Practice

What I am feeling this morning is that it is time. After all this time I have spent wandering in my own personal desert…acknowledging my thirst…my desires…acknowledging my fear…and after all this time learning to care for myself and to call out to God…

It is time to stand and say “yes” to my life. This life with its precarious edges and its uncertainty  and its call to explore.

It is time to stop being envious of those I see choosing their lives and thriving and being happy. It is time for me to choose mine. This story–with its twists and turns and the choices I have made is my story. It is time to own it.

I do not yet know what my life will look like in December. I do not yet know where I will be living or what I will be doing. In a month…what will my day-to-day life look like?

I did not know when the year began that this year would bring pandemic…and this house in Florida…and the housemates I am sharing this space with now.

I did not know, either, that at this point it would still feel as if I have been struggling so much–with focus…with direction…with my intentions. And with my fears.

Am I a writer? Am I a coach? Am I a copywriter? Where can I serve? How can I be useful? How can I contribute?

And what am I willing to do to reach the next place in my life? How am I willing to step out and test the waters? Because it feels as if something has still been holding back. Something has still been distracted and disoriented and thrashing about up until now.

“I can’t.”

“It’s too big.”

“It’s too much.”

“I don’t know how.”

“It’s too late.”

“I’m too old.”

“I’m not ready.”

And then the words from a deep place in a hidden corner in the darkness: “Who do you think you are?”

To be powerful. To decide what’s important to you in your own life. To risk. To ever have stopped playing it safe. To climb out of your box…out of your cage. Who do you think you are?

So I sat with these words…this onslaught…on Tuesday in the Cultivating Calm and Confidence Within group coaching session. And I breathed the words out into hands cupped in front of my heart. Practicing to let go.

Was there a sudden miracle? Not so much. But I saw something.

I saw that “after all this time”…after this time I am calling wandering through my personal desert and doing the work I’ve been doing…I was still “dealing with” and being held back by these thoughts–these thoughts that something inside me is quite aware are bullshit. And I was irritated. And I was frustrated. I was angry. And when I spoke the truth about it…I cried…and something was ashamed of that, too.

Shame. Blame. Not good enough. Dr. Kate helped me see it…to find all of that in my body…to breathe into it…and be kind. She helped me acknowledge the road I’ve traveled and the exquisite beauty of where I am right now. 

There are lessons we can learn in our heads…but if we are not finding them in our body, then they are lost to us. I was reminded how wise the body is…and to return there. Again. And again.

In the body is gentleness…tenderness…the perfection of the moment. My practice is to keep returning.