I can only imagine

This morning I took a different route into work. C.C. was flying out to Vancouver to attend his nephew's memorial service and I opted to drive him to the airport. It was going to be a tough day and I wanted to share my hope, strength and encouragement with him as long as possible. And, I wanted to be there tonight when he steps off the plane and needs a warm, loving smile to greet him.

As we drove north towards the airport, traffic streamed, in rush hour fashion with bumper to bumper intensity down the highway in the opposite direction. We sailed through to the north.

It was a different story coming south again.

My drive is generally a ten minute journey along not too clogged up avenues. What a difference traffic makes. I could feel my calmness evaporating. My 'centredness' escaping.

I took a breath.

So often we forget the value of breathing. Forget the importance of focusing on the one thing we can do that brings us peace of mind. Breathing.

Slow. In. Out. Measured breathing.

On the weekend while coaching at Choices, I worked with a first time coach. She was very nervous as we entered into the process of working with trainees to develop their 'purpose' statement.

"Breathe," I suggested. "Breathe in and with each breath in, imagine the air being transformed into energy infusing your body with spirit. As you breathe out, imagine each exhalation carrying your love and passion for life out into the world. Where ever you go, you are creating a force field around you filled with love and passion. Breathe."

Later, one of the women in our small group couldn't stop crying. Not because of the process we were engaged in, but rather because of some memories that had flooded in on the words of the pastor giving the sermon at the spiritual service earlier that morning.

"I can't stop crying," she wailed.

"What if you didn't think about stopping your tears, but rather, thought of your tears as the pain running out of your body. As the pain flows out, it flows into the river of love that supports you, lifts you and carries you through your day. What if the pain just flows into the river and is washed away by the limitless love of the river that is your life?"

It's all in our perspectives. It's all in what we imagine. In what we allow ourselves to imagine.

So often I think -- I can't stop myself.

Truth is, if I can think I can't, I can think, I can.

So often I tell myself, it's not my fault.

What if I could imagine I am 100% accountable for my experience. What if I allowed myself to imagine I was powerful beyond belief, rather than powerless in my belief to change my life?

What if whatever I can imagine is a possibility?

The question is: Where do you imagine yourself locked in, locked up, locked out of experiencing all that life has to offer? Where do you limit your life by imagining you can't do whatever you can that will make a difference in your life today?

What I fear

Some mornings, I wake up and wonder, "what on earth am I going to write?"

My mind feels blank. My thoughts as ethereal as a ghost. But I know, if I can trust in the process of writing, of putting my fingertips on the keyboard and letting them move, words will appear and thoughts will begin to spill out.

Some mornings it's easy to trust. Others -- not so easy.

Like with people and circumstances.

Yesterday morning, I went into the office to give a presentation to a group of teachers on a Personal Development day. There were 16 of them, and one of them was late. We sat in the boardroom chatting while we waited. One woman's cellphone rang. It was the missing teacher.

"Come to the building and ring the buzzer," the teacher who answered the phone said. "That way you won't have to park across the street in the parking lot and walk to the building alone." And she went on to give precise instructions on what to do and where to go.

Now, that walk across the street from the parking lot is in full view of the building. It is monitored by cameras. It consists of walking out the gate of the parking lot, ten feet to the roadway, crossing the road, and walking through the gates to our building and up the 50 feet of driveway to the front doors. Staff and volunteers do it every day. We have never had an incident of a staff or volunteer being accosted on that short walk.

I was curious. "What is it you fear might happen to her if she walks from the parking lot to the building?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm not really afraid," she replied with a smile. "It's just scary to walk across the street by yourself down there."

"And what makes it so scary?" I probed.

"Well," and she hesitated. "Look at the people around. Who knows what might happen?"

"What do you fear might happen?" I asked again.

She replied that old stand-by, "I don't know."

Most times, we do know. We're just afraid of saying, or facing the truth.

I know what this woman feared. She feared her friend might be raped or or knifed or murdered crossing the street to the shelter. She feared her friend would feel fear crossing the street. Whether or not the fear is real, the feeling of it is scary. I asked her if that was the case.

"Well.... It's possible." she replied.

"Absolutely," I agreed. "But can we talk about what is the fear you're feeling in this instance? It is ultimately, part of what my presentation is all about."

The woman graciously agreed.

"Who are these people you fear?" I asked the group. Several people spoke up and said, "But I don't fear them."

