Personal Growth – Page 4 – tiffany nicole fletcher

Browse Category by Personal Growth

Peace, Personal Growth, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality

Dancing with Fear

Everyone is dancing with fear right now. It’s unavoidable; it’s in the atmosphere; it’s a constant thread woven through the media reports we’re consuming to stay informed; and having fear is understandable given the haphazard, disorganized government response to the coronavirus in the U.S.

But the challenge of this pandemic is also presenting us with an opportunity – the opportunity to develop as skillful a relationship as we can with fear. If we can do that, we’ll have a strength and skill that we can continue to make use of even when this crisis is over. Here are some of my suggestions for how to do it:

Faith, Healing, Love, Personal Growth, Self-care, Wellness

Love Bears Pain: Facing the Shadows

Last week, we lost Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, people who inspired so many, people who infused the world with delight and creativity. We were devastated to discover the pain they were living with, the pain that ultimately led them to take their own lives. I’ve been thinking a lot about pain for the last week. About the shadow side of life and why we keep our pain hidden in darkness when all it does there is fester and eat our life away, sometimes literally devouring our very existence.

Why are we so ashamed of our pain? Why is it not safe to say to one another, “I’m hurting”? Why do we suffer alone? Why is it so hard for us to be what we already are – completely human, someone who isn’t always okay?

Somewhere I heard the saying, “When pain is shared, it doesn’t become trauma.” I’ve had pain, both physical and emotional, that I thought I would never survive nor recover from, pain that I thought would break me in half. Not only did I survive, but I have recovered, and what made the difference for me was the pain being brought to light in the safe space of someone who could bear it with me. I needed that even when God was abiding with me in my pain; I needed both. He created us for relationship and for love, and our presence can heal one another.

Pain cannot withstand the light of love. It will transform in the face of it. It will shift and change and eventually become wisdom and compassion. God is a redeemer; we have the victory, because even the darkest parts of life can be made into light when surrendered and offered to God. Sadly, sometimes we lose people before they are able to know and experience this.

If we normalize pain as what it truly is – part of the human condition – perhaps we won’t be so afraid to have our pain be witnessed. We’ll bring it out into the light, even just to one other person, where it will have to shift and change, where we can be healed.

So with the events of this past week, I want to say: don’t be afraid to look into your dark places and be honest with yourself about the ways life has broken your heart. Make sure you have at least one person with whom it’s safe to share those things. (Look for compassion, acceptance, someone who is aware of their own pain, and the ability to be fully present.) Try as much as you can to BE that person for the people you love. And seek, without shame, whatever help you need to be well. There is NO shame in therapy, counseling, crying and experiencing “negative”/difficult emotions, taking medication, and whatever else you need to heal. Pursue your healing. It is your birthright and God wants you to be well.

Love bears pain. I can only speak to the love of God, because that is what has ultimately saved me. My heart was broken, but oh I found the heart-mender! In God’s great love for us, Christ came and died a death on a cross, a death he didn’t deserve, that death, pain, loss, and suffering would no longer have the final say. Death and suffering were swallowed up in the love between Father and Son, that now all who suffer are taken up into the love of God, for God knows that place, God knows what it is to face death and pain. He knew what we needed most and He has provided it in the person of Jesus Christ.

When you suffer, God is there – God is with you, bearing it with you. And He has already given us victory over the shadow side of life in the promise of the Holy Spirit – that God will be right where we are, breathing in us. Knowing that I am never alone, even and especially when I’m in pain…that saves me every day. I wish you peace today.

all i ever wrote, Healing, Personal Growth, Poetry

The Ordinary Miracle

by Tiffany Nicole Fletcher

***

There is
the belief that freed you—
Bright and shining,
this is the new sight
we sing of.
The veil fallen
now every cloud parted, and
there is only the empowered you left.
The you that is unshackled.
The you that has no intention
of turning back.

A New World, Healing, Love, Peace, Personal Growth, Spiritual Practice

The Invitation to Healing

I read a quote a few months ago and it has stayed with me. Richard Rohr writes:

“We cannot change the world except insofar as we have changed ourselves. We can only give away who we are. We can only offer to others what God has done in us. We have no real mental or logical answers. We must be an answer. We only know the other side of the journeys that we have made ourselves…All the conflicts and contradictions of life must find a resolution in us before we can resolve anything outside ourselves. Only the forgiven can forgive, only the healed can heal, only those who stand daily in need of mercy can offer mercy to others. At first it sounds simplistic and even individualistic, but it is precisely such transformed people who can finally effect profound and long-lasting social change.”

