As a former fundraising professional, I feel compelled to give you – my investors of the heart – a progress report on my Year of Love as there have been some fabulous first quarter results! Here’s how things are stacking up:
1. “Contribute love to my community”: Launching 150 girls on 15 GFC Girl Action Teams next week!
2. “Create love through my work”: Come to WomanKind, the Women’s Circle or the GRCC Pink Bag Seminar to let me know how I’m doing!
3. “Love my body”: Continuing my hurt-so-good, hip-opening yogic pursuit!
4. “Express and experience fabulous love with a man”: In a Q2 report perhaps…
5. “Channel love to family and friends”: Gladly, this is an ongoing practice.
You know what though? The most impactful Q1 outcome was not part of the original proposal. I do indeed have a new love… God. I know; I know you were rooting for a real, live, in-the-flesh man. (And I know some of you may think I’ve gone off the deep end.) There may indeed be a he; however, what I’m writing about is He. The He that had to (and for me, has to) come first.
My God is a combo of Divine Masculine, Feminine and That-Which-Can’t-Be-Defined. For this Year of Love, it was God in masculine form that I needed. Unbeknownst to me, this is what I have hungered for, a hunger that no mere mortal could satisfy (and isn’t meant to.)
Going alone to my sister’s for Christmas one more time had brought me to my spiritual knees. I was offered a hand and I surrendered. I leaned in and against. I trusted. I had no other choice.
Sure enough, when I yearn to be held, I feel His arms. When I need to talk, He’s completely there. To this Being, I open my heart. I’ve fallen in love.
I thought I had “let go and let God” before (oh, about 500 million times!) Yet this is different. I knew it immediately. For the first time, I feel free from the pursuit of perfection. For the first real time, I’ve let go of the reins.
With each passing day, I trust more. When I start grasping onto the earthly good this reordering has brought, I remember the wise words of a friend: “Palms Up”. With palms up, I release that which isn’t mine and I receive that which is.
Many of you wrote me of your own proclamations including “The Year of Financial Security” and “The Year of Healthy, Happy Family.” What I offer for your quest is simply, “palms up, my friends, palms up.”
Posts Tagged ‘enough’
Palms Up
January 26, 2010Imperfectly Beautiful
May 31, 2009Last weekend, one of my best friends asked me, “Eleanor, do you think you are enough?” I answered, “Honestly? No.”
She and our other dear friend were aghast, but I didn’t want to pretend to be more confident than I felt in that moment. I wanted to be honest that yes, sometimes I struggle with the feeling that I am not “enough” for the good things I want to be, do and have in my life. Like a chronic physical injury that must be taken care of daily, this insecurity is something I have been aware of for a long time and I tend daily to its healing.
My friend said, “What would make you feel enough?” I answered, “If I had no imperfections,” knowing full well the impossibility of such a state. She then replied, “Would you like a work of art if it had no imperfections?” I immediately answered, “No,” and in that simple instant, I began to understand myself as a work of art which is MORE beautiful and interesting – not less – BECAUSE of my imperfections.
What my friend did for me on her front porch in Atlanta is what we do for each other each week in the Women’s Circle. It is a safe space to admit our fears, our insecurities and our perceived imperfections. We are not lesser women for having them; we are human.
In return for our courageous transparency, we receive loving reflection back from other women who see our “flaws” as part of our beauty and help us develop practices to transform the way we hold them and the hold they have on our lives.
A few weeks ago I went to church for the first time in years. The Rev. Dana Corsello delivered a really moving sermon. She was talking about Jesus returning to his disciples in flesh and blood with his wounds visible. She spoke of the incredible vulnerability, humility and generosity of His saying, and our saying to each other, “Hi, these are my wounds, tell me yours.”
The Women’s Circle is a space to let down the façade of perfection, reveal our wounds, and receive love, acceptance and healing practices for who we are, as we are, today.
“Salutations to that which I am capable of becoming”
April 25, 2009I would really love to do big things in the world. I want to spread Girls For A Change from Memphis to Harare, Portland to Bogota and Philly to the Swat Valley. I want to heal and prevent horrific injustices towards women around the world. I would love to squash the Taliban (though I admit I’m a bit afraid of getting acid thrown in my face.) I’d love to work for the Nike Foundation or for Obama’s new White House Council on Women and Girls. I want to go around the country and the world listening to the dreams, challenges and solutions that women and girls have for themselves, their families, their communities and their country and I want to help the Administration respond in visionary, change making ways. I want to remind every girl I meet to believe in herself, what she is capable of and how much the world needs her.
I’ve heard that our heroes are our heroes because they embody some aspect of ourselves whether we realize it or not. My current heroes include the kind, spiritual and principled President Jimmy Carter and his work with the Carter Center, the kickass, outspoken Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, wicked smart Rachel Maddow, and the coolest, most transparent First Lady to ever hit the planet! I’m not comparing myself (yet!) to these amazing peeps, however I think there is a theme amongst them – they are all courageous, original and hugely impactful in their own way. I would love to be the same.
One of my favorite yoga teachers in Richmond, Karen Hansen of Yoga Wabi Sabi, often ends class with the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya” which loosely translated means, “Salutations to that which I am capable of becoming.” Each week it reminds me that it might just be possible – this inkling and prayer I have of believing I could make an impact on the world for girls and women and thus, for everyone.
And… at the end of each world-saving day, I want to come home. I want to breathe. I want to feel who I am instead of letting my worries or my ego define me. I want to be there for my friends, my sisters, my mom, my man, my children, my God and my self – as Eleanor – stripped of all outer definitions. I want to feel my spirit in my body, to share myself with an open heart and to love with all I have.