I disagreed (politely). "You walked to the building in a group and when one member came alone, you made sure she didn't have to walk across the street alone. I remember the first day I walked into the building for an interview. I was terrified. I stood in the lobby and wondered what on earth am I doing here. This is a scary place."

"Oh, I'm not scared being in the building," the woman with the cellphone said. "I just don't like walking into it."

"The people inside are the same people who are outside," I replied. "What's the difference?"

"Well, there's no staff out there. Anything could happen."

"Yes. Anything can happen. Who and what are you to trust? Your instincts or your fear of the unknown?" I looked around the group. "And what I want to do today is challenge your thinking so that we can dispel your fear of the unknown. Who are the homeless?" I asked.

The words came out. Addicts. Mentally challenged. Runaways. Working poor.

"Those are all labels," I replied. "The labels help us make sense of something we don't understand. The labels help us separate from who 'those people' on the street are, and ourselves. They help us maintain our difference. But, if we peel away the labels, what do we have? We have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, next door neighbours, the old guy down the street who spent his life savings caring for his wife and lost his home. Peel away the labels and we have everyday people lost on the road of life."

Yesterday, I trusted myself to ask tough questions of a group of people who came into the shelter to learn about something they didn't understand. To do that, I had to ask them to question their fears, to confront them and to step into them.

That woman was afraid of having her friend cross the street, not because of the people, but rather, because of her fears of the unknown.

Now -- I don't think it's a good idea to walk in that neighbourhood after dark. And I do believe it's important to be vigilant. But, to fear simply because, is not healthy. We expend too much energy fighting the unknown and lose our ability to recognize when our intuition kicks in warning us of people and circumstances we need to fear.

Yesterday, 16 people walked away with an understanding of what they fear. As I told them at the end, "What separates us and people who are homeless is an address. What we share is fear. We fear them. We fear what has happened to their lives. We fear the street. They fear the street too. Fear is the predominant emotion on the street. Fear is real. It's up to us to stay real with our fears and not give into our imaginations desire to drive us into fear when we are safe."

This morning I awoke unsure of what I'd write. I trusted my instincts and let the words pour out. Is it right? Is it wrong? It is neither. It was what was in my heart blocking my mind from hearing and seeing what is real. I carry with me all sorts of preconceived ideas and notions about what I need to fear -- or not. It's up to me to challenge those notions and get real into the moment of living fearlessly.

It never ceases to amaze me, on those days when I feel like what I wrote was drivel, how someone will email and tell me what a difference my words made to them. I fear somedays looking stupid when I wrote. The truth is, I'm not. The truth is, I am courageous because I do it anyway, in spite of my fear. In doing it, I grow and learn and live on purpose.

The question is: Where do your fears hold you back from stepping into reality? Where do your fears keep you tethered to limiting your life?

The Proud Canadian

I am a first generation Canadian. My mother was born in Pondicherry, India, a city on the south east coast that was a French colony until India claimed its independence in the 1950s. My father was born in London, England to Irish parents who upon their divorce when he was nine, shipped him off to boarding school in Gravelburg, Saskatchewan.

My Canadian roots are not very deep.

When my father was sixteen, he ran away from school and joined the Air Force. After the Second World War ended, he brought his war bride to Canada where they stayed until after I was born. By the time of my birth, my mother's family had moved to France. She wanted to be closer to them and so, we moved to England, then France, then Germany where we lived except for eight years we spent in Canada when I was a child. I was 22 when I came back to Canada after having spent the majority of my life on foreign soils.

I have always wondered what it means to be Canadian. I could never quite grasp the depth of my Canadian heritage or dig into the meaning of the land of my birth.

Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of the power of my roots.

In my teens, we lived in Lahr, Germany where there was a Canadian Forces Base. Every day, I walked to and from my parents' home to the high school on the base. At the gate house commanding entry to the 'Kaserne', there was a large mirror affixed to the side of the guard house. Above it, there was a sign that read, "The person you see reflected in this mirror represents Canada. Behave accordingly."

I walked past that mirror every day for the four years I attended high school in Lahr. And every day I wondered, How am I supposed to behave as a Canadian?

Yesterday, I got my answer.

With pride.

Yesterday, while attending the spiritual service at Choices where I was coaching for the weekend, I heard Jill Younghusband sing, The Proud Canadian Soldier, written by Jay Willis, she recorded it with the Royal Canadian Artillery Band in 2006. (If you go to the website you can download the song.)

