LIFE
I have learned a lot about impermanence this year. In truth, I have always known that things don’t last forever—that’s a no-brainer. Still, there have been countless times in my life when I know things must change but spend copious amounts of time and futile energy railing against the odds, wanting them to stay the same.
I have also learned, over time, and may I say the hard way, that miraculous gifts await us when we can let go with love and acceptance. It’s not easy to do, yet mighty worth it!
|
IMPERMANENCE
As stated above, what you are about to read is a very personal story. I am bringing it forth because I believe that it is also a universal one. A story where we all experience the gambit of emotions from despair to elation. From fear to love. From being stuck to being free.
When we rail against change, straddling what’s going on now with an uncertain future, even though we may not be happy in our present life, it can often feel better than what we project the future could hold in store. This describes my latest journey under the guise of impermanence.
It is my hope that as you read my words, they will resonate with you—from times in your life when you were stronger than you thought—where you went from crawling to walking tall, transcending some of the worst situations your life brought forth. And if you are going through one of those times right now, know you will get through it again even if you have lost hope, courage, or know-how.
I wish to extend my hand and my heart to you in alignment, faith, courage, and love. As my lyrics to the song, “It’s A Brand New Day” that I co-wrote with my husband, David Halliwell say: “… We’re in this together, you are no longer alone, this is a brand new day!”
|
DEATH
These past seven months, since January 1st this year, I have gone through the most severe case of Murphy’s Law as one precious friend after another died of cancer for a total of six friends in all. Last year I thought I’d be among them. I am not. Thankfully, I am still here.
It’s one thing to say six of my friends died of cancer in a seven-month span, and you, as my reader, can gulp at the thought of it…yet I would like to make it even more personal.
It’s not the number that is shocking. It’s about the meaning that each one of them added to my life – the fact that I could call on them whenever I wanted and that I could trust them to love me just the way I am. We don’t just lose a person; we lose everything they meant to us, what we came to rely on, take for granted even, and the unquantifiable richness that our lives held because they were in it. We lose it all.
There is one more death I haven’t mentioned yet, and it was the hardest one of all. It tipped the scales of my mental stability, taking me down a very deep rabbit hole that I couldn’t crawl out of for many months. It was the first day of this year, 2024, when my husband, David, left. It was supposed to be for a month. He never returned.
I remained in shock and despair day in and day out. As I mentioned above, we don’t just lose the person whom we’ve loved, when it’s a partner, we lose the life we had together. And in my case, our lives were abundant with creativity. We wrote books together, created songs together and so much more. David’s musician friends became my friends too, yet over these many months, the phone stopped ringing, the invitations stopped coming, and the curtain came down on my life as I knew it. No one reached out to talk to me. I think it’s awkward for people. They don’t know what to say. Still, their absence just made the hole in my heart feel even emptier. I miss them.
Over the decades, I have built up the reputation of being fiercely resilient. I have experienced trauma and tragedies beyond what some would consider the norm in one lifetime. I don’t think I’m unique in this way. We all know of people who move through horrendous hurdles that seem beyond repair. For me, I believe I must be working out all my karma this one lifetime.
Yet even though I fall down hard, I do get up again. I sometimes crawl. I find ways to stand up again. Sometimes, I even soar. Not this time. The enormity of these most recent losses stole my life force and all my reserves. I feared I would never be able to rise up again.
I started to feel like a fraud since I’m supposed to be the “Re-Write Your Life” gal. Over my thirty-five-year career, I’ve helped countless people do just that. I teach them how to take the most painful circumstances of their lives, the ones that crush them to the ground, rendering them helpless, and teach them skills and tools that will unlock their own personal power and resilience.
I couldn’t find one ounce of personal power anywhere in my body, mind or heart to move out of my unrelenting grief. A paradox that I don’t understand is that, somehow, my chosen work defies that reality.
|
THE JOURNEY
The broken-open person I am, when I get up in the morning, is not the same person I become when I sit in front of another, bearing witness to their pain, and am capable of being totally present for them, helping them to transform their fears and concerns and move forward. I am able to put my own pain in parentheses. Then I find myself collapsing into it again when my client leaves.
