What If I Am Enough?

What if I am enough? What if everything I am doing is right? What if my struggles and worries result from circumstances that happen because the circumstances are really soul journeys? It’s hard to accept this fact when feeling desperately helpless while a loved one suffers, when feeling desperately helpless when diagnosed with a devastating illness, when feeling desperate for healing.

It’s a difficult subject to discuss because the pain is so great and denial is so strong. The biggest challenge in my life was the birth of my second daughter with a terminal illness. A brand-new baby having no reason for illness except a soul journey.

I went through many journeys of my own trying to understand why. I searched for reasons. Both her father and I went through gene testing to no avail. At one point I was convinced it was an incredibly loud car race I attended while at a fair. Then I turned the blame on myself for years. Doctors couldn’t explain it. I could prove nothing. I hunted for cures so doggedly that her doctor encouraged me to work on acceptance instead of denial. She was 10 years old and I was worn out.

Having the luxury of looking back at this point in my life, I had no knowledge about soul journeys. I was a mother with a sick baby. The drama of my daughter’s life lasted for 32 years. The drama of my daughter’s life changed the course of mine. Could the whole saga have been for a purpose greater than my human understanding?

Grateful for the new movie entitled Soul, available on Disney Plus, death is being talked about. The movie delivers the subject in an animated story demonstrating our souls do not die. It is not the end. Death is a change of costume for the journey to continue. We see our loved ones again. The journey is a personal one. Life’s chalkboard is filled with tragedies and triumphs.

Years ago Ellyn Burstyn starred in a movie entitled Resurrection. “Resurrection is a 1980 American drama film about a woman who survives the car accident that kills her husband, but discovers that she has the power to heal other people. She becomes an unwitting celebrity, the hope of those in desperate need of healing, and a lightning rod for religious beliefs and skeptics.”

I related so strongly to this movie I’ve never forgotten it. Ellyn’s role as the survivor was innocently living her life. Life happened and changed the course of her journey. The movie validated the message for my life that I did nothing wrong. It got my attention and I kept on searching for reasons. Just this morning I found the entire movie on YouTube. It was made in 1980.

Suffering is part of living. I’m hoping by cracking the door into the idea that suffering is part of their soul journey, it helps widen the desperateness and confusion into greater understanding.

What if there’s a greater purpose to suffering?

A greater purpose won’t take away the commitment one has to help.

A greater purpose won’t take away the fight for healing.

The understanding of a greater purpose can offer acceptance at a deeper level and offer some comfort while the struggle continues. Acceptance of a greater wisdom can offer solace at times of desperate confusion for why bad things happen to people. It’s worth time to percolate the idea.

By Anonymous

What if a poem were just for me?

What if I were audience enough because I am,

Because this person here is alive, is flesh,

Is conscious, has feelings, counts?

What if this one person mattered not just for what

She can do in the world

But because she is part of the world

And has a soft and tender heart?

What if that heart mattered,

if kindness to this one mattered?

What if she were not distinct from all others,

But instead connected to others in her sense of being distinct, of being alone,

Of being uniquely isolated, the one piece removed from the picture—

All the while vulnerable under, deep under, the layers of sedimentary defense.

Oh let me hide

Let me be ultimately great,

Ultimately shy,

Remove me, then I don’t have to…

be…

But I am.

Through all the antics of distinctness from others, or not-really-there-ness, I remain

No matter what my disguise—

Genius, idiot, gloriousness, scum—

Underneath, it’s still just me, still here,

Still warm and breathing and human

With another chance simply to say hi, and recognize my tenderness

And be just a little bit kind to this one as well,

Because she counts, too.

Participants’ Reflections:

• I thought that last line that I count too, I am saying it first person because it is so powerful. I have gone through a lot of self-growth due to having a ‘strong-willed’ child. How to be a parent to one. My son asked to not have any communication with me in 2001. I knew I had to be different in order to be in relationship with him. I would love for him to be different but you can’t change someone else. That was a wakeup call and started me on a path of growth. I took life-coach training and knew I would grow whether or not I helped others. I invited him to Thanksgiving one year and he came. You have to figure out how to be with the people you are related to. I thought it was my job to be his parent until he got his education and he didn’t do that. I finally had to let go of wanting to influence him to get an education. Accepting him for who he is was a longer haul. Peeling back all the onion layers. I finally let the grief go which had to do with my expectations for him versus my expectancy. My expectations were making me miserable. I picked a soul collage card and worked through that expectancy thing. It takes a really, really long time. For a long time, I was doing it for both of our growth, but now I do it for myself. I’ve grown a lot.

• Amazing reading. It spoke to me so deeply. I’m really connected with movies as well. The one that changed my life and helped me on so many levels was Forrest Gump. I related to every character in that movie. I knew so many people who went to Vietnam, all the assassinations during that time. I was a teenager and young adult. It changed my life deeply living through that, and Forrest Gump is just an amazing movie. About 1 ½ years after my husband died, I was sitting at the breakfast table with my children and I started crying and crying. The movie helped me grieve for my husband. Thank you for the acknowledgement of the power of art and helping us go through what we need to go through. Thank you.

• The meditation spoke to me. Someday down the road maybe I can look at my family member’s suffering like that. He is a sweet soul and he is suffering and I don’t understand. It’s hard for me to look back over the years. It’s hard for me to not blame myself. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying hard, taking him to so many doctors. I haven’t found a different place for us to live. I try not to dwell on it. It’s not that I don’t believe that a soul can be on a journey, I don’t know, I’m not sure how to look at all that.

• I had a wonderful thing happen last evening. I’ve been very sad this past week and crying a lot. I’ve been watching these movies, like ten hours of Romeo and Juliet. I think it gave me a way to cry, it broke something and let me cry. But I still felt this heaviness and unhappiness. I put it down to winter and the pandemic and pain and tiredness. Last night, I turned on the music of Trevor Hall. By the end of the first phrase, the spell was broken and I felt the unhappiness leave my body. There’s still a pandemic and I’m still in pain, but the power of music broke the spell. It was amazing.

• Trevor sings rap, which I don’t like, but he’s a young man singing about gratitude and love and forgiveness and acceptance. It represents such hope to me.

• That was such a powerful reading, so many thoughts and ideas. The Buddhists say we are attracted to that which causes us to suffer. Our suffering comes from our own wants and needs. We contribute to our own suffering. It’s a hard thing to realize and accept. I love the ideas you offer in the reading. So beautiful. I appreciate the work you do to create this.

• Thank you so much. Each of our lives is like a movie for each other to watch. That is so sweet to me. I spent half of yesterday playing around with the number 21. It was fun. There was an experiment done where they found the weight of the soul is 21 grams. Today’s date is a palindrome: 1221. I think it’s the only palindrome date this year. 21 is also a triangular number, like 3, 6, 10, etc. I was looking forward to today for many reasons because it’s a special day.

• I think we all start each day so special with everybody. These meditation mornings are such a wonderful way to start the day and it’s helping us all get through these times.

• It’s also my first child’s birthday today. When I went into the meditation, I felt this woosh of love supporting you and sending you energy. It felt wonderful as it went from you to the group.

• Thank you for joining this meditation today, giving me safe space to say these words. I often get this guidance to write, and then I ask, do you really want me to say this? I don’t want to say this. It just feels so right to do it. This is one of those days. Thank you for your trust. Thank you for my trust. I hope you all have a gentle, self-care day with the little miracles that we find as we uncover the power of our hearts (and numbers).