The song is a powerful testament to the honour and valour of Canadian troops who have served and continue to serve Canada around the world and who have lost their lives in the battle to create lasting peace.

I do not agree with war. I do not believe war creates peace.

But, that's easy for me to say. I sit here in my safe, secure home in a city where war has never fallen from the skies. I sit here, far from the sound of guns and the fear of each moment being my last. I sit here not having to defend my right to call myself Canadian.

It's easy for me to say we don't belong in certain places when I'm not the one putting my life on the line.

It's easy to be a critic.

Not so easy to stand up and support those who are willing to give their lives to defend the value I take for granted -- freedom.

Freedom comes at a price. For those who are willing to put their lives on the line, for those who carry the banner of their Canadian heritage where ever they go, I apologize. I have not treated the country of my birth with the dignity and respect it deserves. I have not worn my Canadian honour with pride.

I have spent the past thirty years putting down roots in this country and have struggled to understand what it means to be Canadian. I know what it doesn't mean in context to not being American, or French, or German. But what does it mean to be Canadian?

I'm not sure I know the answer. Perhaps there isn't one answer -- and that is the answer. I am free to be Canadian however I choose to express it.

My daughters are Canadian. I want them to be proud of their heritage. To know that being Canadian means more than not being some other nationality. It means honouring and upholding the right to be free. The freedom to celebrate unique traditions, faith and heritage. It means having the freedom to speak my mind without fear my words will be the death of me.

Yesterday, I listened to Jill Younghusband sing and speak about her experience as a member of Canada's Armed Forces and I felt her pride, her sense of honour, her fierce commitment to defending her right and my right to be free.

Yesterday, I accepted my responsibility to stand tall and claim my right to be free because I am a Proud Canadian.

The Poet Boy

I wrote the following for Remembrance Day last year. I share it today in honour of my father and the boys and men who fought to give us freedom.



When the poet boy was sixteen, he lied about his age and ran off to war. It was a war he was too young to understand. Or know why he was fighting. When the guns were silenced and the victors and the vanquished carried off their dead and wounded, the poet boy was gone. In his stead, there stood a man. An angry man. A wounded man. The man who would become my father.

By the time of my arrival, the final note in a quartet of baby-boomer children, the poet boy was deeply buried beneath the burden of an unforgettable war and the dark moods that permeated my father's being with the density of storm clouds blocking the sun. Occasionally, on a holiday or a walk in the woods, the sun would burst through and signs of the poet boy would seep out from beneath the burden of the past. Sometimes, like letters scrambled in a bowl of alphabet soup that momentarily made sense of a word drifting across the surface, images of the poet boy appeared in a note or a letter my father wrote me. For that one brief moment a light would be cast on what was lost and then suddenly, with the deftness of a croupier sweeping away the dice, the words would disappear as the angry man came sweeping back with the ferocity of winter rushing in from the north.

I spent my lifetime looking for the words that would make the poet boy appear, but time ran out when my father’s heart gave up its fierce beat to the silence of eternity. It was a massive coronary. My mother said he was angry when the pain hit him. Angry, but unafraid. She wasn’t allowed to call an ambulance. She wasn’t allowed to call a neighbor. He drove himself to the hospital and she sat helplessly beside him. As he crossed the threshold of the emergency room, he collapsed, never to awaken again. In his death, he was lost forever, leaving behind my anger for which I had no words.

Last Remembrance Day, ten years after his death, I went in search of my father at the foot of the memorial to an unnamed soldier that stands in the middle of a city park. A trumpet played “Taps”. I stood at the edge of the crowd and fingered the felt of the bright red poppy I held between my thumb and fingers. It was a blustery day. A weak November sunshine peaked out from behind sullen grey clouds. Bundled up against the cold, the crowd, young and old, silently approached the monument and placed their poppies on a ledge beneath the soldier’s feet.

I stood and watched and held back.

I wanted to understand the war. I wanted to find the father who might have been had the poet boy not run off to fight “the good war” as a commentator had called it earlier that morning on the radio. Where is the good in war, I wondered? I thought of soldiers falling, mother’s crying and anger never dying. I thought of the past, never resting, always remembered and I thought of my father, never forgotten. The poet boy who went to war and came home an angry man. In his anger, life became the battlefield upon which he fought to retain some sense of balance amidst the memories of a world gone mad.

Perhaps it is as George Orwell wrote in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-four:

“The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist... War is Peace.”

