2024 - A Decade Later

2014, the year that affirmed and changed everything. The year I learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that we never really die. A year that forever changed me. 

I've spent the last decade running from spirit on and off, wrestling with that knowing. Challenging the undoing of religious dogma of that knowing. Understanding that we can love God, believe in Jesus, AND ALSO KNOW THAT SPIRIT OF LOVED ONES NUDGING ISN'T EVIL OR THE DEVIL. Understanding that the dogma is Man's doing, not creation's. 

In the last decade, I finally told my friend's mom about his nudges after his unexpected passing. She even wrote about it in her book about her journey of loving an addicted son. 

I stood up to liars in Maine trying to tell another Mom that I saw Nolan's death before it happened. That's not true. It never was true. I only saw other timelines, ones without addiction. Ones where he was happy and making a Christmas album of Christian music with his daughter. 

I walked away from repeat offenders. People/friends who claimed to be doing the work but who actually aren't, stuck in their cycles of destruction and chaotic living.

I leaned to let go, and to remember that the knowing isn't always about this incarnation. That sometimes, it's a glimpse into another. That while it's always right, it's not always correct RIGHT NOW. That people are of their own free will. That people will not always choose what we know needs to happen for them to heal. 

That addicts will lie and distance themselves, not taking accountability for their hurts. 

That those who do the work, sticking and staying, have the way through. That there's hope in recovery. That a small breathwork group can bring healing after traumatic deaths. That the work of our tribe carries on, even without the dots along the journey that brought us together to begin with. 

This year, things are different. They're shifting. They're rebuilding. They're creating. And, I'm here to experience and embrace it all. 

Never ignore your downloads and nudges. 

Never give up on connecting the dots along the journey to whole and balanced living. 

Life can be beautiful when we take risks for the rewards. When we let go and allow expansion beyond what we think* we know. 

Thank you to my favorite dots. Thank you for not leaving when your time here this incarnation was done. Thank you for making me a better human because our lives crossed path. Most of all, thank you for setting me free. 

The truth was always here. The truth is in the presence. The current moment. The now. The no bullshit acceptance of what's right and what's wrong. The truth, it can set us free, but only IF we believe it and take action on those beliefs. 

Remember that. I love you. 

xoxo Nita 

The Next Chapter - The Not Knowing

7.25.21 - Accidently didn't hit publish...

 As time has passed and I've grown into this next chapter of life that I didn't document for this community, I've come to a place of acceptance that my expectations for what I expected of myself the last decade at Knowing and what birthed from the same are bigger than you or I.

Long before Knowing and Whole & Balanced Living, I was keeping a private blog with link only access. A blog I've been recently instructed to return to for review, as I do the sacred work of healing trauma around my father's passing Christmas Day, 2020.

Before I had the name for the 5 Claires life. Before I had the name for Lipedema, the genetic mess I deal with and have been dealing with since puberty. Before I knew that spirit and all that is or ever will be for us humans affirmed that we never really die. Before I reclaimed my worth and unapologetically started following my pulls, downloads and nudges. 

With ownership of all of the above comes vulnerability. Allowing people in who know, who see the shift in my energies and eyes when I'm not at the wheel, an exercise in trust.

Nothing hurt more over the years that having someone you love and trusted, embraced, who supposedly accepted it all, turn and run from it all. When someone who's all in starts questioning and calling you crazy. When they're injecting dark beliefs and dark thoughts into the light. 

My softer side really wishes things could be as they were with that person, versus fear and mental health struggles taking them away from what we were building that was bigger than either of us. I even still pray and send this person reiki love, protection and healing energies. 

Nonetheless, as I heal what happened the last few years that I had no control over, I am remembering who I was and who I am today, beyond the limiting thoughts or belief systems came to rest in my being here and there along the journey.

I'm grateful for what today holds. For the light in the darkness. For the knowing. For the 5 Claires life. For having a vision, purpose and calling.

Most of all, I'm grateful for my dots along the journey that have brought wisdom, passion, and love into my life. I love my tribe and my life by design people. 

Life "After" a Global Crisis

Here we are, humanity, trying to makes heads or tails of the craziest year and a half most of us can remember. 

Did this bring us together, or tear us apart? Did the loss of life, income and opportunity make you bitter or push you out of your comfort zones? 

