I don't know if you're feeling it, but there's a great deal of dissension, anger, passion, and excitement around the pending Presidential inauguration. Some of us are devastated; others are ecstatic about being recognized as a rising power in the nation. Wisdom tells us that EACH OF US chooses to frame our experiences in terms that support our world view.
In this reflection about how HOPE appears in our past, I ask you to consider how looking back can shift the way we see every experience, opportunity, and potential as a sign of our PERSONAL POWER.
If our experience *compels* us to complain,
we will look for horrors, slights, fantasies, delusions, and
lies that defined our past; restrict our present; cloud the future.
We may ignore slivers of hope illuminating where we thrived;
how we persevered; why we grew through cracks, in crevices, on rocks, despite drought and darkness.
If we defy experience, challenge perception,
look through the prism of hope, everything changes.
We discover how any scar added strength; every slight became opportunity;
each accomplishment grew from power within us, not the problems around us.
One look back, seeking hope, calls out truth, floods our presence, expands our reality,
stimulates possibility, and opens our hearts with recognition.
We were strong.
We can rejoice.
We will prevail.
We know
we are
ALL
We (thought)
We were not.
~DonnaMarie Fekete
January 18, 2016