The Storm Provides…

As the mother of three very busy and involved children, I find myself constantly on the run.  They attend different schools, have different sports and practice times, and of course participate in different activities.  As such, we are in the car A LOT, and I am guilty of plugging in a movie for the children and letting it play while I drive. Consequently, I have heard, yet never seen, countless films that have played in the rear of the car. One of these was ‘The Good Dinosaur’.

Part way through the movie, we meet a scavenger dinosaur named Thunderclap.  All in all, the character sounds extremely unpleasant (again, I’ve never actually seen him), but he says something that I found quite thought provoking.  So much so, that it has stayed with me and ultimately precipitated this blog post…  In the film, Thunderclap follows storms and then scavenges once the storm has passed. He repeatedly says, ‘The Storm provides’, and in the film it does. However, the demise of small prehistoric cartoons is not what I found so profound. The macabe character goes on to explain that the storm has caused him to experience a ‘Relevation!’  Not a revelation or that he’s achieved some sort of elevation of awareness, but a ‘R-e-l-e-v-a-t-i-o-n’.

My initial assumption, that some very clever writer at Pixar coined the perfect phrase to describe my recent profound shift in awareness, was dashed when I learned that ‘relevation’ has been in use since at least 1913 (if Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary is to be believed). I mean really, what is the point of having a revelation, if it doesn’t elevate your thinking in one manner or another?   What is the point of learning something about yourself, or the world around you if it doesn’t affect you in some surprising or previously unknown way? And WHY hadn’t I heard this wonderful word before?!?  But, I digress….

I am at a point in my life where I am actively seeking to understand myself better. In doing so, I’ve come to realize that indeed, ‘The storm provides’ answers every time.  In my life, these storms take many many different forms-  A child takes ill, the roof springs a leak, the refrigerator konks out, I get behind in my research, our car gets totalled…  It could be anything! Life is never dull and rarely calm, but ultimately ‘the storm provides’… And, while I don’t ever seek out the storm, it is only after the dust settles and the smoke clears that I am able to see myself better and really understand who I am, in that moment. That disruption and upheaval is necessary to learn…  That stress and distress is what precipitates a relevation, but only after a storm…  

So, as I launch my blog and my website and the labor of love that is my practice, you should know that my greatest pleasure is helping people live happy, healthy lives. But, life can be hard, and dark, and stressful and sometimes there are a lot of storms.  I promise, things in my life rarely go as planned, and something is always going sideways. But, it’s times like that, that everyone can relate to. It’s in those moments that we are all walking the same path, just trying to hold on and keep it together. When a storm washes out one road, there will always be another and surprisingly it will take us exactly where we need to be. And after every storm there will always be a relevation, we just have to look for it.  So, while you are here, please know that I am walking this path with you.. Always.

Take care you… XXX

Sarah