Are you still suffering? It feels as if most of the planet still is, and that we're really no better off than we were when the news broke. 

I wish I had the answers, but I don't. All I do know is that we have to put ourselves first. We have to take care of our health, our bodies, those things within our control, as best we can. 

We have to let go of people who are toxic and who bring harm in hard times. In the same breath, we need to know the difference between intentional harm and harm as a result of mental distress. There are many good eggs out there who are spiraling through this mess and that spiral looks and feels like something it really isn't if you take the time to see past the rants and look at the person behind them. 

The world is at its highest recorded numbers of mental illness, suicide and addiction use. Keep this in mind when you're operating out in the world. If you have love to give, radiate it. If you need love, ask for it. We're all still in this together, whether we like it or not.

The Transcendence - Dancing With Denial

I started this blog in April of 2016, and came back to it again in August of 2016.  Today, Easter Sunday, 2017, the day in which I was raised to celebrate as "Resurrection Sunday," seemed as good as any day to resurrect this blog.  While I've been posting KB worthy thoughts and exchanges on my Instagram when they come, as well as carrying forth a couple of posts in the "Inspired Thoughts" album at Knowing's Facebook fan page, I've intentionally been avoiding this specific blog in process, and writing here in general.  It's literally taken me almost an entire year of processing, sifting and sorting to get here.  Not because of the pain of writing it, but because of the connection I have to the person whom inspired its reflections to begin with.  That "knowing" that the person I'm connected to, who was then thousands of miles away pursuing their dreams, was cycling through their own dances with denial and transcendence.  

It's taken this long to allow myself to own these words, unfiltered, and from the heart.  

You see, I grew up surrounded by friends (and lovers) who struggle with addiction.  Notice that's not a past tense statement.  That's because, the struggle never ends; it's a day to day, sometimes moment to moment dance between what one knows to do, versus what one's compelled to do.  I've also had to say goodbye to those who've gone home to the other side, due to the addiction itself, or the lingering effects of damage to the body due to having it.  I think we all have, we all know someone who has been touched by it at that level of loss.

For over 27 years I've been in AA, NA and OA meetings, countless churches, meeting halls in random places, with coffee flowing and smoke hanging from the ceilings.  I've been in the psych wards of hospitals, holding friend's hands, speaking the good word, focusing on the wins and what's beautiful about that suffering soul before me, crumbled and broken, and wanting to die.  

Those 12 step meetings, they were to support those same friends and loved ones.  I've been to Al-Anon too, and I read the Big Book to be in the know, to understand the process that is being sought of them.  To learn how not to be.  To learn healthy boundaries.  As a result of this wide open compassion and acceptance of those who are managing recovery, in adulthood, I'm surrounded by some of the most beautiful people.  People who just so happen to also be managing their addictions, transcending daily their old ways and hurts, and scheduling time to create peace in their lives.

Moms, daughters, fathers, sons, best friends, small business owners, people from every walk of life; no one is immune to it.  Addiction doesn't carefully select whom it's going to intrude upon.  Addiction has no selection process at all.  It just is what it is.  A crap shoot of luck, sometimes propelled by circumstance, genes or psychological make-up.  It certainly isn't something that someone wakes up to, wishing upon themselves one day either.  It's a disease, it's not a choice, and although it drives a lot of undesirable behaviors in people we care for, it's not the "real" person behind the wheel of their life.  

In all my years of loving people for who they really are, I've learned that we don't walk away from that which doesn't serve us, until we're damn ready to do so.  No matter what other people say, no matter how much we dance in denial, we do not budge in a permanent new direction until we've come to peace with the cards we're dealt.  Once we focus on what we have, what we want, and what we are grateful for, life shifts.  Denial isn't just something you flip a switch on, or have a come to Jesus meeting about.  It's a choice.  One so deeply rooted that we often don't even know it's there sometimes.  Thus, the word, DENIAL.  Bottom line, people change when they're ready to change.  No amount of ultimatums, loss, or bitching at them is going to accelerate that.  It won't stay and stick at least.  We have to want the change in order to be able to embrace it.  

So, here we are, being love, and allowing people around us to be who they are, without our judgment.  Just as Jesus would of done.  So we're told at least, and what I adhere to about that story.  That's how we're supposed to be.  We all have crosses to carry on this journey.  Mastering ourselves will always be our greatest call, and our most important challenge.  

