We met early in this month to accommodate the due date of a mini creative who managed to arrive three days into May.

For the pregnant mama in me, I must say we had a feast and as always as we feasted we talked the night away.

We had a chance to catch up with a few who hadn't been able to make it the months prior and found out that our visual artists have been finding their post graduate sea legs and discovering the everyday dedication of their practice.

It is so thrilling to see them in art shows in Halifax and know that their hard work is paying off.

Making the decision to make art that inspires you over what would make an easy dollar is a challenge in integrity.

We have to applaud ourselves for pursuing the depth in ourselves and the attempt at producing it .

We were left with the inspiration to continue pursuing what is our depths.

And left with the warmth of the women who fill the room every month with thoughts, concerns, updates and nerves of the artist.

May we always embrace the nerves.

They keep us solid and real.

In all aspects of our lives we have the opportunities to collect moments of heaven and moments of hurt. 

We can gather wounds that we don't even notice until the bruise begins to grow and the welt begins to show.  It's just the way it is with life.  It's not that we try to be wounded soldiers with our pasts lurking like shadows, it's just that we are alive and real, and real means that we expierence the light with the dark.

If we can admit we are wounded in different places than why can't we find a way to look at them and reflect on them?  Not to dwell or soak in them like they are wine to drink but to take them into our eyeline instead of our blindspot.

The thing about wounds is they often seep out on others when we can't even see it.

So I am calling out: for this day of wellness to find your hurts.

Those relationships that damaged you, or are festering with negative thoughts.  Write out their names.  Identify why you feel that wound and let it be a meditation of healing as you go about your day.   Don't dwell in the bad, but dwell in the healing process.  How can healing begin?  Is the hurt something that you can work through yourself? Is the hurt a hurt that should be addressed?

Only you and the life-giver, the One who heals all hearts can tell you what to do with a hurt.

But ultimately, we are called to give our hurts and wounds over and let the power of love and grace to reside.  

Finding the hurts isn't a scavenger hunt for mud, but a search for that which will bring healing.

So list it.

Make a list.

EXAMPLE

HURTS

1. Being misunderstood by John Smith (planning the performance)
2. Feeling left behind (friends succeeding past me)
3. Realizing I wasn't encouraged as a child (sports, etc)

Once you've listed it.  Find the freedom in identifying the bruises you carry.

NOTE:

THEY ARE NOT bragging rights! THEY ARE NOT medals to live for. 

They are worth healing from.

Healing comes when we've given them up.  Given them over.

Giving our hurts over to a higher power allows us to be free from the weight the ugliness of their colour and the pain.  

It's a process.

Don't rush it.

Just start it.

We've created lists of 'friendships' on our phones, our Facebook, our instagram, our twitter.  We have connections like a spider web.  We weave in and out of each others lives and leave our silky wet trail behind us.  All our thoughts and parts of us we have shared are left behind.  We leave them like a lost and forgotten string of 'self'.

We have family and friends all combined in the 'acquaintances' and when we pass them by do we ever think to ask them about how they are truly doing before we jump into our 'self'?  Do we stop our endless string of 'show' before we sit and listen?

There are seasons of times when we are socializing and doing the 'out there' thing, and then there are seasons that stop us from this 'connecting' type life and then what?  We let social media do the talking and we expect the blanks to be filled in with all the fluff we throw around like it's normal to share fluff and not substance. 

Why do we let this 'insecurity' stop us from connecting to those we love most?  We do we retreat when we most really need to press in?

Reasons reasons... so many reasons.  We throw them out there and we struggle to be real in a façade world.

I'll tell you what I want you to hear and not whats in my heart.

I'll show you the best moments and not the worst.  

But show it all.

Tell it all.

Because wounded hearts bleed together best and those broken spirits need to walk amongst the trash in order to see the beauty.

This must be a plea that I feel arise in my heart.

I crave that real family.  That real broken family that walks on each others toes and finds words for the pain and can bleed together instead of apart. 

I crave that real friendship that tells it like it is and isn't afraid of being seen scared or hurt.  

I crave that real swinging front door that stays unlocked and shows a home of music, laughter, food and communing.

Communing with each other because social media was turned off and our hearts were turned on. 

Welcoming a newborn into our lives has been a magical and wonderful experience.  I say wonderful in the purest form of the word.  Wonder has caught us both as we watch this life exalt her lungs to the world, her eyes shut in pure rest, chest moving up and down with sleeping grunts, and hands gripping the sides of my breasts as she takes nutrience in deep gulps.  

Her eyes open and 'wonder' has been a word used when they gaze into the bigness of them.  She exudes this calm wonder when she takes it all in and how could we not be moved?

