Burning for Myself

I am wearing red here not for the fabricated commercial holiday called Valentine’s Day, wrapped in pretty hearts and arrows in Cupid’s hands, but as a symbol of fire. The flame that burns deep within me… and within each of us. The passion that fills our hearts with purpose, love, and joy.

The spark of divine, awakened life.

Creativity.

Truth.

In meditation this morning, I was asked a question that stopped me in my tracks.

How do I feel when I burn with passion… when I am truly in love with what I’m doing?

As within, so without.

It sent me pondering my life. Honestly seeking where my passion has been. For a moment, I wondered if I had lost it. If maybe it was never really there.

But that isn’t true.

I did feel passion.

I felt it fiercely while raising my children. While building a life. While pouring myself into the people who depended on me. There was purpose there. There was devotion. There was real fire.

And yet, as I sit with it now, I can see that much of that flame was fueled by being needed.

When my children no longer needed me in the same way, something in me went quiet. A space opened that I did not know how to sit inside of.

So I searched for that spark again. I found it in my business. In the people I could guide and support. In relationships that made me feel chosen, alive, desired. And for a moment, the fire returned.

But it was not fully clean. It was not fully sourced from within me. It was still tethered to reflection, to validation, to being necessary in someone else’s world.

It burned deep.

Looking back at the self I’ve built up to this point in my journey, I see how many years were spent constructing the surface layers of my life. Doing what the world does. Building a relationship. A family. A career. You know… all the things that make it look like you’re “making it.”

And I did make it. I loved deeply. I showed up fully.

But now I am asking a different question.

What does passion feel like when it rises from within me… not because I am needed, but because I am aligned?

I realize how many layers of skin I’ve constructed while trying to discover who I am… and how I am now peeling them off, one by one, returning more fully to my true self.

I am recognizing that I am not who I thought I was.

My old life went up in flames, but even the destruction served a purpose. Like in nature, sometimes it must burn to give way to new life.

So now, after the fire, I find myself in the depths of perimenopause, standing at the edge of the great unknown of womanhood. A place many of us fear. Yet something is breaking open within me. Something I haven’t fully discovered yet…

…but I am here, staying curious.

Instead of reaching outward like I am accustomed to, I am turning around and facing myself. Daring to reach into her. The woman I have run from my whole life. The one who has always lived inside me, yet was ignored while I ran through life searching outside myself for something else.

I sought a savior in the form of pleasure. I chose the surface version of myself because she was easily available. Like walking into a candy store and picking whatever was right in front of me, believing it would fulfill me.

Until it made me sick.

I built a lifetime of stories that I thought made me real. Made me enough in the commercial eyes that were glamorized by the world.

That little girl kept believing someone would save her… save her from having to sit still and truly know herself. So she filled the space with distractions. With sweetness. With noise. Anything to keep the water from boiling over. To keep it from spilling out and revealing what she thought were imperfections.

And now… I am willing to let it boil.

It has burned me a few times. The heat has kissed my skin pretty dang hard. But I see now that every burn has carved space for my greatest growth.

It hurts when it hits. It always does. But I am choosing the healing.

I am learning to sit with the blister instead of blaming the scar. Turning inward to tend it, instead of obsessing over why it burned me.

If I stay in the why, I will never discover the how.

So I am here. Sitting inside the how.

Letting it seep into my scars like ointment drawn from my own heart. Placing it gently on the places that once felt unbearable.

I would not choose the burn again.

But I would never choose to unknow what it has revealed within me either.

In this flame, I am finally okay sitting with myself.

The woman I’ve avoided.

The one I feared.

And I am finally choosing to get to know her.

You know, it isn’t that scary after all.

Where in your life are you seeking outward to avoid what’s underneath? (I would love to hear your answer in the comments below)

This is my year of nourishing myself, so here I am facing myself, licking my wounds, and not allowing them to stop me from living but to awaken what’s been dormant within me and desiring to be seen. I have spent so many years needing others to see me… to need me. It’s time I see myself, show up for myself, and not rely on the validation others give me. But to honor my past, discover new passions, and fall in love with this new version of myself.

Empowered and true. ❤️

To be continued…

Raya 🔥