While enjoying a spectacular meal at a dinner party last night, I also got to be a part of some juicy conversations. Some were about serious topics, others were goofy or just plain fun. Either way, several times throughout the evening I thought about how life is about the choices we make and the responsibility we take.
There is a “cause and effect” to everything. It seems that most of our lives is spent paying attention to the choices and actions that bring us peace, joy or fun and creating more of those or trying to figure out what the heck happened to turn a piece of our world upside down and trying to avoid that! (and everything in between)
For a short while the conversation turned to the home invasion, Fito, mom and I endured about four years ago. It was an intense, frightening, and surreal experience. It is not something I would like to claim I chose~however in hind-sight, I can also see the choices that we made that created the possibility for something like that to happen.
Something else is also visible in hind-sight: how we responded and who we were during this traumatic experience was one of the reasons that we were not physically injured or killed.
Revisiting the memories of this event, with it safely in the past, made me grateful for the personal and spiritual growth work I have done in my life. It helped me appreciate the choices I have made and the responsibility I take for creating my life. Life is not just about the pursuit of creating and having magical experiences. It is also about developing the internal resources and self-awareness to cope with the challenges and losses that ARE and WILL be part of our physical existence.
There is amazing beauty to navigating fear, grief, sadness, loneliness, anger, (you name it)… And knowing, deep within, that you will be fine on the other side of the experience. This is something you can only know – when you know and honor yourself. I hope you are profoundly aware of your personal power. Thanks to last night, I know I am soaking in a personal awareness and gratitude today.