Perhaps it’s akin to a mother or father who, after a sleepless night of angst, fear, and uncertainty, can put a smile on their faces as they kiss their children good morning, fix them breakfast, and send them off to school with loving hugs. Once they are out the door, the pain moves in again and takes over.
For me, the return of the light has been very slow. It’s like the sleeping seed in the ground that shows no signs of life, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a green sprout appears.
|
REBIRTH
And so, it was for me. Unable to see beyond the darkness, I began to reach out for help—a therapist, a good friend, and reached for the tools I’ve used in the past to help me lean into life again.
Slowly, drip by drip…a faucet of hope was turned on, and I could see the beauty in a sunrise once again. Then, by putting one step in front of the other, I gathered up the strength to plant a literal garden in my backyard.
I’m not a gardener and didn’t have a clue really what I was doing, but I did it anyway because I needed to see new signs of life in what used to be our happy home.
Last summer, I was so sick with cancer that I never left my bed other than to go for treatment. My friend Megan, bless her, came by and planted a garden for me. Today, if you came by for a visit, I would proudly lead you through the kitchen and onto the back deck where you would see a splendid oasis of blues and reds, pinks and yellows, and purples and greens showing off their beauty.
These days I enjoy my morning coffee among the flowers, vegetables, and herbs that I planted.
I sing them my typical “Good Morning to You Song” – the same ones I greet my adorable budgies, Jazzy and Blu with when I take off their cover first thing in the morning. It takes no time at all and they sing back the chorus in perfect pitch.
|
THE HEALING POWER OF INTENTIONAL SILENCE, RITUAL, AND LETTING GO
I seem to be in the flow these days. I believe my true transformation began on my birthday in June. I intentionally set the day and night to be alone in silence. I spent the day in prayer, contemplation, and reverent ritual, letting go of my marriage to David. To accept that it is over and to find the courage and strength to surrender to this reality.
I removed the treasure box from the cupboard, overflowing with precious items David and I gathered over our almost six years together. I read letters and cards we gave to one another—for every occasion and for no occasion at all—just because. I also gathered all the beautiful cards—an outpouring of love from friends and family when we walked down the aisle less than two years ago. I slowly turned the pages, one by one, of our wedding album featuring the smiles on all of the faces of everyone there. The love coming off these photos was palpable.
I cried, I sobbed, I wailed. I journaled and I released what felt like the remaining pain beyond the numbness that had built up inside. It felt like I was releasing every ounce of grief and abandonment I carried inside of me from early childhood to that day.
I repeated the Ho’opono’pono prayer over and over again. “I love you, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”. I lit candles, invoked the ancestors, angels, and guides, and then released all of the items that symbolized the promise of our heart pledges that were to last til death do us part. A holy moment of peace washed over me. With a full heart, I blessed David and released him. I blessed us both and the ties that had us bound in pain, anger, confusion and grief.
|
MIRACLES ABOUND
I left the house and walked through the forest and along the ocean shores, feeling the summer night breeze on my face breathing in new life. I thanked God for LIFE. I thanked God for sparing MY life. I walked to my favourite place in Saxe Point, high up on the rocks overlooking the vast sea stretching itself far into the horizon. The swells rose and fell from our Canadian coastline to the Olympic Mountains that hug the shores of Washington State. I watched and was almost overtaken by the surrounding beauty.
I called out to my six cherished friends, who had recently passed. I had communion with each one. I felt them with me as they wrapped their angel wings around me and I was assured they were happy, out of pain, and at peace. I walked home feeling blessed.
When I arrived at my door and walked up my front steps, there on the porch was a stunning bouquet of flowers, along with a beautiful card and brand new journal. A truly unexpected birthday surprise from David.
We spoke the next day and agreed to meet in person in Rumi’s field. You know the one – beyond right-doing and wrong-doing. Our hearts were open wide as we slowly, quietly, and respectfully shared our individual truths. I don’t think either of us realized the toll it took on us with my diagnosis of cancer. Unknownst to me, I had it while I walked down the aisle. For months I had been wrongly diagnosed and given the news five months later. Things changed dramatically after that.
There came a time when they didn’t think I would live. I can only imagine the fear it brought up in David when he lost his only child, his beloved daughter, Cat, some years earlier at the tender age of 26 from a car accident.
