When a marriage is in crisis, both people are often suffering from unmet expectations, dashed hopes, stored resentments, impenetrable walls, quiet desperation, and even overt war. At such an intense emotional impasse—couples will fall into a mode of either fight-or-flight or frozen purgatory—and neither is the place from which to make life-altering decisions.
I have worked with thousands of men and women who come to me for a divorce because they had been living in pain for years without making any changes.
Compassionate Mediation® gives you the tools to make changes before divorce is the ONLY option, and if it becomes the final option, Compassionate Mediation® offers you a way to create a Compassionate SELF-led Divorce®.
For over 35 years, as a therapist, mediator and attorney, I have worked with thousands of individuals and couples who want to improve (or leave) their relationships. My heart goes out to each one of them. Often, I wish I had been able to help them years before our first visit, because they could have avoided the pain, anger or sadness that had affected their lives.
I can only see a limited number of clients in person each week, and my hope is to reach people everywhere with a message of self love, hope, possibility and happiness.
My goal in creating this course is to share what I have been doing for decades so that people all over the world could learn the skills of Compassionate Communication. You can learn how to heal the pain from your past, let go of limiting beliefs, connect to your spiritual source and relate from your highest and best SELF.
It’s no secret that half of all first marriages end in divorce. But it may be surprising to learn that the failure rates for second and third failed marriages get even worse: 67 and 73 percent, respectively, according to a 2012 article in Psychology Today, “The High Failure Rate of Second and Third Marriages.”
But what about the statistics on married people who are “thinking” about divorce?
Researchers estimate that 1 in 3 divorced couples try to reconcile later, according to a paper written by a noted marriage scholar and therapist. Also, a significant number of divorced individuals—about half—say they wished they or their spouse had tried harder to save the marriage.
In other words, divorce is all too common, and there’s a lot of regret out there. It’s these people—the ones at a crossroads of their marriage—that represent the primary market for this book, as well as those struggling with challenges in their marriage and seeking to make their union healthier, richer, deeper.
Compassionate Mediation®for Relationships at a Crossroadswill show you how to become more conscious of your own behaviors as you better understand yourself and your partner, and create something new, together.
I’ll share with you the secrets to becoming more empathetic and considerate.
You’ll finally be able to talk about every subject with clarity and courage, including finances, parenting, responsibilities, extended family, and sex.
You’ll learn how to ask for and get your needs met as you lower your “walls,” change the “filters” through which you see yourself and your partner, and forgive yourself and each other.
You’ll remember how to be grateful again for what you do have, and learn how to reflect the attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance you both desire.
The world needs to be a safer place for marriage and divorce.
Children should be shielded from the shrapnel of their parents’ animosity. This book will offer a new paradigm for couples at a crossroads.
I believe that families need not be “broken,” but can be peacefully, and respectfully, restructured.
This bookwill give individuals and couples the roadmap they need—whether they choose to put passion into saving their marriage, or compassion into getting a divorce.
As a therapist, mediator, attorney, and Chopra-certified Vedic Master, I’ve successfully applied this approach to thousands of couples in my twenty years of private practice.
Couplesno longer have to spend years “on the fence” in an unhappy, dysfunctional relationship.
Through this book, readers will learn how to set healthy boundaries, as well as how to ask for what they truly want and need — even if it means they can only give it to themselves!
Compassionate Mediation is about helping couples get “unstuck” and clear so they can move forward—whether that means reviving their marriage and starting anew—or ending the relationship with compassion for both their sakes.
In-between the weeping, beauty abounds: my story
I once was where you are now, and it’s a painful, lonely place.
I discussed my situation with friends, family members, and loved ones, but in the end, no one could make the decision for me.
There were moments when I was clear and determined, but more often, I was trapped in a state of limbo, unable to leave but unhappy in the marriage. Because I’ve experienced divorce firsthand, I have much to share about what to do—and what NOT to do.
