the need for rekindling.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Albert Schweitzer

Deep conversations today with a woman whose personal mission is to rekindle lights. A sensitive emotional human being, she told me she was the one in her family who inherited the feelings while the rest somehow missed out on them. They are stoic and unable to give hugs to one another. That doesnt stop her, she explained. She gives them freely to her family members and to her friends.

This woman suffers every day in pain............emotional anxiety pain manifested physically through fibromyalgia, a chronic and unpredictable ache which may lessen on some days, but never ever goes away completely. Depression has visited her on occasion like a dark blue wave that engulfs her energy, her focus, her ability to function. It has hospitalized her. Her joints swell, her head pangs with migraines, her hands and face are covered in cracked skin and red itchy blotches of excema.........all stemming from powerfully deep psychiological wounds. We speak of all of these health issues........how they impact her life......and where they could've come from.

Most of our conversation revolves around her telling me stories of the people whom she has helped.......some of whom I know. It is actually how I met her in the first place, when she arrived with a friend of hers who needed to see me. She doesn't get paid for all the good work she does...........for all the advocacy and wordhugs she has given.........for all the encouragement, and listening she has offered. But now her light is dimmer.

It's easier to help someone find their light than dig deep to find your own. Someone who gives like she does needs recharging and validation, and it doesn't happen very often because most of the people she "goes to bat for" are just too needy.........too deflated and in crisis. They can't see to reciprocate. I tell her that bleeding hearts eventually do bleed to death if they don't care for themselves and if they don't find others who will send a spark her way every now and then. The problem is that she's dug a little niche for herself.....this is how she defines herself. This is what she does and is known for.

So, where does she go to have her light rekindled? Most of the light she receives is a reflection off of one whom she has helped. for the most part, this is enough...........environmentally friendly so to speak. But I see it. I also see how her behaviour.....her actions outward are a semi-productive way to avoid her own internal inferno. The inferno leaves her in agony and her bones very very tired.