In time.

Hot. Sunny. The slits of the blinds filter the light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Birds twitter. In the distance, traffic hums. The city awakens.

I helped my friend's daughter move out of her house on Saturday. My friend's daughter who discovered one morning that her fiance whom she was to marry in August was untrue. It was a tough time. A difficult day. Yet, amidst the sadness, a day of hope took shape. A day for new beginnings took seed. New ideas were planted.

JS, the young woman who's heart is broken, did well. He was there too. The man who has lied and deceived her. The man who promised he loved her, and only her and yet, does not deny the two other women who believe the same lie. How can it be true?

"I can't believe this is happening to me," said JS.

"Believe it," I told her. "Believe it because in the willingness to accept the truth, your freedom from his lies awakens."

We packed and carried. Talked a little bit. Not much. His presence was like a dark cloud threatening to storm. Glowering. Menacing.

In the end, she tried to remove her pictures from the computer. He had protected them. Read only. She had to ask him for help. He downloaded the photos onto CDs. "Now delete them from the computer," she said.

"What about me?" he asked. "I want to keep the pictures of you. I want the memories."

I could see her resolve wavering. I had stood with her while he downloaded the photos. It's not healthy to stand alone in the presence of the man you loved and who lied with one breath. It's not healthy. Your mind wants to play tricks on you. Your mind wants to tell you to listen to his lies one more time, just in case... Just in case this time he tells the truth.

"You have a choice," I told him. "Delete the photos or give her the hard drive to take away and clean up."

"I'm not going to give her the hard drive," he said.

"Then delete the photos."

"Why can't I keep them. There's one's of me in some of them too. I want to keep the memories of my life with her for the past five years."

"Your life with her was a lie. Delete the photos."

"Why can't I keep them if she can?"

"Because you cannot be trusted. You are the one who visits porn sites. You are the one who sends naked photos. Delete all the pictures she tells you to delete."

He didn't bat an eye. He didn't deny. He deleted the photos.

When the packing was done, we drove in tandem, four cars carrying her possessions, back to her parents house where everything was to be stored in the garage until she could make plans for what to do next.

"Play your music loud," I told her as we set off. "Let it blare so you can't hear your head thinking. Your head will start to replay everything. It will want to re-write the script. It will want to change his lies to the truth. Play your music loud."

Midway to her parents, she pulled her car over to the shoulder. We followed suit. She raced from her car to the grassy verge of the road. Knelt over, her body arched into a question mark, her shoulders shaking.

"I'm going to throw up."

Her mother stood on one side. I stood on the other. "Breathe." I commanded. "Breathe."

I drew a long slow breath. In. Out. I leaned my body against hers. Wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Breathe with me."

She began to breathe. Her body shook. Her hands could not remain still. Breathe.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to wail.

"You can't do that yet." I said. "Right now, you have to concentrate on driving. You have to focus on getting back to your parent's house. That's the job right now. Later. When you're settled in, you can fall apart. You can wail and cry, but for now, you must not cry. You cannot fall apart."

She nodded her head. After fifteen minutes, we got back into our cars and drove to her parents without incident.

She is a strong young woman. At twenty-three she is learning a life lesson that will forever change her perspective on love, on living, on relationship.

In time, the harsh edges of the pain will curl up and dry. The burnt embers of her sorrow will crumble and fall away. Dust to dust.

In time, the fear will ease. Slip back into the waters of life, into the river of tears flowing endlessly to the sea. Healing waters will replace the tears as she learns to live with the sorrow of having loved the one who is untrue.

In time, the sorrow will fade. Dissipate like fog in the morning sun. Rise up and clear away. Its memory a faint mist over the horizon, somewhere over the rainbow.

In time, she will smile again. Laugh again. Love again.

In time, she will see her strength. She will acknowledge her amazing courage. Her ability to do what had to be done, even when her heart was breaking.

In time, she will heal and in her healing she will rise up. A woman of strength. A woman with a powerful voice. A woman who has walked through the fires of his lies and found the courage to turn up for herself, in all her pain, in all her tears and be heard.

In time, she will heal.

And she will rejoice in the text message that tore her world apart. It brought her the freedom to find the truth and take action to save herself before she sank beneath the quagmire of his lies, lost to the world around her.

It takes time to build a web of deceit. Time to deceive the one who loves you into believing your lies are the only truth she needs to hear, to know, to see. It takes time to break apart a heart, chisel it into a million little pieces and scatter them to the winds.

It takes time to be deceived.