For years, I asked myself, “Should I stay or should I go?”
In the decade it took me to finally decide, I took the pain of my own failings and missteps, and turned them into lessons learned and methods developed that are now helping others succeed.
As I struggled with my own marriage and emotions, I returned to school to study psychotherapy, earning my second graduate degree and becoming a licensed clinical professional counselor, as well as a mediator and attorney.
Surely, I thought, as a lawyer, mediator, and therapist, I could get us through our divorce as smoothly and painlessly as possible. But trying to mediate your own divorce is like trying to deliver your own baby. Sure, it may be remotely possible, but ultimately, it’s way too difficult.
I tried to make our divorce “picture perfect,” until I realized: codependence isn’t the same thing as compassion, and that yes, LOVE is the answer, but it starts with loving your SELF.
During my journey of self-discovery and healing, I became the oldest Vedic Master trained by Deepak Chopra, David Simon, and Davidji at the Chopra Center University (the trifecta of certifications). I used to say I got my Medicare card in May and my Vedic Master card in June.
I’ve always believed that our struggles are part of our dharma or purpose.
We can only offer wisdom to others by healing ourselves.
I’ve learned through the years that being open and vulnerable with others, that sharing from the heart is more powerful medicine than ten degrees or theories. Hard-earned wisdom has finally surpassed my education, and I want to share it all.
It’s the mistakes I made along the way that may help you the most.
This book will lead you through the steps you need to take so you can resolve your issues for the highest good of all concerned. Love is the answer, and it starts with loving your SELF.
Through the art of Compassionate Mediation, you’ll learn how to heal burdens from your past, let go of limiting beliefs, connect to your Spiritual Source, and relate from your highest and best SELF.
So instead of asking the question “Should I stay or should I go?” you’ll now consider, “How can I bring my best SELF to this relationship and transform it from the inside out?”
Get your FREE CHAPTER HERE: http://www.lindakrollbook.com/
I’d like to help you heal and transform your relationships.
Please just take a deep breath.
With so much that’s been going on in the world right now, our relationships are strained to the limit.
Whether there’s too much togetherness, not enough hugs, whatever we’re missing, we have ways of reacting that aren’t always our best SELF.
Think of a challenging relationship.
When you think of a relationship right now that you’re having conflict with, or that’s making you a little uncomfortable, just notice what happens to your body.
Notice the stories you tell yourself about the other person and notice how you feel, how you get constricted inside.
I want to help you get to your best SELF, and — in the next couple minutes — know how to bring that best SELF back to your relationship today to make things better.
Rumi said, “We’re not just the drop in the ocean, we’re the ocean in the drop.
When we come from our highest SELF, that mindful, calm, compassionate center, we do connect with that oneness that’s in our heart.
That’s our soul. That’s our spirit that’s connected to the other person’s.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
But we’re human, so we get reactive and we exile some of our feelings. If we feel hurt, or sad, or mad sometimes, or scared, we’ve pushed all that aside.
We go out in the world and we manage and we try to be hardworking, or pleasing, or caretaking. And then when that gets too cumbersome, we get extreme in certain ways. So you might be eating too much, or drinking too much, or watching too much TV, or getting depressed, or a number of ways to behave.
Your True SELF is always there.
So let’s take a deep breath and know that underneath all of that, you have a very healthy SELF that’s calm, clear, and compassionate.
The only time you can change another person is when they’re in diapers.
You’re not going to change the people in your life right now. You can change in how you’re relating to them.
Let’s see if you can take a breath, a couple belly breaths. Inhale, belly expands, exhale, release back to your spine. Just a couple more.
Invite all those parts that have judgments, and limiting beliefs, and your walls around your heart, and your filters through which you’re seeing the other person — see if those parts can relax just a little bit so that you can get to that calm, compassionate center that is your soul.
Whatever the problem, love is the answer, but it starts with loving yourself.
So, how can you be more loving to yourself right now?
