Life Is Brutiful

An Homage To Friendship

Preface

My Dear Friends,

If you are a subscriber on publication day, Sunday, March 12th, 2023, then I know you personally. I have reached out to you and shared this new endeavor with you and as founding subscribers, you who signed up from the beginning - no questions asked, as a show of sheer and total support of me - I am deeply touched and humbled and grateful. I appreciate so much you showing up here to read what I have to share.

You are my community, my village, my circle and I can’t tell you how truly lucky I feel to know you and to be walking our journeys in tandem. What makes our friendship so special is that it is a sharing of ourselves with each other. I am given the honor of knowing and witnessing you. And vise versa.

Sending and taking should be practiced alternately.
These two should ride the breath. ~ Pema Chodron

It is my hope and intention that this space can be as much for you as it is for me.

Therefore, I invite you to please share your comments, thoughts, feedback, insights, funny cat stories, you name it, at the end of every or any essay that you feel compelled to do so. And please feel free to email me at DudleyTheFox@Substack.com. I would love to know what is on your mind and in your heart. If there is any topic you would like me to write or research about, please let me know.

Thank you so very much for your love and support. Always your dear friend, ~ WRW

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March 12, 2023

Dear Circle,

Life is brutiful, as author and activist Glennon Doyle has coined. The intersection of brutal and beautiful.

“Life is brutal. But it’s also beautiful. Brutiful, I call it. Life’s brutal and beautiful are woven together so tightly that they can’t be separated. Reject the brutal, reject the beauty. So now I embrace both, and I live well and hard and real. My job is to wake up every day, say yes to life’s invitation, and let millions of women watch me get up off the floor, walk, stumble, and get back up again.” ~ Glennon Doyle

And it so often seems to start with a phone call. The phone rings and my dear friend is crying into the receiver telling me she has been conned out of her whole life savings - six figures. The phone rings and my husband tells me that he and his boss have decided to part ways and he is no longer employed. The phone rings and another dear friend who has two school aged children tells me she has terminal cancer. The phone rings and my mother tells me to pull over the car and turn it off, “your father has died”. The phone rings and…

Life changes in an instant.

I now say, life changes with a phone call.

Yes, life is brutal at times. We can not escape it. It is unpredictable with an infinite number of variables that shift, stay static and everything in between, constantly.

What has been rising to the top for me upon reflecting on my own “instantaneously life changing phone calls” is the cornerstone of my close relationships and my faith.

When adversity hits, no one else can solve the problem for us, make it go away, or rewind time, stopping it from ever happening. It is our situation to face, to walk, to endure and to alchemize into growth. It also seems to always have some element of feeling scary — perhaps the new uncertainty, the altered reality, the unfamiliar, the overwhelmingly big emotions, the mirror of difficult realizations, or the finality.

Life gets real, really fast. It is as if being awaken from coasting on “the auto pilot of life”, as we have known it until that moment, with a jolt of “everything is different in an instant”.

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Mister Rogers, beloved by me and many others, who did his fair share of raising me with his kindness and wisdom in his eponymous Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, has reminded several generations that in times of despair, there will always be helpers and with helpers comes hope.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me: "Always look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." I did, and I came to see that the world is full of doctors and nurses, police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong.” ~ Fred Rogers

Yes, life is beautiful.

What sustains me through these periods of real difficulty are a very small handful of dear people, earth angels really. They quietly prop me up just by their presence — their desire and willingness to stand next to me in solidarity, behind me in support, or even in front, leading me with their insight, or protecting me from thinking or actions that do not serve me.

They can not change the circumstance I am in, but they change me through their thoughtful attentiveness. Listening, bringing me a cup of tea and some chocolate, helping with my children, strategizing. Usually though, just having the physical presence of these special people in my life whom I trust and feel safe with is what matters most. My nerves are able to stop racing. I am able to ground myself, remembering to breathe. My mind becomes clearer. My earth angels and their companionship are a salve, a comforting blanket, that calms and allows me to get in touch with what I know to be true.

I know that the Universe, that God, that my otherworldly angels and my earth angels are holding me and that everything is a gift, including the current situation. Every experience and everyone in my life has led me to this point and the Universe is always working on my behalf for my very best outcome.

I believe this. I have seen this. My upbringing and my young adult years were painfully hard. I am the mother and woman and wife I am today because of those truly trying times. I am resilient and I am compassionate because I know how it feels to hurt and therefore I can relate to and help those who are hurting. I know that, generally, people do the best that they can and when their best is truly wanting, it is because that is all they know how to do. So send them blessings. I know that all of these experiences are opportunities for me to level up, grow and reaffirm what else I know to be true which is that I am worthy and I am good enough. Always. And so are you!

This week I received one of those phone calls. And my earth angels are here surrounding my children, my husband, and me. Thank you Bita, David, Angel, Julie-Anne, and Ana Lisa.

We are blessed. We are supported. We are hopeful, as Mister Rogers attested to, thanks to our “helpers”. We know that what lies ahead is truly amazing. We are reminded that we co-created this experience with God and the Universe for our very best. And so I say to God and to the Universe, “Thank you for this gift!”, and I say “Thank you” to my dear friends, my earth angels, “for being by our side”.

With love and warmth,

Whitney

P.S. Please join me in the comments. I would love to hear from you and keep the conversation going.

P.P.S. It would mean a lot to me if you shared this piece.

P.P.P.S. Thank you to Chris Murray for the cover photography.