For my father, anger became the peacetime of his world until his heart ran out of time, and he lost all hope of finding the poetry within him.

There is still time for me.

On that cold November morning, I approach the monument. I stand at the bottom step and look at the bright red poppies lining the gun metal grey of the concrete base of the statue. Slowly, I take the first step up and then the second. I hesitate then reach forward and place my poppy amidst the blood red row lined up along the ledge.

I wait. I don’t want to leave. I want a sign. I want to know my father sees me.

I turn and watch a white-haired grandfather approach, his gloved right hand encasing the mitten covered hand of his granddaughter. Her bright curly locks tumble from around the edges of her white furry cap. Her pink overcoat is adorned with little white bunnies leaping along the bottom edge. She skips beside him, her smile wide, blue eyes bright.

They approach the monument, climb the few steps and stop beside me. The grandfather lets go of his granddaughter’s hand and steps forward to place his poppy on the ledge. He stands for a moment, head bowed. The little girl turns to me, the poppy clasped between her pink mittens outstretched in front of her.

“Can you lift me up?” she asks me.

“Of course,” I reply.

I pick her up, facing her towards the statue.

Carefully she places the poppy in the empty spot beside her grandfather’s.

I place her gently back on the ground.

She flashes me a toothy grin and skips away to join her grandfather where he waits at the foot of the monument. She grabs his hand.

“Do you think your daddy will know which one is mine?” she asks.

The grandfather laughs as he leads her back into the gathered throng.

“I’m sure he will,” he replies.

I watch the little girl skip away with her grandfather. The wind gently stirs the poppies lining the ledge. I feel them ripple through my memories of a poet boy who once stood his ground and fell beneath the weight of war.

My father is gone from this world. The dreams he had, the promises of his youth were forever lost on the bloody tide of war that swept the poet boy away. In his passing, he left behind a love of words born upon the essays and letters he wrote me throughout the years. Words of encouragement. Of admonishment. Words that inspired me. Humored me. Guided me. Touched me. Words that will never fade away.

I stand at the base of the monument and look up at the soldier mounted on its pedestal. Perhaps he was once a poet boy hurrying off to war to become a man. Perhaps he too came back from war an angry man fearful of letting the memories die lest the gift of his life be forgotten.

I turn away and leave my poppy lying at his feet. I don’t know if my father will know which is mine. I don’t know if poppies grow where he has gone. But standing at the feet of the Unknown Soldier, the wind whispering through the poppies circling him in a blood red river, I feel the roots of the poet boy stir within me. He planted the seed that became my life.

Long ago my father went off to war and became a man. His poetry was silenced but still the poppies blow, row on row. They mark the place where poet boys went off to war and never came home again.

The war is over. In loving memory of my father and those who fought beside him, I let go of anger. It is time for me to make peace.

Bumps in the road and other hazards to joy

Every morning Ellie and I have a ritual walk before I leave for work. As part of our routine, when C.C. is here, we stop at the paper box and pick him up a hard copy of the newspaper on our way home.

Yesterday, I put my $1.50 into the slot, grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. The door wouldn't open. Hmmm, I thought. Perhaps I need to put another quarter in. (No idea why I thought another quarter would make the difference but it seemed like a good idea at the time). I inserted the extra quarter and Surprise! I got the same result. Entry denied.

Muttering under my breath, complaining vociferously to Ellie, I turned my back on the box (and applauding myself for not kicking it) I started walking home.

Across the street, a woman stood waiting at the bus stop. She had witnessed the entire incident of the box that stole my money. I smiled sheepishly at her. Muttering all the while. "It stole my money."

I think she might have been concerned I was one of those crazies who, after losing her money into an inanimate metal box, took her anger out on the world around her. I saw her hesitation. Her slight stepping back as I walked by. It wasn't a huge movement but I was sure I perceived it.

"Oh. Too bad," she said. Warily watching me walk by.

As Ellie and I kept moving she relaxed and said, "You look really pretty. I like your coat."

What on earth did my coat have to do with losing $1.75 to a newspaper box? I kept walking, but my upbringing kicked in automatically. Always thank someone for a compliment.

"Thank you." I replied. And continued on.

A block later, I started to laugh. Why should $1.75 disrupt my day? Why should a big white metal box steal my joy? I'd just received a very nice compliment from a stranger -- and I was letting a stupid piece of steel steal my frame of mind.

