On the path of remembering, we often forget.

This, too, is just another step in the Sacred Dance. 

And so, with wild abandon, we leap.

By: Michelle Welles

 

I forget stuff. A lot. The most insufferable forgetting I have are the life lessons. I’m forever saying to myself, “But I KNOW that already! How did I forget?” Things like, I’m enough. I’ve got something to offer the world. I’m not stupid.  I’m pretty solid with knowing where my car keys are, though, so there’s a high five for me there.

Lately, I am determined NOT to forget that everything will be okay. I don’t say this as a way to avoid the realities of the world, I say this because it is the most true thing I have learned, again and again. Hard things are happening. There seems to be no end to hard things. However, we do not need to allow the hard things to take us under and render us useless. I’ve learned to find the spark, the creative voice inside that brings forth the change that I want to see, that I know is meant to happen. Here’s a tip I’m remembering from the last time I forgot: if it seems like there are only two choices, wait. Sit with it. Don’t make a decision until you see more than two options. This is where creativity becomes our best ally. Like a dandelion that somehow took root in the cracks of cement, we, too, can find ways through the hardness.

Let me ask you one thing about stuff that is hard. Do you notice the difference in hard stuff? There is the kind of hard that comes with working a job you hate, or having the same arguments about the equality and rights of others to people who don’t see people this way, or the same old family issues that yank your chain every damn time you speak to your family. These examples are one kind of hard. Let’s call it hard-hard. Then, there’s another kind of hard. There is the hard of leaving your work and life to go sit with a dying friend, or to set up camp to support resistance of the Dakota Access Pipeline, or finally getting in to therapy to do some deep healing work. When we follow our passions, our kindness, our purpose (or whatever little tickle happens in your body that tells you to go do that thing that feels big and meaningful), something shifts. This hard, let’s call it hard-shift, moves something. It moves us in to connection with others. It moves mountains of no-way outs in to moving forward.

I’m okay with forgetting the hard-hard stuff. I’m not okay with forgetting the hard-shift stuff. So why do I do it? Why do I let the hard-hard be so real when it’s not? I don’t know, but my writing friend, Michelle Welles, gave me pause when she wrote this piece I share with you here at the beginning of this blog. And that is, maybe forgetting is part of the process. Forgetting is not some separate experience keeping me from my path, rather, it is part of the dance of change and healing and meaning. It feels good to remember something that was once forgotten. Like that song from high school you forgot about, or the ice-cream you forgot you purchased that you stumble upon after dinner. Score!! It is savored more than when you first experienced it. 

I recently forgot that I was a teacher. I forgot that my joy comes from taking my emotive, non-linear living and spiritual practice, and playing with it, sharing my ups and downs with you all as a way to say, “Yeah, me too. Stuff sucks sometimes. But look what I found!” We are not the same, but we are similar in our desire to love and be loved, to know that we matter. I forgot this for a long time, and I guess fear and doubt and not enoughness filled in the gaps. After speaking to a friend, it came to me. What I had forgotten came back and I let it fill me inside all the way in to the nooks and crannies. It’s taking root, again. And I know this little bloom is going to be a wild weed because she is familiar. Ah, the joy of remembering again!