What can you do to take care of yourself, to meditate more, to journal, to go for walks — to give yourself the attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance that you’re looking for from someone else?
The more you fill up with your own compassion for everything that you’re going through right now — and I’m sure there is a lot that each of us is going through right now — when you have compassion for yourself and fill up with that, it will then be emanating from you and you’ll bring more compassion to your life and relationships.
Compassionate Communication
Connect to your best SELF
Let go of limiting beliefs
Unburden pain from your past
Relate from your HEART
You can compassionately communicate as you connect to your highest self with breath, gratitude, meditation, prayer.
Connect to your best self as you let go of your limiting beliefs and give yourself time to unburden pain from the past.
You can stay in the present moment and not regurgitate the past or project it in the future, and then relate from your heart.
It’s in your heart where your soul resides.
It’s in your heart where you’re going to connect.Know that no matter what you’re going through, everyone else in your life is going through it now, too.
As you can bring a little more breath, a little more awareness, a little more SELF-leadership, a little more higher consciousness, you can change any relationship starting now.
I wish you love and happiness from my heart to yours, take good care.
To get a FREE Guided Meditation to get to SELF, click here.
No matter what has happened in your life or relationships,
You already have everything you need to come home to your SELF.
Hi, and welcome. I am so happy you are here.
After all that has challenged us in the last year, I want to take a few minutes to help you access your highest and best Self.
Your SELF and Your “Parts”
I believe we all have a healthy SELF. When we are in SELF we are calm, clear, compassionate. Do you know those moments?
They are usually just moments. We are not always “in SELF.” We are often blended with our PARTS.
Think of your PARTS as the different voices you hear in your head.
Sometimes a Part of you wants to make one choice and you have another voice with a different thought or feeling about it.
There are three categories of PARTS
EXILES
MANAGERS
EXTREME
The EXILES are the parts we learned in childhood weren’t going to get our needs met. If we felt sad, scared, hurt, vulnerable–we didn’t want to feel that way, so we pushed those feelings aside. Some of us exiled our anger too, because it wasn’t safe to express it.
The Exiles often wonder, “What about me? Who is going to love and care for me the way I need?”
We often store the energy of the EXILE’S pain somewhere in our bodies. We don’t want to feel the emotional burdens of the EXILES, so we figure out ways to MANAGE.
We go into our heads, and with the help of our Egos, we create the PARTS of us we show the world. We can learn to be nice, pleasing, caretaking.
We can become hardworking, judgmental, blaming. Some of us manage our exiled pain and sadness by becoming angry.Many of us put on what I call a “pseudo-self” when we try to look like we’re “in SELF,” but those EXILED feelings of sadness, fear, or anger are still very present and churning.
When the energy of those EXILES threatens to upset our internal system, and our MANAGERS can no longer contain them and protect us, we have EXTREME parts that activate to numb using some way.
We choose behaviors that take the focus off our EXILE’s pain and give us moments of escape. Some people get addicted to some of those behaviors –with alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, shopping, staying busy, staying in bed, putting up internal walls, getting enraged.
When the EXTREME parts take over, we continue to ignore those EXILED parts and just focus on the EXTREME behaviors –and then the guilt and shame we have because of that behavior –but we effectively continue to ignore the feelings of our Inner Child.
There are ways to unburden that original pain. The first step in letting it go is to acknowledge that it is there. No running away or avoidance or pushing it aside.
You offer loving Compassionate Communication from your Highest SELF to those hurting parts that need and want YOUR attention.You may not have received that attention, affection, appreciation, acceptance as a child, but you can now.
Your parents or caregivers did the best they knew how to do, considering their upbringings and their level of awareness at the time.
Now you can do better.
You can give yourself the compassion, love, attention, and validation you have always wanted.
You can forgive yourself for all choices –the ones you made and the ones you avoided.
