This past Thursday was my first day free of the fellowship I've been in the past year. My friend Kelly sent me this in a series of back and forths:
You have a cubicle hangover. Your body and mind are coming out of autopilot defense mode after almost a year, right? Totally good to just accept it and take some time to integrate the freedom and process the feelings of rejection and relief.
I read those words and felt: okay, yes, this is what's occurring, this is the Not-Me that I am very aware is coursing through mental, physical, emotional bodies. It's what's underneath the recurring startle, the cascading knee-jerk responses that say Do Something, do something Now, what are you just sitting there for when there are broken things that need to be fixed?
It's from a year of doing things, not sure if they were being done right, doing my best, and so often receiving only a response of a frown and silence. And then taking that and going back and trying again. More frowns. More silence. More work. More trying. Until I woke up one morning back in October and got: this sh*t feels awful and it isn't Who I Am, and they know it, and I know it.
That is the point where the lawn and the moon and stars and the burning and fermented plants and Florence and the Machine came in. Where this combination of their energies crashed into me, hammering at the wall of No that had been created, a kind of jailbreak that was surprising, not just in its content and methods, but also in how successful it was. Frowns and silence lose their power when the previous night was spent with the universe flowing through body, mind and heart, dancing outrageous gorgeous electrifying Yes until I fell down on the lawn in a heap of wonder.
But there was still work to do. I needed income. The fellowship didn't finish up until December 31st. There was no next job to move into yet. Then they asked to extend my contract until the end of February. With still no next job, I accepted, put my head down and worked. Stopped socializing with the folks I worked with. Stopped taking a break for lunch. Stopped trying to make any of it anything other than the work, and getting as much of it as I could done. Total focus on what I'd agreed to do, committed to seeing it through until Life released me from it.
I stopped writing. Stopped trying to do anything other than work, then come home, watch tv shows and movies, read, sleep, with forays out onto the lawn every couple of days. I ate a lot of healthy food, continuing the healing of gut and back pain through energywork and compassion and acceptance and release. Spent a lot of time outside, on the lawn and on the back porch, day and night, watching as the land around me moved into winter. I spent a lot of time doing this:
And I learned that being still and quiet for long periods of time facilitated both the snuggle and the flow. And I also learned that I still have many friends in the world, friends that call and text and visit, friends that skype and do sessions and send long emails describing their own process of setting themselves free. Friends that are planning their own escape from the No. Friends that filled my entire 46th birthday day (February 16) with wine and song and hysterical laughing and music and the magic that is facilitated via smartyphones and skype.
And then I created something that blew my mind, and my heart, wide open. It's been in the works for over a year. Something I took extensive notes on as new aspects popped into my head. That I wrote narrative around when I came in from hanging with the moon and stars, communing with Florence. That seemed more like a dream than anything else. That I kept adding to only because it felt more real than the supposed real life I was living. It was the answer to the obsessive questions blaring through heart and mind the past couple of years: what do i have to offer? is it valid? is it genuinely of use? does it genuinely make things better for people? do they want it? It was this:
It's all still in motion. More will be revealed. I just need more time on the couch. More sleep. More time outside walking. More yoga and hot baths and green smoothies. Less thinky thoughts and connection to the stored past inside me that allows fear to deliver its electroshocks. Less contraction. More expansion. More time to process it all. More time to allow the Yes to flow more seamlessly now that the ordeal, the training, the trial, the test, the Whatever is done for this leg of the Waking Up process.
And as she has been for months now, the soundtrack is courtesy of Florence and her Machine:
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