Let’s not wait too Long to Forgive:
Numbing out while alive is even more painful than death of a life lived fully self-expressed.
About 5 to 6 years ago, I was asked to complete an assignment for an education course, in Teacher’s College program. The assignment was to write about the experience of learning something difficult. My paper ended up being a real experiential catalyst for a journey I didn’t know I would be taking but it has followed me up to these words today. I wrote about the difficult experience of desiring to forgive my dad, and a sort of prayer/intention of having the chance of having a loving relationship with him. At least knowing more about who he is and so I could pass on stories of him to his grandchildren, were I ever to have any.
I didn’t realize that this assignment actually led me to the pain that lived inside that I finally had started to expose and give language to, and was ready to share with others. This was the work that changed my life, in directing me to the path I am on now, as someone who wishes to support my beloveds in connecting to the power of unconditional Love that is so large, able to hold all of our wounds and give it energy and power for transmuting it into Gold, into glory, beauty and space to live as our more fully expressed Selves.
Prior to joining the Color of Woman teacher training program in 2014, I had already been doing multiple forms of intensive healing and initiate work, yet I couldn’t wrap my mouth around what or who I was, and how to articulate why I had been on this journey and how it could go beyond me, once I had done enough of the therapy work, although some say this is never “fully done”. That may be true, yet Intentional Creativity works in a really powerful way, of shortening the space and time for healing to occur, for us to receive our information, which for some reason can be challenging to explain. The Legend of the Red Thread, so significant to me, my beloveds and community, has deeper ritual that continues to unfold and teach me. It is about our sacred divine connection to one another, an acknowledgement of divine union and purpose of why people come together, why we cross each other’s paths.
Today I run my fingers with the prayer and intention for healing, for bringing my love so deeply and energetically to all my relationships, as a way to complete my forgiveness work, enough so that I have remembered that I have laid them down. My teacher Shiloh Sophia McCloud Lewis teaches that trauma lives within story and image, and that there is a real energy to it as well, a measurable frequency.
I sit here today on my balcony, recently returned to Toronto from my 3 week trip to California, and I have heaviness in my heart, because I have shifted and changed so much. My heart has become more tender, more susceptible to bruising because I want to love with an openness and vulnerability. I love my dad, I love my mother, I want them to know that even though our relationship is what it’s meant to be at this time. I fear losing them and not have the opportunity to say what I want to from the deepest parts of my heart. I am no longer a fighter, unless I really was forced to be, I don’t like fighting anymore, I like loving. I like beauty and prayer, and allowing our hearts to touch one another with each others’ unique heart sounds.
Numbing out while alive is even more painful than death of a life lived fully self expressed through Love.
I pray we can come to a place in our life, where we learn that its time to turn those defenses into sacred tools of creativity. Where we use them to build bridges for one another to cross over and visit into the temple of our hearts and we have tea and biscuits and talk about what our soul needs to express in that moment. Where we have courage to call circles to gather around in ceremony, and lend hearts and hands to those in need, uplift in community, from a paradigm of a oneness, where love is the guiding foundational principle of dictating our policies and rules. It is only when love has entered so deeply into my heart and soul that I don’t fight anymore the forces in society that try to cause fear, separation and anxiety. Instead I choose to cater the love that I harvest in my soul garden, as I spend time in beauty spaces with the Divine, with others, and with my self, mystics saying that they are all one and the same and not at the same time.
I pray that as you read this, you choose to take some time, to find a ball of red thread, and allow yourself to feel what its like to have it all tangled, and then with your heart energy sent to your fingers, and radiating from your being, connected to your Source, you slowly run your fingers and begin to ask for prayer to unknot the tangles. To forgive yourself and others, to be released into the medicine and freedom of Love. To open up to a new possibility in this very moment, even if it leaves an aching gap in your heart, knowing its Love entering into it and taking what no longer needs to be there, in that shape and form. In Intentional Creativity work, we are asked to make them conscious, to speak the stories of those places and experiences, to talk about the shape and form, and let it come out on the page, on the canvas, etc. so that it can live there instead of taking space inside and running our lives.
The result of doing this work always leaves fresh space for new possibilities, new stories, new wonders that can come at the speed of light sometimes, leaving one in complete deep awe.
This is my invitation to you, if you feel ready and feel a deep thirst to drink from the well of love, directly from the breasts of the Great Mother, nourishment for your soul growth, come. Come and sit in circle with us from September 23rd to September 27th, at our powerful Soul Retreat called Coming Home, in Muskoka, Ontario.
BIG LOVE,
Sahar Joya
Intentional Creativity Teacher and Coach
Certified Life Coach
Certified Life Coach
Spiritual Catalyst