God, do you think, in His right mind
To ever have put us here!
Fear of cats and afraid of snakes
Fear of laughter for goodness sakes
Fear of aging or growing too tall
Face it. If it’s not worth fearing, is it worth it at all?
Afraid of getting out of bed, a fear of eternal sin
Afraid of germs afraid of worms, afraid of your own kin!
Afraid of black, afraid of white, afraid of in-between
Afraid of going out alone, afraid of being seen
Are we crazy, well maybe yes
You decide. It’s anyone’s guess
Are we crazy, well maybe not
Isn’t it something that everyone’s got?
Writing Prompt
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” (Wayne Dyer). Write about a time that this was true for you—or is there something happening in your life today that you can look at differently? (In other words, re-write that life story)
As always, please leave your comments below or join us at Junie’s Writing Sanctuary to join the conversation.
All blessings,
Junie
11
Mar
Despair + Journaling = Alchemy + Transformation
This week I had an experience that demonstrates the truth of my statement, The sweet whisperings of your soul meet you on the page and something shifts. You begin to stand taller and one day you notice that your voice on the page has become your voice in the world.
A realization
On Tuesday, I woke before dawn consumed with angst. It had to do with something I had been hiding for years, which was connected to feelings of unworthiness. I didn’t know I felt that way—at least on such a big scale—until I was diagnosed with a severe vision problem about a month ago (which is treatable, thank goodness, but the cost of the treatment is thousands of dollars). The condition is described as: Convergence Insufficiency, Binocular Dysfunction, and Visual Processing Deficits.
I had been hiding my inability to read properly since my childhood; the realization that I actually have a vision problem began just last month when I was directed to a TED Talk presentation by Dr. Cam McCrodan, an optometrist here in Victoria, BC, who specializes in treatment of visual dysfunction. As I watched him, I wept because almost everything he said described me to a T!
Sharing a secret
I shared my “secret” about my reading problems and the news of my diagnosis and proposed costly treatment with my dear friend Frances, and she said, “Oh, Junie, this is a perfect opportunity to do crowd funding.” We were at a restaurant having dinner. Suddenly, I started feeling queasy. She went on to say that asking friends and acquaintances to contribute to a crowd funding campaign was the perfect solution to the cost of treatment, and a worthy cause. The queasiness bought prime real estate inside me and settled into every cell of my being—especially after another dear friend Teya had the crowd-funding site up a few days later! When she told me she had done it, I freaked out! “What? I never said to put it up!”
How was she to know that I had been sitting with the shame, fear, and guilt that had continued to natter at me since my dinner with Frances? After waking up in that same dark place Tuesday morning, I grabbed my journal and, as usual, it didn’t fail me.
Confiding in my journal
After pages of seemingly going nowhere, eventually I found myself directly inside a little girl’s psyche with all of her guilt, pain, and shame. I kept my pen moving and then found myself inside the source of the pain, exactly when and where I was when I adopted the belief that I wasn’t deserving. I wrote and I wept and eventually came into a clearing: a meadow of beautiful spring flowers, a gentle breeze caressing my wounds, and songbirds singing love songs above me. And in this sacred setting, I forgave my parents and all of those who contributed to that little girl’s pain where she thought she wasn’t good enough. I offered them my love and it came back to me one-hundred-fold.
By the time I put my pen down, I was singing—literally! I was one of those songbirds singing out my love. And I knew that I could go ahead with the crowd funding. If people judged me, I would still be okay. It would be an invitation to peel away another layer of ego that holds me hostage whenever I take seriously what I perceive others are thinking about me.
Three miracles
And that was just the beginning of my day! Before I walked out of my house to go to my team meeting at the Schizophrenia Society at noon, three more miracles occured!
One, I picked up one of Wayne Dyer’s books and opened it randomly to a page titled, Money and Self-Esteem! Seriously?! How DOES that work? Anyway, it spoke and affirmed of all the things I had just been writing about.
