We are Love

We are approaching Autumn again when trees reveal how beautiful change can be. In theory, we, too, can embrace the changes in our lives with equal splendor, but few of us willingly do so because change feels challenging.

Many of you know that my father passed this summer, ushering in dynamic changes on every level of my being. Many of you may not know that he was the most challenging person in my life.  He was emotionally immature and unable to grow beyond his religious rigidity while alive.  

I know for sure he loved me and all his four children – but in the end, he rejected every single one of us.  His final ‘gift’ was to give his entire estate to the Church.  It was his final way of telling us that each of us had disappointed him so much that he no longer claimed any of us as children.  

I am not sharing this to evoke feelings of sympathy but to use my experience as a teaching opportunity. Each of you is struggling with something, and many of you had harsh experiences with one or both of your own parents.  Every one of you has been through tumultuous, painful transitions. 

We can be compassionate and empathic with each other and all people, but we can also embrace our pain and use it as the gateway to growth and expansion.  

We are divine, eternal, powerful, radiant beings of Light, having a brief human experience!  I know that I chose my family of origin. I know that I chose my father.  I know that he was one of my greatest teachers, and he played his role very well.   My opportunity to grow required his rejection. Why?  Because if I could grow beyond his belief system, to feel authentically free and confident in who I am, even with my own father’s rejection - I would forever be free.

If I could feel lovable, worthy, and successful – while also feeling the pain of his rejection – I could step free of other people’s opinions of me forever.

That’s the gift. 

I am not suggesting any of this was easy; our most valuable lessons never are.

I am suggesting that each of us needs to go through unwelcome periods of transition in order to awaken to the freedom, strength, capability, and magnificent beauty that has always been within us.  

Each of us can embrace unwelcome changes either as victims, staying mired in the pain long after the person/situation is out of our lives – or as the Phoenix, rising from the ashes of our former life.  To rise, we must feel the pain and then choose to use it for our growth and expansion.  It’s an up-and-down journey to be sure, and the trajectory is inward and backward, but with consistent healing work, the inevitable outcome is new life!

A side effect of doing the work of healing is that not only do we set ourselves free, but we also set the other person free.  I have felt my dad’s unconditional love far more since he died than I ever did in this lifetime.  He is out of his physical body, but he is not gone – he has just evolved in a way he could not while on this physical plane.  We don’t have to wait until we’re dead to grow; if you’re reading this, you already have the open mind and willing heart to do the work right now. 

You and I are worthy of happiness, intimacy, success, and the gift of experiencing just how good life can be! We do not have to earn love – we are Love.