Happy in my own skin : going with the flow of life

Well its happening sometimes to me lately and its wonderful when it does.  That feeling that I am okay as I am, happy inside my own skin and that I don’t need a hell of a lot from outside of myself to complete me apart from beauty and nature and my spiritual connection both to my inner self and to all those I have ever known in this life (oh and my dog too!! but he comes under the second category I guess.

I had a thought this morning.  What if I accepted that everyone in my life has been exactly as they were meant to be because that is what my soul needed to live and grow on this particular journey?  What if I had exactly the parents and family I needed to have?  What if every single relationship, even the ones that were so deeply painful and did not work out was just as it was meant to be?  Wouldn’t I feel a lot more peace and actually be able to keep my own centre more in tact?

It seems to me that it is so and this brings me to think about one of my most favourite spiritual books : the Tao Te Ching which is all about learning to adapt ourselves to what is and follow the flow of life.  By no means do I think there are not times we need to stand up and fight to change what is abusive or isn’t working well, but what I think I need to change more our attitude to it.  I am willing to work to change the things I can, but those I cannot, well its much more peaceful and spiritually healthy for me if I can accept them as they are and learn the essential lessons.

And this accepting things and myself as I am also goes for me being an empathic and caring person.  Sure its got me in trouble for a lot of the time and it has made me make certain decisions that I now look back and see may not have been for the best, the trick is as I see it now in learning to be empathic caring and compassionate but also self caring, nurturing and compassionate too.   Maybe I was born into this world to bring some caring and sunshine into the lives of others.  Maybe I was intended to use the words of Maya Angelou destined to be the rainbow in someone else’s cloud.  After all when we have seen our own share of storms and bad mad sad emotional weather we know that landscape so well and so we are well placed to be a light for others as well as a guide and comfort should they so wish it through the storm.  I guess that is why I called my blog by the name Emerging from the Dark Night I have shared before it was the words I heard an inner Goddess figure speak to me in the depths of one of the darkest times in my life following the end of my marriage which took me in early sobriety into a load of pain I had not yet been able to process.

I look back on those dark days and see how after my second accident I then had a third one, both on the anniversaries of my husband leaving.  I could look back and say him leaving me was my fault or his, or not meant to be, too but now I know it was meant to be.  We were only destined to travel so far down the road together.   And even the next relationship which was such a source of pain was for me a crucible of learning as well.   I see more now when my own dark side came out because he was not able to give me what I needed and how I kept trying to pretend I did not need it, just so we could stay together.   I am grateful even for all of that now (most especially to be out of the self imposed hell.)

Looking back now I see how I for so long blamed myself unnecessarily for things I should not have been blaming myself for at all.  After the second accident and failed relationship I had no alternative but come home to my mother and disabled sister.  Luckily because I did I had 3 more years with my older sister before she finally passed away in April 2014  and I had 6 more years with my Mum too before she died last year.

I even blamed myself for Mums death and if you read my blogs from this time you will see me wresting with this issue but now I see that is what I do…always blame myself.  The truth is that at this time my Mum was very, very tired and on the decline, she really needed rest but my nephew also wanted to come and visit with his little girl who had never met Mum and things escalated on that visit when Lyra had a seizure which really impacted Mum, but the good thing was they has an opportunity to hug each other before this happened and in some ways it was all an echo of her Grandmother’s trauma in 1980.. so even there everything was interconnected and meant to be as it was.   Not my fault at all.

This realisation that everything is working out exactly as it needs to be is now giving me such peace.  And all the wisdom I have gained along the way into the nature of things, of the multigenerational legacy of my family and social pressures and confinements and the evolutionary trajectory is working out well too.    It is helping me realise too that I do have the inner strength to deal with whatever comes my way as well as deal with my part in taking responsibility to make my life the best it can be.  If I can look for the good in things and work out how the painful ones can be accepted and worked with, rather than resisted I am going to have even more peace in my life and for me peace at this stage means just being able to be with the flow of life as it wants to move through me, within me and all around me.