After that I sat in silence for about 20 minutes feeling love pour into me and out of me, and then the phone rang. It was the supervisor of a company where I had stopped services about a year ago, but they had still been charging me a monthly fee. It was my error, as I hadn’t cancelled my plan in the way they had specified because I didn’t read the directions properly. Without a moment’s hesitation, she told me she was going to refund me the money. Two days earlier an employee of the company had told me that a refund wasn’t possible because I hadn’t followed the company’s policy! I literally cried in gratitude with this offer of a refund.
Next came the third miracle: feeling that I AM deserving and that it’s okay to be me just the way I am, I went to my phone and made a video of myself honouring my sisters around the world for International Women’s Day. The day before I would have been mortified to put a video of myself on Facebook without make-up and looking less than svelte dahling!
The equation
What started the ball rolling on this sense of joy and freedom and these miracles was this simple equation: Despair + Journaling = Alchemy & Transformation
How does that work? Because you get to tell your truth. All of it! No one else but you and the page. No one there to correct your writing or have an opinion about it. Just you, a pen, and some paper.
Well, there is one other secret ingredient that sneaks in there when we allow it, when we aren’t judging what we write. God. The Universe. Universal Intelligence. Love . . . name it what you will. But I guarantee you that It is always with you in ways you could never imagine!
Writing Exercise
Today, commit to writing in your journal about something that has been niggling at you, something that has been keeping you in guilt, shame, unworthiness, self-doubt, even self-loathing. Write deeply into your truth. Don’t hold back. Let your heart spill onto the pages until you find that you are no longer a person writing, but an energy moving through space and time, and when you awaken from this writing reverie, you will be someone other that who you were when you first began.
Writing Prompt
“What I never wanted to say was… ”
As always, please leave a comment below or join us at Junie’s Writing Sanctuary to join the conversation.
All blessings,
Junie
P.S. More miracles … I just went downstairs to the laundry room and what was on the table? A card saying, “You Make a Difference”! Thank you for the difference you make in my life. Love this day, and go out and make a difference. Love yourself and let that love shine into everyone and everything you think, see, and do!
03
Mar
Mitch Rockert: 1957 – 1983
This is the second in a series, featuring people who have gone through difficult times and, through their own processes of healing, have come to a place of peace. Unless we are people like Eckhart Tolle or Byron Katie who have had spontaneous awakenings, it can take a very long time… and yet with perseverance and grace, we are healed.
This week I am proud to feature a dear friend of mine, Judith Rockert. I met Judith approximately twenty years ago in Toronto and there was an instant camaraderie. Not long after we met, she learned of my bouts of deep depression, the revolving-door hospitalizations, and became a rock for me.
Unfortunately, she had had plenty of experience as a caregiver for someone with mental illness—her very own precious and truly gifted son Mitch, who lived with schizophrenia. Mitch took his life some years before I met Judith. Judith is a hero to me. Below is Mitch’s story told in Judith’s words. In addition there is an audio-file you can listen to, starting with a recording of Mitch playing music with friends.
In November 2015 when I was visiting Toronto, Judith took me to see Mitch’s artwork in the gallery where it is now permanently housed, and I had the privilege of having Judith share the stories that went with each piece.
If you have a story you’d like to share with us, please tell me about it or leave a comment below.
Mitch Rockert: 1957 – 1983
by Judith Rockert
Much of the 25 years of my son Mitch’s life were a living nightmare for him and all of us who dearly loved him. He was conscious, warm and loving, funny, handsome, tender and charismatic. He was brilliant, a talented musician, a creative artist and he also had paranoid schizophrenia with severe psychotic bouts. He was in pain with no relief in sight. He was a spectacular person with deep insight into his condition.
It was the dark ages of mental illness. Very little was known or explained, there were poor medical facilities for people like him, and terrible communication between doctors and families. In these times, secrecy was standard, and people hesitated to discuss suicide for fear of triggering another attempt—and there were many. Meds were riddled with side effects that were unmanageable.
In Canada, there were no locked facilities and the professionals clearly indicated that if Mitch wasn’t confined, he would surely take his life. Keeping him alive until after he turned 30 was the goal, as apparently the illness becomes a washed-down version after that. I was determined to find answers, doctors who could help us—I committed to leaving NO stone unturned.
