Flow

From the most bountiful part of your Being

Releasing all previous tributaries of Self

Back into the Ocean of your Great Abyss.

Drop by drop She heals the loose ends and fragments of abandoned yearnings

She yearns only

For Peace.

 

I try to start each morning on my yoga mat. What actually happens on the mat each morning is a totally different story, depending on my energy levels, what kind of sleep I had the night before, or whatever is living inside me in that moment. Some mornings I jump right out of bed and into flowy sun salutations, and others, I just kind of…lay there, marinating in the energy of early morning until I feel inspired to begin my day.

But today I just felt stuck. My back was knotted up like I’d been doing pull ups in my sleep, and in my attempt to experience gratitude I just felt something kind of heavy and murky in my Heart. I lit beeswax candles. I smudged. I placed fresh flowers on my alter. I practiced breath of fire for 3 looooooooong minutes. I grabbed my sketchbook and pastels and smeared colors and images on to the page in attempt to “create” my way out of the murk. But the murk persisted. With laughable desparation, I reached for a deck of oracle cards and pled as I shuffled them,

“Please, help me. Tell me what I need to know to move forward.”

Two cards leapt out of the deck almost immediately, “Angel of the Past – Judgement” and “Knight of Wands – Action”. You must forgive your past Self before you can move forward.

Ughhh – not the answer I was looking for this morning. I just wanted to get up and flow and soak up the blissful abundance of the day. Not scratch at the scabs of my family of origin wounds. But I couldn’t avoid this blockage any longer. I was paralyzed in a period of transition. One of leaving behind a city and job I kept blaming for holding me back, but unable to generate enough traction to move on to all the grandiose, purposeful, things I promised myself I would do as soon as I was free. After a 3 month sabbatical of decadent, soul-resuscitating, playgirl bliss, the freedom was starting to feel oppressive.

Longing for something to shift, I opened my journal and jammed –

“I release all previous versions of my Self to the Cosmos. Little building blocks that She can recycle, upcycle, repurpose, into something Beautiful.

 

The Self that starts a million bright ideas but runs out of fuel and ambition to stay the course. I release Her to the welcoming steadiness of the Universe and ask that, moving forward, she fuel me with a slow-burning power –

 

Power to commit to the grit and the sweat – the sweet kind that trickles off my brow and makes me smile.

Commit to the Vision that put these dreams and ambitions in my Heart to begin with.

Commit to the bravery to walk side-by-side with my resistance.

Commit to practicing compassion for my past Self, to release Her habit of self-sabotage, and to recognize that, to a younger version of Me, self-sabotage was an adaptive coping mechanism.

 

In a home plagued with alcoholism and co-dependency, self-sabotage enabled me to manage my disappointment by being the creator and inflictor of it, instead of wondering when, where and from whom it would come from next. Self-sabotage helped me manage the unending anxiety I embodied as the first child in a fragmented household.

 

I forgive my Self for adopting this habit. I was a smart kid, just doing my best to survive and attempting to thrive.

 

But now, there is nobody “out there” with the power to sabotage or disappoint me.

Nobody in charge of my triumphs or shortcomings

but Me.

And I am worthy of every dream that was put in my Heart for me to manifest, experience and enjoy.

Because that is why I’m here.

That is why we’re all here.

To know our Hearts deeply, to live in deep communion with them, and to offer what we find in there outward, like a fruit-bearing tree.

 

We are here to claim our right to shine. To root into whatever “ground” nourishes us. To grow in whatever direction feels joyful. To pour our Life into every blossom that pokes through the beautiful branches of our desires. And to offer the fruit of our Heart outwards – a bountiful harvest that when shared, feeds both our Soul, and the Soul of the World.”

Mmmmmm – lighter through the heavy.

Us crusaders of light love to chase the shiny, the sparkly, the luminous radiance of all that makes our Hearts leap and jump and soar. But the wonderful human-ness in us all ensures that none of us get to travel through life unscathed. The wounds we accumulate keep itching, burning, festering. Like tumors impeding our ability to heal, and move into living from the most bountiful part of our Being.

But they don’t have to live in us indefinitely.

They don’t have to keep infecting us.

Our wounds don’t need to be the reason we can’t shine,

or the excuse why we can’t show up fully in the world as our Self.

We can remove them, cradle them, study them, and – once understood – release them.

I’m still working on my practice around this whole “cessation of suffering” gig. And I have a hunch I’ll have plenty more opportunities to keep practicing. So far I’ve encountered no miracle-cure that zaps all the pain into a wisdom that lets me observe the hurt with fond nostalgia, and I’m coming to understand that different wounds need different medicine. But each time I come back to the space that feels wounded, it looks a little more – even if just a miniscule amount – like a day spa, and a little less like a boxing ring.

With practice,

the struggle gives way to softness,

criticism to compassion,

judgement to forgiveness.

And it feels a whole lot better to just let go

than it does clinging to whatever it is I spent all this time thinking I had to hold on to.