It takes only a moment of time for the crack in his facade to appear. It takes only a moment in time to step through the gap. And in that moment, the dam of his lies crumbles and the truth pours in.

She will heal. And she will rise again. She is one strong, courageous woman.

To everything there is a season

She's going to be okay. My friend with the straw coloured braid that snakes down her back like Rapunzel's rope of hair. She's going to be okay.

They cut out the cancer. Performed the mastectomy and confirmed the disease had not spread to her lymph glands.

she's going to be okay.

Today, I celebrate.

Today, I go help my friend's daughter pack up her house so she can extricate herself forever from the man who was untrue. The man who lied and deceived and manipulated her mind because -- well, just because. It's what he does. It's what he must do to get what he wants. It is his game.

It is not her game.

So today, I will be with her and my friend as they tread the shifting sands of endings and beginnings, no clear delineation between what is the end, and what is the new beginning. Just the deep sad sorrow of saying good-bye to love that never was true. Of something that never was and could never be, because truth never had a role in his machinations.

It is a time to celebrate. A time to week. A time to as Pete Seeger wrote in his song, Turn. Turn. Turn, a time for every purpose under heaven.

Today, my purpose is to turn up and pay attention. To be there for this young woman with my courage, my strength, my knowledge and my encouragement. To share with her my wisdom of how to heal a broken heart after the one you love has broken apart his facade to reveal the lie beneath the mask.

For no matter how heartbroken we may be, a broken heart is an open heart and an open heart is a loving heart.

Today my purpose is to be love, open and true.

The question is: What's your purpose today? Are you walking through each moment opening your heart to the love around you?

Say a little prayer

Prayers go up and blessings come down. Yiddish Proverb

Last night, my friends, U and A, came for dinner. U goes into the hospital today to have the cancer that is corroding her breast removed. She's having a double mastectomy. Radical treatment for a debilitating, life-threatening disease. Curative and preventative. Her mother died of breast cancer. So did her aunt.

Over a glass of wine and a light summer's meal, we laughed and joked, talked about life and travelling, careers and hopes and dreams. Alexis and Liseanne joined us. C.C. came late as he was driving back from the southern part of the province.

It was an evening of hope. Of love. Of confidence in tomorrow. It was an evening of celebration.

This morning, I am going with U and her daughter T to the hospital to wait until U goes to sleep and has her body radically transformed. The surgeon's knife will cut into her body and remove the cancer, but nothing can cut out what U does not carry -- fear.

I asked her if she was afraid. "No," she replied. "I have nothing to fear. I trust my surgeon. I trust the science of medicine and I know this is the best course of action. I know this is the right thing to do. I know I will be okay."

Her husband agreed. "Everything is going to be fine," he said, raising his glass to toast good health, his wife of 45 years and the future.

Over the course of the four hour surgery, U's body will be altered and the cancer removed. Nothing however, can remove the beauty that radiates from within U. Nothing can change her spirit. She is a woman of great heart. A woman of quiet joy. Serene. Gentle. Graceful.

Cancer has taken hold of her body. Today it will be removed. And when she awakens, U will still be the amazingly beautiful, kind and loving woman she is.

I am blessed to call her friend. I am blessed to be a part of her circle of love.

As Aretha Franklin promised in her 1960s hit, "I'll say a little prayer for you,", please say a prayer for my friend today. She is strong and courageous, a beautiful spirit. According to scientists, 'prayers work'*. Our prayers are the gift we share when the only thing we can do is stand in silent support of those we love.

*A recent, controversial study of cardiac patients conducted at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, concludes that this type of prayer -- known as intercessory prayer -- may indeed make a difference. "Prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care," says cardiac researcher William Harris, Ph.D., who headed the St. Luke's study. The study was published in the October 25, 1999 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

God speed.

It was a morning of good intentions. I'll write my blog, walk to work and move into my day with grace and ease.

And then I got the phone call.

A client died in the wee hours of the morning. He'd been dropped off by city police an hour earlier. Staff had checked on him in Intox where he was sleeping once and then on their second round forty-five minutes later discovered him breathing with difficulty. They immediately took action. CPR. EMS. But to no avail. After twenty minutes EMS pronounced him deceased.

Tragic. Sad. Painful.

For his family, a loss of someone they love. No matter the circumstances of his life. No matter what led him to be here on that night. No matter what happened before he got here. The pain of his passing, the void that will be left in his death will never be filled.

Tragic. Sad. Painful.

