The heaviness of everything hit me last night. I had been getting some cryptic messages and decided to sit down with my husband and pull some tarot cards. We were talking and discussing what was coming up. Then I suddenly said, “It just feels like I don't have any hope anymore. It's something I have been struggling with for the last 3 years.” The flood gates opened and I sobbed. We talked about the numerous disappointments, painful experiences, and upheavals over the last 8 years. We talked about how I don't know how to prepare my kids for their future or even what future I am heading towards. You see, hope for me had been that life was going to keep getting better. The future was better, but I hadn't felt that in a long time. This led to a restless night and lots of self-energy work, but can be distilled down to a conversation I had with The Fairies.
“I've lost hope,” I said.
“What is hope?” they asked.
“It's heading towards a better life, future, or something better,” I replied.
“Oh, then it is good you lost that. That is not hope. That keeps you from being fully in the present and appreciating what you are experiencing. Hope is the light in you. It can't be lost. If you put a light in a box, you may not see it anymore, but it's still shining. You just have to remove the box to see it again.”
“What if the present is too painful to experience? What if the light brings no comfort? What if I am too disappointed by life to feel hopeful?”
“Disappointment is NOT the opposite of hope. Much like fear and courage are not opposites. When you move forward in the face of fear, that is courage. When you move forward in the face of disappointment, that is hope. You say you don't have hope, but you still move forward every day in the face of pain, disappointment, and fear. You get up and you make magic every day.”
“It feels pointless.”
“It feels pointless because you are placing big expectations on how it should look or feel or be. You are still looking for punishment and reward instead of accepting and appreciating the being of now.”
“So it is pointless,” I say with a smirk.
“It's like your favorite quote: You can either see life as nothing is a miracle or everything is.”
When I finally woke up this morning, I didn't touch my phone. I took a long hot shower using tons of pampering products. I wanted to scrub the old off me and soothe my soul with many moisturizers. I made myself yummy food and took time to just be. When I finally did get on Facebook, my memories showed my post from a year ago. It was talking about how acceptance is the way forward (a favorite Fairy quote of mine) and how we needed to accept our current reality and figure out how to move forward in acceptance. So the spiral of my journey brings me back to the same spot with a different view.