Journey to Self-Love

The journey to find love within us of the deepest level, the love I speak of is finding the path to the key that opens the door to a pause or observation. Walk with our breath, hold hands with it. Connecting to that moment of presence that creates the bridge to shift how we respond to life, the experiences, the people, and ourselves in ways we have not been able to previously.

This summer has brought this in spades through multiple personal experiences. It has been amazing, startling, and calming simultaneously – and definitely a journey that started within the writings of my book and is an aspect of the healing unfolding to understand more of the layers.

It started with an encounter that I spoke about in a previous blog while out walking with two new canine kids in their neighborhood one morning and gratefully the only one I’ve come across in my over eight years of walking with dog friends. I’ve met coyotes, dogs yelling over walls at us (some going as far as peering over the wall), and those very excited pups that want to be in our faces on walks, but rare with a person.

This was the first encounter like this with a person who was highly irate and someone unknowingly looking for a person to direct that energy and emotion at. I just happened to be in the space at the time with two canine friends and felt the brunt of it and more due to the words / language used.

This was an added shift in my awareness state and my knowing that it had definitely heightened. It was also an additional layer to the next piece of the journey began in the book.

Some of my more recent nature walks while surrounded by more people than is my typical hike was opening some doorways to new experiences and I would take these a step further by stating, not good or bad, just new or different.

I am being reminded as I write this that towards the end of last year I opened a very non typical door for me which began this path into the Unknown. While my decision opened a door to allow others a new opportunity with an animal friend in a way they had not experienced before and helped them see and yes feel each other’s emotions in a new light.

We are learning to leap into a new way of being and doing versus jumping into old conclusions or perceptions to walk through situations that test what we think we know.

There would be other opportunities to drop into the observation space in the coming days to understand myself, what I was feeling, and what I was learning from the experiences. All held great value with the lesson, and I was able to see the huge steps forward or growth in those moments versus where I had been.