You can accept yourself for who you are now –knowing that you are doing the best you know how to do, and you can grow more from self-love and self-care than you can from self-doubt and criticism.
You can begin to COMMUNICATE more COMPASSIONATELY with yourself in every thought you think.
And you can accept and love all of your Parts,which are ALL trying to protect you in some way. They are locked in jobs they have been doing all your life.
Once you give your PARTS all the attention they need to unburden the pain from the past, they carry their own wisdom and light.
You can start to speak FOR your PARTS,rather than FROM your parts.You can rescue your Inner Child from any painful or traumatic event and remind him or her that you survived and how far you have come from that experience.
You can tap into your connection to your faith, your soul, your spirit,and remember there is an infinite source of unconditional love, acceptance, compassion and forgiveness available to you by just remembering it’s there.
When you OPEN yourself to RECEIVE that Spiritual connection of love, faith and your divine essence, you just shine that light on your Internal System of PARTS, and shower yourself with love.
As you become more compassionate and loving towards all parts of yourself, you will have more compassion and love to share with the people closest to you –and with the world.
When your Parts feel YOUR attention, affection,appreciation and acceptance, they are free to evolve.
Your Inner Critic can change to a loving Inner Coach.
Your Rage can turn into your Boundary Monitor, helping you learn how to say “no” when “no” is what you prefer, and how to leave situations that aren’t in your highest good.
Your Protective Parts can shift and change and calm and connect.
There doesn’t have to be an internal polarity because they all have a seat at the table, but YOU, coming from your Highest Self, connected to your Divine Spirit –YOU are in charge.
Over time, your Parts learn to trust You in SELF, and you feel more calm, clear, compassionate, curious, creative, connected, grateful, peaceful, joyful, and loving.
Here are some ways to get to SELF:
Roads Lead to Self: How to Attain Inner Guidance
Angels
Art
Ask for it
Body Scan
Breathe
Channeling
Children
Collage Making
Coloring
Connecting
Dance
Deep Breathing
Drawing
Dreams
Flowers
Focusing
Guided Imagery
Intuition
Journaling
Knowing Place
Labyrinth
Letting Go
Listening
Loving
Mandala
Mantra
Meditation
Miracles
Movement
Music
Nature
Nia
Painting
Parts -‐sending love
Pause
Pets
Prayer
Private Place
Running
Silence
Singing
Sleeping
Slowing Down
Solitude
Space
Sports
Stars
Surrender
Sweat Lodge
Synchronicity
Swimming
Tai Chi
Talking
Qigong
Quiet Mind and Body
Walking
Workshops
Writing
Yoga
MEDITATION
When you learn to meditate, you practice being in the silence that exists between your thoughts.
It allows you to access your true SELF, divine SELF, or spirit, and begin to make choices that align with your true purpose and joy.
You stop the attention you give to your “monkey mind”and habitual thoughts.
You learn how to be here now, love what is, and be the calm in the middle of the storm.
You learn how to look at life from a higher state of consciousness, where you are no longer reacting from a fight/flight or freeze state.
You learn how be less reactive, more responsive, intuitive and creative.
You learn that you can’t solve a problem from the level of awareness that created the problem.
You have to look at a situation from SELF, understanding your parts and others’ parts.
You can have compassion for all of them, and then make your decisions from the highest and best part of yourself, knowing in your soul that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience.
And we are all doing the best we know how to do.
Meditation allows us to have more direct access to SELF.
The more we meditate, the more SELF we can experience and share.
When there is a critical mass of SELF-present, no matter where it comes from or who is showing it, the situation can shift and become more calm and connected immediately.
If you are talking to a spouse, a child, a parent, a loved one,a co-worker, a friend, being in SELF fosters Compassionate Communication.
Being in SELF: Understand Your Parts
Meditate
Take a Breath
You can get to SELF by unburdening your parts, by practicing meditation, and by taking one breath to get to that stillness within.
