And You Must Love: When Life Summons Our Fertile Hearts
We are a culture of positive thinkers. And it’s killing us.
On July 15th, a beloved member of our community here in Woodstock took his own life. Since his death I’ve become painfully aware about the widespread disease that drives so many women, men, and young adults toward desperate acts.
A few days after my friend’s death came the horrific news of the Colorado shooting.
“Lighten up. Get over it. Look at the bright side!” Isn’t that what we tell ourselves and each other?
I am all for looking at the bright side. But if we close the door to the dark side, all that begins to crowd behind that door might one day blow it into smithereens.
Suicides of loved ones in our families and communities, and events such as the Colorado tragedy seep through the layer of skin into our bodies and hearts, begging us to sit up and pay attention. How then do we respond?
What do we do when a member of our consciousness-claiming species sends a shower of bullets into a crowded movie theater?
Do we turn the channel? Go to the nearest syneoggue or church and say a prayer? Make a contributuion to our favorite peace charity?
What do these events ask of us?
How do I go on teaching workshops about bringing more babies into the world? How do I remain standing against the incoming waves of powerlessness?
I do what I can.
I reach out to you, even if right now, part of me doesn’t believe it will make any difference. I do it anyway. I share a poem I’ve written some time ago, about what for me, is the toughest, yet most essential first step toward stopping the hand poised to harm. I’d love you to take a look, offer your thoughts. You can click here to watch the video. There is a place for comments underneath the video if you’re
moved to do so.
Or, let’s kick off a conversation right here on our brand new Turn It Around Blog, which I am re-dedicating to a continued dialogue about the many ways we can apply the Fertile Heart Ovum practice to engaging with our inner and outer conflicts.
Let’s explore together how we can celebrate life without disowning the parts of ourselves that appear frightening. Feeling powerless is okay, if we can just remember that feelings are not reality.
This September 11, will be my sixth year at Ground Zero engaging in conversation, singing, chanting, exploring some of the ideas of The Turn It Around Project. Come by if you’re in New York City. I’ll send out more detailed information about it in early September.
What about you? How do you respond to disturbing events in your community and in the world? Have you had a close relationship with someone who took her own life? Has the Colorado shooting affected you differently than other tragedies?
Sending love to each of you,
Julia
Category: Blogs, Turn It Around Project Blog
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"Two years ago today I took Julia’s workshop through the Learning Annex. It was Saint Patrick;s day and my friend Alice and I went. We sat in the first row and I was so moved and inspired by Julia and her experience that I decided to join her Fertile Heart Circle Meetings in New York city. I now have a son Alejandro who is 2 months old today. I know my meeting Julia and her work was a huge contribution to my getting pregnant naturally at age 43 and giving birth 3 days before my 44th birthday. I strongly encourage anyone interested in getting pregnant or “giving birth” to whatever that may be to take Julia’s workshop. I am forwarding Julia’s information to the women in my life." —Kathy I., New Jersey
Beautiful! To love the hater in me is something I most certainly need to do. I liked how you said the hater is conceived out of grief … it’s great to have a video of you talking and to hear your voice Julia! I will be repeatedly listening to this to help me along my way. Thank you!
Julia,
Thank you for posting your poem. It was very touching. We talk so much about acceptance and loving our orphans and while I understand the concept, I can’t always feel the love towards them. Your poem helped me feel what it can mean to love the hater in myself and others.
Thank you!
D -
Hi Julia,
I listened to your poem a few times and it is so beautiful. I really admire how you take difficult life events and look at them to see what they might be showing or teaching us that can help us grow. It is only through the OVUM work that I am able to recognize and even begin to start embracing the hater in me. Your work is my beacon of hope. It guides and grounds me at those times when things seem very bleak. Thank you for all your wisdom and compassion and for sharing it with this community.
Dear Julia and community,
What a novel concept to love the hater inside of us. I have a strong hater orphan at the moment, and she has been hating on me of late. This has been very difficult and painful, as she has been in distress berrating me for the long journey I have been on that has not resulted in a baby. This hater orphan had been ruling, causing havoc in various way. Yet, when I read the blog and watched the beautiful Julia in the video, a new concept came. A calm and accepting visionary voice started to surface. I can love this orphan who hates, its ok, in fact, its exactly what she needs the most. Julia asks us how can we apply this love of the hater to the conflicts inside us, as well as outside of us? I started by embracing my inner hater with compassion. That feels good, a good first step. As for the world, I can do the same. I can start by approaching the orphan haters in others with compassion and understanding, because the hater in them needs love too. That is where healing starts for all our babies…
Dear Julia,
I want to thank you for your beautiful, bold, and inspirational words. I am very sorry for the loss of your friend. I find it amazing how you always seem able to take the most difficult, challenging situations and find lessons in them that are you are able to share so eloquently with others, so that we might make it through our own difficult, challenging situations.
Your words resonated with me so much. There is a hater in all of us, and to love this part of us rather than reject it, can only increase the compassion we have for ourselves, and for others. What a gift.
