pre-Thursday poetry?

There is a life-force

within your soul,

seek that life.

There is a gem in

the mountain of your body,

seek that mine. 

O traveler,

if you are in search of That

Don't look outside,

look inside yourself

and seek That.

-RUMI

Tuesday afternoons are hard.  Challenging.  Complicated?

I try to spend time with the mijo on Tuesdays – usually it is his time for the grief group and mine for therapy.

I love the mijo – sometimes more than I think is prudent … love is just such a thorny emotion.

Every time I look in his eyes, I remember that his mom can't anymore.  And it breaks my heart. 

So that joy that I have always derived from spending time with him is now always mixed with these bittersweet acknowledgements about what he has lost; what I have lost; what we have all lost.

I hold in my pain because I am not sure how to talk to him about the grief that either of us experiences in these moments.

Then I go to the grief therapy session and my lovely therapist encourages me to open up … to dig deeper, to look underneath my frustration, my pain, my overwhelm.

It seems we keep coming back to my self-inflicted pain getting heaped on top of all the rest.

We agreed, again, this time that I don't have to add the insult to injury.

As I suggested to a friend last week, at that moment, I could pivot.  

I could move my critical eye for a moment away from my own imperfection.  I could remember in that moment to apply some compassion, to give myself that coveted BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT that I so wish others would also give me.

These are big and momentous agreements, acknowledgements, understandings. 

And they are tiny, small, infinitesimal movements, not large, graceful arabesques.

So, I am digging out my metta mantras and trying again.

When the demons (or gremlins) start to denigrate my being, call out all of my imperfections and human failings, I am going to try to remember to stop, breathe and say these to myself.

May I acknowledge abundance.

May I allow love to flow to and from me.

May I embrace my gifts and talents.

May I feel beautiful and strong.

And these revised mantras:

May I see myself with love and compassion.

May I love myself in failure and triumph.

May I express my tender, whimsical self.

May I open to all the love around me.

And I will work on developing others if these do not provide the balm or succor needed.