A Daddy calmly and patiently  deals with her cries and a momma works hard to keep this wellness going,  

Daddy sings the blues as he makes a dinner with his daughter in pouch and she'll quiet for him because he's the best one and she knows it.

Momma greets the day on a yoga mat nurturing a body that gave for ten months.

The two are a team and havn't found that the solo has ever worked for them, so they have teamed up and created space for these changes.

Created the space to live in wonder.   

They havn't rushed this and wouldn't dare.  They've seen what rushing the changes have done to their spirits.  They have been rash, wreckless and thoughtless in the past changes and now?  Now they have learned that settling in wonder together is better, bonding and beautiful.

It may seem irrelevant this baby thing to your life story, but the wonder stays true.

When you deal with the new, you're dealing with the core of who you are and that deserves wonder.

Living in wonder means you are taking the time to breathe in the moment of the day and not rushing the discoveries.  You embrace the moments as they come and you are not worried about what others may think of your journey.

Your journey is unique and when you live in the wonder moments, you are living well, full and free.

There is nothing like giving birth that brings one to a whole new level of awareness of life.  Life is a treasured and powerful force.  It comes on strong and it doesn't let up until it has completed it's story.   With every contraction my body took over the span of 12 hours, I was intrinsically aware of how powerful the journey I was on is.  The words that spun around in my mind as I breathed and focused were many, but among them the phrase 

"These are the precious moments our lives are made of."  A simple phrase I stumbled upon while watching weekly pregnancy videos and how true they are. 

The journey of life is precious and there are times where we submit to the force of it all and sink into each wave as it comes, and then, there are times we rest.  We rest in the pure and sweet shallow waters of a resting pool.

Recovering from anything is when we need to be retreating into those shallow waters.  The quiet and safe places we find in the everyday.   Those places are an individualisitic expierence and what heals one, may not heal another.

Learn your places.  The quiet places of rest.  A library, a field, a bedroom, a skating rink, a dance floor, a beach...

For me?  The ocean and it's off shore breeze.  My home and it's small peaceful rooms.  My bed at night with it's cool sheets and a husband who holds me close.  My yoga mat and it's welcoming colours as I stretch tired limbs.  

No matter the places, the whys or the hows, recovery isn't a process overnight.  Recovery is a journey and we can't rush it.

When a spirit needs rest and space, we must nurture that and protect that.  We must be the guardians of a spirits' need to recalibrate and reset.  Because the push and pull of this world will never heal, but tear.  But the peaceful rest of a spirit lead recovery will stitch up the wounds of the broken.

I have emerged from a week of guarded rest after childbirth and have bonded deeply with a husband and a daughter.  We have gathered precious moments that were not rushed but expierenced deeply.  Sleepless nights have been had, and tired lungs have wailed but the space we created around us has developed into a passionate love affair and a healing environment for our spirits. We are bonded closer, tighter and deeper.  This is the journey aspire to.  

Let us emerge slowly and gradually from our recovery as a chyrsalids process and watch us flourish as we spread our wings.

Recovery.

A process.

The delays of updates have been vastly due to an amazing amount of life happening on this side of the screen.  

One would think with the almost birth of our first child that life would slow down for the Creatives?  

Not so.

When is that ever so?

We had a hiatus in February due to scheduling conflicts but reconvened very happily in the month of March.

We sat around a table and ate and ate, and while we ate, we discussed the weight of things.  

There was a deep winter longing that was within our spirits that only a snow covered East Coast winter brings.  A readiness for spring, yet the long winter had not yet passed.

Impatience?

Yet as we shared I had the sense that the food we consumed was not as nourishing as the words being shared.  That is what I fell asleep to that night once the candles had been blown out, the crayons back in the box and all the crumbs swept up.

Sharing our journeys is more important than our desire to stand out.  We share to relate and find the sameness and that is what creates our ability to be unique.  It is our connectedness that makes us so different.

So we connect to be different.

And are different, so we connect.

It's a waiting game.

Waiting for a new life to arrive.

The questions are endless.

"When?"

"Is she here yet?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Have you thought about intervention methods yet?"

"Any sign of labour?"

All of these questions are a distraction.

A distraction of the real story.

The real story: is the life that was created for the exact time and moment it arrives.  The real story isn't in the mamas control, it is in hands that are bigger and stronger than hers.  The real story is a story about relinquishing the right of control.  It is the lesson of mama hood.  Given a gift to carry and entrusted to care for, yet in no way is this gift in the mamas full control.  

And words of the Bethel  Music Song Shepherd "In the process, in the waiting...Your making melodies over me." has become an anthem as the days tick by and the questions build.

So I turn off from the questions and I am resting in the process.

And shouldn't we all do that?

Shouldn't we attempt this present life of the moment we are in? 