In this quote, I found the expression of my motivation for the work I have devoted my life to. We stand in the midst of a world in tremendous need of healing, social change, relational repair, and transformation of systems of power. But every broken system that exists is simply the sum of the people in it, and so it is my belief that our hope for a better world will be found starting at the individual level.

We must start with ourselves. The things that bother us about the world or other people are likely a call first to us, to become the change we wish to see. To embody it first within our own lives. And then, as Richard Rohr says, we become capable of truly creating change. What sense does it make to work to change the larger world in some way if we haven’t first sought to effect that specific change in our own life? It’s there that often requires the most courage.

I believe that we are all called to effect healing in some way within our sphere of influence and that we are given daily opportunities to do this. We are called to attend to our own healing, and then to be agents of love within our relationships and in the community where we find ourselves. (Which we will automatically be if we have effected transformation within ourselves.) If everyone attended to their sphere of influence in this way, the world would certainly be renewed.

Transformed people will transform the world. But changing ourselves is not easy; it might be the hardest work we ever do. Which is why everyone isn’t rushing to do it. It’s easier to chase other things. But I know that it is possible, that it is necessary, and that there is freedom to be found when we are able to access the healing our life is calling us to. When we find that healing, we not only bring ourselves to a better place, we also advance our family, our community, our ancestry, our bloodline, and the world as a whole. This is the real work of our lives. We can acquire titles, money, and fame, but those things cannot accomplish this work for us. The healing we need will still be there in the background of our lives until we address it.

Spiritual practices like meditation and prayer do help us heal and change. There is healing to be found, even though our personal and societal challenges can often seem dark and intractable. There is healing available and when you start seeking after it, you will see that the love of God is constantly conspiring to help you bring it to pass. God is near.

*Quote source: Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, “There is Nothing to Regret (God Uses Everything in Our Favor,” June 12, 2017, Center for Action and Contemplation.

Peace, Personal Growth, Prayer, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality

Surrender: Releasing Your Troubles to the Heart of God

Surrender can be one of the hardest things to do. Yet, it is one of the most powerful and effective spiritual postures there is. We are not meant to carry our burdens alone; we are meant to partner with God (the Divine, Spirit, Goddess – whatever you call your Higher Power or the Source of all Being) as we face the burdens of life, turning over our troubles to God regularly lest we become weighed down from trying to carry more than we are able to. Life involves challenge, which is hard on the spirit, so we must also have a regular means of release and cleansing for our spirit. Surrender is more than necessary.

We are not meant to carry our burdens alone.

The action of surrender is a choice. It’s an inner decision to release and let go, willfully handing things over to the God who loves us, to that which surely desires what is best for us. God can be trusted. And even if you don’t have trust in God, you can still surrender. It is not a feeling or some miraculous moment where the heavens will part, as much as it is a decision. You can keep on choosing it over and over again, as many times as you need to in order to maintain your peace. It’s an action we are meant to take regularly—even several times a day.

It can be helpful to use imagery or tactile methods to symbolize your act of surrendering. For example:

Writing down the things you are surrendering on slips of paper and putting them in a special jar or container kept for that purpose. A “prayer jar” of sorts.
Taking a walk and imagining yourself releasing your stresses or worries to the earth beneath you, or to the trees around you. Nature is the Great Mother and this practice brings healing.
Using prayer beads as you recite The Serenity Prayer or some other prayer of surrender.
Singing a song of surrender, such as the hymn “I Surrender All” or this one, one of my favorites.
Doing breathing exercises where you imagine inhaling love or peace and then surrendering to God on your exhale.

Whatever the method, surrender often.

Whatever the method, surrender often. Many of us are carrying around (and being weighed down by) things we needed to surrender a long time ago. Outdated beliefs, untrue ideas about ourselves and/or others, pain from the past, baggage from past relationships, unprocessed loss, etc. The less we surrender on a regular basis, the more these things will build up.

We tend to resist surrender. Perhaps because the very act of surrender is affirmation of the uncomfortable truth that there is much we aren’t in control of in life. It’s often easier to believe that we are fully responsible when bad things happen in our lives (that it’s because we have failed in some way), because that idea at least maintains that we are in complete control. The truth is that we only have so much agency. There are forces beyond our control, things far beyond our understanding.

Do you want to access the peace of God? Surrender that which is beyond your control.

Surrender can be hard, but it ultimately brings peace. Do you want to access the peace of God? Surrender that which is beyond your control. One of the best prayers I’ve ever heard is simply: “You are God and I am not.” Surrender puts you in your rightful place in relation to God. We are not meant to live as if we have the full power of God. We are meant to do what we can and then release the rest to the Great Knowing, the Comforter, the one who longs to help us and give us peace.