I hope that when you're faced with creating healthy boundaries and unconditional love, that you'll remember that beneath the pain before you, is a person.  I hope you'll always remember that within that person is someone who would give anything to shut the pain off, and feel whole, in control, and at peace again.  Try not to shame or hurt those who are hurting.  Remember, people only can do as well as they are in that moment.  There are so many hurt people out there.

Above all, never give up hope.  They might just surprise you.  I've been blessed to watch a few transformations come to pass over the decades.  Even those in the deepest and darkest depths of depression, anxiety, and other types of mental illness have transformed their lives, choosing not to use their addiction as their coping mechanism with the same. I know that what we intend upon, put laser focus towards, and take action upon in our daily calendars, comes to pass.  If it can happen to those I know, it can happen to you.  Let those who have made strides inspire you to find your own.  No two recovery stories are ever the same, and no two people find their way to recovery on the same journey.  But, together, we can all get there.

Just let love lead.  It will see you through.  I'm trusting right along with you.  Remember that.  I love you.

Copyright ©2016 Nita Clewis All rights reserved.  For personal use only.  Commercial use without permission of the author is not allowed.  Sharing with friends and family is warmly welcomed.

Ding! Ding! Ding! THANK YOU Dr. Seuss

For someone who strives to be mindful on a daily basis of living in the here and now, it occurred to me on my way to my mother's house for our New Year's Day meal, that part of the mourning process I've been dancing with is essentially living in the past.  It was a true "ding-ding-ding" moment for me.  This is something I've read and known, but really didn't KNOW deep inside with an open acceptance.  

Reflecting on 2014 and all that came with it, and how it forever changed me and this path I'm navigating, it settled in.  I was driving down Happy Creek Road into town, in one of my favorite parts of the road where you have a view of the mountains and Randolph Macon Academy on the other side of town framed in the center up on the hill.  It's actually the stretch of road where about a 1/2 mile further up I turn to take the short cut through town, and pass along the way where Thomas is buried.  Clear as day I received the thought, "Don't be sad that it's over.  Smile because it happened."  I knew this was a quote or that there was a quote to this regard out there somewhere.  As soon as I arrived in Flint Hill, I looked it up on my phone.  

Well I'll be! Dr. Seuss!  Really? Heh, talk about full circle living right?  A book from childhood containing within it a "universal message."  It resonated so deeply and has stirred frequently since.  So much so that this is now my mantra for 2015 each time the grief Ninja creeps up and each time that I reel my thoughts back to the now and to finding gratitude.  As painful as 2014 was, with all of its stripping away and losing people, it was also a profound gift.  2014 was a constant in my face reminder of what matters most.  All of that loss and the fallout from the same gave me an understanding like no other that DEATH IS NOT THE END.  I don't care what your religious beliefs are.  This isn't about that.  This about our energy, what makes us, and our eternal self moving on to the next thing on its to do list.  That we're all connected.  That we can and do receive information from those who have passed on, as well as those we may have known in other lives or whom we've played with often on the other side.  That if we'll just be still, trust and listen, that guidance is all around us.  

Indeed, Dr. Seuss may have just helped me to create a whole lot more peace in the pain. Thank you.  I love you Dr. Seuss. 

Copyright ©2015 Nita Clewis All rights reserved.  For personal use only.  Commercial use without permission of the author is not allowed.  Sharing with friends and family is warmly welcomed.  

Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore!

Losing people you love can make anyone feel crazy at times.  Thinking that you may be hearing, feeling and receiving from them after they're gone, well that phenomena, it takes the feeling crazy to an entirely new level.  At first I thought it was just a survival technique to cope after Thomas passed.  A game I was playing in my head to keep the conversations going this winter.  This, despite the fact that I've already come to accept that I receive information randomly for others close to me from their loved ones.  It's never been detailed communication though.  Up to now it's been feelings, a few words or gestures.  A nudge to reach out to whomever to check in on them.  I was comfortable with it because I could explain it.

