Freedom - Sheri Gaynor

The journey continues. Our Western culture invites-and sometimes demands-we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and keep marching. There is no time for grief. The battle cry is…Be strong, be brave..get back to work, back to life, you'll feel so much better if you do. These sentiments are lovely, maybe even helpful to some, but they run in contradiction to my own experience.

The recent loss of my mother has had a profound transformative impact on my life and I find that through this experience of death and grief, my own soul is experiencing a rebirth. Her passing has required me to stop and reflect.

Without knowing I would find myself here, I am saying "No thank you," more often. Guilt still surfaces in the "No," but I am trusting that people are able to take care of themselves and it's a perfect time to practice walking this new terrain. I'm listening to the voice inside that has been shouting out for some time, reviewing where I've been and feeling into where I TRULY want to BE. I am spending a lot of time alone. Not "isolating"-as they say-but enjoying the solitude of mySELF, nature and the company of the herd.

As such, I am finding that there is space and that people are responding to this opening, as I believe I am more present and more alive than I have been in some time.

Most of this last year I'm not ready to speak about publicly, but the writing has begun and with that, healing and awareness….