TAKE ONE BREATH
For just a moment, I’d like you to notice your body. Just focus inward and scan your body from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, and just notice. Notice any tension or tightness, now notice what you are feeling or thinking. Just notice.
There may be some tightness in your jaw, shoulders, neck, stomach. You may feel some tension in your head, hands, chest. Just notice.
Now please take a breath. One conscious breath.Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Once more. One deep breath. Inhale, hold, exhale, release.
For a few seconds you got present, tuned into your body, stopped thinking about any problem, and allowed yourself to just be here now.
You can get to SELF by:
Unburden Your Parts
Meditate
Take a Conscious Breath
Gratitude
GRATITUDE
One other way to get to SELF is to be GRATEFUL. When you are aware of your blessings, no matter what the external situation seems to be, you can come back to that awareness of all the miracles that are currently available,and compassionately communicate with yourself and the world.
One moment at a time, one person at a time, we can become the change we hope to see.
When you believe in your SELF — and stay in constant contact through understanding and loving your Parts — meditate, breathe, and be grateful, life becomes more peaceful, loving and filled with joy.
The SELF in me recognizes and cherishes the beautiful and Divine SELF that is YOU!
Namaste.
Sending you much love,
Linda
How to Love Your SELF
1. Think of all the things you’ve always wanted to do if you had time. Do one -or don’t.
2. Get in bed and vegetate. Don’t be afraid you’ll never get out again. You will
3. Rent movies.
4. Read -a magazine, poetry, a good book, anything.
5. Get a manicure, pedicure, massage -or give yourself one
.6. Plan a trip, a spa-day, a bus ride, a day off, a lunch date. (Call a travel agent to consider a vacation).
7. Give yourself permission NOT TO: bake, cook, clean, shop, or do laundry, dishes, or ironing.
8. Get used to the novelty of deciding what you want to do –and doing some of it.
9. Let go of expectations of yourself and others.
10. Change your paradigm.
11. Set aside some time to be sad, if you want to.
12.Cry.
13.Call a friend or family member.
14.Write a letter, note, poem, short story, your novel.
15.Learn to understand yourself.
16. Join Al Anon or AA.
17. Go to extra meetings.
18. Buy a present for yourself.
19. Make something special to eat — just for you.
20. Get in bed and eat chocolate.
21.Find a new hobby.
22.Play the piano.
23. Paint, color.
24. Think about classes you may want to take and look through catalogues.
25. Entertain.
26. If you do entertain, make it as easy on yourself as possible — paper plates, pot luck.
27. Exercise (walk, yoga, pilates, bike, swim, lift weights, dance!)
28. Breathe deeply, often.
29. Meditate.
30. Hire a babysitter and go out — or stay home.
31. Ask the kids to tuck you in.
32. Take your pet for a walk.
33. Go to a park and swing –or slide!
34. Take a bath.
35. Volunteer.
36.Say “no” when you don’t want to do something.
37.Journal.
38.Give yourself permission to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want.
39Connect with your Inner Child. Give him or her a hug.
40.Listen to his/her feelings to help heal. Empower him/her to have fun and to feel safe, calm, and happy.
Linda Kroll LCPC,JD Therapist, Mediator, Attorney
As a therapist, mediator and attorney, I have shared Compassionate Communication with thousands of men and women for over 20 years.
I have had the privilege of learning from Dr, Richard Schwartz, Founder of Internal Family Systems and became a Certified IFS Practitioner. I later completed five years of study with Deepak Chopra, David Simon, davidji, and the other wonderful instructors at the Chopra Center University to become a Vedic Master, a teacher of meditation, yoga and perfect health.
I have been mentored by SARK, Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, who adds fun and play with all that she joyfully creates.
I am a Level Two Reiki Master, grateful lifelong learner, who has had the benefit of many wise teachers and guides.
Today, I am grateful to work with hundreds of women and men as they learn to treat themselves with more kindness and respect so they have more to share with others.
