Excerpt: "Of all the lessons of the TBI recovery, none have been so important to me as the reality that life doesn’t have to change in order for me to live fully.

I can be with life as it is as I am.

Two of the maxims that experientially moved me from resisting life and wanting to just die during the it-looks-like-you’re-not-going-to-get-better years of my post-TBI recovery read as follows:

“Life is only unbearable when I demand it change.”

and

“That which we welcome cannot bind us.”

This morning, today, right now, here is the lesson again, deepening and validating and reminding me of its message in my life.

I share these words that arose this morning not as my own.

They are meant for more than me.

I have no idea what you might be going through. Perhaps you are experiencing a season of life that feels like more than you can bear. If so, I hope you can find the right support and comfort and care, whatever that means. There is so much good medicine in our world.

There are some things we can just let go of and there are others that are ours to carry for awhile.

What we always have a choice in is how we are present with what we are carrying.

We can be unwelcoming resistance and we can be welcoming presence.

Sometimes, we are both.

Sometimes, we are the welcoming presence of our unwelcoming resistance.

But, we can always be welcoming presence.

In fact, my experience has been that who we truly are is unchanging, loving, welcoming presence in which the ever-changing flow of life arises.

Sometimes, I welcome life from that state of being.

And, sometimes, like this morning, I have to choose to welcome life and, in doing so, am reminded and reassured that this is my true state of being.

Perhaps better said, life chose me this morning and I simply said, “Yes.”

I will carry you with gladness. I will carry you. Yes. I will.

I am carrying you with gladness. I am carrying you. Yes. I am.

Yes. I am."