Thank god for friends who listen and support. Thank god for kind souls who read my words and leave comments for me to find. And thank god for six-year-olds who see i’m sad and make a book to cheer me up.
I’m having a strange experience of my book today, not wanting to pick it up because I feel so far from the woman who wrote it last year, yet opening a page and finding a passage that resonates so loudly today it’s like a bell sounding in my head:
“I believe that by being the best and most healed version of ourselves we can truly make a difference in the world. I’m not an activist or politician, and I’m not able to have any direct impact on the areas of the world where help is needed. But what I can do is make a difference in the small pocket of the world I call home. I can live with integrity and be honest about my feelings, even when they hurt. I can put my whole heart into my work and pay forward the generosity that was shown to me when my world fell apart. I can look after myself, knowing that by healing my own hurts I won’t be passing them on to anyone else. In a society like ours, filled with so many emotionally wounded people acting out their pain, this is possibly the most important work we could ever do—heal our hurts so we don’t pass them on.”
from This I Know, page 271.
We love you. Remember what I said, because I’m still kind of reeling from whatever that energy was. And more and more convinced that it brought something truly incredible into the world. Go Team Conway. xxxxxx
Blam! That’s what I wrote in my copy, having underlined this section. It’s one thing that I find so strange, so amazing about writing–I often discover later that I was writing a love letter to my future self, crafting the medicine I would need later.
I’m so loving this post! The first pic just makes me want to go have a picnic out by our pond (wine in tow!)
And you ARE making such a big difference, by doing just this. You are so lovely. X
amen, sister. healing the wounds is a life-long journey. may we live long enough to love ourselves to complete wellness.
more than anything, i believe we write for ourselves. if WE are healed by our own words, then so will others be. and so, in your case, you’re helping to heal the world.
brava! xo
Susannah, I just want to give you a hug. I can feel your pain. I signed up for your Photo Meditations and just…got stuck and I haven’t looked at it yet. I’m sure you have stuck days, too, but what we see is your courage to put it all out there and push through. I hope you find all that you need. You are an inspiration. Blessings!
Yvonne
It is truly beautiful to read such honest words. You inspire me to live a truly authentic life. I am sending thoughts your way that you move through the hurt and on to healing.
(((Hugs))) Susannah. I’m in the UK so haven’t had the chance to read the book yet, but I hope to soon.
Your words jumped out at me, because “healing our hurts so we don’t pass them on” is something very close to my heart, pain and feelings of worthlessness. It’s a work in progress for me, but at least it’s in progress.
Thank you for sharing the beauty of your photography and your writing and for your honesty. I hope one day I can make the difference in the world that I seek to, too.
I learned from my father not to pass on the pain. I am going camping in a few day’s and your book “This I know” will be on my camping trip at the Olympic National Park. Nothing but nature and a great nurturing book to read. Another author and books I really like, (the author wrote out of experience also) is: Melody Beattie- “JOURNEY TO THE HEART”, and a couple on “LETTING GO”. they are all daily books and that can be for every part of life’s lessons and adventures. I have been rereading them for 10 years or more.
SO very beautiful! Thank you for sharing your lovely, tender, astounding self with us.
We journey on, together, at times bouncing with joy and overflowing with optimism, other times dragging our wounded leg and heavy heart along at a snail’s pace.
I shall add your book to my shopping cart! xoxo
I was making a video about body image. After I cried and told Patrick that I’m still struggling with my body image. He said, “it is so interesting to me that everything you write and every video you make is like a note to yourself.”
Amen.
Thankful for all of the notes you leave for all of us to find. Been thinking about you darling.
Amen to that! Hurt people hurt people, but healed people heal people. You are certainly the latter! Thank you for your candidness. Blessings to you!
“heal our hurts so we don’t pass them on…” Love this! And I totally agree.
i am on team Conway with Jo… i have pompoms and my hair is in a high ponytail… i will attempt the splits if it will help…
this section of “this i know” leapt out at me because i know that you make a difference everytime you are honest and sharing and your beautiful self – you make a difference in the heart of women which is where the revolution is going to begin… you are loved x
I so resonate with this idea of healing our own hurts, and yet it is such a long and difficult path. Each time I think i might have made it out of the woods for good, there I am back in the dark once again …I guess the main consolation is that the more I’m on this path, the more I can trust that all will become well for a time once again.
this is so true and it’s the brave ones that can look the fear and past and hurt straight in the eye and deal with it. I feel the constant ebb and flow of this journey and right now by my bed is: You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and it’s just what I need and boy, do I need to look at my thoughts to see how and what I’ve created in me and my life to help heal it!
