Let Go, Reach Out
My word for 2019 was 'Let Go'. I naively thought it would be working on letting go of some biases and attitudes about things. Which happened. But it was also one of the harder years of my life. I began to learn to open my hands on literally everything. Letting go of systems, voices, ideas, concepts, a god, a religion that had shaped my identity - all the things I didn't realized defined why I did what I did. Some of that just needed sorting out, untangling, and then reconstruction. Other parts of it are still very much in the deep, dark, confusing end of the pool. I was sure I was done with letting go with January 1, 2020, what more could I lose, what more could I let go of? Turns out, there's still plenty. I think it will be a lifelong process of letting go of things.
I painted/mod podged this a few months ago. The arms just really stuck out to me, pulled me in. I saw both letting go and reaching out. I'd debated which to name the piece but couldn't decide. I'm realizing how deeply it's both.
When social distancing started for the COVID-19 I looked at it as a novel thing. At the time I didn't realize all the implications of everything coming to a standstill while a virus did it's work. I was excited to just relax at home with my family, to take a break from the hustle of life, to tackle some projects. Yesterday, however, anxiety really started to get to me. Friends talking about losing income they need to survive, others with babies coming in the very very near future, deeply realizing how much I rely on getting some space from my children, the unknown of my husbands job, meal planning with empty grocery shelves, my parents being over 60 with this virus. Suddenly it felt like an elephant was on my chest and I couldn't breathe.
The weight. The unknown.
Damn. We humans love to be certain, love to know and it makes us deeply uncomfortable to not know. 2019 was the beginning of sitting in the unknown places for me, I thought I was getting good at it. This current unknown still catches me greatly by surprise. Sitting in it might be one of the most humanly uncomfortable, and often painful, things for me at this point in my life. Which brings me back to meditation. Meditation has been the place where I've practiced sitting in the hardest, most uncertain things the past year. So today, I locked myself in my closet, chose a ' Akashic Mantra for Recalibration' on the Insight App, some Valor and Sara oils (for bravery and emotional times), and settled in. Within the first minute I felt my body release, could feel the tingles in my arms and fingers, relaxing, letting go. When the mantra was over I sat there in silence trying to just listen, to see what would arise. Out of the silence came:
"Let go of how you think it's supposed to be. Allow what is. The Divine is there."
Over and over I repeated that in my head. It struck me how much the search for certainty makes us sticklers, makes us hard and insistent to get our way. I've always been one to throw a huge fit if something doesn't go how I expected it to go. Marriage, motherhood, life, it's all turned out to be very different from what I expected. From what I thought it was supposed to look like. The more and more I can let go of exceptions, of what is 'supposed' to happen, the happier I actually am. That doesn't mean it's easy or fun. I've grieved quite a lot the past year. I've cried and mourned what isn't. But it's doing that, breathing, and the allowing of what is.
The first time I heard Richard Rohr talking about 'allowing what is', I was confused. I asked myself, what does that even mean. I've found, for me, it's seeing circumstances aren't what I thought they might be, taking a breath, feeling what arises, the moving on to what is. Learning to find the strength to say, "okay I can still work with this." Allowing can be a very, very hard thing. But once I can wrap my head around reality, the more quickly I can get to happiness, to joy, even in uncertainty.
And the Divine. I've heard more than once that the Divine is in the present moment. To be in the present moment we need our head, heart and body to be fully in that moment. It's still somewhat of a rarity for me. The best example I can think of this, that I've experienced, is rain running. I've always adored running in the rain. Running has always been my processing place, something about the rhythm and the aloneness of it. Yet at times, that can go very south and become doom loops. To be present while running means to notice things around you. The trees, the flowers, the butterflies. Before I'd even heard about being present, I knew rain runs give me goosebumps, a runners high like nothing else, a sense of fullness. It's the rain that pulls me out of my head, out of the past or the future and makes me focus on whats happening right this very instant. Then my heart gets into it, it feels the rain, it swells with the beauty of nature, the perfection of this process to nourish the earth. My body feels rain on her skin, the coolness of it, the wetness mingling with my sweat, along with the actual movement of running. The combination of those three centers of intelligence are literally magic. In that moment I experience the Divine, the Creator. I'm one with the earth and the Creator, I'm apart of it. It's amazing.
