I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

When you embark on a very long journey, a journey spanning over many days, weeks or even years, you cannot expect every day to be sunny, bright, and filled with wonder. Nature has its own rhythm, and sooner or later, clouds will gather. Rain will fall. The wind may rise against you, and there will be moments when the road becomes steep, the air turns cold, and every step requires a little more strength than the one before.

A long journey will ask you to climb and descend, to walk beneath clear blue skies and to find your way through storms. There will be days when the sun fills you with so much energy that you feel you could walk forever. And there will be days when even the smallest step feels like an effort.

When you understand this from the very beginning, you become better prepared to continue. You stop being surprised by the changing weather. You learn to recognize that the rain is part of the journey, too. Your expectations become more realistic, your heart becomes more resilient, and your commitment to the destination grows stronger than the weather.

So, when the clouds gather and the rain begins to fall, how do we choose to continue our journey?

There are several ways we can respond.

We can stop walking altogether, find shelter, and postpone our journey until the sun returns. We can convince ourselves that we will continue when the conditions improve, when we feel stronger, when the world around us becomes a little easier to navigate. Sometimes, resting is exactly what we need. Yet sometimes, we remain under the same clouds for so long that we begin to forget where we were going.

Another possibility is to keep walking, driven by the determination to reach our destination. We step into the rain and push forward despite the cold, the discomfort, and the exhaustion. We get soaked, we tremble, and we struggle to keep our balance, yet we do our best to place one foot in front of the other. There is courage in this kind of perseverance, in the willingness to continue even when the road demands more from us than we feel ready to give.

Or, we can continue our journey and take an umbrella with us.

The rain may still fall. The road may still be difficult. We may still feel the cold against our skin, and our steps may still require effort. Yet the umbrella offers us a little protection. It helps us preserve our strength, endure the difficult weather with greater ease, and continue moving forward with less suffering.

Today was a rainy day for me. I felt low on energy, a little overwhelmed, and more emotionally sensitive than usual. As the hours passed, I noticed different emotions beginning to surface. Old feelings were asking for my attention. There were things within my emotional body that were ready to be felt, acknowledged, and released. 

And I decided to take out an umbrella. With my energy low and emotions running high, I wanted to choose something simple and gentle, a small step that allowed me to move forward with kindness rather than pressure.

an umbrella for my heart

I chose to hold my heart with tenderness. I chose to breathe through the heaviness instead of becoming the heaviness. I chose to pray instead of letting my thoughts carry me away. I chose to trust that even when I cannot see the whole picture, I am still being held by something greater than myself. I chose the Ho’oponopono practice. 

I began repeating the words inwardly, directing them towards the higher power, towards life itself, and towards the parts of myself that were ready to be met, or needed greater compassion.

With every repetition, I felt myself opening a little more. There was more space, more gentleness towards the pain, and more energy available to sustain the process. The rain was still there, but I found a way to walk through it. 

I’m sorry, for the moments I forget. Please forgive me, for the times I turn against myself.

Thank you, for the quiet reminders that bring me back home. 

I love you.

A long journey will inevitably bring changing skies. Some days will test our strength, others will restore it, but all will teach us.

The idea of using this practice came to me in the morning. And after doing it for a few hours during my day, I remembered my friend mentioned it in passing a few days ago. It made me see how the pieces of the puzzle were already finding me, even before I had fully formulated this project and intention.

It gave me a sense of trust that life is guiding us in ways we can only understand later, that feeling that a higher power already knows the path, even when we cannot yet see it. I felt I was not alone.

Today, even beneath the rain, I felt grateful to be on my way.