During our tender talk, we both agreed it was time to go our separate ways. We intend to maintain a good friendship and who knows, maybe even write more songs together!
If you are having what seems to be irreconcilable issues with a partner, friend, child, co-worker, or someone else, I highly recommend you meet in Rumi’s field. Miracles happen there!
“Out beyond the ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field.
I will meet you there”.
~Rumi
|
 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.
Today it is in full bloom.
David texted me this morning to let me know that the one I gave him to take to his studio at about the same time, which had also “died,” is starting to grow brand-new buds!
I believe that my life was spared for a reason. I am to continue shining my light, living with renewed passion and purpose, and continuing to be that Re-Write Your Life gal. My gift back to God for sparing my life is my humble commitment to do just that. |
| I was beyond excited to have been invited to facilitate a Five-Day Re-Write Your Life Retreat from August 29th until September 2nd at the Bethlehem Centre in Nanaimo, British Columbia. It’s stunning there! I didn’t even have to go looking for it, the invitation came out of the blue for me. At the same time I was asked to facilitate a retreat in May as well.
Just two short months ago, even though my Write Where You Are retreat had been booked for some months, I couldn’t imagine how I’d summon up the energy for it. I believed I would need to cancel. Such is the power of unrelenting grief. Yet in spite of it, I showed up. And I didn’t just pull it off. I was on fire! How could I not be? It is my dharma. Writing, teaching, and communicating to others how they can transform pain into joy has always been my true purpose and my lifeline!
I could hardly wait to welcome everyone who attended this new offering on August 29th! The retreat went wonderfully, and I can’t wait until my next retreat at the Bethlehem Centre – the Author Mentorship Retreat – which runs from January 26- 31, 2025!
|
| Here is the song I love to sing these days (and at the top of my lungs, don’t you know!).
Jazzy and Blu are my backup singers who fly ahead of me to take the lead. We share the mic! Please join us.
Shawn Gallaway’s “I Choose Love”: https://youtu.be/YHpy_k_kMTU
Here’s the song David and I wrote set to a beautiful music video created by Lisa Hope. The musicians and singers in the backup chorus are our friends. I will always consider them my friends. Love never dies.
This is a Brand-New Day: https://youtu.be/CnLcjG4B4Tk |
Something for you to Contemplate
Consider what shows up for you viscerally when you feel into the word “Impermanence”. How does it make you feel? Are you afraid of endings? Do you welcome new beginnings or do you resist them?
Writing Prompt #1: When I know that a person, place, or thing that is meaningful to me is shifting and appears to be dying, typically I…
Writing Prompt #2: Going forward, when change happens, even though I want to hold on, I…
As per my usual request, please find an unerupted space of time where you can write for 20 minutes in your journal. Have a glass of water beside you. When you are done writing, go outside and into nature and notice the beauty around you as you allow what you wrote to integrate. Stay open for miracles.
If you relate to my experience—the part of being threatened by change, afraid of the future, and stuck and uncertain where to go from here—please click on this link to see how you can turn that around with my Re-Write Your Life Home Study Program. ALLOW FOR MIRACLES TO AWAIT YOU!
If you have questions about the program, the upcoming Author Mentorship Retreat, or perhaps would like to participate but are not comfortable with groups and would prefer to work with me one-on-one, I invite you to book a complimentary 15-minute Zoom call here.
All love and blessings,
Junie
|
If you feel drawn to share your writing, feel free to do so in our warm and welcoming Writing Sanctuary on Facebook. You’ll find a fantastic community of fellow writers eager to cheer you on and celebrate your words.
If you resonate with what I have written in this blog post, please share it far and wide to build our community and to make our voices for peace and harmony for humankind even stronger.
With deep gratitude and blessings,
Junie
P.S. Just 13 months ago, while in the midst of my cancer journey – in the midst of having impermanence at my door, I recorded this video. Even then, I was re-writing my story, choosing acceptance and peace even if I lost the battle of having my life continue. The strange thing is that I forgot I even recorded it – and just yesterday, while looking for something else entirely, it popped up! It seemed too serendipitous not to share! Click the image below to watch my video on YouTube.
|
|
|
