What a journey that has been!
Certainly not a straight path. Rather a jagged terrain with steep winding mountains and dark yawning crevices.
But I wouldn’t change one step of my journey for anything in this whole crazy, beautiful world.
I have lived at times in the dark.
Lost, confused, small and worthless. Often feeling too sensitive for this world and wanting to go back home. Just I imagine like many of you!
Yes. I see it on your beautiful faces. You strong, courageous women and men out there, that like me , have fallen down more times than you care to remember. Only to get up time and time again, gathering more strength, wisdom and treasures on the way.
And I love you for it.
I tell friends, even strangers that I love them, and I don’t take the word LOVE lightly.
It's because we don’t say it to ourselves enough.
I see every meeting as a reflection of me, of you, of humanity. We are all together in this world. We are all one.
But why do we find it so hard to love ourselves and why is it easier to listen to the voice of doom?
Of course we are at all different stages of our life, and some of us feel more at home with our selves than others.
I say selves. As often it is not just one voice we hear in our head, but many voices.
In my twenties and thirties I worked with a therapy called Psychosynthesis. It works with the different parts of yourself.
I spent years interviewing ‘the little girl’ in me, the ‘not good enough voice’, the ‘perfectionist’ etc. It really opened my eyes and it was through this work I realised that you can’t always believe your own thoughts.
But there is one special voice. That quiet knowing voice, who remembers who you really are.
I love her. She celebrates my vulnerability and tells me that I don’t need to hide.
She tells you to lay down your mask. That you are perfect as you! Its ok to be beautifully broken and beautifully whole all in one go.
She comes to me in the quietness. She comes to me when I’m creating, singing, praying, walking.
Especially when I’m writing my book, which actually is all about these feelings. For what have we got, if not LOVE.
Madeleine is currently writing the first of her seven book series ‘The Angel of the Seven Shards’.