The Returning
- Heidi Vilchez-Teller
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 28
Twelve ducks in a tree, wings outstretched to receive the sun. Anticipatory, surrendered. Maybe that's what's required of us, to remain open and soft. To treat ourselves with delicate care when we could push through. Taking the gift of extra time in a morning routine to read about art when we could do dishes or watch the news.
I have been pondering on this concept and practice of healing, the inner work, doing "the work" & I wonder does it have to be so hard? Have we over engineered a process that should be more of a melting? An ease into joy, a reclamation of sovereignty. Or maybe it is just that there are seasons, some heavier & more wrought and others like a drifting in the breeze.
What I know to be true is that the grief never leaves me. It is a lifelong journey of honoring and holding, to have deep sadness in one hand and joyful gratitude in the other. To hold them simultaneously so that they can learn from one another. A mirrored depth into our humanity, a balancing of heartbreak for what has been and fully anticipatory for what's to come, grateful for what is.
Radical acceptance without feeling the depths of our grief is mental gymnastics, a bandaid. Doing the inner work without space for ease, freedom and joy is empty. What is it all for if not to bring us levity and abundance of self?
As I enter a season of reset, zero point, what will come with me? Could it be classical music on walks so that all of the sights are cinematic? As I continue resurrecting the parts of self that are creative, whimsical and free I trust that the healing is inevitable. Perhaps less like work and more like a deep inhale after years of clenching and bracing. Lungs full of oxygen, wings outstretched to the sky, a full trust in what's coming.
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