I found a hospital in Connecticut that met our prerequisites, and he was admitted in 1978, remaining there for 4 years. Following his return to Toronto, he took his life in a subway in April of 1983 at the age of 25.
How did I cope? Those were gut-wrenching days for me. I was the owner of a travel business that was very demanding. In some ways, it probably saved me, occupying my mind with something other than mental illness.
In other ways, my physical being was breaking down. I experienced huge weight gain, crying and sobbing daily in emotional pain, hiding from those that didn’t ‘get it’, trying to keep the family together, keeping the peace between our staff and my business partner, whose morals and values were the polar opposite of mine, and always wearing a mask to the outside world. I lived a pretense.
Quite apart from the issues of psychiatrists, hospitals, electric shock therapy and anti psychotic drugs, I came to realize that the rest of my life was toxic. I was pulled in many directions and needed a warm heart and arm around me. Both eluded me. There was no refuge.
I was really alone and from that I learned to be strong within myself. I discovered that I had whatever I needed inside of me. I was my light—my light was in me. I was my strength; my strength was in me. I relied on my own resources for comfort and sustenance. I found my power.
I also think that having a fatal food allergy has strengthened my core. I must be vigilant daily in my food intake whether I’m cooking for myself or eating in a trusted restaurant. My very life rests in my hands so I’ve grown strong within myself. I’m very outgoing, well-travelled, and love people, so I bond with others easily and am interested in their lives.
During those years, I connected with two psychotherapist friends that I could talk to. It was a great relief to speak openly about Mitch’s condition and the heartache caused by the chaos of mental illness.
For those of you facing a mental illness diagnosis of a loved one today, the dark ages have morphed into the light. There are now better drugs, improved medical facilities, better communication between families and doctors, and a host of supportive services available. An openness and acceptance have evolved where only hiding and shame existed.
Search out every resource and give some of them a try. Some will fit with your story and others will not. But know that hope is here where there was a vacuum in Mitch’s time. I encourage you to search, to find a new piece… something you didn’t know before; something that will help you and your loved one. My open heart wishes you many insights on your journey.
After Mitch’s death, I sought advice and guidance and when I was ready, there was a divorce, saying goodbye to the business I’d nurtured, and finally a knowing that Mitch had achieved the success he was so driven to accomplish—taking his life and ending the pain for which there was no other answer.
Years later, I wrote this poem:
The open window frames the midnight sky.
A sliver of a silver moon hangs suspended, keeping company with a myriad of stars.
Translucent clouds appear as if by palate, brushed here and there amongst the heavens.
During this tranquil moment, I think of you Mitch, a spirit free of pain, having paid your karmic debt while here on earth.
Gone are the incarcerations and confinements that bound your soul.
Your purity and goodness transcends the higher plane you now call home.
My heart is full of maternal love for who you were; for the legacy and life awakening lessons you left behind.
There is great peace in knowing you are finally free~~~and so am I.
Gainey Ranch, Scottsdale, Arizona | Winter 1992
Mitch’s Art Exhibit Opening
Several years ago, I was looking for a permanent place for Mitch’s paintings to be displayed. A friend introduced me to Dr. Nehama Baum, the Director of the MukiBaum Accessibility Centre in Toronto. Dr. Baum opened her arms to the idea of being a home to Mitch’s some thirty pieces of artwork. She suggested an opening night to introduce his work. She is a maverick in this field; a woman of great wisdom and experience. Using Dr. Baum’s person-centred Multi-Focal Approach, the Centre provides services, treatments, and opportunities to people with complex autism and other developmental, and/or neurological sensory disabilities.
Below is a recording of the art exhibit opening (wait 10 seconds for the sound to start). You’ll hear Mitch playing guitar and bass on two songs. He and some friends recorded the songs in Connecticut a few months before he died.
There were several speakers that evening: Bob, a cousin, spoke of his connection to Mitch and their shared love of the outdoors, Dr. John spoke of his work with the brain, Dr. Baum spoke of the dream every parent has for their child, and I spoke of Mitch, his life and his death.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Instead of offering a writing prompt this week, I would like to put this to you: if you are a parent, friend, or caregiver of a person with a mental health challenge, or are someone with a lived experience of mental illness, it would be wonderful to receive your comments. You can leave a comment for Judith or share your own journey below.