That's a nice and lovely example, so let's talk about the hard. How, last night I was feeling especially anxious and we took a family walk on the trail. There was a brief moment as we started to walk back to the car when it felt like something grabbed ahold of me. I noticed Clement walking barefoot and looking at turtles, Kellen giving Foeller a piggyback ride, the wind beginning to change, cooling, and the clouds darkening, I felt a rush of love for all of it. The earth, my people, the moment. Amidst the panic that had settled in. And the Divine was there. Helping me to see that my current reality, that very moment, was good, that was saturated with the Divine presence.
Now the reaching out part.
It's really been called to my attention over the past few years how I tend to withdraw. If I feel any ounce of uncertainty about where I stand with someone, or about my emotions being too overwhelming I tend to push away. I avoid or give cold shoulders (even if it's all in my head, apologies to anyone I've done that too). For me, reaching out is terrifying. Telling people I'm not okay and I need them is right up there with walking through a crowded street naked, singing at the top of my lungs. The unknown of relationship, where the other person is at, if I'm okay with them, is a very scary thing for me (and I analyze it to death - again, hey-o enneagram 4!). So when my world feels upside down and panic is coming on, I naturally gravitate towards distance, towards ghosting people and isolating. Slowly, slowly I'm realizing how reaching out is actually a beautiful thing. I'm seeing people love who I am, even when it's a panic-y state, tears and sobs galore, or even anger. I've always thought I had to hide the parts of me people didn't want to see, but I'm learning the people who really love me, truly want my whole self. That my whole self is good and lovable. Now when I feel very uncertain about my mental state, my emotional state, my at-the-moment relationship status (determined by me) with the people I feel safe with, I know I absolutely must reach out. I must say, please hold me, give me some love, be here with me in this.
I do. I really do think letting go and reaching out are connected to a healing way to live. Those two are what I'm leaning into hard right now in these crazy times.
*I also don't want to diminish or invalidate anyones pain. There's some very hard shit in life. Not to be cliche but, it's okay to not be okay.
I painted/mod podged this a few months ago. The arms just really stuck out to me, pulled me in. I saw both letting go and reaching out. I'd debated which to name the piece but couldn't decide. I'm realizing how deeply it's both.
When social distancing started for the COVID-19 I looked at it as a novel thing. At the time I didn't realize all the implications of everything coming to a standstill while a virus did it's work. I was excited to just relax at home with my family, to take a break from the hustle of life, to tackle some projects. Yesterday, however, anxiety really started to get to me. Friends talking about losing income they need to survive, others with babies coming in the very very near future, deeply realizing how much I rely on getting some space from my children, the unknown of my husbands job, meal planning with empty grocery shelves, my parents being over 60 with this virus. Suddenly it felt like an elephant was on my chest and I couldn't breathe.
The weight. The unknown.
Damn. We humans love to be certain, love to know and it makes us deeply uncomfortable to not know. 2019 was the beginning of sitting in the unknown places for me, I thought I was getting good at it. This current unknown still catches me greatly by surprise. Sitting in it might be one of the most humanly uncomfortable, and often painful, things for me at this point in my life. Which brings me back to meditation. Meditation has been the place where I've practiced sitting in the hardest, most uncertain things the past year. So today, I locked myself in my closet, chose a ' Akashic Mantra for Recalibration' on the Insight App, some Valor and Sara oils (for bravery and emotional times), and settled in. Within the first minute I felt my body release, could feel the tingles in my arms and fingers, relaxing, letting go. When the mantra was over I sat there in silence trying to just listen, to see what would arise. Out of the silence came:
"Let go of how you think it's supposed to be. Allow what is. The Divine is there."
