Feeling the Extremes…

Last Thursday I woke up in a mindset of celebration and gratitude knowing that my dear Grandmother was turning 93 years young.  This woman has been a true, beautiful example of love in my life… for my entire life.  She has been a consistent force of positivity and light within our family unit, and far beyond into her community and anyone that had the lucky opportunity to cross paths with her.  She is one of my people… you know the ones that know all the good and all the bad and love you with all their hearts no matter what.  My heart was so full for her in those moments.My other Grandmother had passed in her sleep that morning after battling a long fight against Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer.

My first thought… “Not today, why today?”

I know this might not seem like  a ‘typical’ reaction, but this wasn’t a typical occurrence.

You see, my relationship with this Grandmother wasn’t quite the same as the other explained above.  Quite honestly, it was totally opposite… extremely different.

This was the person in my life that taught me a lot of things that I have been working my entire adult life to shift.  She taught me the act of judgement, resentment, jealousy, greed, comparison, what a woman not living in her power looks like, hatred, ill-intent and sabotage.  Her home was not one full of love, rather one of darkness and regret.

As I sat in that moment, feeling the extremes of this news, I began to feel into what my body was telling me.  It was pulling me into my heart, it was helping me to see what she could never see.  It was reminding me of the pain that this woman lived in her entire life… the deep seat of pain.

I began to fill my heart with compassion for her and all that she had experienced in her life in order to walk the remainder of her days in this mindset.  She was hurting, a pain that words can’t express, and her pain was pouring out of her pores onto all those in her presence.

How could these two women carry such differing roles in my life?  What made them who they are, were and the legacy they leave behind?  And then I could see….

My Grandmother was never willing to go there… she was never willing to do THE WORK to move past the pain of her past.  She always felt stuck… and therefore she was.

I am a firm believer that life and death are our greatest teachers, and that there are diamonds of wisdom within humanity to show us the way.

That day I could clearly see without doubt the power of our thoughts, beliefs and mindset.  That day I could see the extremes displayed before me in the lives of my Grandmothers, and I knew deep in my heart that our lives don’t happen by chance… we create our destiny and our experience each and every moment.  I was witness to the power of co-creation.

Our responsibility isn’t to be best, but to be the best version of ourselves! Knowing that our life is in our hands and that each and every moment we have a choice to constrict or expand…and that  decision creates the experience that we call life.

Today, I sit in gratitude not only for the beautiful life and legacy of both of my Grandmothers, but also in the lessons they continue to teach me in their lives and in their death.