Thank you, again…
Lisa
Thank you so much, Julia for this beautiful post. The first time I watched the video tears came to my eyes instantly as I have a strong hater orphan. I have always tried to look on the bright side and be positive my whole life. It wasn’t until I found the Fertile Heart work did I realize that by putting a smile on I was actually surpressing all of my feelingg. Then they would surface again whenever the next crisis would come up. Now that I know how to deal with those inconvenient feelings. Julia, thank you so much for all that you do. You are truley an inspiration. You really do make a difference.
Dear Julia,
thank you very much for posting this beautiful poem. To love a hater in myself seems unbelievably difficult thing to do and most of the time I choose to turn other way toward positive thinking. Yet by doing it, I am just blinding myself for awhile and then a hater returns with a new force. It is through your work I am able to face that hater in me and not to run away but instead trying to use your tools (imagery) to understand her and to understand why she is here and what she is trying to tell me. And I am so grateful for that. I am still far from loving her but at least I can face her now. Hearing about Colorado tragedy brought out a lot of different emotions (anger, disbelieve, love toward the people who were injured and killed and toward their families). Along with all these emotions there was a burning question “could it have been prevented as well could have been other tragedies prevented?”. I believe that your action of posting this beautiful poem and the OVUM work is the first steps toward prevention. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you do. It does make a difference!
Dear Julia,
Thank you for your beautiful yet challenging poem. I liked your comment “I do what I can”. Of what benefit is it if those who could help the world feel powerless to do so. Many wonderful things have happened through the inspiration/acts of one person. It is because one person can inspire others.
I was also thinking why do people do things that are so challenging? Isn’t it because they do not feel love? Isn’t it because somewhere along the way, usually childhood, they were not loved appropriately? (I suppose their might be some exceptions – some genetic inclinations, but I’m guessing the exceptions are rather rare.) So, yes, it is appropriate to love the hater in us.
The IBO/OVUM practice deals with what do you do with “inconvenient” emotions. It is not appropriate to harm others because of our feelings, but most of us have not been taught what to do with these feelings and these strong feelings can make us feel like we want to harm someone.
The work you present, Julia, can keep our children from being victims of our imperfect upbringing – at least a step along the way.
Thank you so much.
Hi Julia,
First of all I would like to thank-you for being a beacon of light, hope and compassion in the world.
Your poem is beautiful and powerful. I had to listen to it a number of times to allow it to resonate. It is quite a profound action to love the hater in you. I have always tried to run from the hater in me because she makes me very uncomfortable. To suggest the we love her with all of our hearts and soul is quite profound. What you said about you alone having the task of decoding her really resonated with me and also empowered me. I have felt for some time the “weight” that I carry from my lineage and ancestors and I do feel as though it is my responsibility to “decode” it so that I do not pass this down to my future child. The Fertile Heart Tools are invaluable in this decoding process. Through your poem I also now realize that by doing this work and by loving the hater in me I am able to contribute peace to the world in some small way.
Thank-you
Laura
Thank you for posting your beautiful poem about hatred. I am so sorry for your loss Julia and I am also grateful that you are finding away to bring healing to us all through this.
I have been so absorbed with my own “sadness” that I was not aware of any hatred I felt until I watched the video a couple of times. THANK YOU.
I will spend more time getting to know my hatred orphan, I am mostly aware of this orphan being hateful to myself.
Its not easy to be loving and compassionate to the orphans we like the least but it is surely they only way to heal. THANK YOU.
I am so grateful to you Julia for creating this work and the tools I need for healing and for helping me to heal so much already.
Leslie
Dear Julia, thank you for reaching out and for asking these vital questions.
I have come to recognize that helping, fixing things is so easy, so much of the time. Being with something or someone you can’t fix, that is the hard task.
Yesterday I listened to talk by Pema Chödrön and in talking about compassion, she summoned up the image of a mother with no arms whose child is drowning in a river. The mother is running along the river, keeping pace with her child, whom she cannot help. At first I was shocked by this image, but the more I feel into it the truer it rings in my heart.
I have been such a “mother with no arms” in seeing my uncle get sicker and sicker because he is not able to change his life style, not able to make better food choices, a task I can not do for him. I have seen friends make decisions that now cause them great pain and distress, and yet those decisions where theirs and only theirs to make. And sometimes instead of still sending them love, I would get angry and annoyed, because their distress was causing me a pain I did not want to feel. I would turn away, maybe when they needed me most.
What I am trying to practice now, is to be able to be there, stay present with the grief of others, and be there, stay and look even when my own deep pain surfaces. And to hold the space, wish love and light to those in distress, whom I cannot help.
The Fertile Heart tools are my trusted companion when I need to go to such places, I am deeply grateful to you Julia, that your work has helped me understand and stand the importance of embracing all emotions, even the saddest ones, because they are often the key to the most tenderness, the most honesty and the most strength. Thank you.