I See You

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Today I found my feet walking on the sand. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore woke me up from the mystery that has been occupying my being for past few days. The beach is the one place where I can be present in times when I alone can’t conjure my own presence. In times when I go to the heart of the places in my head that scare me.

It is in this place and in this moment that I am experiencing being one with nature. It is in this moment that I felt the universe tell me, “I see you.”

I was almost in tears when I responded, “I am here now. I have returned. I am present. I see you too. I apologize if I ever doubted you. This is clearly no man’s foolish world. Thank you for bringing me back home.”

Here I am gazing at the universe with a stronger faith in our connection than I ever have before, a sweet butterfly comes to hang out with me where I am sitting. I smile and say, “I guess we’re both just here now.”

Leap of Faith

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The supreme state of human love is the unity of one soul in two bodies.” -Sri Aurobindo

Last night as I watch my husband sleep, I quietly said, “you’re gonna get through this.” And I had an understanding with my inner self in that moment, it was the first time I said it with a strong belief in him–that he will get through his health condition.

I have said this to him out loud. But I realized that for however many times I’ve said it, it was not mainly in support of him. I was saying it for me to help diminish my own fears and hopelessness. My fears of not knowing how I can help him get through his ordeal. I do this. My fears make me hide. I go in my head whenever there is something that I am resisting to face and thankfully my heart’s always been good at pulling me out. And now I am learning that if I put the same trust in another human being the same way I put trust and faith in my own heart, the things that I fear about becomes meaningless.

I am amazed by him. His courage in all of this stands out amongst his many great qualities. He’s been battling with Rheumatoid Arthritis for 3 years now. I’ve watched him get better, I’ve watched him get worse. We’ve gone through three specialists, blood testings, several supplement routines, and now the Chinese medicine coupled with a guided meditation that he’s practicing twice a day. It’s quite an adventure rolling with the changes especially with the diet–we learned how to make gourmet raw food and was on this diet for 6 months. It didn’t work out well for his body, he lost most of his muscles so we decided to end the era of our raw food diet. Now we are back to cooking on the stove top making delicious vegetable, herbs and protein dishes. This is my commitment to his healing, that I will continue to create food in our kitchen that feels nourishing and substantial to his body. It brings me so much joy and pleasure to see him happy. And when he’s not feeling well and unhappy with his condition or upset over something, I feel it too. To avoid being carried away, we practice the use of awareness as a tool to gain back our presence so we can show up for one another and remind each other that it’s okay, it’s going to be okay, it’s already okay.

The key factor that we cherish, share, and nurture in our relationship is our “togetherness”. We identify the positive seeds we share together as a couple and we keep watering them. Change happens in us every day, every hour, every minute, every second as we awaken to a different state of awareness in our separate physical bodies. It’s an interesting and fun process to experience the bond that takes place when two human beings come together, from the ever-changing chemistry to the mysteries that are unveiled. We sometimes ask one another, how is it that we love each other more so today than we did yesterday when we thought that’s all the love there is? And we laugh at our silliness because we question the obvious that love is an endless and abundant gift, that love is an ultimate and limitless source that can be found in each of us. Being with him, I learned that there is no measurable amount of what it takes to do the best you can for the one you love, it’s always going to be “whatever it takes”.

Presence, Presence.

I am reading the first chapter of a book that my husband recommended last night during our dinner conversation called, “You Are Here” by the great Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh.

I’d like to share with you a quote from the book, a simple yet effective practice that helps to be aware of the present moment,

As you breathe in, you can gently say,

“Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.”

As you breathe out, you can gently say,

“Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.”