Days That Ache

Some days are just a pain.
I go from feeling on top of the world to down in the dungeons.

I know I’m offloading painful feelings, and I try to simply watch them.
Fortunately, I don’t identify with them anymore.
I’m not lost or desperate.
I know this, too, will pass, and soon the sun will shine brightly again.

Still, it hurts.
And I wonder when it will stop.

I’m gifted, yet I feel utterly useless sometimes, frightened and abandoned.
Yes, it’s all coming up.
All illusion, all programming to be felt and seen for what it is: pain.
Plain and simple.

And still, I know I have tools in my workbag.

When I meditate, I first slip into pure awareness,
then summon the Light of the Universe and surrender my troubles.
Relief always comes; it always does.
The pain is only there to be felt before the oh-so-sweet release.
Afterward, I feel twice as loved.

I’ve learned you have to ask for it.

I also meditate out loud. I speak the words.
It makes them more powerful.
I breathe, a million times into my body and sacred heart,
until I feel as vast as the cosmos, filled with stars.

I remember I am more than the 53-year-old Carmelliea,
daughter, sister, mother, ex-wife, girlfriend, teacher, student,
Belgian-Australian citizen.

I say aloud:

I Am the essence of Life.
I Am the joyful expression of the divine, sparkling and bright.
I Am trust.
I Am confidence.
I Am the love that abounds.
I Am the sea of inspiration.
I Am limitless.
I Am infinity.
I Am Magnificence.
I Am the Light.
I Am that I Am.

And then I breathe some more,
until my whole body hums with energy
and my Higher Self fills every cell.

Then I’m on top again,
until the next wave comes to be cleared.

Today I made a drawing. As always,
it mirrors the weather inside me.

Reflection

Pain and peace share the same heartbeat.
When one rises, the other waits beneath it.
To feel deeply is not failure; it is participation in life’s rhythm.
Every time we breathe through our suffering instead of running from it,
we invite the divine to move closer.
Not to erase the ache, but to remind us, even in the dungeons,
that we are still the light.

Written from the edge of wonder — Carmelliea