All Is Welcome Here

I just returned from the healing land of Hawaii, leading a retreat on the quiet island of Molokai at the lovely and loving retreat center Hui Ho’olana, affectionately called ‘the Hui.’  I am still filled with the sounds and smells of Hawaii, the softness of the warm air, the spectacular view from the porch of the main lodge that looks down on the island of Molokai and out over the ocean, the deliciousness of gourmet food that was always displayed with beautiful flowers, and the amazing spectacle of the Milky Way, reminding us that we are a part of something bigger.

What stays with me the most is 16 amazing women opening their hearts to themselves and to each other more and more each day.  Such joy!  At the end of the retreat, the Hui’s resident artist and manager of the gallery said to me, ”I want whatever you all shared together.  All of these women came here in their ordinary, everyday selves and are leaving just glowing.”

What was it that allowed us all to open into the joy and aliveness that is our birthright?  We first discovered that we all have a storyteller in our head that is based on fear and glued together with self-judgment.  For many of the women, there was a radical shift in perception when they saw that everybody was telling themselves the same story:  “I can’t trust life so I have to ‘do it and ‘do it right’,” secretly believing that it was never quite right enough!  Then, step by step, we learned how to unhook from these oftentimes subtle stories of fear and self-judgment so that we could simply open to life.

The theme of the retreat was All Is Welcome Here!  When our stories are met with curiosity and compassion, they let go of their hold on us, and what is left is life in all of its magical mystery, right here, right now.  What is left is the re-membering we knew when we were very young – that all of the joy and love we long for is to be found here and now. The more we individually and collectively unhooked from the storyteller in our heads, the more we discovered that it is safe to open to life – not an idea of it, but the living experience.

A few days into the retreat, one of the women said that whenever she heard the phrase All is welcome here, she heard All is well.  Come here.  That is the heart of what we remembered together – All is well.  In fact, all is unbelievably well.  It is only the storyteller in our heads that turns things into problems.  When we realize that life is in charge of life and it does a much better job than we can, our bellies soften, our hearts open, and we become very curious and engaged with exactly what life is giving us right now!

So I invite you to play with All is Welcome Here and notice what your mind does not want to welcome.  That is your edge, and as you explore it, it will become a doorway back into life.  Then take it one step further and play with All is Well.  Any part of you that doesn’t agree with this is just the fear and self-judgment you were conditioned into when you were young.  Know it is possible to unhook from these stories and truly become alive!