Then the oh shit, how do I explain THIS moment happened.  Well, the first one at least.  A phone call.  A lengthy conversation with the family of a friend (Whom I didn't know before the person we both knew left us).  One of the first questions asked of me was if my deceased friend had confided in me about an incident eight months earlier between himself and this family member.  No, he had not.  However, since his passing, I had received a request that I didn't really understand from him and frankly was unwilling to do for him in its entirety.  Sitting in my office having this deep conversation, I couldn't believe what was was being told to me.  This fragile and sad person, I wanted so badly to tell her what he'd asked me to do after he passed as she shared the story, but I couldn't.  I was frozen in fear and in utter and unbelieveable shock.  I wasn't losing my mind afterall.  Wow, just wow.  Eventually we ended the call and all I could do was sit in silence with teary eyes mouthing the words thank you.  Thank you my dear friend for letting me know I'm not losing it.

What was exactly that he did want from me?  He wanted me to send her flowers on a specific upcoming Holiday and write on the note that he was "sorry about last year's" (the last one between them).  I agreed to take her flowers but I told him (if he was in fact really communicating with me telepathically) that there was NO WAY I'm going there with her with the apology.  It just wasn't my place to do so and I didn't want to cross that comfort river into the unknown.  I had no knowledge of what had transpired between them just 8 months before he passed.  Yet here she was on the phone affirming the why behind his request. 

Mother's Day Sunday would come, wherein I was to take her the flowers (and withholding the message), only to find her leaving town in her new toy for a view of the ocean.  At some point I hope to find the courage to sit her down and tell her about his visits since passing.  How she will receive it isn't for me to question, I know this.  I just have to find the courage to honor his place in our lives and open that door, to let her know beyond a shadow of any doubt that he does in fact live on.  For all I know, she's reading these very words and has already placed it together that I'm speaking about them.

It was the first time since Thomas passed that I realized that maybe I really WAS getting information from Thomas and others on their side of existence.  Yes, I knew things had been moved in my home unexplainably, just as I knew of others who have this phenomenon.  Despite the same, I was in resistance to what was going on with myself.

The second incident was sitting in my car talking with a girl I barely knew after a mutual friend's funeral.  Talking about our friend, he was all of a sudden there, loud and clear, giving me cold chills in the hot sunlight, making my heart race, my stomach flip and dumping word after word into my mind for her.  I'd never had that happen before.  I trusted her enough though in that moment to just blurt it all out and not fear judgment for the same.  I left that memorial service forever shifted into a new reality of what was possible.  It's one thing to watch others proclaim to be mediums, it's an entirely different thing to have it happen in your own life.  Indeed, holy shit balls, did that just really happen to us?

Then came two separate incidents of a personality I didn't know here popping in for a dear and close friend.  Both times it happened while traveling in the car with him and both times my friend also received in how own way as well.  These two incidents also created severe physical symptoms (similar to what some would term an anxiety attack) during the exchange of information and the second happened to occur at a time when my close friend felt comfortable enough to reach out to this guy's mother.

My friend wanted to make sense of all that was pouring out of me.  Some of it he could explain on his own and affirm, the rest of it he had to deliver to her to connect the dots.  Boy did she ever connect those dots.  He was blown away.  I was blown away and it was from that point forward that I decided that I seriously wasn't losing my mental capacities.  That something else was going on and that I just needed to learn to accept it and if possible, control it.  I wasn't scared.  I wasn't anxious.  I was just kinetically overwhelmed with that person's energy. As my friend said, "he was as strong in death as he was in life."  Sure, if that's how you explain it.

Bottom line, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

Copyright ©2014 Nita Clewis All rights reserved.  For personal use only.  Commercial use without permission of the author is not allowed.  Sharing with friends and family is warmly welcomed.  
      

The Next Chapter: Now What?

2014, some question if it has been a cruel joke at times.  People call and ask how exactly are you doing all of this with such love, compassion and grace?  Seriously, it's all from beyond me.  Some call it The Cosmic Forces.  Others label it Faith.  God.  Jesus.  Buddha.  Spirit.  That yummy stuff we don't really have any true evidence of other than the unexplainable.  I'm human, vulnerable and fragile at times, just like you.  I question, I get angry, and I even get depressed.

On June 6th, I sat next to my grandfather in his last stage of life, listening to his breath as he was in a slumber, talking to him as I had each time I was there by his side these last few months hoping, then accepting, and finally learning to let go.  I knew it was time.  I knew he was ready.  I felt it.  I saw it.  I heard them as well.  As they'd been for the weeks, they'd been waiting for him.  My grandmother, his parents, his siblings, his friend from the Lodge all on the other side.  They were all there in that room again. This day it was different though.  This day I told him goodbye because I knew.  This day I told him thank you again for all that he'd done, made promises I knew that would bring him peace enough to surrender, and felt his embrace one last time through spirit.  Then I went to bring my son home for the weekend and planned to be back by his side again Saturday morning.  Before dawn though he was with them; happy, free and whole again on the other side.