For myself, as a woman with bi-polar illness, diagnosed at the age of 19, I can say that today there is so much more hope. I am blessed to work part-time at BC Schizophrenia Society in Victoria and there are wonderful programs that are life changing and are also free of charge. You can see what we offer here.
As always, please leave a comment below or join us at Junie’s Writing Sanctuary to join the conversation.
All blessings,
Junie
11
Feb
Valentine’s Day is for Everyone!
Will you be my Valentine?
Hallmark and consumerism have made Valentine’s Day into a special occasion for people in loving relationships. But what if you’re single? Do you feel left out? Or what if you’re in a relationship but it’s not feeling particularly loving these days? Do you just wish this day would hurry up and pass? Or, maybe you’re in a fabulous relationship and your love for one another isn’t much different on February 14th than on any other day.
Well, no matter what the day signifies for you, here’s a great recipe, with love that is guaranteed to put a smile in your heart every day! In fact, I think Hallmark would be wise to start making cards that say something like this:
Happy Valentine’s Day To My Best Friend and lover, the person who I am learning to adore more than anyone else in the whole wide world, the one who has been with me through thick and thin, no matter what. She (or he) knows exactly what I need when no one else does. I have to admit, she hasn’t ALWAYS treated me as well as I deserve to be treated—in fact, sometimes has been out and out nasty. She has said things that have hurt me. Things she would never say to anyone else! However, I am ready and willing to forgive her and today I am declaring my true love and appreciation in ways I never have before because in spite of her shortcomings, she is amazing!
Valentine’s Day is a fitting time to start my declaration and one that I intend to commit to the best I can. It may not be easy because I’ve held onto so many judgments of her but I want to stop that critical way of being. So I am reaching out to The Universe for guidance because in truth, she really deserves my unconditional love and compassion more than anyone else I know.
It may not always look like flowers, candlelit dinners, or days at the spa. But I can start with small things. Well, actually, why not flowers? Fresh flowers always lift her spirits and as I imagine the smile on her face when I give them to her—well, she’s irresistible! I intend to put a smile on her face far more often because when she is happy, she simply radiates light. She becomes a love magnet putting smiles on other people’s faces everywhere she goes!
She has been so brave and has overcome so many challenges. She hurts easily—and well, I just haven’t listened to her as well as I could have. She has such a beautiful heart and I’m going to write her a Valentine love letter and tell her so. I’m going to read it to her out loud and I hope that she will keep it somewhere safe and read it over and over again whenever she forgets how loved she is. And I recommend you do the same for your true love.
Two Writing Prompts
1. Write a letter to the one who deserves your love and compassion more than anyone else. The one I have been writing about! By now, have you figured out that it is YOU! Yes, YOU! Write the most beautiful, heart-felt letter to yourself, put it in an envelope, and drop it in the mail. You will more than likely forget that you did and when it comes, it will be the best gift in the whole wide world! And don’t be surprised if it arrives on a day that you need to read it the most. In the meantime, buy yourself some beautiful flowers and stick a little card on them from the florist shop that says, I LOVE YOU!
2. Write a love letter to someone else you really appreciate who makes your heart sing and tell them all the reasons why. Don’t hold back. Go for the gusto!
Caveat: Please do the writing exercises in the order listed. This is a matter of putting your oxygen mask on first and Letting Your Love Light Shine for yourself! Then it radiates out naturally to the world. Just imagine—the love you give yourself passes on to the next person and the next, creating a ripple effect that contributes to the critical mass of a more compassionate, loving planet! I’d say that’s pretty irresistible win-win motivation! Love for one and all!
Meet Joey and Madeleine, my adorable budgies. From the moment they met, they were each other’s Valentines. You couldn’t put a toothpick between them and it’s never changed! Joey’s the one getting his head massaged. They do take turns though. S w e e t ! … Oops! Make that T w e e t !
Please leave your comments below or join us in our private Facebook group, Junie’s Writing Sanctuary.