As I have become more SELF-led, I am calmer, clearer and more compassionate with myself and others.
I began to heal from the experiences of my past and understand and accept all parts of myself.
I feel more inner peace and happiness and would love to help you feel the same.
My hope is that you take care of your SELF so that you can communicate with honesty and empathy.
As your relationship with your SELF improves, you will feel more peace, love and joy in all your relationships.
Join me to learn how to share Compassionate Mediation® with your clients.
During this time of stress and uncertainty, our personal and professional lives can become challenging and isolating.
For our clients, their relationships can be strained to their limits.
Marriages are meant to last for “better or worse, until death do us part.” But there was no mention of what to do in a pandemic.
Couples and families can use all the help we can give, and we can give a lot.
I want to share with you my transformational process for relationship healing – Compassionate Mediation®. You can use in your practice now.
If you are a therapist or coach, there are also Continuing Education Credits available. I offer you the methods, strategies, handouts and tools to apply immediately as you expand your expertise and impact – and income.
You can use these tools in person or online — and I’ll show you how.
As a therapist, mediator, attorney, and Chopra-Certified teacher of meditation, yoga, and Ayurveda, I have created a program that covers emotional and spiritual healing along with financial and legal information and support.
Compassionate Mediation® is NOT just for individuals or couples considering divorce. Any relationship that needs healing or transformation will benefit — even if only one member of the relationship learns these skills.
Sometimes the willingness to consider what an ending may look like provides the impetus to create a new beginning together.
Please join me as we help relationships heal all over the world. https://lindakroll.com/Roadmap.
ABOUT LINDA
You can heal and transform all your relationships with Compassionate Communication and Compassionate Mediation®.
Love is always the answer – and it starts with loving your SELF.
Learn how to add more peace, love and joy to your life as you practice exquisite SELF care.
Linda Kroll is the author of the bestselling Compassionate Mediation® for Relationships at a Crossroads: Add Passion to Your Marriage or Compassion to Your Divorce —for a free chapter, go to http://www.lindakrollbook.com/
Linda is also author of the he Kindle bookhttps://amzn.to/2So8AKCCompassionate Divorce -Changing the Face of Divorce, One Heart at a Time. https://amzn.to/2So8AKC
Founder of Compassionate Communication Academy. Linda believes, “Families need not be “broken,” but can be peacefully and respectfully “re-structured.”
You can discover ways to improve your marriage after you take the Unhappy Marriage Quiz. www.LindaKroll.com/RA
Linda is a therapist, mediator, attorney, and Chopra Certified Master Teacher of Meditation, Yoga and Ayurveda. She combines psychology, spirituality, financial and legal information along with her heart, humor, personal experience and professional expertise.
Linda also invites guests she loves to share who offer information, guidance and support to help you live your best life —and become the change you want to see in your relationships and in the world.
if you are a therapist, a mediator, an attorney, a coach, or a member of the clergy, spiritual counselor, relationship counselor, or if you’re someone who wants to learn it for yourself, I would love to share the gifts of Compassionate Mediation so that you can use them in your practice now.
I would love to offer you some of the tools that I’ve used with thousands of individuals and couples over the last 25 years as they’ve healed and transformed their relationship.
If you’re a therapist, I want you to have this training so that you can lead them when they are faced with conflict and they don’t have to go to a mediator or an attorney just to get a divorce, they can talk about their problems, every issue that divides them, and you can help them every step along the way.
If you’re a mediator, I want to teach you this skill because it brings more empathy and compassion into the mediation sessions, which leads to a more peaceful and quicker resolution because they don’t spend a lot of time fighting with each other, they learn to understand each other.
If you’re an attorney who’s tired of the litigation process, I want to help you help your clients participate in a way where they don’t feel like a victim or an aggressor and there’s a win-win for everybody.
If you’re a relationship coach, I want to give you the tools, the words, the techniques, so that you can help individuals or couples move forward in a way that brings more peace to their relationship.