Towards the end it was difficult for me to be there, their energies so intense around him.  It wasn't hard to see him as he was because I knew inside that he was only there in brief moments with us. A kiss.  A hand held.  That was him in his beautiful state of being.  Of knowing.

My last lucid conversation with him had been a mere two weeks earlier in the living room.  He was asking about Knowing, about what if I'd written for it that day, and about the band I was excited to have the opportunity to write for named Exilia.  He was fascinated that they were from Italy and had been touring in the States.  It was in the last few weeks that he learned for the first time the reach that is Knowing.  He had no idea that it was read all over the world by thousands of people in 45 countries (and counting).  He was incredibly proud of his granddaughter and questioned why it wasn't a "business" generating a living for me yet.  Because that wasn't the intention that I attached to this endeavor.  Why haven't you written a book yet Nita?  All of these people that you connect with, inspire and help by sharing your own story, they need a book.  Every single day that he was with us in a clear state, he asked about it.  Going forward, that will be his legacy carrying forth through me.  Just as when I sit to pen those questions and craft that piece on Exilia it will be for him, my fellow Italian.   

My mom and her sister are now entering the next chapter of their lives. It's a bittersweet and painful journey.  Saying good-bye to those you've loved for decades upon decades, those who molded you into who you would become is so damn hard.  It's a day I dread myself.  The day that both your parents are gone from this earth.  It's part of life though.  Part of the circle.  If things play out in their natural states, we reach this chapter with a support team of those who love us and bring meaning to our lives around us.  Not all of us have this though.  Many of us are single and childless when we bury our parent(s).  My mom and aunt have it better than most in that they can find meaning to life in their remaining family members.  

What happens though to those who don't have anyone?  No significant other to hold them at night through the grief, no children, grandchildren or pets to dote on.  How do they hold on?  How do they navigate the pain to find peace in it?  I've learned that they do so through community and friendships.  I've watched a few friends find family in their Tribe and give gratitude to their role in writing the next chapter of their lives.  It has shown me that truly, the Universe will rise up to greet you exactly where you are.  You just have to be open and ready to receive.  I believe in you.  I believe in our collective consciousness.  I also know that no matter when we go home, all is as it should be, as we (on the other side when we planned this life) wanted it to be.  We all come to learn.  Trust in the story.  Trust in the next chapter.  You wrote it.  Remember that.  I love you.

Copyright ©2014 Nita Clewis All rights reserved.  For personal use only.  Commercial use without permission of the author is not allowed.  Sharing with friends and family is warmly welcomed. 

The Long Winter - Resilience 101

Winter 2013-2014 may actually finally be behind us as we creep into June.  Yes Denver, I hear you disagreeing with me right now.  :)  To say it has been a doozy of a winter for myself might be a tad of an understatement.  You tell me.  Here's the recap.

1) Cousin's daughter's Cystic Fibrosis no longer responds to medication.  Sweet six year old Kaylee fights off N1H1 in January and is on the verge of a transplant list to save her life by May.  Just before Mother's Day weekend her body begins to respond again ever so slightly. We're a family holding onto hope, trying to not give thought to the unthinkables of this fatal condition. 

2) Transcending more chapters closing on the financial front and reminding me yet again that if it's meant to be that it's up to me (in February and again as of late).  Seriously, I'm almost finding these repeating circumstances comical.  I'm beyond fortunate to have a tribe of kick ass people behind me to see me through it.  No need to repeat this cycle again though.  I will never place my family's financial fate in another's hands other than my own ever again.  Repeat after me:  "If it's meant to be, it's up to me."

3)  Best friend/PT roommate when he couldn't shower or be warm at his own home thanks to "family" not being there for him as he was at his sickest died in November.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of him and reach out to connect again.  It's a shock to the system and a new normal that I'm still adjusting to.  Some days are okay, other days I HATE IT and feel like I can't get away from myself fast enough.