For staff, it is a horrific event. A circumstance that they struggle with to let go of the, If only...

If only we'd checked on him more often...

If only we'd realized...

If only we'd...

The 'if onlys' haunt. The reality is, they could not have known. They did their absolute best. They did everything they could.

Whatever caused this man's death will be determined in a medical examiner's office. All they know right now is, if only will not change anything.

They did their best.

I have no questions for you today. It is a day of sadness. Of quiet. Of reflection. A day to give thanks for this life I have as I whisper a pray for a man who has no chance of ever finding his way home again.

He will be missed.

God speed.

Silence

Last night I participated in a discussion group about homelessness and affordable housing. Along with the professionals from the homeless sector, the attendees were individuals from a community in the city, looking to 'do something' about homelessness.

At one point, a woman commented that the young guys she talks to on worksites all say how dangerous the shelters are. How they fear for their lives.

"I take exception to your comment," I told her. "In the 47+ years our agency has been in existence, we have had one death from violence. And that was a fight that went wrong. Our mission is to create a safe place for people who do not have a home of their own. And we do it, 365 days of the year, 24 hours a day. Those homeless individuals who have been killed have been killed on our streets, in our parks, along our riverbanks. They have been killed by other citizens, some of whom are homeless, many of whom aren't."

"I didn't mean to imply the shelters are unsafe," she replied. "I was just repeating what these guys say. Mostly it's around the mentally disturbed people they encounter. They scare everyone. Why, just the other day, my husband and I were stopped at a red light and this crazy woman came over and started pounding on our car windows. That was terrifying."

"Yes, it is terrifying when those things happen," I replied. "What is even more terrifying is that we as a society have not risen up in arms. We have not screamed out loud at our politicians to help. We have not insisted that we create safe harbour for these individuals for whom mental disease has decimated their capacity to care for themselves. As a shelter, we do not care for these individuals because we believe they belong in a homeless shelter. We care for them because there is no other agency that will take them. There is no other place for them to go. And that is wrong."

It is wrong. Emergency homeless shelters are not designed to care for the profoundly mentally ill. We are not equipped to handle the complexity of their needs. All we can do is our best. And every day, we struggle to do our best in a situation where we cannot deliver the help people need and deserve.

It is estimated that sixty percent of all homeless individuals have some form of mental health issue. From mild depression to the profoundly serious. Schizophrenia. Bi-polar. Antisocial personality disorder. There are a host of labels to apply against the disorders that affect these individuals. And, there are a host of labels to apply against a social service system and a government that continues to hold back support and help that will make a real difference in these individuals lives. But we never apply those labels. We never hold our governments accountable. We never stand up as a society and say, "This is wrong. Let's do something. Now. Today. Not tomorrow. But right now."

Sure, we are doing some things. "Let's give them a home," proponents of the Housing First model state. "Let's get them housed first and then give them the help they need."

And that is a great idea. But what about the individuals who simply cannot support themselves?

What about the 65 year old woman who wears diapers to control her incontinence? She doesn't change them herself. Our staff do that. She sits in a corner all day. Talking to herself. Staff have to ensure she showers at least once a week. She doesn't like taking a shower. She doesn't like the feeling of the water against her skin. And she doesn't like taking her clothes off. We are a community setting. Our clients live communally. She has to have a shower for her own well-being and so she doesn't offend the olfactory glands of those around her. And so, they cajole her, coerce her, carry her into the shower and get her cleaned up whenever they can.

Our staff aren't mental health care-givers. Our mandate is not to care for mental health patients. Our mandate is to provide shelter to the homeless. This woman is homeless. There is no where else for her to go. No one else to provide her care. So we do. The best we can.

And what about the 50 year old man who has resorted to alcohol as a way to make himself feel better. He doesn't feel better. He's got a mental disorder. The alcohol does help him stay numb and compliant -- it also means he is in a constant state of inebriation, on a fast downhill slide with destiny. He needs continuous care. Continuous supervision to ensure he takes the drugs that will control his schizophrenia. He needs to be observed constantly to make sure he doesn't harm himself. While it would be nice to think a home of his own would cure all of that, the truth is, he isn't capable of maintaining himself in a home of his own. He needs help beyond the level of our care. But, no one else will take him. No one else will provide him with care.

Across Canada and the US, there are thousands upon thousands of people with mental health issues roaming our streets and alleys. They wind up in shelters. They wind up in rivers. They wind up in morgues.

And still we stay silent.

