Butterfly in a jar ( a story)

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. Dennis Waitley

There was a beautiful little butterfly who lived within a glass jar. She was very happy in her home upon a windowsill. Safe behind the glass, she gazed out upon the world beyond and felt smug in her glass enclosure. "This is where I belong," she whispered as she watched the seasons change. "I am happy here."

One day, a little boy walked by the window and saw the butterfly high up upon the ledge. "What a silly place for a butterfly to be," he thought and decided to free the butterfly from her glass home. He walked into the room. Walked straight up to the window sill where the butterfly's jar sat. He took the jar down from the ledge and carried it outside.

The butterfly, never having felt the motion of having her home moved, was frightened. "What's happening?" she cried out as the boy carried her through the door, out into the wide blue wander beyond her window sill.

The boy didn't answer. Once outside, he carefully unscrewed the lid from the butterfly's jar and held the open jar up in the air. "There!" he exclaimed. "You can fly free where you belong."

The butterfly didn't budge. She clung to a twig in her jar, holding on for her life as the boy shook the jar trying to force her out.

"Silly butterfly," the boy said. He shook the jar harder.

The butterfly clung harder to her twig.

Finally, exasperated with her lack of initiative to leave the jar, the boy flung the jar to the ground. It broke into a thousand pieces of glass.

The butterfly, terrified with all the new sensations racing towards her, the feeling of air, of broken glass, of sunlight upon her delicate wings, clung even harder to the twig.

The boy yelled louder at her to let go. The butterfly clung tighter.

Finally, tired of watching her cower in fear, the boy leaned down and picked up the twig and the butterfly and held them up in the air.

"Butterfly," he said. "You gotta fly free. You can't be happy living in a glass jar. You gotta be flying amongst the flowers."

The butterfly was confused. Not happy living in her glass jar? She loved her glass jar. She loved looking at the world outside while she sat safe within the confines of her home. What on earth was he talking about?

The boy sighed. He held his arm out straight, the twig and butterfly extended as far from his body as possible. Slowly, he began to run. One step after another, his arm held out from his body, the twig and butterfly held aloft. As he ran, he began to move his arm up and down, up and down, like butterfly wings flapping.

The butterfly, not accustomed to the air against her face, the wind beneath her wings, clung tighter. But she was not strong enough to withstand the movement of his arm, up and down. Her tiny legs grew tired of holding onto the twig. She knew she could not cling to it much longer. She was losing her grip.

Just as she thought she would lose her grip and fall to the ground, with a mighty flap of his arm, the boy threw the twig into the air. The butterfly gasped as she felt the safety of his arm withdrawn. She cried out as she felt her body lifted up. She hung suspended in the air with nothing more than the wind beneath her wings. In desperation, she let go of the twig, desperately clamouring to grab onto the boy's sleeve. But he was too fast. Too quick. Too sly. He withdrew his arm and stopped running.

The butterfly hung suspended in the air. Her fragile wings outspread. The sun glimmering off the beautiful colours of her beauty.

"I'm falling. I'm falling," she screamed as her body hurtled towards the ground.

She began to fold her wings in to protect herself from the fall. As her wings dropped down, the speed of her fall lessened. She spread her wings out to steady her descent. As she spread her wings, she gained height. She pulled her wings in. She spread her wings out.

"I'm flying. I'm flying," she called out, her beautiful wings carrying her away from the little boy who had set her free. Joyfully, she flew away from the shattered fragments of the glass jar that had kept her confined within the safety of its enclosure.

And as she flew, she knew happiness for the first time in her life. "Aaahhh," she whispered to the wind beneath her wings. "This is what joy feels like. This is what it means to be free."
May you know a day of wings spread wide. Of flying freely in glorious freedom. May you experience the joy of leaving enclosures shattered in your past. Of flying with grace and ease through limiting beliefs into the wild blue yonder beyond your wildest dreams.
The question is: Are you willing to break the glass jar around your heart and set yourself free in love?

Miracles are free

It was just a simple text message, "He's a liar". At the time of its arrival on her cellphone, Sarah* didn't know its value. But, as the days unfolded and the story of his deceit was revealed, that little text message became a miracle. A gift from God. A sign from the angels that her life was about to change, radically, for the better.

When I first spoke with her, she couldn't see the miracle of that text message. She could only feel its pain. She couldn't see the gift of knowledge it presented or the freedom it represented. She didn't want to see it was a gift for a better future.

She wanted his love to be true. She wanted him to be true. She wanted time to rewind and take her back to time before the text message arrived, to time before everything went wrong.

"It's all my fault," she said. "If only I had...." And then, she listed of the hundred things she could have done differently to keep his love true.

"There is nothing you could have done differently that would have changed him," I told her. "Tall. Short. Fat. Skinny. Blond. Brunette. Green eyes. Blue eyes. Fair-skinned. Dark-skinned. You could have dyed your hair pink and stood on your head spitting nickles. There is nothing you could have done to change him or make his love true. He is the lie."

And that's the challenge of loving a narcissist. There is nothing we can do to change who they are and what they're doing. Lies are the lifeblood of their trade. They are subject matter experts in human manipulation and they spend their lives honing their craft. They don't care if they hurt people. People are the fridges of their supply. Open the door, take out what you need and close it until you need more. Keeping their victims chilling on ice is part of their game. Keeping their victims locked up, their minds frozen over ponds of fear and disbelief, that is what they need to ensure the victim doesn't see the light of their betrayal. They do what they want, get what they need however they can because what they want is all that counts.