4)  My business partner and big sister from the Universe's mom's farewell to this life happened after a very long good-bye.  As long as I've known this special lady, her momma has suffered in limbo.  This would be how she and her sister's years ended.  Truly sad to see so many we call friend letting their parents go.

5)  Good friend/favorite conversationalist dies in January.  As if the first punch to the gut wasn't hard enough in November.  Ugh.  Just ugh.  Known this joker for over 20 years too, all the way back to 7th grade.  Yea, if the roller coaster ride had only let me off here.  

6)  Colleague loses her own fight to N1H1 after a long battle in three hospitals between VA and WV in January and February.  Her family lost her daddy about a year ago too.  My heart breaks everyday for her son and husband.

7)  Same month that the colleague is ill I come down with something that for the first time in 5+ years sends my medically uninsured self to a Minute Clinic.  Scared say what?

8)  Leader in my profession passes tragically in the midst of all of these other events, shaking up our little work family.

9)  Grandfather's hip gives out, he falls and has a full hip replacement at 100 1/2 years old in February.  We would later learn that the post surgery dementia and related problems would be the beginning of the "long goodbye."  As of this week, he's been accepted into the local Hospice program.  

10)  Dear sweet sister from the Universe's neighbor (and our old classmate) dies at his wife's side as she tries to save him.  The last memory his children have of him is him tucking them and telling them how much he loved them.  Another family in my heart every single day.

11)  One of my favorite doting father's on Facebook and yet another old classmate dies the morning of his 12 year old daughter's slumber party celebrating her birthday.  Two of his girls were making breakfast and tried to save his life giving him CPR.  Three more girls orphaned with only a mom now.

12)  My father's father-in-law comes to visit from the Philippines on his annual trip and ends up having emergency brain surgery for complications from an automobile accident that he was victim to months before his visit.  We hope to have him back at my dad's this week from his extended hospital stay.

There you have it, the dirty dozen.  Add to that crazy ass roller coaster ride of a winter we had with weather (and myself NOT being a winter person) and lets just say SPRING COULDN'T GET HERE FAST ENOUGH.  Here's the thing though, it hasn't really stopped. Just last week my daughter (the ex's/step-daughter) was hospitalized almost 1000 miles away for three days without any family there to be by her side and see her through it.  

It is what it is, not what I want or wish it would be and I'm rolling with it.  I have a very witty and charming friend who reminds me often of how well I am handling these things. Her occasional comments are a sweet pat on the back from those over there who know I struggle sometimes daily not to completely lose my shit.  

May is hard, really, really HARD.  It's warmer now and I'm outside more than I'm inside these days.  Days and nights working from the front porch and back deck.  Many nights as of late remembering; seeing and hearing Thomas where he once stood or sat before.  Mother's Day and its bittersweet and a beautiful day in the new normal.  May 12th was also the birthday of Thomas's mother.  I took comfort knowing that this year he didn't have to miss her from here to there, that they were together again in spirit form.  The first birthday since Dave passed is this month too.  I still have on my phone texts from both of them on these important days.  A year later and it's all topsy turvy.  Thinking about Dave's mom and brother enduring Easter and Mother's Day together missing him hit me ultra hard this year.  I made a promise to my friend after he passed that I've yet to deliver on yet but will soon regarding that situation.  Yes, May is really fucking hard.  

I know this much though now; I can do hard things. 

So many people out there I love are hurting and struggling with loss, illness and other stressors.  We are all in a season of testing and triumph for some.  Do we have what it takes to stay the course, to be resilient?  Time is the best indication of that answer.  I believe we will.  Take it or leave it, change is here to stay.  It never actually leaves you see.  You just have seasons of it tucked away on the back of the shelf getting dusty.  

As you navigate life's long winters, please remember that you're not alone in any of it. We are all connected.  We are all one.  Your pain is our pain and your joy is our joy.  This is why we must all push through the muck to persevere.  We rarely have the opportunity to go from A to B in swift fashion overnight.  Progress is a journey of successive steps.  Strive to remain present in today and this very moment.  Yesterday isn't going to fix tomorrow after all, it's today that gets the job done.  

I really want you to hear this.  YOU CAN get through the long winters of your life.  You just have to see to it that you hold on with all you've got and decide that a life well lived isn't one without heartache and tragedy.  No, a life well lived is one wherein heartache and tragedy are greeted where they reside, and left there to linger, not taking up residence in the day-to-day art of living.  

