Resilience & Brilliance… The Continuing Art of Inventory and Nourishing

Our resiliency and brilliancy is a continuing art of inventory and nourishing.I term this as an ‘art’ as its application takes great time, trial and error, practice, patience and yet more practice. Life now, more than ever is actively compelling us to navigate with brilliance (ushering forth an intense light filling the dark) and in doing so, flexing our wicks of resiliency for fortitude and strength.

I received an email recently from my favorite tea shop, alerting me it would be closed for current orders -even online- as they were undergoing their store’s most important inventory. Inventory…

this announcement struck me so as I was in awe of the clear declaration that to perform this monumental duty…the entire store needed to halt to the day’s operations.

Inventory…what a fascinating term.

When was the last time I took ‘inventory’ of myself?

With my well-appointed Kate Spade clipboard in hand, I put my ‘closed for business’ sign up on my invisible front door (okay, I just didn’t answer my incoming phone’s calls, emails or texts. But, I like the important symbolism of it all!) I started at the top of my line itemized, spreadsheet:

What do I have (or need as my non-negotiable) on my emotional stock shelves of reserve that I always need in surplus…no matter the influx of demands?

What do I have in abundance as emotional weight of merchandise, that I’m clearly not using and that will soon expire to waste?

What is my current stock room emotionally low on, in need of reordering and needing to refill that I may create the next moments future tasks?

What is on my emotional shelf of needs, right now and how am I understanding this as it fills my authentic ‘well’ of personal goods?

As this 2020 New Year started, I experienced an unexpected tremendous family loss. Strikingly, as life does so well on its laughable spectrum- I had launched my professional business with a new entity serving women for a committed two-month experience. I knew as much as I was feeling heartache and loss, I equally could hold the gratitude for the privilege of navigating along others in their most intimate and raw moments. We are dynamic beings and we can hold a multitude of dichotomous emotions across the gamut at the very same time. For me, this time in kindred care supporting others as they support themselves brought me into the edge of the grief that I could squarely face. I promised myself, out of sheer preservation and protection, that in March after my Nourish inaugural experience closes, I would take the month off to hold myself in the same loving and trusted space I offer to others. Here is the example of living what you believe…wholeheartedly. I truly sank into all I needed to reflect, remember and process in cracking my heart open to this significant loss for myself and for my family. As from my growing knowledge, we not only mourn the current situation of what plunges our hearts into free-fall…our hearts know by design what holding a connection to a specific emotion's embodiment feels like. I think our hearts are so very astute that they not only vibrate in this one dimension of a feeling but it conjures up the history of self…the reverberation of ALL times, All places and All events that trigger the same modality of (in my case) loss.

Life has a really humorous way of interpreting our requests for my personal month’s sabbatical was extended to the world as we were hearing the health impact of COVID and soon mandated to ‘Shelter in Place’. Remarkably, my heart was already long there, in this thin, limited, safe space of Sheltering in Place. I don’t think my needle moved much as it was stagnated, static and still, bracing against an invisible and well-masked force.

My heart wore a ‘mask’ well before this was required as our now well-known protective shields counting the days until March1st when I had declared my time to feel.

I scheduled my inventory to make it through until I could get to the month that I conveniently claimed would be my turn to recover and heal. But, just like our now treasured paper products, it’s the feelings we thought we'd have in endless abundance, mirrored the feelings we complacently took great value of utilizing as essential but never feared running out of that we now learned we need to keep on our shelves, at all times, to preserve.

Life is ever moving…even when we are feeling stuck

Life is always full of hope…even when we are uncertain

Life is full of everyday occurrence to love and be loved…even when we forget how best to recognize and do this

Life is richly beautiful and we possess tremendous power, charged by a divine source and in connecting within, taking stock in our internal inventory, we can be renewed in life-fulfilling gratitude, conductivity and connection. Right here, right now, as we bend to the light.

Sunflowers do this naturally; they bend as if on a turntable to the source of light wherever beaming strongest to its environment. We, too, are human sunflowers and as we bend, we are nodding to others in our community gardens that we witness their sunny and brightly lit beauty in seeded expression of standing tall against the elements.

As I return to my center’s stock room and spend time paper to pen looking within to what is there…I’m offering myself a compassionate (please hear this as non-judgemental) foundation to do so. Accessing each emotional shelf, dusting off the feelings that need to be there a little longer and ridding those that no longer offer my storeroom of self an inherent need.

Relationships are a key to my stock room’s walls. I think of my relationship within me as the horizontal beams that are a buttress of support to my frame and my sacred and treasured family bonds and girl friendships that become my cross planks connecting me to me, from beam to beam in bridging the weighted support intended to carry my inventory’s load.

We are a part of a collection of independent stores called communities… we all operate our shops with great promise when we actively engaged to respect and value each other’s storefronts and appreciate the variety of options to the wares we offer by our unique gifts and talents. My emotional stock room doesn’t rely on your emotional stock room as we are independent for our needs of distribution. However, my inventory can enhance yours, compliment your shelves when you have the capacity to hold care in the spot I'm holding loss. When we can barter our goods in caretaking and care keeping we are creating an endless supply of resourcing as we are growing our capacity by calling a friend from the past, writing a note to someone newly greeted, baking kindness and thoughtfulness into loaves of goods to deliver to another for no specific celebration. Taking great inventory not just at my needs for fear of running out, but for the protection of myself and the needs I can anticipate might become yours.

Presence, attentiveness, being aware and awake to the neighboring shops around us, their personal inventory needs. How can you extend genuine outreach, conversation and connection keeping your self well stocked with the tools to pivot with resiliency and the flowing of your light in illuminating with brilliance. This is how we fully NOURISH ourselves and those around us.

Nourishing under constant practice, polishing (and forever in progress)!