Sending you good wishes for great future chapters of your book ‘of life’ too :)
Amelia.x
this passage from your book…your whole book in fact…will touch pockets of the world. i totally believe in the difference each individual can make beginning with self. love your self. and let it ripple…
you, dear susannah, are creating ripples.
Susannah-
I just finished your book – it was fabulously unravelling for me! Lost my house, etc., and didn’t realize that I am totally lost in my grief.
Here are two quotes from the closing page of my thesis:
We need our artists and magicians.
“Your imagination works both ways.
You not only interpret energy, you create it. Imagination is a function of your mind which is one third of your three part being. In your mind you image something and it begins to take on physical form. The longer you image it (and the more of you who image it), the more physical that form becomes until the increasing energy you have given it literally bursts into light, flashing an image of itself into what you call your reality.
You then “see” the image and once again decide what it is. Thus the cycle
continues. This is what I have called The Process.
This is what YOU ARE. You ARE this Process.
This is what God IS. God IS this Process
This is what I have meant when I have said, you are both the Creator and the Created. “
Conversations With God
We need those who understand “I am that I am”; those who know how to be witness.
“The universe is made of Light. Nothing is made of anything else – eventually this is seen, and then all the troubles end. … There is only manifestation endlessly contemplating Herself in the silver mirror of Her creation. To watch is to be. That is what I do. I live, the best life I can, and as I do the universe discovers itself in the mirror.
In doing what I do, I am the watching itself.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Deepak Chopra.
We need those who understand, work at and model artist, magician and witness.
Love,
Liz
This is my main purpose in life, to be the firewall between the troubled past of my family, and my children. I’d like to have some fun, too! Maybe it’s all the same thing….
hugs —
I read this post from my bed as I ended up very sick this holiday weekend with a temp of 104 from a kidney infection. I am on the mend now, thank the lord, but it will take the week before I am back to myself.
Back to myself? The myself with her fair share of the emotional pain you wrote about. I felt like I was On death’s doorstep and I cried ALOT over the last two days those big heavy kind of tears, the ones you can really feel rolling down your cheeks. As I laid in my bed and thought about the life that was going on below me I heard confusion, I heard aggravation, I heard impatience, I heard the crap being passed on.
It’s truly time to heal. You couldn’t be more right Susannah!! How sweet your little friend.
That’s powerful and so true. Keep strong and sharing your honesty because it touches so many.
Writing your book as you did, from your heart, with all it’s experiences and pain, and triumph, is such a vulnerable journey, and a healing one. You are inspiring so many and I know that process will continue to unfold just like the pages getting turned by many hands keeps what you shared open to help others awaken more and more to their true feelings as they evolve through them as you have with yours… That is a bright blessing… May all those who suffer navigate through their heart space with integrity and honesty… in Peace, acceptance, and humility… xo LL
I wonder if you remember this passage in ‘Women Who Run With the Wolves’ which I just came across…
‘So the woman who has danced out of control, who has lost her footing and lost her feet and understands that bereft state at the end of the fairy tale, has a special and valuable wisdom. She is like a saguaro, a fine and beautiful cactus that lives in the desert. Saguaros can be shot full of holes, carved upon, knocked over, stepped on, and still they live, still they store life-giving water, still they grow wild and repair themselves over time.’
That’s you, that is, storing your life-giving water and being fine and beautiful.
i love that — thank you xx
I’ve never really thought about it this way, but the truth is we’ve all been hurt by those who haven’t healed, including loved ones. Thank you for the wisdom of your words.
I couldn’t agree more with your beautiful quote.
THE most important work. It is that thought that keeps me going when this journey gets tough – sometimes it’s easier to do it for others than just for yourself x
oh gosh, can’t wait for my copy of the book to arrive. I love that passage. You truly are an awesomely inspiring woman Susannah. That heart of yours is headed for big things. x