Self Preservation

One day last spring I walked to Inspiration point to be alone with the birds and trees and view. A man was there. I thought about self defense.

I thought about the part of me that stayed in my marriage. I have always castigated and denigrated her.

Suddenly she rose up. She would kill anyone who tried to hurt me. It was a lie that kept me in my marriage, she said. It was the ego. It was not her, the self I had long blamed.

I left and walked across the bridge as if it were a pilgrimage.

When I arrived home, this self, this strong survivor, wrote down these words:

Extreme self-preservation involves making those choices which most closely align life with the heart's trajectory.

This is the truth I am trying to live in now.