Time Travels...

Hello! And welcome back to The Love Guerrillas Manifesto! I have taken a break from writing to grieve, to work on some amazing projects, to learn, to travel and to sit with what I have shared over the last 15 entries. I have discovered that a HUGE part of this work is taking time to experience self-love and cultivate it. By taking a step back, I can truly be present to it! It makes me think of how powerful being witness to something is. I sat back and not only became witness to my life, but witness to self-love actualizing in different waves over the last month.

In my day-to-day life I am a social worker working with the most amazing clients and team members! One of the things I have been busy working on is a project that promotes Recovery being possible from Mental Illness. By using dance we were able to cultivate a feeling of "Happy!" that starts the conversation about how we all are affected by mental illness and to be aware and supportive to one another. What was so special for me is how everyone in the video used their bodies to move!! This video is not only about mental illness it is about creative soul expression! Click the link below to see for yourself:

Recovery is Possible!

Working in the mental health field can be very rewarding and very difficult. It is a practice for me in holding a paradox. Over this month I had to say goodbye to someone I worked with who passed away and a different goodbye to a powerful and phenomenal supervisor who was retiring. Loss in any form allows a space for rebirth and for something else beautiful to come in the space that the loss left. I truly listened to these losses and allowed myself to grieve them. What I have learned from my own grief process is that being in the moment and allowing yourself to feel loss keeps you connected to those who you perceive as being "gone". Lighting a candle and allowing my heart to break for one, sharing laughter and hugs to the other all help me keep a golden thread from my heart to theirs. 

This practice and this time is connected to my experience with my body completely and totally. Because it is my body that is the vessel that keeps all of these memories and experiences at my fingertips! I recall in my body the feelings of love, connection, hope that emanate from my heart and surround the people that I come in contact with. 

This month also saw great love in the form a wedding between amazing friends, a new family unit with beautiful children and a profound experience dancing again with one of my closest friends- a true soul sister. Witnessing love in these ways was powerful and allowed me to truly take that love in! To let the love that I saw on their wedding day, and in the eyes of my friends with their smiling children and the connection with my friend as we danced, was a practice in letting love fall across my shoulders, dance across my chest and settle deep inside my belly where I will hold it forever. 

I have a keen awareness and deep appreciation for my partner who sees me totally and with eyes of love and admiration daily for what I may struggle with, and for all that I want to do in my life. Having someone truly see me and reflect a loving gaze is so powerful and I feel that it is so needed in my life. It is as if you are riding waves on a sea alone but know that there is a vessel behind yours, there to catch you if you need help sailing.

So it is in all of these experiences that I come to a deep gratitude for the space and time to be able to truly experience them. I started to feel guilty about not writing that somehow it would be a reflection of me somehow, but what I have learned is that in this work of self-love, action and stillness is still movement! I honor the times to be still, as I honor the times to move/act. 

So, welcome back or welcome for the first time, as witnesses to my journey- in hopes that you will share your journey with me too.