My heart starts pounding when I realize the truth.

My heart has never lied to me, my mind has.

Funny because for as long as I can remember, my dad has shared his self-made maxims with my brother and I. It’s always delivered with a deeper, resounding voice, eyebrows furrowed and chest facing the sun, or the moon, or whatever was shining in the sky that day.

“Let the faith guide your way.

When it feels right in your gut, you are doing the right thing.

When it doesn’t; pause, breathe and look around

You will find the groove.”

I always had a hard time taking the last line seriously, because it has this serious tone and then suddenly BAM the word “groove” appears and it feels like we are all supposed to be dancing or something.

But quite honestly, that IS what we’re doing. We are all dancing, trying to find the rhythm, the melody, perhaps even the silences of a song, and figuring how that works for ourselves. I certainly had a long– too long– period of time where I was ashamed and afraid. I never fully danced life for fear of attracting uninvited attention to myself, yet I continued to collapse into their greed. Then I was afraid that my body will not be enough or, even worse, my soul. And, even in partial hiding, I got hurt. So many times in fact, that I stopped discerning what wrong was done to me and instead grit my teeth and continued to move forward for the sake of life. Because isn’t life about moving forward till you can’t anymore?

Oh how wrong I was!

So these days I’ve been allowing grief. A part of me thinks to my self, aren’t you done yet? But then I’d have flashbacks of my vulnerable self, wishing adult Mira could have shielded and protected and embraced child Mira. And I need to remember that of all the people who have gas lighted me, I cannot be one of them. I have to trust my past self, and tell her it’s okay. It’s not your fault. I love you.

I usually don’t want to admit the times that were hard because I feel like it means that I am less thankful for the times that were good. But I’ve been better at holding many pieces of myself, for myself. I mean, I do that for others, why do I not do that for myself?

So needless to say, I’ve been pausing, breathing, and looking around lately.

And I’m finding my groove.