For Sarah, the pain of his betrayal has left her reeling. He's had over five years to weave his web of lies around her, in and out of her psyche. He's had five years to contort reality, distort perceptions and distend her belief in herself into a bloated bladder of vile pus oozing with self-deprecation and disbelief.

And now she must heal.

"Why would he do this? He said he loved me? Why? Why? Why?" she asked as every woman and man asks when awakened to the truth of their lies.

"Because he can. Because he must. Because he does. It's what he does. It's who he is," I told her. "Lies are like breathing to him. Protecting his ego at all costs is his purpose and in his mind, there is no higher purpose, no greater calling. It is all he can do."

Miracles are free.

In the gift of their arrival, grace descends as we open up to the truth of their revelations. With grace, we are invited to slip into the healing waters of love so that we can set ourselves free of lies and deception and dance with joy, in harmony with the truth around us. Miracles are free and so are we.

The question is: Do you resist and persist to to believe in the lies in spite of the truth dancing before your eyes? Are you willing to open up to the wonder and beauty of your spirit and let go of the lie that you don't deserve the miracle of the freedom to be your most magnificent self?

*Names and circumstances changed.

Away is right where I'm at

I had a call yesterday from a friend who reads my blog every morning.

"I just had to call and tell you what happened today," she began and proceeded to tell me about standing up for herself at work. Of asking for what she wanted by asking herself the tough questions and standing up for what she deserved.

Way to go K. Well done!

Yesterday I had lunch with my eldest daughter. She returned last Thursday night from Thailand after being away for almost 4 months.

"I don't fit in," she said. "I go away and come home and can't find myself here."

The joy and trials of travelling and coming home to where you're at.

For me, it is the joy and tribulation of time by the sea. By the sea, my soul is soothed, my spirit revived.

Landlocked, surrounded by the concrete confines of this city nestled at the foot of the Rockies, it is more difficult to be in touch with that sense of being greater than the narrow confines of the world around me. Of being part of 'the ineffable', the elusive spirit of creativity that crashes into me with every waking moment, that fills the void with wanderlust and wondrous visions of life as an adventure worth exploring.

Not that it doesn't exist where ever I am. It does.

But here, where life orders up meetings and places to be and things to do like a full meal deal on steroids, being creative takes work. Being 'in touch' with spirit, with soul and creativity takes discipline, commitment, strength and courage. It takes getting out of touch with my agenda, and into the flow of my desire to be all I'm meant to be in the moment of my doing from the centre of my being.

Like my walk in the rain last night. The rain began to fall before we even got to the end of our walk. My youngest daughter and I shrugged and decided to keep going. The 'spit' turned into a downpour. Storm clouds rolled and churned, spilling out their deluge. Drenched, running across sodden grass, we dodged hailstones pelting down, leaped across puddles and gutters filling up. We kept going. By the time we got home, we were soaked, through to the skin, but it didn't matter. The puppies were happy and we were alive! What a way to live.

I have always noticed that when I am 'away', I find myself centered within my being, sparkling with creativity and tuned into the flow. Without timetables, without an agenda keeping my world in order, life is grace and ease, an exciting exploration of the world around me. Life is a wide open flow of ideas pouring down upon me.

Here, at home where expectations stare me in the face every morning and my agenda is the bible making sense of my day, I can block the flow by standing safe and dry beneath my umbrella of 'things to do', duties to take care of. Under my umbrella, angels tears are nothing more than rain falling. Elephants dancing across the sky are nothing more than clouds rolling by. Under my umbrella my sights are set on the world at my feet, my vision limited by where I'm at -- and often where I'm at is running a race without a racetrack, even though I'm going round and round in circles!

Perhaps it is because when I'm 'away', I don't have commitments to get things done, I have a commitment to finding the value in the doing of whatever I'm doing. 'Away', I am inspired by the world around me. The world around me appears fresh, alive, intriguing. The mystical awaits around every corner. The magical pops out of every nook and cranny, every tree-lined street and wrinkle-lined face.

And that is the challenge. To find the mystical in my daily grind. To turn the grind into a magical journey where I don't fit in because fitting in is for woosies. Fitting in grinds me down.

Life is not a pair of shoes to be worn down on the road of getting from point A to point B.

Life is a fairy's dance in silver slippers, silk ribbons flying. Life is a liberated journey out of shoes that fit into trying on new pairs. Of donning glass slippers with six inch stiletto's and breaking the mould so that I can dance with barefoot abandon, casting off the confines of my expectations that I need to be anyone other than who I truly am.

Life is not in the fit, it's in the misfits who travel beyond the tried and true.

Finding my place here in the city is a recipe for settling for the mundane, the banal, the prosaic.

It takes work to not fit in. It takes effort to let go of the trivial, the hackneyed turn of phrase, the comfort zone meanderings that lead me nowhere but where I've always been.

It takes work and commitment and a belief that life is found out there crashing fearlessly into where I'm at. Life fits me well when I'm living on the outside of my comfort zone, no matter where in the world I may be.

Magical, mystical life. This journey of adventure. One life. One moment to live. Passionately. Fearlessly. Wantonly.

The question is: Where in the world are you at when you're desperately trying to fit in? What pair of shoes can you cast off today to dance in the rain and splash in the puddles of this messy, wondrous, exhilarating journey of life outside your comfort zones?