Over and over I repeated that in my head. It struck me how much the search for certainty makes us sticklers, makes us hard and insistent to get our way. I've always been one to throw a huge fit if something doesn't go how I expected it to go. Marriage, motherhood, life, it's all turned out to be very different from what I expected. From what I thought it was supposed to look like. The more and more I can let go of exceptions, of what is 'supposed' to happen, the happier I actually am. That doesn't mean it's easy or fun. I've grieved quite a lot the past year. I've cried and mourned what isn't. But it's doing that, breathing, and the allowing of what is.
The first time I heard Richard Rohr talking about 'allowing what is', I was confused. I asked myself, what does that even mean. I've found, for me, it's seeing circumstances aren't what I thought they might be, taking a breath, feeling what arises, the moving on to what is. Learning to find the strength to say, "okay I can still work with this." Allowing can be a very, very hard thing. But once I can wrap my head around reality, the more quickly I can get to happiness, to joy, even in uncertainty.
And the Divine. I've heard more than once that the Divine is in the present moment. To be in the present moment we need our head, heart and body to be fully in that moment. It's still somewhat of a rarity for me. The best example I can think of this, that I've experienced, is rain running. I've always adored running in the rain. Running has always been my processing place, something about the rhythm and the aloneness of it. Yet at times, that can go very south and become doom loops. To be present while running means to notice things around you. The trees, the flowers, the butterflies. Before I'd even heard about being present, I knew rain runs give me goosebumps, a runners high like nothing else, a sense of fullness. It's the rain that pulls me out of my head, out of the past or the future and makes me focus on whats happening right this very instant. Then my heart gets into it, it feels the rain, it swells with the beauty of nature, the perfection of this process to nourish the earth. My body feels rain on her skin, the coolness of it, the wetness mingling with my sweat, along with the actual movement of running. The combination of those three centers of intelligence are literally magic. In that moment I experience the Divine, the Creator. I'm one with the earth and the Creator, I'm apart of it. It's amazing.
That's a nice and lovely example, so let's talk about the hard. How, last night I was feeling especially anxious and we took a family walk on the trail. There was a brief moment as we started to walk back to the car when it felt like something grabbed ahold of me. I noticed Clement walking barefoot and looking at turtles, Kellen giving Foeller a piggyback ride, the wind beginning to change, cooling, and the clouds darkening, I felt a rush of love for all of it. The earth, my people, the moment. Amidst the panic that had settled in. And the Divine was there. Helping me to see that my current reality, that very moment, was good, that was saturated with the Divine presence.
Now the reaching out part.
It's really been called to my attention over the past few years how I tend to withdraw. If I feel any ounce of uncertainty about where I stand with someone, or about my emotions being too overwhelming I tend to push away. I avoid or give cold shoulders (even if it's all in my head, apologies to anyone I've done that too). For me, reaching out is terrifying. Telling people I'm not okay and I need them is right up there with walking through a crowded street naked, singing at the top of my lungs. The unknown of relationship, where the other person is at, if I'm okay with them, is a very scary thing for me (and I analyze it to death - again, hey-o enneagram 4!). So when my world feels upside down and panic is coming on, I naturally gravitate towards distance, towards ghosting people and isolating. Slowly, slowly I'm realizing how reaching out is actually a beautiful thing. I'm seeing people love who I am, even when it's a panic-y state, tears and sobs galore, or even anger. I've always thought I had to hide the parts of me people didn't want to see, but I'm learning the people who really love me, truly want my whole self. That my whole self is good and lovable. Now when I feel very uncertain about my mental state, my emotional state, my at-the-moment relationship status (determined by me) with the people I feel safe with, I know I absolutely must reach out. I must say, please hold me, give me some love, be here with me in this.
I do. I really do think letting go and reaching out are connected to a healing way to live. Those two are what I'm leaning into hard right now in these crazy times.
*I also don't want to diminish or invalidate anyones pain. There's some very hard shit in life. Not to be cliche but, it's okay to not be okay.
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