Grief and hard seasons

Open Your Hands

By Carla Royal, M.Ed. · · 1 min read

Open Your Hands

This morning, I read Rumi’s poem called A community of the Spirit.

This line really struck me:

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Open Your Hands

Next, I was struck by this line:

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.

Open Your Hands

And then, this line:

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Open Your Hands

We know that one trauma response can be a fierce independence or individualism. This has certainly been true for me. Even when love has been offered to me, I have often been unable to receive it because I didn’t open my hands and I acted like a wolf.

I have certainly had moments of despair about this but I can also have deep compassion for myself. It can be terrifying to give up a trauma response that has saved us in the past. But this particular response no longer serves us and it would be worth our while to learn to open our hands and stop acting like a wolf.

Maybe then, we will find that the door is, indeed, wide open ready for us to walk right through to freedom.

Open Your Hands

Listen on What Holds

When the Goalpost Stops Moving with Maurice Philogene

Maurice Philogene built the kind of life many people spend years chasing: multiple careers, financial freedom, deep service, real estate, travel, and a wide field of experience. But the center of...

Show notes and transcript

If the way you've been operating has started to take more than it returns, start here.

The first call is to see if this is a fit, not to sell you something.

Everything you share stays confidential.

Thank you. Carla will be in touch.