"Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart."
___ W. B. Yeats, "For Anne Gregory"
We all know someone who has put her own life on hold for the benefit of another person or for a project. This is a fine thing if there is eventually a turning back to the heart's desire and one's own way of life, but too often this does not happen.
Deferred life inevitably means lost opportunity. We can stand only so much of this. To refrain from action, from personal engagement, from practicing skills and talents, from the formation of satisfying relationships is to marginalize our power. Never being attuned to our power, never being able to cooperate with it, sends a message of despair to our soul.
If our life's purpose is not to curdle within us after a deferment, we must set to fostering it again and learning how to move from the place of imprisonment into a wider place. This may mean relinquishing our service to another, or delegating or sharing it. It may mean a total change, a turning of the back upon the service in question, the opening of a new door.
Before the heart becomes a stone, we must seek out the cause of our joy and integrate it fully into our lives, or else discover the joys within the way of service.
"What is the joy of your life? How are you serving it? If you are not, where has the joy gone?
Take steps to engage with it."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
what a beautiful post. and something that is so very true... I know it was hard for me to be what I considered selfish with myself yet in the long run I have learned it was for the best. It is hard if not difficult to give your best to someone or thing if you are not taking care of yourself.... Hope you are staying warm and safe in all this cold snowy weather... blessings...
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