Some years ago, in the midst of my spiritual ‘growing pains’ – I found myself desperate for relief. “Just a moment,” I thought, “a return to self – the way things used to be.”

I had been frightened, I suppose, by the enormity of letting go – this releasing, as it was, of all that I had ever known. I had been victimized, or so I thought, by the vile indignation of another – trapped behind this wall of what I presumed to be real.

Until one day when I realized – just because it’s real, doesn’t make it true.

I thought of myself as a young girl—I used to be terrified of the dark. Our house, in those days, sat nestled in the woods – surrounded on all sides by the ‘voice’ of the forest. And I, with my frighteningly overactive imagination thought — well, it must be monsters, of course.

I tortured myself nearly every night—convinced that those monsters were after me. Though, in the end, they never seemed to care. All that troubling over something that wasn’t even there.

It’s hard to imagine that these sounds, which had once provoked great fear – were now, oddly, very soothing to me.

Just because it’s real, doesn’t make it true.

I thought of all the harsh words once spoken to me – those pockets of unprovoked anger, and feelings of never quite being good enough. Though they may have felt real in that moment, my darlings, they most certainly were not true.

That single revelation, this moment of metta – it was the relief I had been searching for all these years.

Settle in the here and now.
Reach down into the center
where the world is not spinning
and drink this holy peace.

Feel relief flood into every
cell. Nothing to do. Nothing
to be but what you are already.
Nothing to receive but what
flows effortlessly from the
mystery into form.

Nothing to run from or run
toward. Just this breath,
awareness knowing itself as
embodiment. Just this breath,
awareness waking up to truth.

~ Danna Faulds

My darlings, settle in to this here and now – feel relief flood into every cell.

And, remember, you’ve always been good enough, my loves.