I’ve done it again.
I’ve pressed delete.
Any words that might hurt another, even if they are my truth, cannot stay here.
And though the post I’ve just deleted feels right from my perspective…there is the potential that it may hurt certain people either close to the story or who have opposing views.
And so it is: delete.
It’s my way.
To care.
So let this truth be for my heart only.
And I will send love into the world, to take its place.
The birds are home and so am I.
I could say they are noisy, but they are not really noisy. They are only noisy if I think of them in relation to my world.
On their own, they are just who and what they are.
Birds.
Chirping, squawking birds.
I’ve deleted another of my posts (those of you who have been around for a while will know I have done this, from time to time) because the energy of the post didn’t feel like my truth.
It felt like the underside of my world. It felt like the dark parts of me, not my sunshine.
I choose only to shine on this world, when I can help it.
In the post I deleted, I spoke of scammers and manipulation, and where I have felt victimised as a woman in the past. These pains, I know, are real, and they will live within me and walk beside me in everything I do.
But they are not who I am. And the ways I have been victimised are not the people who have hurt me, either.
I see those who have bullied me, taken advantage of me, used or abused me, but I see the pain within them more. They have been small children, hurt by something in life, desperate to cover that pain with a bandaid.
Who am I to blame them when I am the bearer of the very same wounds that scar them?
I will try for the birds, to allow them to be.
I only have to give
this love that I have.
I only have to give it,
and cherish the way it feels
to know I have loved.
They abused their horses; yelled at them, hit them, spat daggers of anger at them, daily.
I was the thirteen year old victim of school bullying at the time, so I smiled when the abusers smiled and I laughed when they laughed (thankfully they weren’t horrible enough to laugh about the abuse.) I suppose a part of me must have thought: well, if they do this to horses, what might they do to me. I’d best tread carefully.
And so I did.
I was a mess of crumbling empathy, inside. Those poor horses. They must have been so frightened and so, so confused.
The two women, a Mother and her teenage Daughter, seemed otherwise nice. They had genuine love for their horses, I could tell by the way they spoke their names and stroked their strong, wide shoulders at the gate, as we talked.
Still. They really were rather horrible, to my thirteen year old eyes. That would never be me.
The day my horse bucked me off in the paddock was an ordinary day. Nothing unusual had happened to upset me. No dark clouds threatened to ruin the perfect sky, or my day as a little sad girl, joyously bounding around on her beautiful, crystal pony.
I was up on the horse.
And then I was down.
And my beautiful grey girl felt the wrath of a Brooke I had never ever been.
I screamed at her. I used words I didn’t even think I knew. I purposely chose sentences I had heard the ‘horrible ones’ using. And although I would never have hit her, I may as well have, because when the dust had settled…I felt such remorse. How had that venom lived inside of me? Did I really think all those horrible words about my very best friend?
I instantly hit the self preservation button, blamed the ‘horrible ones’ for making me behave in this way. Without them, I would never have done this. I was a beautiful, kind person, and wise beyond my years I had been told. Until now. Kind people absolutely never did ‘bad’ things.
But, you see, they did, apparently.
I did.
Every chemical of panic flooded my nervous system.
‘Horrible me’ had to go under the carpet and she had to stay there, never to be seen again. Only beauty lives here. Only sweet kindness and love.
Today, 26 years later, as I stood in front of the mirror, a flash of feeling came to me, a sludge of shame. And a memory. Of the little girl who had betrayed her own goodness, and tore another beautiful soul down.
Today, I saw the truth of what I had done, and I cried.
My beautiful girl. She had deserved so much more, and I had been capable of giving her everything she had deserved…until the moment I hadn’t.
That was the day I became fully human, imperfect and perfect, all at the same time. I wouldn’t understand this idea until many, many years into the future. Sometimes, I don’t understand it, now.
Self compassion is a beautiful learned skill, and my own has held me well, today. I can hold that silly little girl who really didn’t know any better and I can promise the me I am now that I will better protect my energy in the future.
Too many times I’ve allowed myself to be influenced by others in a way that has been damaging to me, and sometimes to others. I like to think my beautiful pony gave me one of the greatest lessons I’ll ever learn in life, however late I’ve learned it.
It is up to me to protect my boundaries.
It is up to me to choose love, and not the opposite.
And when I slip up and inevitably fail, it’s up to me to love myself enough to find self forgiveness.
Bravery
is born
on the tender tears
of loss and disappointment.
Keep stepping.
You are so loved.
I send my heart
to those in pain.
Let me sit beside you in the dark.
Let me remind you:
darkness is the ship
to a bright new day.
A little story. A lovely one.
While standing in line at the shop, today, holding a baby in one arm and a pram in the other, the lady in front of me turned.
‘Please go ahead of us. I see you have two little ones and a baby. Please go ahead.’
I could have kissed her beauty.
I could have held her love in the air and said out loud for all to hear, ‘this is the kindness I choose.’
Instead, I said thank you.
Once. And once again.
True sunshine.
The end.
I know the words I’ve spoken are true;
they have been wider and further than the ordinary kind.
Those words of the heart that stretch across souls, here they are: truth sending forth her deepest moan.
The absolute truth is unmistakable.
I know
I know
the absolute truth.
Kindness is everywhere if we look hard enough.
And you’ll know how it feels, because you’ll know how it looks.
And if you know how it looks…
you’ll know your most important identity.
You’ll know how to be beautiful you.
Kindness is beautiful.
See it, feel it, know it kind of beautiful.
Or…not know it.
Kindness is kindness, either way.
Kindness isn’t something we need to think to life.
It is not a plan, it is not an order.
It’s a heart thing.
Our job is just to listen.
And breathe.
So, don’t try to be kindness.
Just move over.
To the left of the Sun, to the right of the moon.
And I promise you,
I promise.
Kindness will be there soon.
The words were simple.
A question.
A question of heart and soul.
‘If you could be remembered for one thing,
what would that be?’
What would that be?
And I knew I wouldn’t be remembered for the jobs I’d done or the titles I’d held.
I knew I wouldn’t be remembered for the degrees I’d received or the knowledge I’d gathered.
I would be remembered because I loved.
I would be remembered because I tried
(I always tried)
to be kind.
And to love in spite of it all.
brooke-cutler.com 