When we attempt wellness we need to attempt the deep breathing of bringing our real life forward.

Deep breaths like a birthing mama, and deep breaths like we inhale after coming up from the deep water. 

In the process I am reaching to rest in the presence of what is bigger than me. 

Here's the thing.

Words do matter.

We throw them around here and there and although we think our words are our own, they have life past our mouths.

I caught myself just yesterday throwing words around to the best friend, trying to describe thoughts that I was carrying.  All my opinions and concepts being formulated as I spoke and I cringed.

I cringed because I heard the words fly out and have a life past me that encouraged criticism.

I despise criticism.

I think of myself as highly aware of critical language that destroys life.  I pride myself in the awareness of the toxic words that fly around.  I see myself as a Katniss in the word world.  Bow and arrow in hand, ready to shoot at whatever is fake, unreal and untruthful. 

And there I was supposing that just because I wanted to "express myself" that I had a right to spout words out into the air that could cut like a knife.

I did check myself.

I did backtrack, but I also walked away from that conversation with a sense of disappointment over my lack of sensitivity.

So I am calling myself out today.

Wellness is about words too. 

And I want you to be well.

I want to be well alongside you.

I want to see us thrive and yes, I want to be truthful and call out the dark bits that we allow to walk in-between us, and I want to do that with a grace that catches our breath and makes us want to stand together.

I want to stand with you.  With words that matter. 

My city and province, Halifax, Nova Scotia is expierencing a cultural and well-being attack  seemingly overnight.

I need not go into all the political details and drama as a quick google study would inform anyone of what Halifax is up against this season with a new budget being proposed without the input of it's dwellers and industry leaders. 

Ultimately it all means that Nova Scotia's rise to be a place where people would want to stay and be inspired by is being cut.  We were never a province that one stays for the 'money'.  

 

No, we stay for the lifestyle.

Yeah, that East Coast Lifestyle company that came out of the roots of this city with a vision that has become world renown.  Their creativity and ingenuity started here.

So this Lifestyle that speaks of ocean spray, anchors dropped, salt air-in-lungs, music heavy and all those bodies yelling and screaming praise to the sky as they embrace every wave that comes their way, it is worth it to protect.

The life we've been working so hard to shake is that 'defeatist maritimer'.  The 'too much snow', 'too much rain' , 'not enough stores' , 'nothing to do' , 'if you want money, go out west' , 'we loose them all to B.C.'  

Thats a tired Lifestyle.  It's old.  It's aging.  We've had enough!

Those of us who have stayed here have seen a culture arise out of the defeatist ground and we celebrate every spring when the creatives and artists come out of there work spaces and spread their work.  Spread our stories for the world to see.

 I am one of them.

I didn't believe I lived in a city where I could be anything but 'boring', and then a maritime actor told me to submit a play in "The Atlantic Fringe Festival".  A festival that film and stage workers alike make possible.  It was there, after all the support my small group of friends and fellow creatives, that I began to believe my city offered me more than just a dead end dream.

Now, nine months pregnant, I am still figuring this 'Creative Life' out, but I wouldn't want to do it anywheres but this East Coast Lifestyle place where the salt air fills my lungs and the coffee shops are littered with aspiring writers, bloggers, actors, film makers and doers.  

I am over this Maritime Defeatist Life.

We are more than this Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We are worth more than just a cut in our growth. 

We deserve the time to sit at a table and pass 'grace' along to our city and it's members and discuss this with more than just a nod of 'goodbye'.  

Stand up and don't accept the 'too small' City concept.  Nova Scotia has what it takes, we know this, we have seen this and we won't accept anything more than the best for our now, and our future. 

Wellness isn't just a concept to aspire to.  Wellness is a way of life to step into.

Wellness is a daily challenge.  

A dare.

It dares you to take aspects of your life:

• Mental
• Physical
• Spiritual
• Relational 
• Financial

And give them a good shake up.  To embrace them as part of you in a way that offers respect to the life you are called to live.

We need to honour our minds, bodies, spirits, relationships and our means to live.  We need to cultivate and grow them.

It's Spring and the rains that fall on the ground are nurturing the growth that is coming.  We should all be nurturing growth in our lives.

So I am taking this Wellness Dare.

Thirty-Eight weeks pregnant, I am honouring the body and life I have been given and will strive to respect and nurture these things. 

Asking myself:

How can I challenge growth in my life and mind?

What are health and wellness lifestyle choices I can improve?

What does my spirit need and crave?

What relationships need work?

How can I work towards a financial goal?

Only you can ask yourself and answer the questions surrounding wellness, but when you do, you'll find you will be inspired to embrace this slow oncoming Spring with a new energy. 

Will you join me?