The Invitation

“We are all just walking each other home.” -Ram Dass

Make one assumption.
That everyone is fighting battles we know nothing about. Literally everyone.
 
There is some degree of suffering, whether minor, major, chronic, or acute; everyone walking by you has some suffering, past or present, affecting how they make decisions, how they interact, how they view themselves, how they are being.
 
We are all just playing out our stories, holding out a hand to connect in a moment of wholeness. We are all brave, yet we are all aching for healing.
 
Life gives us an invitation- to feel.
 
This sometimes comes as a subtle undercurrent urging us to open; sometimes as a raging sea of crashing waves leaving us in torment, ripped apart and exposed.
 
The invitation arrives- unpack our story, our truth, our mind. Peel back the layers, remove the armor.
 
We long to be seen.  And in order to be seen, we must first be open to feel. And in order to truly be alive, we must be available. To ourselves. To our difficult stories; to our falls, our utter collapses, our face-down-in-the-mud moments. Because our alive is not detached, it is not neglecting the tough and painful. It is whole- sometimes raw and messy and scary. This what defines courage. Something we can only know when we are feeling pained and afraid. If we are never faced with fear, there is no opportunity to be brave.
 
Accepting the invitation. To be alive. To feel. To walk someone home. To be walked home.
 
Beyond our primitive human desires- food, sex, shelter- one of our deepest longings is to be seen. To be heard. To be safe in connection. We don’t need life to be easier or to avoid struggle; we don’t need someone to take away pain or to fix it; just to see it. To hear our words and to bear witness to what we have walked through. And having seen our truth, to say, “I see you and I bet on you.” To have someone say that; it is belonging, it is safety; it grounds us in security so we can be in real joy, so we can dream bigger, so we can live higher.

We all have some healing to do. If we are strong, our scars have made us that way. If we know courage, it is because we have walked through the toughness. Time heals. Writing and breathing and moving and feeling through pain heals. But nothing has the healing power of being seen and heard. 
 
Healing together. Walking each other home. Being vulnerable. It is worth it.
 
Everything is workable...maybe it takes a radical act of love. But it’s worth it. Because none of us are making it out of here alive.
Let’s hold hands while we are here.

Love,
Jess