Grace does not come easily. It is a product of hard work and rugged determination. It is the steadfast willingness to move through the pain without blame, shame or disappointment. It is the ability to drown out the noise and attack life with laser like focus. It is the resolve to rise above the messiness of all that is human and embrace all that is beautiful.
Struggling
To keep my shit
In one sock
In response to Patrick Jennings Pic and a Word Challenge #159: Rugged
I wracked my brain to think of something rugged. I thought about how even though dancers look ethereal, they are in reality rugged. What you see on stage is an illusion based on years of hard work. Then my thought transmogrified into those people who seem to go through life gracefully. People who live in grace have shit going on too but they don’t make their shit someone else’s shit. It takes a lot of falling down and dusting off to live a life of grace. I have a lot of work to do.
<smile> That work, for the vast majority of us, seems to have no end. Though… some of us — I think you — have done a fair bit of it.
I think the simple mental agility to recognize the need for the work is a signal: the work is well underway.
I asked a drama therapist friend once: are we all broken? Is there no end to the brokenness in us all? Are any of us healthy?
“Patrick,” she replied, “it is we who have recognized our brokenness, our hurt and pain and irrational responses to these, who are the healthiest. It is we who are healing.”
I took no small amount of spiritual sustenance from that. The work continues.
Pain is indeed a pain in the ass and I am never going to get my shit together. But I am learning to accept that fact and not be such a control freak. More importantly, better self acceptance is helping me be better to others. I am tired of feeling like a shitty person. We are all just doing the best we can.
Dancing Echoes 
November 3, 2018 at 8:02 pm
Reblogged this on On My Feet.
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November 3, 2018 at 8:18 pm
Excellent
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November 3, 2018 at 8:38 pm
Thank you Beth!
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November 3, 2018 at 9:49 pm
Love. ❤
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November 3, 2018 at 9:53 pm
Thank you Patrick
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November 3, 2018 at 10:14 pm
I wracked my brain to think of something rugged. I thought about how even though dancers look ethereal, they are in reality rugged. What you see on stage is an illusion based on years of hard work. Then my thought transmogrified into those people who seem to go through life gracefully. People who live in grace have shit going on too but they don’t make their shit someone else’s shit. It takes a lot of falling down and dusting off to live a life of grace. I have a lot of work to do.
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November 3, 2018 at 11:15 pm
<smile> That work, for the vast majority of us, seems to have no end. Though… some of us — I think you — have done a fair bit of it.
I think the simple mental agility to recognize the need for the work is a signal: the work is well underway.
I asked a drama therapist friend once: are we all broken? Is there no end to the brokenness in us all? Are any of us healthy?
“Patrick,” she replied, “it is we who have recognized our brokenness, our hurt and pain and irrational responses to these, who are the healthiest. It is we who are healing.”
I took no small amount of spiritual sustenance from that. The work continues.
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November 3, 2018 at 11:30 pm
Indeed it does
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November 4, 2018 at 3:49 am
This is almost exactly what I’m not, and why. 🙂 Nothing against holding my shit together, it’s just that the pain is a pain in the ass. 😉
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November 4, 2018 at 7:56 am
Beautiful writing💜
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November 4, 2018 at 10:28 am
Pain is indeed a pain in the ass and I am never going to get my shit together. But I am learning to accept that fact and not be such a control freak. More importantly, better self acceptance is helping me be better to others. I am tired of feeling like a shitty person. We are all just doing the best we can.
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November 4, 2018 at 10:29 am
Thank you Christy 💙
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November 4, 2018 at 2:38 pm
That’s for sure…
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January 20, 2019 at 5:14 am
Amazing blog!! ❤
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February 1, 2019 at 9:55 pm
Thank you!
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