Warriors Have Great Hearts
Loving Your Unacceptable Sides
Loving Your Unacceptable sides.
What are your unacceptable behaviors/sides? What do you hate to be? What behavior in yourself or others do you resist?
Fearful, greedy, angry, sexy, quiet, bold, cheap, spend freely, sad, dead, dramatic…. Whatever you resist or disown about yourself will take on a life of it’s own. What are the prices of locking those parts of you away in the shadows? You will be exhausted, have low energy, get sick, be far less effective at relating to people, and have less power and freedom in expressing your unique self and leaving a legacy on this planet. It takes an extraordinary amount of energy to keep aspects of us hidden. What if your power was actually in all the parts of you that you deny? What if the parts of you that are not OKAY with hold your gifts?
Dr. Lori Todd
The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have you become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see the beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God’s presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the moon, YES!
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live, or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
–Oriah Mountain Dreamer Indian Elder