I picked up my steps, lifted my spirits and walked home. Without pause, I grabbed my wallet With Ellie joyfully bouncing along beside me, happy for the extra time to be outdoors, I walked back towards the newspaper box.

The woman was still standing there. "Thank you." I said as I walked by. (I didn't want to scare her by stopping and confirming I was one of those crazies who took out their anger over inanimate objects on strangers). "I appreciated your compliment. You changed my day."

And I kept walking.

Ellie and I had an extra ten minutes added to our walk. I picked up the newspaper at a convenience store, along with a jug of milk which we needed at home.

When I left for work I was satisfied. The newspaper was waiting for C.C. and Alexis to read when they awoke. There was milk in the fridge for cereal and Ellie was contentedly sleeping on the foot of the bed.

What a great morning.

The question is: What do you allow to rob you of your peace of mind? What little bumps in the road disrupt your joy?

Living in love

I read the following yesterday in an email written by Rev. Carol Carnes, a pastor with Religious Science International.

"When we speak about people doing wrong, we really mean they are doing it the wrong way. We are all trying to get our good and some do not know how to get it or worse, where it is. The thief thinks your money is his good. He does not know that his own mind can create prosperity without stealing from someone else. The drug addict thinks peace of mind comes from a substance. He does not yet know that peace is a natural state which can be cultivated with the mind. The approval seeker longs for love. She hasn’t discovered the truth that love lives within her own being and can be activated by her attention to it."

Long ago I sought love through the approval of others. I believed love was something out there I had to go get from someone else. I believed someone else could give it to me. I was looking for that which could not be given to me in the wrong way.

Truth is, no one can 'give' me love. Love is not a dinner plate piled high with food set down before me to dig into and digest. Anything I get from someone else can be taken from me. When I search within myself for that which I seek, when I acknowledge the love within me, when I honour it with my passion, my truth, my every word and action, it cannot be taken from me. It is mine to live with, move with, share and enjoy.

Love is.

Love is not something I 'give'. It is something I live.

Yesterday, a reader wrote that love is 'an action'. Is it? Or are the actions we take demonstrative of the love we feel for ourselves and someone else?

I love my daughters and know they love me. When they were born, they did not hold their arms out and cry and say, "Here's your love mommy." Rather, I looked at them, held them, thought of them and knew love. Felt it. Lived it. Breathed it. Tasted it. I was immersed in love -- still am. They are miraculous human beings. My love for them knows no bounds. My love for them also dictates that I must separate from them, let go, encourage them to spread their wings and fly.

The Greeks had words for four types of love: Agape -- spiritual, love of God; Storge or Familial -- love of family; Filial -- 'brotherly love' or love of friends (pets too!); Eros -- love of another.

For me, love never begins. It never ends. My choices, however, can determine how I express love, how I live it. When I am 'in love' with my world, I treat myself and everyone and everything in my life with loving care. I take actions that state, I love you.

When I am out of love, or out of esteem, with myself, I take actions that denigrate the gift of me, that undermine the awesome spirit with which I was born and made to celebrate.

Once upon a time, I came through an abusive relationship. It was hell. For me, for my daughters, my family, my friends -- for everyone whom I love and loves me. That relationship, was devastating. It didn't happen by accident. It wasn't fate teaching me a lesson, or the cosmos lining up against me. It happened because I didn't honour the truth within me. I am love. Everything I want and need is right within me. The wrong way to get what I wanted was to look at him and believe he possessed the love I was searching for. To believe that he had the answers to my dreams.

Conrad held answers. In fact, some of his answers seemed to be the right ones for me. But, they were only temporary. Fleeting. His answers for me were temporal, not spiritual in nature at all. Conrad did what he did because it's what he does. I was his target -- doesn't mean I had to make myself fit into the kill zone -- though I did try.

The reason for my compliance to his deadly schemes on me was because when I met him, I believed his love would make me whole. I believed his love would complete me. By the time I awoke to the truth, I was too far gone in the evil machinations of his design to recognize I was lost. I fell into his lies and fought to make them my truth. I fell out of love with me, a love I had never fully embraced, in order to have the love he promised come true.

Truth is, he never held my answers. His love could never complete me. I am complete. I have everything I need right here within me.

Loving another is not about filling myself up with their love and making me whole. It's about letting the limitless love of the universe flow with joyful abandon as I flow with it in love with my world. It's about letting myself live in the dazzling grace of gratitude and choice that reflects the magnificence of who I am in the world around me and celebrates the magnificence of who you are in your world too.

