I will choose
This path
Back to myself
A thousand times

Before
It feels familiar

Birth is an alarming entry
From the dark cave
Of a mother’s womb
We are spit out
Into the wilderness
Of an unforgiving world

And we begin the journey
Raw, vulnerable,
With the jagged edges
Of all the unlearned lessons
From every life you’ve already lived

Like rough stones
Dropped into an ocean,
Our life becomes a series
Of ebbs and flows
As each wave pulls us
This way and that,
Smoothing out our rough edges,
Dragging us through
The same lessons
Again and again

Though you will resist
With all your strength,

Your first invitation:
Is to release the control
You never really had,
And to surrender yourself
To the experience of returning
Again and again
To the lesson you thought you learned,
The pain you thought you healed,

And to return
To the most jagged
Of wounded edges,
The ones that ask
For the kind of healing
That requires
A lifetime
Of being rolled
Over and over
In the inner ocean

And slowly, but slowly,
As you meet your many layers
With the intimacy
Of a lifelong partner
As you become the adoring
Companion of your own heart
And the roughest
Of your edges soften
You’ll find the pearl
Of unconditional love
That resides within you
Polished by a lifetime
Of being nurtured by
Your inner ocean

Let yourself fall
From the pedestal

Let your armor
Break and fall away

Inside of you is
Everything
You’ve been searching for

And all the light
You were afraid
You’d never find

She was afraid of abandoning
Didn’t want to be left alone
She wanted desperately to belong

So she twisted in knots
trying to fit the molds
of everyone around her

But she wasn’t made that way
she cared too much
and felt too deeply
and saw things too clearly

So, one day
she stopped.

And she quit
trying so hard
for everyone else
and began
loving herself
into freedom.

She finally belonged
to herself

Where she fit
just right

And was never
alone again.