68.

Today I did my first free standing headstand off the wall and I completed a handstand against a wall – first assisted at my yoga class and then a second one at home. (I couldn’t hold the handstand for that long without help so no pic could be taken fast enough.)

Before today, my handstand practice was suspended.  It was still very difficult for me to trust being inverted.  Being upside down was so uncomfortable for me.  Headstands gave me headaches.  I made every excuse in the book not to practice with my 8 year old daughter.  She was beginning to give up on me.

I went to yoga class this morning.  When the substitute teacher said that it was time for headstands and handstands, I started to panic.  I mentioned to the teacher that I really wasn’t comfortable being upside down.  She basically told me to do it or not do it, either way, she had my back.

Then I had an epiphany.

For the first time in my life, I felt an overwhelming and abundant amount of support, including this stranger.  I stared at the wall in front of me, the one I was supposed to trust to give me support and all at once, I imagined all the people in my life that have my back – God, the universe, my husband, my children, my parents, my family, my friends, my neighbours, and you, my faithful and loyal blog reader.  I have felt your love.  You don’t need to comment.  I know you’re there.  I write for us.  My words flow because you are willing to receive them and I am ready to give them.

This constant flow of love enables me to keep taking risks and living out loud.

Today, having absolute faith that I could not fall with all of this miraculous goodness behind me (and in front of me and all around me), I threw my hands down, fingers spread wide open to receive support from below, and kicked my feet straight in the air, fully trusting I would get support from above from my yoga teacher and beyond.

For the first time, I felt clarity upside down.

No dizzy spell.  No panic.  No fear.

In that moment, I felt my entire network of support – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I have really never been truly alone although I told myself that it was better to isolate and close myself off to avoid being hurt. But this past year, I opened and spilt it all. I wear my heart on my sleeve, crying when I hear songs or when I see the sunrise and think about my daughter being under that same sun miles away.

To trust in people to have my back has been one of my biggest obstacles.

When people ask me how I do it, how I am able to raise 5 children and do what I do, I tell them that it’s not all me.  There is a long line of people that have helped me raise them and that still help me.  It has been truly a village from the moment my first daughter was born.  Slowly I expanded outwards because I needed help for my sanity and for the sake of my children. I had to have faith in the people that loved my children – family and friends that have their back.

During our house renos and tidy project, we called on friends to help.  Without a second thought, they came and generously gave their knowledge, their time, their labour, and their patience.  They gave a gift that I don’t know how to repay.  I am grateful for the joy they have brought to my children as they are  now able to move and live and be in more spacious surroundings. These friends had our back.

As I reflected on all these ways that people support us, and how we all support each other, I knew that I never really needed to be afraid to turn my world upside down.

No man is an island.

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100 scribbles…hurriedly writing the here and now.

#100scribbles