light

Hi you Guys,
You’re going to LOVE this story. Trust me. I know. It’s just what your dear hearts ordered.
Carry on,
xox

“When the world feels cold and dark and lonely, take heart: Anybody can make their corner of it brighter.”

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour.
Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom.
“Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ’em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends.
Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of, most recently, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (Riverhead).

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/inspiration/Elizabeth-Gilbert-May-2016-O-Magazine#ixzz46OWzc4wR

We all have fault lines that run through us.
They have been acquired over time, these small cracks and fissures in our emotional facade; caused by overbearing or under caring parents, assholes that leave us, being lied to, betrayed, misunderstood, unheard and bullied; you know – life.

Just like geological fault lines, they can be triggered anytime (usually at the most inopportune) and may rupture without warning, causing an emotional earthquake.

Some fault lines we are aware of and will do everything in our power to keep them intact, and others catch us by surprise.
They catch us off guard with the fact that they even exist, triggered by something mundane, and also by the severity of the shaking that registers as fear, anxiety and dread on our emotional Richter Scales.

The after shocks can reverberate through every part of our lives, breaking mirrors (uh oh, add seven years bad luck) and making rubble of things that we have taken great pains to arrange perfectly.

So…here’s my query: are we better for them? Are our fault lines there to shake up the things that are stuck, so that rebuilding can occur? Or are they wounds that are so deep that if they were to crack, they could subsequently shake us apart? Are they our own personal Fukashima’s? Disasters waiting to happen?

It has felt to me personally at times, like one of those disaster movies, you know the ones, where the earth’s crust splinters open and swallows everything; cars, shopping malls, airplanes – swallows ‘um up whole – and then slams shut.
My friend calls those movies “Craptastic.”

I used to have massive anxiety attacks. They felt seismic.

If you’ve ever had one you understand without explanation.
If you haven’t, I can try to explain them to you, but it’s a bit like trying to explain childbirth to someone that hasn’t had children.
You get that it’s massively uncomfortable – but you really have NO idea! 

It feels like a heart attack on steroids. Like your heart will pound out of your chest.
Well, it would except there’s the weight of an elephant sitting on it, making it extremely hard to breathe.
I sat in many doctor’s offices in the early days, hooked up to EKG’s while the they’d tell me my heart was fine – it was all in my head.

For me, the sky felt like someone had lowered it to about……..ceiling height.
I felt like I had to duck all the time, keep my head down. Oppressive.

And the shaking. It is internal, and it feeds on itself if you let it.
If you tense up, it can get bad. Like uncontrollable bad.
If you go all loosey-goosey, you’re able to ride it out. I’m a master at that, systematically relaxing every muscle, due to many hours of practice in the middle of the night.

When I look back now at those fault line ruptures, I know they occurred because I let feelings build up that I didn’t want to deal with.
A marriage I no longer wanted to be a part of,
A job that had run its course,
A calling I didn’t want to follow.
The friction built up until it would break the surface…and get my attention.

The great Leonard Cohen wrote:
There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

So…..to answer my own question, I now believe that our fault lines are the cracks that let the light in. I have seen it in my own life. Once the fault breaks open and the pressure is released, it makes room for the light – if you let it, and rebuilding can occur through grace.

How have your fault lines let the light in to precipitate change?

Love you,
Xox