It comes in waves.  But just when you sigh surrender...it heals itself.

I often wish that Life could always be filled with rainbows and cupcakes and unicorns but I am just as often reminded that Life can be hard.  Today is one of those days.  It is not that I am completely falling apart but I feel more, I feel more raw and open and bare.  It is during times like this that I find myself alone with all that is me, where I create space and gentleness, and where the words come in asking, "Where does your Tough live?"

Today the moon is in Virgo.  It is waning and shedding and that Virgo moon tends to kick my butt sometimes.  I feel a deep sadness, a sorrow, and the tears well up from the depths of Nowhere and a little voice inside whispers gently to remind me..."The moon is in Virgo."

Why is that Virgo moon so hard on me?  I have some thoughts on that and I have to trust them...for me it is related to Karma.  The moon in Virgo...it is when everything changed.  It is when something inside of me broke, and I felt it but couldn't quite put my finger on it.  It is when I knew I was walking some part of my destiny and that there was nothing that I could do to change it.  I had to experience it, tough as it was.  

Now, years later it still hits me every once in awhile and asks, "Where does your Tough live?"  Some days it lives in a pile of tears.  It lives curled up inside a fuzzy blanket on the couch.  It lives in the grass beside the water of the lake and in the sand beside the caressing waters of the ocean waves.  It lives in the light that dances off the trees inspiring me to take its picture.  It lives in the laughter of my Self, my children and my plants.  It lives in the howling of the coyote and the cries of the hawk.  It lives on the streets of a bustling city where its pulse enlivens and excites me.  It lives in the kitchen carefully measuring and cooking something nourishing.  It lives in my bones.  It lives in my skin.  It lives in the never-ceasing loving beat of my heart.

When life is hard in the midst of it all I still find it so achingly beautiful.  It still finds a way to somehow feed my soul.  It still finds a way to show me something truly wonderful.  It never lets me down completely or leaves me in the dark longer than I want to be.  It just is.  It just is exactly what it is supposed to be in that moment.  Surrender is the best way through it.  Trust is the best way through it.  Gentleness is the best way through it.  Surrender, trust, gentleness...they all take a dash of Tough and Grit to make it better...not always easy but easier in the long-run.  Go through it, go through it, go through it.

So today, no matter where your Tough lives, breathe.  Breathe it in and breathe it out.  Know that your heart knows the way.  Know that you will always know the perfect answer in each and every moment and that that answer is perfect for you...not necessarily what others think it should be for you.  It isn't that the answer is hard to find, it is that it can be hard to follow through because it means change.  Change that you think you are not ready for.  Change that you think for whatever reason you cannot have now.  Change that you are afraid of because it is unknown and unfamiliar.

Again, surrender.  Trust.  Be gentle on yourself.  Tap into your Tough.  
 

So....where does your Tough live?