Choosing Peace Over Pain
Stream-of-Consciousness Musings
I’m trying to be more disciplined in my writing, and it’s…
Well, it’s not easy.
I’m someone who writes from the heart, who feels the words stemming from the soul.
When I write, the emotions rise from the very core of my being, and I can’t do anything else until I get the words out of myself and onto the page.
Word-vomit, is what I call it. But it’s so much more than that.
Whether it’s a scene for one of my novels or a piece of dialogue or a simple musing, it’s something within me that wants to be expressed like an exhale of breath I’ve been holding too long.
Most of my writing comes from exploring the depths of my experiences—trauma and pain and joy and love and understanding myself and life and my connection to the Universe.
Latey I’ve been in such a state of peace that I…
I don’t know what to do with it.
I’ve done so much inner work and healing that I feel almost empty—and yet so full—and I know that this period of my life has been about filling myself back up from a new version of myself, from this peace-embodied energy.
As a writer, this is new territory for me.
How do I write from this place of neutrality? How do I connect to yet another deeper part of myself when that already feels like my new natural state of being?
So that’s why I’m here in this stream-of-consciousness post—letting the words flow through my fingers with whatever needs to be said. I’m outside in the sun. The air is tinged with warmth but there’s still an undercurrent of chill leftover from the winter. There’s a bird in the tree above me—a cardinal from the sound of it, though I can’t seem to find him among the leaves that are starting to fill the branches.
I know the sound a cardinal makes. I learned it when my grandpa died and I began to see cardinals everywhere. I remember hearing the familiar three-toned whistle, and I would smile—like that song was for me, a familiar hello, I love you, I’m still here.
I love watching the birds. I used to sit on my back porch while the finches flitted in the ivy that climbed the side of my house. Occasionally, one would land on the railing beside me, and we’d gaze at each other for a few moments before it moved on.
There’s the cardinal now, flying to a lower branch to serenade me. Maybe he was sent by my grandpa to say hello, or either of my grandmas, or my friend, Amy, who passed away from brain cancer nine years ago this May.
Has it really been that long?
I had a dream about Amy a few years after she passed. I was walking along a cliff overlooking a blue river, wearing a flowing white dress and barefoot. I descended a stone staircase along the side of the cliff until I reached the shore of a river and crossed the footbridge.
Yeshua and Mary Magdalene were waiting for me, and we greeted each other as old friends. They led me to a large stone rock where I sat down, and Mary kneeled before me and washed my feet. When they were done, they guided me to the edge of a cliff that overlooked the most beautiful vibrant and lush valley that was filled with people.
Hundreds of thousands of people.
“You think you’re alone,” Yeshua said. “I’m showing you you’re not.”
We were down below in an instant—in the way that only happens in dreams—and suddenly I was surrounded by my loved ones—my grandparents, my friend’s dad who had recently passed, Amy, and all of my beloved dogs and animals.
It was Amy who talked to me. Amy—a former co-worker and my friend’s best friend—who was my guide.
(Oh… I did write about this. Here’s the post.)
I don’t know why I’m thinking about this dream now.
Maybe because the cardinal reminds me of everyone I’ve loved and lost—and how I know, unwaveringly now, that they’re still here with me.
Maybe because it was a long, difficult winter, and now that the sun is out, I feel like I can breathe again as I move into a new season of myself and my life.
Maybe because after all the healing, I’m finally honoring who I am and where I’ve been, and how I am now.
Maybe there’s a new season of my writing blooming, too…
Still from the heart, always connected to the soul.
Discovering who I am and my place in the world not through pain but through peace.