What Defines You

The titles and education were told would define you when you were younger, go to college, work for this company or that or you won’t amount to anything, you can’t do that it’s not realistic, you shouldn’t do that it’s not who you are.

You need a title at the end of your name, you need to fix your hair this way and weigh this much. When you wear these clothes and cover this and show that you’ll be respected or not respected. Speak this way to that person and that way to this person. if you live here or there you’ll be treated this way or that way.

Learning who you really are and the defining have been passed down for ages. It’s takes courage to speak something different, to be different than what you’ve been told you are your whole life, should and shouldn’t come with shaming and create crevices of emptiness just waiting to be filled by your own strengths.

Learning what defines yourself comes in time, in bravery to learn your own language, have your own experiences, navigate your own way through emotions and decide under all the titles, including mother, father, sister, brother, adult child etc. who you are, with no titles .

How do you navigate between what you’ve been raised to think, believe and do without rebelling against it in pure determination to be something different in pure spite that often ends you up even deeper into someone else’s definition of you. You”re kicking and screaming to the world your NOT that while you become that even more.

Clearing the fog off your lenses takes work so you don’t continually end up in someone else’s definition repeatedly.

“Write It”, write to reclaim your power, journaling your process clears the view , your blueprint created for you and the one you want to create for yourself takes work and takes time , it’s takes effort, it requires strength and determination, patience with yourself and understanding from yourself and others.

Does this resonate with you, or is it just me?

Separately Found While Always Connected

Whether separate or connected both become defined purely by experience
and emotion.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

Present in the connection

River roaring to its chosen audience

Birds performing a soul moving orchestra

Trees adding their own rhythm practiced daily with precision 

While the breeze so eloquently smooths every tune into an inner song

All echoing from the majestic mountains offering a priceless concert

An invitation is not needed

A willingness to enter  is

Intense scents of pine inspire your deepest senses

Sweetly journeying through every fiber of pain transforming it into gratitude

Resting freely a top one of nature’s boulder strengths

Love and connection are found

Separate and clearly joined

Birds sing to one another as if love is all that really exists

Is it…..

The sound of the river takes no space, instead joyfully takes ownership of its existence to nurture presence

It carries wounds down that never return

It erases hardship without asking

The aroma of the river and pine create a tea for you and nature to thrive upon

Each needle left upon the ground leaving a legacy of its time here

Burn marks upon the trees carry a wisdom into healing and regeneration

Sunshine

Madrone View

 

madrone tree

It is within the layers all things exist and it is within the layers we learn to live among the experiences that created the strength to grow.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

Under a shade tree where leaves are dancing with the peaceful melody of nature

Crackling through the small breeze I can hear them wrestling with one another in harmony

Madrone tree, you have won my heart in this moment

Feeling your presence offers protection

Standing with all that surrounds you in such beauty

Breathing life with your unaltered energy

Free to believe, to stand, to bend, to flow, to grow

Gratitude is running deep for the confidence you radiate so freely

Thank you for sharing 

For shading

Thank you for the cracks you so proudly show as warrior wounds of your life

Thank you for sharing space with the earth’s delicate growth around you

Thank you for the soul food

Thank you for speaking such volume

Thank you for the confidence to stand beyond any doubts

Thank you for the invitation into this sacred space, to be loved, to sit with the uncomfortable and linger in your zesty energy 

SUNSHINE

When I lost my son 3 years ago , I had no idea the roller coaster of emotions that would take over my body, mind and soul. I had no idea that even with so much love imbedded inside me that grief has its own path and respecting it, is vital. Healing occurs daily, but what I found out most in this 3rd year , that isn’t different than the prior years, I just didn’t figure it out until this year. That all pain lingers within grief, so when anything else hurts it opens the loss of my son again and again.

Maybe next year it’ll be different now that I figured that part out, but mostly what I want to share is that pain needs a place to feel freedom to fly, to soar and change and to grow and heal. All love remains even when pain shows up, however for someone looking in without the experience, it often is uncomfortable to see, to watch, to be patient in the process.

It is not something that is meant to be hurried or told to let go of or change. It is a personal process and every person is so different. Let it be, so it can see, so it can feel, let it be, so it move and not get stuck.

Pain is also a protector, something we hang on to in fear of letting go and being undone, or without, fear and pain dance a beautiful dance, awareness is a beautiful addition. You can dance with it or you can hold it so tight along with fear that you become unaware you’re not moving.

Move, create or find a space you feel free to feel, to think, to be all of who you are with all your emotions and feelings and then a new way will begin.

Beautiful and Wonderfully Made

 

unnamed (1)

When we are able to sit in the pain and in the muck of life, there is where we see what were made of!

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

To give honor and respect to another

Honor and respect must first flow through you

To build a secure foundation for oneself inside

Requires tenacity and determination

To love oneself through the highest and lowest of times

Requires oneself to experience love

Love is continually gained and lost before we understand its significance

Even then there is an unknowing

An unknowing opens up vulnerability

To stand in the muck of life and be vulnerable 

Is where we gain our best self

It is where we find what we’re made of

Where we get to see where we paid attention

Where we have gone and what we took with us

Shows up

SUNSHINE

 

I realized after I lost my 24 year old son two years ago now, that pain really is inevitable, it happens to everyone and can happen without warning. We can be in our most vulnerable place inside and something happens and splits you wide open. You weren’t ready, you weren’t prepared and the honest truth is NOTHING could prepare you.

So then what? It is there where everything in our lives that we either let go of or held on to, shows up. Every lesson and every heartache is remembered and the wounds are fresh again. However in that moment where the heart remembers the pain it also remembers the healing and how you gave that attention or not.

If you didn’t put the work in and ignored it and allowed it to heal shut without acknowledging and entering into it, it will continue to walk you through it until you do, and then it will challenge you to make sure you learned. Its inevitable!

The lesson from something profound and often something so small can trigger all the same emotions. It is simply when you can feel the chaos of the moment and stand in it with freedom you are not in the chaos of this experience anymore. Reflect on the familiarity of being here before and what was learned and how honor and love are applied