Tag: journeys

Closed Doors

I read this prayer the other day. It really is beautiful:

Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness

If I have harmed anyone in any way either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions I forgive them.

And if there is a situation I am not yet ready to forgive
I forgive myself for that.

For all the ways that I harm myself, negate, doubt, belittle myself,
judge or be unkind to myself through my own confusions
I forgive myself.

I was flipping through podcasts yesterday as I was doing some household chores and I heard a man briefly talking about when we go through certain doors in life, once you go through these doors, they shut behind you and you cannot go back. “Coming of age” is one of those doors. Any major experience that has had a huge impact on our perspective of people, of ourselves, and of the world itself, is one of those heavy, ironclad doors. Because even if you call a master locksmith and you pry the door open, and you try to go back to where you came from, what you see behind the door, will not be the same. You don’t have the same eyes nor the same heart looking at the experience anymore. Sometimes we make really conscious decisions to reach for the heavy handle, and to walk through one of these doors, full well-knowing that we will never be the same, once we do it. Sometimes we are forced through these doors by experiences which we had no control over, and even if we bang and bang on the door, we cannot go back. It takes bravery to walk away into the future from closed doors. We do it a lot in life. We are brave beings. We journey forward, through winding paths between closed doors, one step at a time. Beautiful prayers ease the way.

Picture credit: Guillaume Issaly

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1028. What proved to be a game changer in your life?

Scrapbooks and Cherries

I Am Pieces Wall Quotes™ Decal | WallQuotes.com

My daughter and I are headed on a mother/daughter road trip this weekend, starting today. My daughter turned eighteen in March, and she is starting college early this June. We have been planning this getaway for a while, just the two of us. I never believed in raising your kids like they were your friends. My husband and I definitely leaned a little towards the strict side when raising our four children. In retrospect, I think that is why it has been so easy to become friends with them now, as we are all adults. There is a mutual respect. They are all adults whom I really like, and whom I find interesting and fun to be with. And by the excitement which my daughter has shown for this trip, she must feel the same way about me. This feels wonderful. Like Brooke Hampton states in the quote above, I am going to be adding another page in the “scrapbook of me” this weekend. And it could likely end up being one of those pages which I turn to again and again, to relive the fun memories in my mind. And while my daughter and I have a lot of fun destinations we plan to go to, and to explore each day, the entire journey is really made up of all of the little stuff: the songs we will sing along to on the ride, the giddiness we felt while planning and anticipating the trip, and the funny little anecdotes that will happen that we could never have planned on experiencing. I think this is why trips are so great. Trips are really a microcosm of all of our own lives’ adventures. We decide to become mothers, so we get pregnant or we adopt a baby, and mothering is all that we experience on the long and windy road to getting our children securely to their adulthoods. We decide to become our career choices, so we apply to schools, and we learn the lessons and the skills of the trade we want to do, and we take our first jobs, and once again, the real experience is the journey of where our jobs and careers take us. The final destination of anything in life, is always just the small delightful cherry on top of it all. And we savor the cherry. We chew it up, soak up the juices, and then we quickly tend to start all over again, planning a new destination to achieve, because the adventures which take us to our chosen destinations are really what life is all about.

120 Best Quotes About Journey and Destination - Quotesjin

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Journeys

****Happy Birthday to my beautiful first child!!! You are the one who inspired our family and made it our biggest desire to have even more children! (And don’t remind me that you are closer to age 30 than 20 ever again.) 😉

I am travelling right now. It is the first time that I have travelled in a while. It’s such an interesting experience to be out of your usual routine and element. I think that you become more self aware when you travel. You see contrasts to how your live, contrasts to your own environment, and climate, and schedule, and you delight in the novelty of new places, experiences and customs. You get ideas and inspirations for change, and you get a focused insight on what you miss the most in your own everyday life. Travelling is always beneficial for mind clearing, personal expansion and for getting a newfound appreciation for what makes your own life special to you. Tomorrow, I will be home and back to my normal routine. I feel refreshed, affirmed and a little tired. I feel expanded, enriched and grateful. See you tomorrow, friends!

“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer” – Anonymous.

Horizons

“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for . . . .”

Tonight, my youngest son graduates from high school. This is the third time that we will experience this event. In some ways, having been through it before, makes it easier. We know what to expect. In some ways, having been through it before, makes it harder. We know what to expect.

When I had my first child, I experienced a depth of feelings that I didn’t know existed. Like many women, when I got pregnant subsequent times after that, I got nervous. I got doubtful. I questioned why we chose to “rock the boat.” When I got pregnant with our second son, I read something that now makes all of the sense in the world to me: “Your first child teaches you about the depth of your love, your subsequent children teach you about the breadth of your love.” Like most children, my four children have always tried to “trip me up” and they have tried to figure out whom I love best. I’ve always reminded them that they are all smart and they are all good at math. You can’t divide or measure “infinite.” It is an impossible task. Infinite love is so overwhelming, vulnerable, awe-inspiring, miraculous, solid and most decidedly, immeasurable.

We’re having another ship leave the shipyard in the next couple of months. His first journey to college won’t be so far away. But journeys beget journeys and tonight signals to me that the anchor is pulled up. He will come back to our little safe harbor from time to time, to fuel up and to share stories of journeys that I won’t be a part of, but I will thrill in, vicariously. He is ready for the journeys. He is a solid ship. The horizon awaits . . . . .