"We are all wanderers on this earth...our hearts are full of wonder, and our souls are deep with dreams." ~ Gypsy proverb

Thursday, February 3, 2011

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." ~ C.S. Lewis

We are in week 3 of Soul Restoration with the Brave Girl's Club online course, and we are in the thick of it now.  Last week, our task was to create a timeline of our lives marking the most significant and life changing moments we remember, good and bad.  I have never considered doing this before and why would I?  Though I have visited the past often, the emotions that arise from there are not ones that I want to sit with for too long again and again.  I feel that I have done my work there, so why revisit?  Well, if there is anything that I have learned for myself, it is that there are rarely coincidences for me, only signs, and I was about to get a big one.

I had posted that I began reading Women Who Run with Wolves the same week I started soul restoring.  At the very end of this book, the very same day I received my timeline project, the author suggested for readers to create their own timeline of their life, from birth to present day.  This was the same exact assignment I had just received from Soul Restoration.  It took me a a few days to process these messages, this sign, and take it all in.  One thing was for certain, I had to do it, and I did.

I did not find anything of what I thought I would.  I thought I would feel pain or regret, but perhaps I truly had come to terms with all of it, because they didn't show up.  Instead, what had unfolded was a story greater full of triumph than of tribulation.  I found that I had greater moments of resilience than moments of weakness, more joy than of sadness, and more success alongside trepidation.  What I found was I had not given my journey justice.  When I had thought of my past, I primarily thought of the difficult times, the times where I have been hurt, wronged, or lost.  I put heavy weight into those times as I knew I gained something from them, but I now know those parts are truly small in comparison to the entire story itself.  The role these dark places played contributed more as shifts, shifts for the greater purpose to find light, and never should they define who we had become.  With this timeline, the light gave me the ability to see that what I've had all along was a brilliant, beautiful, magical and epic story, more balanced than I ever thought.  Everyone has this same beautiful, meaningful story, and I encourage anyone to really *see* their own, in its entirety.

(In case you are interested, the Brave Girl's Club has put up the dates for the next Soul Restoration online classes.  Go on, you can do it :).)

15 comments:

  1. What a challenging and cathartic way to look at pieces of our past; to revisit areas we'd rather forget and see it in a whole new light. We all have them, it's how we deal with them and what we learn from them that matters in the end. I used to have a poem on my desk as a teenager; I forget most of it but the last line was 'from every goodbye we learn'. It's true and you've reminded me of that today.

    What a lovely post and interesting to hear about the Brave Girls on line.

    Be well ~Andrea~

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  2. you won't BELIEVE this.
    I just read that quote by C.L. Lewis last night in an Anne Lamotte book. And I said to myself, I need to post that in a blog. And here I am this morning, looking at your blog. And there is the quote.
    If that is not synchronicity, I don't know what is.
    C.

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  3. I think I know what you mean... Hope you'll check out this link.
    http://furlinedtoiletseats.blogspot.com/2011/01/boxes-and-cobwebs.html
    :)

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  4. Hi there. Found you thru Living & Learning. Just wanted to say that I also LOVE that quote and am thinking about adding it to my blog.

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  5. Beautiful and brave! I am considering taking the leap. Contemplating if there is a better time than the present... I love your blog and photos- thank you for sharing!

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  6. How inspiring! I have a hard time thinking of anything but the ugly when I think on my past, and I really don't want for it to be that way, so I'm glad to have learned of the Brave Girls Club. Your timeline is beautiful!

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  7. Wow, I have never done a timeline visually like that, what a wonderful project and powerful realization you gleaned from it about good versus bad times.

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  8. You've inspired me - thank you!

    Have a lovely weekend. xx

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  9. what a wonderful project. That fascinates me, because I guess if I think of my past I do tend to dwell more on the sad and challenging times, but to see it all as part of the greater journey, to acknowledge they were formative steps along the way to the place I am at now, puts a different context to the experiences.

    Hope you have a wonderful weekend, take care xx

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  10. You did a fantastic job. That kimono is gorgeous. I love your scrapbooking.

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  11. What a beautiful book. Hmmmm maybe it's something I can consider I would love put something like this together for my kids about myself.

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  12. I wanted to do this so badly.... still do... the money for it just isn't there.

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  13. I'm so intrigued by this course... Thanks for sharing about it!

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  14. I'm so happy to have found your blog post about your Soul Restoration timeline project. I'm in that class right now and that is exactly what we are working on this week. I anticipate that revisiting my past and all that went with it that somehow I will emerge on the other side with very different feelings about myself and all that I have gone through. Thank you for sharing with us. Blessings!

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“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
~ George Bernard Shaw