Loving one special person is a gift I give myself when I stand without fear in the truth of who I am, knowing that the truth of who they are is the gift they bring into my life. It is honouring the magnificence of their spirit as I celebrate the beauty of mine.

The question is: Are you looking out there for what lives within you? Are you seeking answers from beyond the limitless possibilities within?

The power to control my fall, and my flight

A blanket of darkness covers the sky. I awaken, slip from beneath the cocoon of my covers and begin the process of organizing my day.

Coffee. Email. A glance at the newspaper. A headline catches my attention. Strong loonie raising alarms. The reporter talks about economics, exports and trade. The strength of the loonie in relation to our biggest trading partner, the United States. These are heady times. Concerning times. As one economist states, "We wonder if our loonie may be flying too close to the sun."

The parallels between our rising loonie and growing concern over relationships south of the border, and the rise in my anxiety as my relationship with C.C. grows, do not escape me.

A girlfriend wrote the other day to remind me that falling in love is joyful -- particularly when I've learned so much and am so much more aware and stronger than in the past (thanks CZ!).

She's right.

But the voices of descent clamour for attention. They want to have their day in the sun to block the rays from warming my heart. They fear the light. They fear I may get burned.

Recently, my mother had a fall. She wasn't hurt, but she sure was scared waiting for someone to come help her off the floor of her bedroom. Her fear was real. Her arthritic wrists are too weak to help her up. Her joints too swollen by the insidious nature of her disease to be of any help in giving her a purchase to get off the floor.

A couple of days later she mentioned how she'd been so scared, fearing no one would come, that she would have to lay there all night. "Perhaps the fall was a lesson from God reminding me not to brag about how well I've been doing," she said when I went to visit her. "Just last week I was telling someone I was doing really well and now this happens."

There is no quid, pro, quo with God. The Universe only wants the best for us.

"God is more benevolent than that," I reminded her. "He wants you to do well. He wants you to dance. I believe when you tell other people how well you're doing, you inspire them to dance too."

Falling off the bed was not an act of God. It was the forgetfulness, a momentary weakness of an 85 year old woman who sat on the end of her bed and slid off the silky fabric of the duvet because her thigh muscles are not strong enough to hold her in place. I helped her place a chair at the end of the bed so that she would not forget again and sit on dangerous perches.

Falling in love is not an act of God, it is my choice. It is my choice to forget the pain of the past as I carry with me all I've learned. It is my choice to step into this moment where I am strong because I know, I am safe within me. Safe within my boundaries. Secure within my knowledge of who I am. This is a place where love is real, feelings count and being vulnerable is a decision I make to let someone into my sacred space as I move closer to theirs.

Falling in love doesn't burn. Being in love doesn't hurt.

People do that. When they are untrue. When they deceive and lie and manipulate.

Falling in love is not an invitation for the past to repeat itself. It's not a taunt at fate to come and get me, cut me down or cut me off at the knees.

Falling in love is an acknowledgement of my humanity. Of my humanness. Of my human nature, or, as Dr. James Wilder writes it is a reflection of my desire, "to be the sparkle in someones eye".

C.C. is not a man from the past. He is real. He is sincere. He is in the here and now. It's up to me to keep the then and there from the past from tainting what is real and true today.

As children, we naturally sought relationship. As an adult, I have avoided relationship, or at least, avoided being real in relationship. Not because I consciously chose to be 'unreal', but rather, because I wasn't making choices that created secure attachments. My 'love wiring' was faulty.

Fortunately, I am not hard-wired for failure. The brain is a plastic-like living organ, malleable, teachable, reprogrammable.

When I was a child, I learned a lot about love -- not all of it healthy. As an adult, I have the power to make choices that unlearn the things that hurt me. I have the power to rewire my thinking so that I can thrive in love and not just survive another love affair gone bad.

The loonie rises. It hasn't seen these exalted heights in decades. We fear its rise and talk about ways to curb its flight. In our fear of the light, we seek to fall and escape our fear of flying.

My fear rises and with it my courage. My heart beats, I fall in love and spread my wings. I learn to fly.

The sun beats down, my heart expands and with every breath, with every motion of my wings I fly closer and closer to the sweet, delectable nectar of loving another without fear of losing myself or getting burnt. I am powerful enough to control my fall, and my flight.

The question is: Are you confident in your strength to hold you up? Are you willing to spread your wings to keep from falling? Do you recognize your power to control your fall, and your flight?