Yes, it is shocking that a young, healthy man ends up homeless. It's tragic that he has to live in a shelter while he stock piles enough cash to find a place to live -- that's if he can ever stockpile up enough cash to pay the first and last month's rents that have skyrocketed with the soaring skylines of our cities growing up.

Shocking too is the woman fleeing her abusive partner who comes in out of the storm to find shelter until she can get back on her feet again. She will get back on her feet and carry on. Somehow. She has the mental capacity to make it happen. And we help her as best we can.

But those with mental disorders? How do they get on their feet again? Where will they get on their feet again? What can they do to get on their feet again?

Some of them never were on their feet. Their lives have always been affected by their mental disease. Their families have given up. Their communities don't know what to do and the mental health system doesn't have the facilities and beds to care for them. Some of them can't find their feet because they lost them to frostbite or gangrene and diabetes and are now trapped in a wheelchair looking for any means to ease their pain -- and sometimes it comes in a needle poked into a vein or a pipe filled with crack. They haven't got the mental capacity to understand that the very thing that is easing their pain is killing them. All they can think of is that at least it gives them some relief from the constant grind of the mental disorder ripping apart their worlds.

And still we stay silent.

Our public officials do the bidding of the people. If someone is on the street because of their schizophrenia, then you and I put him or her there. We did it because in our silence, our public officials do nothing.

Yup. It is sad that these young men the woman spoke of are frightened in the shelters. And it's sad she was scared by a 'crazy' woman pounding on the window of her car.

What is most sad, however, is that we stay silent.

The question is: Have you had enough yet? Are you willing to find your voice and speak out against the injustices on our streets?

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.

Being fearless

Choices.

After five days of being in the seminar room, I am tired. I am enlivened. I am peaceful.

It was a good week. Then again, I've never been at a Choices seminar that wasn't a great time.

There is something miraculous about standing in a room with 89 trainees and watching miracles happen. Of watching spirits awaken to the truth of who they are as the lies they've carried around inside them fall away into the dust of the past they cannot change. Of watching eyes open wide to the beauty within as they step into the joy of knowing there is hope for a better tomorrow. Of watching ears open up to the truth of knowing they can live the lives of their dreams by turning off the tapes playing inside their heads -- Those tapes that have held them prisoner to the belief they were unworthy of the miracle of their life.

Choices is about miracles.

For me, the miracles come in moments when I find myself living my contract, (I am a fearless woman), effortlessly, with ease and grace.

Fear has been a huge part of my life. Fear of what people think of me. Fear of speaking up. Fear of speaking out. Fear of speaking my truth.

When I live my contract, I am fearless.

People who knew me in the past would not have described me as a 'fearful' person. I did lots of things that spoke to my fearlessness. And I was courageous in those moments. But I was not fearless.

The Atharva Veda states, “Praise the virtues of fearlessness. A truly fearless person embraces even death without any kind of hesitation. ”

To be fearless, I must see my fear and face it. I must acknowledge my fear and name it. I must walk into my fear and free it.

This weekend, I met my fears. My fear wasn't about someone else's behaviour. About their anger. Their story. Their actions. My fear was based on whether I could be present without being there in my fear of not speaking up, not speaking out, not doing the right thing appropriately.

In facing my fear, naming it and freeing it, I know I have fear. Fear is not going to 'go away'. It exists inside me -- where my fear has changed is in my ability to identify it, and to move into it.

In the past, I feared speaking in front of groups of people. Today, I am confident, relaxed and present when I speak in front of groups of people. I still have that moment of 'fear' before I speak. When it arises, I remind myself of the countless presentations I've given and ask myself, "What is the reason I am giving this talk. What is my purpose?" Inevitably, it is to touch hearts and open minds. In knowing my purpose, I take a breath, whisper my contract, step up and speak out.

Being fearless is my response to fear. Being fearless means knowing I am good enough to move through it, beyond it and past it. Being fearless is the gift I give myself when I turn up for me, in my truth, my courage, my fear and free myself to be the magnificent human being I am.

This weekend, I turned up for myself and others, fearlessly. It took effort. It took confidence. It took spirit. It took my belief that I am a fearless woman sharing my unique gifts to create a world in which spirits dance free in love, joy and harmony.

To create that world, I must turn up, for me and those around me, without fear that I am not enough.

The truth is, I do enough. I am enough. I'm good enough.

And my best is good enough for me.

The question is: Where do you hold back from being your best because you are afraid to face your fear? Where does your fear keep you from turning up for you and being magnificent?