This piece and the poem that follows is about the feelings and growth that come from no longer searching for meaning, love and acceptance outside ourselves and instead realizing that all the answers and things we are looking for are already within us.
It's about letting go of the quest for something out there and returning to ourselves, unburying the parts we’ve hidden from the world and even from ourselves and welcoming them home.
It’s about ripping up the hundreds of maps and how-to's and promises of deliverance, braving stripping away the masks we’ve hidden behind, and gently and tenderly finding forgiveness and compassion as we heal our own hearts with the wellspring of love that is our birthright.
Healing is not about finding, searching, or discovering….healing is about remembering, uncovering, forgiving, and loving.
The Return
Searching, striving, pleading
Desperately reaching
For someone, something, outside myself
To remedy my heart.
A desire to be seen and known
And pronounced enough
Was clouded by the belief
That I was nothing
Imperfect on my own,
Prone to wander,
To disappoint.
The painting on the wall showed a man
Hand outstretched from under the water
Hoping for deliverance
Even as he drowned.
It seemed beautiful,
His humble desperateness,
His sole hope for deliverance
In a power and source
Standing above him on the waves.
I thought it was beautiful
Until I myself ran out of breath
And realized at the peak of pain
That I could stand.
Flooded with new awareness,
Touched to my core with truth,
I felt in my very bones a course correction
Bringing eagerness, purpose,
And freedom to my soul.
What I thought was a quest
Was actually a return.
There was nothing to prove, to find, to figure out
That wasn’t already within me.
Strength, freedom, abundance, peace
These were my birthright.
Not something I had to search for,
Reach for, or even become.
Rather, they were simply beneath the surface,
Waiting for me to uncover, reclaim, and restore.
Calling me with a voice so tender,
To return to who I was all along.
Like a drop of water falling from the sky,
I had cried over my separation from the river,
The ocean, the source from which I came
Only to joyfully wake up with the comprehension
That in every form–rain, fog, ice, a cloud–
I had always been water,
The separation was only an illusion.
I’ve thrown away the map,
Torn off the masks,
And though disorienting at times,
This path of waking up to who I am has felt familiar,
Like remembering your childhood bedroom
Or reconnecting with a favorite song.
There is so much to return to within me,
A wellspring of love and light to receive.
The path is no longer dim or desperate,
But paved with safety, warmth, and a feeling of home.
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