For all spiritual counselors, there’s as much love that went into beginning a relationship that can be used to heal and transform it, even if the end is going to be a separation or a divorce.
I have a program ready to go to help anyone that needs that information, but why I’m reaching out to you, another heart-centered professional, is to help you learn how to deliver the program to the people that you know — because together we can help change the face of divorce one heart at a time.
Please join me for my next FACEBOOK LIVE in Compassionate Mediation Training.
I’d like to put your name on my website as a referral because I hope together we can share this message with the world.
I believe, “Families need not be broken, but can be peacefully and respectfully restructured. ”
When you learn Compassionate Mediation, you can help your clients communicate with compassion.
You help them form a compassionate relationship, and many times that’s what they need to start a whole new marriage together.
If they do decide to separate or divorce, Compassionate Mediation is a turnkey program that I can give you to share with your clients now, so please learn more.
All those Parts of me that want to be in control, do it myself, know the right path, have it all figured out, need to know, are afraid to trust, tell me how great I am, tell me how flawed I am, remind me of all the “what if’s, could be’s —and the worst – all those “shoulds.”
All those Parts of me are exhausted, depleted, hopeless, depressed, enervated, bored, unhappy, frustrated, self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, judgmental, blaming, guilty, ashamed, and ready to walk away from everything I’ve created and wanted to offer all of my life.
Uncle. i give up.
But the “i” that is giving up is that little “i,” that “individual “i”, that small self of my ego – finally ready to SURRENDER to the strength of my SOUL.
I’m ready to take on my role as the Channel— which we all are — and release my Ego’s siren’s calls and quiet my mind enough to hear the quiet whispers of my heart’s true desires.
I want to release the cacophony and flow into the peace.
Then I want to do the next right action that brings me joy.
Uncle, I surrender.
Uncle, Here I am (Hineini)
As Rosh Hashana approaches, HERE I AM, Dearest God, asking for forgiveness and willing to listen and respond to what I hear from YOU.
God’s will be done.
I am but the Paint Brush waiting to be used by YOU.
TGKOW/TYDGA
January 9, 2006
The Patient Brush
There once was a brush, all bristly and new
Who wondered about all the things she would do.
She’d paint the skies red. She’d color seas green.
She’d become the best brush that had ever been seen.
She flittered about in a flash and a flurry
And wherever she’d go, she’d rush in a hurry.
So much to do. So much to create.
She could never sit still, and just dry up and wait.
She saw other brushes that made her feel small.
She tried even harder to out-paint them all.
Her bristles got matted. Her handle got rusty.
Her pictures were blurry. Her ideas got musty.
With nowhere to turn and no end in sight.
She frantically busied to make things feel right.
And one day she saw in the bunch an old brush,
Who patiently waited, with no need to rush.
That brush did not care, as it stayed very still.
It had no agenda, no worries, no will.
It just rested and waited, as it seemed to just know
That its purpose was clear when the right time would show.
The Old Brush was present, the Old Brush was clean.
The Old brush was quiet, and almost serene.
The hand of The Painter then slowly descended,
And picked up the Old Brush, with a purpose transcendent.
As the Painter took over, the Old Brush just flew
Creating a masterpiece again and anew.
And the harried brush pondered, feeling lost and depleted,
If it could get quiet would it ever be needed.
It decided to slow down. It got very still.
It surrendered its ego. It gave up its will.
And The Painter could find it when its bristles were needed.
For it had its own purpose when its ego receded.
The Painter could use it to create works anew.
All of which were beyond what that lone brush could do.
So as you scurry and scamper to get through the day.
Can The Painter now find you? Do you get in your way?
If you get still and quiet, when the timing is right,
The Painter can lead you, with no effort or fright.
You will sail through your day with grace, joy and ease.
Which brush are you? Be the patient one please.
For you’ll find we’re all brushes, and each one is great.