We decide.  Remember that.  I love you. 

Copyright ©2014 Nita Clewis All rights reserved.  For personal use only.  Commercial use without permission of the author is not allowed.  Sharing with friends and family is warmly welcomed.  

Your Intuitive Knowing & Passionate People - Are You Listening?

I recently watched the Pearl Jam 20 documentary.  If you have not seen it, you will find it streaming on Netflix and available for purchase online or at your local music store.  If you do not know who they are, or are not a fan, I would still recommend that you watch it for the inspiration, knowledge and the lessons shared.  Cameron Crowe and the group put together a magnificent story of their history and there are universal lessons from life within the film that all of us can learn from.

As for what I think about Pearl Jam, I love them.  Always have.  Having watched this documentary though, I have a newfound respect for who they are as both a collective creative entity and as individual people following their own authentic paths.  Their commitment to the craft, their business and their fans is exceptional.  These artists would not settle for anything along the journey and kept control of their art as they found success.  They always listened to their convictions and acted fearlessly on them.

What has resonated with me most from the documentary is a statement made by Jeff Ament about his own intuitive knowing.  When being interviewed he stated,  “I remember when Ed first came to town, it seemed like it was something that he’d been kind of waiting for his whole life, and it was obvious within the first few minutes that it was something I’d been waiting for so also.”   Have you ever met people like this on your journey?  The people who cross your path whom you are just drawn to for reasons you cannot articulate. Sometimes you even feel as if you have known these people long before you have actually met them.

I felt this way when I first met my ex in the halls of Hayfield middle school.  I didn’t even like him, but I had a knowing that something profoundly important between us would happen one day.  We would be separated on and off during high school, and then as adults, for over a decade, only to come together for close to another decade when our paths crossed later in the journey of life.  This was important because it was after I had met another important person on my path, and had spent a few years in domestic relations law.  

Although we are no longer together in the present, I am a better person having known him. What came of that union in adulthood is that a child I love like my own is safe and sound because of our time together.  People often ask me, “Knowing what you know now, would you have stayed as long as you did in that emotionally abusive relationship?”  My answer is always yes, because had I not stayed, I would not be the strong, "I will not settle" woman who I am today, and I would not have been used by the Universe to put to use my own collective knowledge to save his child from the hell she was living in elsewhere.  Most importantly, I wouldn't of been her mother for over half of her life.

I felt it again when I met my best friend Ann-Marie at Zaxx in Springfield, Virginia.  She was only in my life for a short time before her path would take her elsewhere and sadly, eventually home to the other side at the tender age of 22, as the result of an automobile accident.  In those few short years of friendship, my life was blessed beyond measure.  To this day, I cannot look at the Atlantic Ocean in Sussex County Delaware and Ocean City, Maryland without hearing her laughter in my head.  That's where we went on our senior trip at graduation.  She'd never seen the ocean before.  

Speaking of Sussex County, Delaware, I always knew something important would come from there as well.  Thirteen years ago on Christmas Eve, I would learn that I was pregnant with my son Tristan, whose father grew up there, and to this day, lives in that place.  

Other times my intuitive knowing has brought people into my path who are as passionate about their craft as the members of Pearl Jam are.  Passionate people who bring their gifts to the world, more often than not, create a better human experience.  That's my opinion at least.  Think about it.  

If you are in the medical profession because you truly want to compassionately serve others, and care for them, it shows in your interactions with your patients.  If you are a cake decorator, it shows in your creations.  If you are a foodie who only wants to create a menu of the best sustainable and local fare for your customers, it also shows in your creations.  I simply cannot imagine our world without these people.  Passionate people following their paths changed history.  They have created inventions, found cures for diseases, and developed technologies (think Steve Jobs) as well.    Again, I have met such passionate people and based upon those experiences, I beg of you to pay attention to that "knowing," and act on that intuitiveness.

So yes, please listen to your intuitive gifts.   They are there. We all have it, that passing inspiration of fleeting thought to do this, do that, etc.  Please, please, please listen and then act.  Trust that knowing.  I have found that when we do this, we never find ourselves on the wrong path.  In fact, more often than not, amazing and miraculous people, places and things happen.  Remember that.  I love you.  

Copyright ©2011 Nita Clewis
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