Dearest Readers,

Years ago I heard an inspiring speaker talking about making it through rough times. She likened being in the pit of despair to being in the middle of a terrible storm. “Sometimes you just gotta hold on,” she said, “You just gotta hold on until it passes.”

When we’re in that place of fear it can feel like it’s never going to pass. We can’t see the forest for the trees. All we can feel is rotten. It’s a real pickle of a place to be when everything around you is actually just fine and there is nothing really wrong with your life.

In my case, I have everything I need, my life is one of freedom and adventure, I am young and independent, I’ve been given great gifts of creativity and spirituality, and yet despite all of that I still end up somehow back in that pit.

Fear is so baffling, isn’t it? What helps me to understand it a little better is the belief that I’m being called to grow. To heal on a deeper level. If I deny the fear I won’t get there. If I embrace it I’ll overcome it.

In order to overcome it, however, I have to move through it. If I would like to come out the other side I have to have to do a few simple, yet challenging, things. Holding on is one of them.

I hold on to the belief that in the Big Picture everything is really okay. I hold on to “This, too, shall pass.” I hold on to faith. Faith in a Benevolent Universe, a Greater Power, a Life Force Energy Back of All Things. I hold on to past experience that tells me this Power is Unconditional Love and is working constantly for my Highest Good.

I hold on, period.

And then the storm ends, the clouds part, the sun shines and I’m through it. And I look around and I am no longer in the pit. I have ascended to a new level of Be-ing.

It’s a process, folks. Every single time. And every single time I come through it I think, “Whew! I made it.”

Hallelujah. Land, ho!

Inspiring Message of the Day: Whenever I hit rough seas I will remember that the route toward calm waters is always ahead. In order to get there I will put up the sail and hold on to the Rudder.