by Nandi Hetenyi
I vow to overcome my fear of never knowing your true face. To see that it is you in the middle of this fierce fear propelling me towards a heart filled with the knowing of you.
I vow to no longer punish myself for any pain that I am in. To give myself the kindness, warmth and compassion I have always needed and to ask your help when I don’t know how.
I vow to heal the pain beneath this shame I have for these gifts you have given me because I recognize that they are you as they flow through me. To honor the power of your language, the language spoken in the dialect of truth, that this expression of my voice is the way you breath and live through this body that is me.
I vow to forgive myself for being human; for mistakes I’ve made, for taking on others’ pain, for all the conscious and unconscious agreements I made that created more separation than connection. To grieve and allow the love that is that grief to honor all the ways you have shown up even in the darkness, when I couldn’t see it.
I vow to devote myself to knowing you; to letting go of the ideas I have of you and breaking up with the loyalty I have to those ideas. To open my heart and relax, as you have been teaching me, and asking for your guidance in receiving you deeper into my DNA. To honor that you may not always show up according to form, idea or picture. To listen with my heart and not my ears.
I vow to stop shutting you down in my heart and shaming myself for wanting you near. To step into the unknown spaces where you arise in the center of everything that exists within me. To feel you in my fingertips, to watch you dance on the wind and radiate from the brightness of spring flowers.
I vow to stop punishing myself for things in the past, to unearth the lightness of my being and send compassion to the ways I have been selfish because I experienced your scarcity in my early life. To be a devout student of your ways, to always tend to what feels like this forever little girl broken heart, to teach what I learn and remain in humble service to the way you want me to serve you in this world.
I vow to unravel you from the life of pain and trauma. To find your secrets and discover the truth of you in my lived, felt experience of this life; to find you more and more in my soul.
I vow to no longer silence myself. To seek safety in the refuge of the heart of hearts you reside in. To know I am always safe in your care.
I vow to no longer ignore your call, the pulse of your energy rising in my spine; a beckoning for opening to joy in my surrendering and partnering in creation with you. To find ways to be with you and to always, always ask you for guidance and support.
I vow to remember you and return to you when I have forgotten. To know that it is not easy to always live in your grace, that the practice is to always return, return, return. Every time staying a little longer.
I vow to love myself the way you love me. To all of the days I am gifted this life, to the end and to die well knowing my yearning has returned me to you.
IN CONCLUSION
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