Thoughts in July
On the last leg of my walk this morning, my upper realms connected with my lower ones and I came to a glorious epiphany. Let me explain. In my spine lies a story that repeats itself at countless levels, the most visible and obvious of which is my living situation.
I realized today that my downstairs represents the places in my mind I don’t want to go. The dark unconscious places that cause discomfort and pain. Things like fear of being alone; fear of not being able to make it on my own; fear of not being enough; not having enough; not fitting in; not being able to connect, or have a whole, full, conscious, happy life if I don’t make particular sacrifices or tend particular safety nets. Today, on my walk I let myself venture into those dark places. What, I asked myself, does my grumpy roommate represent to me? She spends her time in the lower realms. She represents negativity, emotional immaturity, an unconscious need to protect one’s self from the unpleasant, the unsafe, the uncomfortable. But this was the path of blaming, and projection, and I knew it was more complicated than that.
Her grumpiness had been on my mind of late. But this morning I realized that what was at issue with me were my fears, not hers. What I realized this morning is that my basement had begun to represent my fears to me, and that’s why I didn’t want to go down there. Didn’t want to feel the ways I felt when I visited there. Perhaps, because I am an empath, picking up on my roommate’s fears (that tend to resemble mine) was making the situation even worse.
A growing conscious aversion to the lower realms is what had guided me to discreetly move my bedroom upstairs in the past month. This along with other conscious shifts in my behavior based on my relationship with my body, my higher power, my guides, my inner knowing have resulted in a subtle but noticeable improvement in my connectedness with myself.
This morning’s walk allowed me, for the first time, to go certain places in my mind to entertain the most frightening of thoughts, to explore how true they were, and to notice my feelings about them. What if the natural consequence of my behavior is that my roommate can’t tolerate living with me if I don’t share the lower spaces of the house with her, or for some other reason she decides not to be a partner in the household? What then? Would it be a crisis? For either of us? Going through all the places in my mind: separation, splitting assets, furniture, all that we have built in the past three years, buying her out, determining real equity, etc. What would it be like – a future without the stability she has represented for me? In a way she has served as an emotional anchor. Without that anchor, who and where would I be? A rudderless ship afloat at sea? I think about my traveling sister, Tracy, living out her dream but seeming at times so alone.
And somehow my thoughts, on the last third of my walk, came back around to what I know. Being tethered to a particular person in a particular place is not the grounding I seek. What grounds and centers is intimacy with the self. And that, for me, today, is knowing at my core that regardless of the players at the physical level, there is enough, and I am enough, I have enough. Connection, creative opportunity, guidance, love, purpose, affection, worth, credibility, strength, etc. Whether I have the responsibilities of caring for small children or not, whether I have an incredible client base or not, whether I have a wonderful home or not, whether I have a partner or friends or savings or not, I am okay. When I am connected to myself, I am not alone. Those I know, those I have yet to know, and those I will never know; we are all connected.
Without a doubt, feeling some efficacy around money, probably for the first time, has helped me achieve this place. Not having to worry about whether I’m going to bring in enough money to make the mortgage payment or meet the next financial obligation that comes with being a parent can consume so much psychic energy that it’s almost a luxury to tune in to the deeper inner realms. Reaching this stage in my life has been a long time coming, but now that I’m here I can breathe a little more freely. I can afford to entertain ideas one has a harder time entertaining when the biggest numbers are red.
So the great epiphany. Maybe two-thirds of the way around my circuit, maybe a little more, I straightened a little taller, allowing my head to be suspended by the light nimble energy from the heavens. I pushed my shoulders down, brought my jaw back and sent my shoulder blades down my back once more, and I felt it, if just for a moment, the connection with my core, my upper leg muscles, my psoas, my abdominal wall. This was the feeling I had been wanting to avoid — and still do, if you want the honest truth — as these core muscles are so weak as if they are only now waking up from a very long slumber. I’m not sure of the extent of the power that lives here; it’s so far been easier to let it sleep. But now, as I watch my father (who is wrestling with the question of life and death) playing with the idea of waking up, and as the Universe pushes me to wake up, connecting upper with lower, I realize I’ve been slumping and restricting my movement and avoiding life experiences because I have been afraid.
Bringing consciousness to these dark fearful places, using the guidance I have learned to trust, feeling the resulting feelings, and building intimacy with myself is a sustainable path. And it is a path of joy and deep fulfillment. And to this path I say a heartfelt yes. For you I am so grateful.