I agree. Courage is important.
I agree that it takes courage to step forward or to step away from a person, place or thing.
I agree that sometimes, these changes we face and the choices we have to make are unfair. I also agree that when it comes to making a change or moving on or forward, it’s a brave thing to face the unknown.
It’s a brave task to go towards the mysteries with almost a defying sense of eagerness or zest for what’s to come.
I say that we can do this.
We can move. I say that we are free to change our direction and free to take on anything or to dare the odds.
All it takes is courage. (Right?)

Our aim is to make peace with what is. Even if what is, is not what we want it to be; the question is how do we make peace with what we have? How do we do this when all we want is more? How do we sit idly by and wait and hope and wish? I tell you, it’s challenges like this that make people consider the most irrational ideas.
How do we overcome the obstacles in our mind? Rather than see them as an obstacle, how do we turn them into opportunities? Of course, when it comes to the features in our hearts and the truth in our minds, how do we find comfort when what we have is not what we want?

This entry is both timely and necessary because as I write to you about recovery, the question becomes when do we need to recover the most?
It’s not something we need when all is well or when life is happy. This is not something that comes when we’re around the ones we love the most. By definition, the term recover means to return to normal or to restore to good health.
Well, I write this as someone who is unsure about the word normal.
Of course, I suppose I know what the proposed definition is, which is to be expected, as in to be usual and ordinary.
But between us, I don’t see anything usual or ordinary about either of us.
Do you?

What does it mean to recover or to get something back?
Or wait, what did we lose in the first place? Is it time? Is it half of our life?
Or is it more than this and instead of things that we’ve lost, we opened our eyes to realize that so much has happened yet, we sat there like a witness and let everything go by.

What does it mean to reclaim your own life?
What does it mean to take your dreams back? All of them.
One at a time.

Phase Six is all about recovery. To be clear, everyone has something in their life which either hurt them or held them back. Everyone has a past or a previous life which they have tried to forget, shake off or tried to escape from. Also, everyone has a choice they wished they made, long ago,. Had they made this choice or had they showed the bravery and took the chance they needed to take; or had they dared the lines or dared the so-called rules to make this so, their entire lives would have been absolutely different.
Well, perhaps this is subjective and maybe this is subjective to me.
But –

There were times in my life when I used to think about the art of war.
I would think about the moments of heated debates and the hurt feelings or the battles we face. I would think about love or what it was like to be loveless and alone; or worse, to have no one there who truly understood, which is deeper than just a typical connection.
I have talked to you about the secret of endurance. This is crucial.
I have talked to you about how to survive another day, even when survival seems like too much to ask. Whether we thought we could make it or not; we have talked about the values of our uprising accomplishments to which we overcome more than we thought we could.

I was listening to a speaker tell a group of people that no one should ever underestimate the impact that we have upon each other’s lives. No one should ever underestimate their influence nor should they underestimate their presence or their absence. We are all uniquely important to each other. While our levels of intimacy may vary with acquaintances or friends or lovers, the value of certain people are absolutely irreplaceable.
This means we have value; hence, our worth is more important than we think.
(Yours included!)

I can remember a story that someone told me in which he said, “Man cannot serve two masters.”
His point was more than we can’t save our face and our ass at the same time. This was more than understanding where and who we challenge our energy towards. This was more about whether I choose to heal and to overcome or to recover and improve; or if I want to worry or go back and forth and fight and argue; or, if I want to lose myself to anxiety and nurture the problems over the execution of a greater solution; either way is fine. I can go in either direction. I can do whatever I choose. But I can’t go in both directions at the same time.

I remember being told that “Whatever people think of me is none of my business.”
So, whatever people think or whatever their intentions are and no matter if they wish me well or otherwise, none of this is my business.
We talked about the meltdowns and the freak-outs and the reasons behind them. We talked about the different birthplaces that connected us to our irrational assumptions and the bouts we experience with shame. There’s a reason why we look to defend ourselves. Often, these reasons come from an emotional content that stems from within. However, there is a way to improve and there is a way to overcome ourselves.
But first, we have to understand that we do not have to own or claim anything that does not (or should not) belong to us. And more, no matter what, we have to find a way to forgive ourselves – even if we think we are unforgivable; still, we can’t live in the constant stages of guilt.

There is a cycle of life to which, of course, we all know about.
We all go through births and rebirths of different kinds. We experience life in new ways and yes, death is very much a part of life. To be clear, death comes in different ways. This is more than the literal sense and equally figurative, life is segmented into chapters and separated in moments of befores and afters.
We all go through moments of realization and well all know about the before as well as the after. These are the details that make up the chapters of our life.
We lived through the before. But here we are now –
After . . . .