Hello to each of you amazing and special people in this global family! What a powerful weekend it has been for us! I hope that these have been a phenomenal few days for you as well!

Late Saturday night, I sat in the quiet solitude of the townhouse with the lilting sounds of Shamanic Dream caressing me from the speakers on one side and the deep rhythmic breathing of Frodo and Tiinkerbell on the other side. The twinkly lights on the plant in one corner and the sparkling crystals of the floor lamp kept me company as I finally found a moment to write another update.

How peaceful and pensive it felt! Schuy and Saya were snuggled sound asleep in Schuy’s bed upstairs and my mom was doing her best to navigate the air mattress that literally claims every inch of floor space in my office upstairs. It’s far from the lap of luxury but what it lacks in space and convenience, it more than possesses in love and sense of purpose. I know… a bit cliché but thank goodness for the cliché moments. Those moments can be food for the soul in the middle of a journey that sometimes feels on par with Felix Baumgartner’s Go Pro free fall minus the space suit and extended by a year or two… but what a powerful and (yes) magical ride!

Saturday marked the official start of the festivities celebrating the countdown to Schuy’s 24th birthday on Wednesday. Saya, her fiancé Robert, Linden (Ryu), his girlfriend Jordan, Schuy, my mom and I all converged upon one of Schuy’s favorite “farm to table” restaurants, Seasons 52. I looked around the table at all of those beautiful faces— so alive and passionately vibrant.

How far we have come! Life still feels so profoundly fragile yet mesmorizingly powerful at the same time… and yet we manage to find a way to laugh and to play and to fully immerse ourselves in this crazy experience called life… often forgetting that the ultimate destination isn’t something that you can find with a mere GPS.

I guess that I always knew that I was a dreamer. As a child in upstate New York, we lived in a three story Victorian home that Diamond Jim Brady had built for film actress Lillian Russell. A huge area of the third floor was designated as my play room. In that room was a large closet. In that closet was an old cuddly mattress that became my “thinking” haven. I would close the door, lie on the mattress and stare at one point on the wall until that point became dazzling bright with light. Could have been real… could have been my imagination … but either way, it became one of my first experiences with inner peace and meditation.

Yes, go ahead and say “woo woo”… wink…but when we are children we have no bias about the “woo woo”, do we? Everything becomes a moment of learning, experimentation and/or play. When we feel inspired to do something, we typically act upon that inspiration without asking why. For me, I was inspired to snuggle in that dark closet and adventure into my mind. So that is what I did. I mused and I stared….And with that staring came deep thinking… and more thinking… and more thinking….

I considered myself to be a basically happy person— and yet I saw around me such great sadness. Even as a child, I yearned to discover the secret to making the world a happier place… to cultivating more joy within myself and to teaching others to create their own joyfulness within themselves.

Yet instead of lifting me up, that quest ironically for many years just seemed to lead me spiraling further and further down to the depths of my own great pain. At times, the pain felt insurmountable — much stronger than I was. At times, it was hard to feel any cause for hope. It was hard to feel gratitude when my soul felt convulsed with such angst and such fear. Instead of having more answers, my life seemed to give birth only to more questions.

My three children were the ray of light that kept me hoping, believing, trusting and occasionally laughing as I trudged along this seemingly relentless and “full of obstacles” path.

And then the boulder came crashing into our lives and how our lives have changed!

I understand now that those darkest moments were perhaps some of Life’s greatest gifts — although I would never wish to relive them.

Little did I suspect as I had ventured into adulthood that the road to happiness does not gain brilliance simply from its volume of smiles. Our gorgeous Universe thrives on its duality. To know cold, one must know hot. To know up, one must recognize down. And yes, to feel the true majesty of great happiness, one must have cowered under the force of great tears.

Yet, the pain and the monsters do not get to define us — unless we choose to give them that power. Instead, they sculpt away the crust that hides the beauty and fortitude that lies within. We are indeed mightier than we have ever dreamed… mightier than we could ever had hoped… it is our unique and powerful vulnerability that ironically inspires us to become so strong…

And as we then venture forward as more seasoned and enlightened warriors, we can finally release the armor — understanding at last that this coat of arms isn’t protecting us from what lies without. Instead, this carefully polished armor serves only to keep each of our own unique and dazzling radiance imprisoned within. We have inadvertently been choosing to sequester ourselves deep inside that prison with an inner voice that we mistake as being our own… “our own worst enemy” heckles and chides us without compassion.

Now, we can finally understand that happiness has no disclaimers, no fine print, no hidden clauses. Happiness isn’t contingent on any circumstances. It can be ignored but it cannot be “lost”. Happiness is synonymous with being truly and fully alive— complete with all of its flaws and challenges!

With this understanding comes freedom and with this freedom comes choice. How do we now choose to LIVE?

The journey of Schuy’s boulder has taught me that the power of our inner game is tangible and real. Our inner game includes our God… it includes our faith… and yet it also includes the incredible power of an Energy Inspired Mind. “How you do anything is how you do everything,” as T Harv Eker would say.

How long will we demand that Life deliver solely the “seeing is believing” ? Clearly, we live in an age where one person’s impossible becomes another person’s invention. Isn’t it time to begin updating our mental technology with the same enthusiasm that we update our cars and our phones?

Schuyler has been voraciously devouring the messages and encouragement on Facebook. Therapy and movement continues to be harder than hard, but we press on and on. We see major successes on a regular basis. Last week in aqua therapy, she literally walked in the pool more than 10 steps, with Amalita simply steadying her shoulders with two fingers.

In the chairlift on the way up to her nap, Schuy thanked me for being such a great mom and for helping her through this. I was speechless and emotional but managed to mumble that OF COURSE there was no where else I would rather be. She mentioned that we of course never expected to be doing this right now but she felt that we were championing our way through it. We hugged and cried — not really sure whether the tears were from joy or simply humanness.

Today, as you wind down this glorious Memorial Day, spread your arms wider than wide and remember to breathe this amazing life in! Dig in! Dive in! Say yes to the journey! We need to choose to live, to love and to fully BE at our fullest! Get wild. Get silly. Dance. Muse and create! Play outside of yourself. Play deep within yourself. But most of all play…. !

And at the end of the day, know that it’s not always he with the most toys that wins. It just might be that he who wins had many, many toys and he had the courage to share those great toys with millions of others….!  So get out there and start sharing!

In Much, Much Joy and Love,

Meridith Hankenson Alexander (and Schuy)