...Nirvana...

EXHALE

At any stage of your life, have you ever reached a state where it didn't matter what happened around you but you just had peace, love and happiness in your heart? 

It didn't matter who did what to upset you or said what to demean you, it just had no effect on you? Where all you wanted to do was just smile with gladness in your heart and say "it's all good, I'm grateful for love and life"?

Have you ever exhaled and just felt so much lighter with your next inhalation? Have you ever felt the deep desire to forgive even without an apology? To live and appreciate, to embrace and laugh foolishly? 

Have you ever had a burning impression to love yourself more than what you have come to? To review, ignite and invest in yourself?

Have you ever reached a state of enough is enough, what the heck, I matter too, what about me, what about what makes me happy, what ignites my soul, drives and fulfills me? A state of I am taking this time to love me and perfectly so??

FIND YOUR NIRVANA

In Hinduism and Buddhism, "nirvana" is considered "a place of perfect peace and happiness, like Heaven. It is the highest state a person can attain, a state of enlightenment."

Although it should not be so, in life we allow so many factors to punish, hurt, embarrass and even take away from us and who we are. I for one have endured more than I should've, settled when I knew I shouldn't have, gave way where I shouldn't have, opened doors I knew I shouldn't have but, but, I am not regretful or resentful. The peace I feel today would not be as pleasurable had I not gone through those experiences and walked those thorny paths.

Tata Madiba said, "There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." Further, it is my believe that to appreciate the sweetness, I need to experience the bitterness, to acknowledge the light, I need to embrace the dark, to levitate I need to gravitate, gravitate to a more supernal state.

I am working towards my nirvana, my place of perfect peace and happiness. A place that'll constantly remind me that I am worth every bit of all the love I gave but never received in return, that'll remind me I could've kept it all but then I wanted to make the world whole. A place that'll allow me to step over clovers to breathe in the gardenias always fulfilling my lungs with sweet brevity and replace reality for just a moment. A place that'll remind me I am a flame and not carbon because carbon stays and flame always rises.

I realize that nirvana is not a place out there but a constant journey within me...

-I am Pam, The Nubian Goddess, An African Woman of Substance-