Some days I have this deep urge to scream or cry or curl up in a ball like a defeated 2Y old. There’s some serious pent-up frustration in me. And probably a dozen other emotions that I can’t quite name.
But at the same time, I’ll be excited over something I’m planning. I just met up with a friend for tea and great discussion. I got some good news. Or overall, things are flowing pretty easily. At first, I thought this was just me. But I’ve been hearing and seeing this same trend in others. Angst, burned out, stressed … and yet … not always having a ‘good reason’ in our own specific life that we can point to. What’s up with the internal dissonance? There’s a lot that is going on in our world, especially around war and fight energy. It is not new and we will continue to experience different forms of this as we take back our personal power. Right now, however, there’s something amplifying the other energies around us. Eclipse energy. The lunar eclipse and full moon on March 25 brought up a deeply buried ‘stuff’. Stuff that some might call the ‘shadow side’. Stuff in us, stuff in the collective, and stuff from other lives. Stuff asking to be acknowledged and dealt with. The lunar eclipse also further opened our intuitive senses and opened possibility into greater consciousness frequency. You may be experiencing odd to troublesome dreams with information that seems to say ‘maybe we’re supposed to do something with this but what …?’ The lunar eclipse knocked us off our balance a bit. Asked us to reset. The solar eclipse on April 8 is going to blow open doors for those who are willing to step through them. This will be a transitional and transformational ‘turning point’ or ‘tipping point’ moment. What shifts in us and around us will be influenced by more than our current lives. Our ancestral heritage, our soul’s journey, and the planet’s evolution will all contribute to our life’s trajectory. It’s a bit of wild ride. The more we can intentionally connect to our body, the easier this season will flow for us. Grounding and connecting to nature are definitely important. Increasing the strenuousness of some activities (within our own range of what strenuous means) will be helpful … providing we also build in some recovery and rest time. And allowing space for integration. Shut down our electronics, create a window of time to be in our own energy, and allow ourself to just be with no agenda and no to do list. Even if for only 5-15 minutes. Breathe. Be gentle with ourselves and others.
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The alarm goes off and shatters our sleep. Our heart is racing. The dissonance puts our nerves on high alert.
But it is just the alarm … That we set … To help us wake up. Just like the alarm wakes us from our slumber, the dissonance in our world is asking us to wake us from sleepwalking through life. The tensions in us highlight the inconsistency between our beliefs and our actions. And our nervous systems are taking the brunt of it. If we’re going to survive, much less thrive, we need to get better at calming and supporting our nervous system, because the energy is going to continue to flow fast and hot this year. I recently read an account of stress-induced anaphylaxis. Yep. Stress-induced life-threatening immune reaction. It led me down the rabbit hole of learning and also caused me to take a good look at some of my own responses. Because, in recent weeks, I’ve had (1) a weird physical reaction to an email; (2) feeling stressed and rushing.about.really.really.fast with all the things I had to do; (3) painful stiffening in my body as I tried to ignore sounds that were grating my nerves; and (4) shrinking my boundaries to avoid taking up space where I belonged. These are all stress responses. You’ll have your own versions. However, I think we can all relate to the second one. As I was rushing around thinking, “this is all so stressful”, I heard a voice inside me ask, “Is it really stressful? Or is it simply the way you are thinking about them?” Um. Well. Hmm. Actually, not any one of them was overly complicated. Not one of them was super serious. Most I’m pretty good at. And some of them I actually enjoy doing. So why was I so stressed? Because we’re in a culture of stress, wearing stress like a badge of honor. My mindset was swimming in the energy soup of collective stress because I was just going along with the flow. “Wake up” said that little voice inside me. “Notice. Is the stress in you or outside of you? Do you need or want to carry it?” That’s what this energy is asking us to do. Wake up, notice, and choose our response. The energy right now is pushing us towards our authentic selves.
AND, scarily for many, pushing us towards letting our authentic selves be seen. It is part of stepping into our personal power. You know, that stuff around identity and what will others think and people pleasing and trauma responses … and … and … Maybe it is just me that has all those things come up around being seen but, based on conversations with many, this feels like a pretty common response. What can we do to help ourselves as we begin to show up as more of our authentic spiritual selves? The most important aspect is self-compassion. While compassion from others will be both helpful and desired, what our heart craves is to feel our own compassion for ourself. Self-compassion includes being gentle with ourself. Giving ourself time to process, think, create, rest, and integrate. Self-compassion includes accepting ourself as we are and loving ourself as we are. It also includes allowing self-judgment to drop away. It may include forgiving ourself. Self-compassion includes boundaries. We don’t have to rush out and open our lives to everyone or even open every aspect to anyone. We can be discerning and selective. Consider self-compassion as a kind wiser version of ourself who is standing with us, walking with us, holding our hand if desired, and helping us through whatever we are going through. There’s a lot of shifts and transitions in play right now. Some of us are starting a new path, some are taking a fork in the road, some are leveling up, some are minding the gap as they jump into a new journey. Even those who are hesitant about change are getting bumped out of ruts.
Wherever you are, wherever those around you are, know that we’re all going through changes. Changes take us across a threshold. A threshold is a place where we are not where we were, but we are also not where we want to be. We’re straddling to life chapters; have a foot in two worlds. Thresholds are liminal spaces. Spaces where we undergo change and transformation. Some liken liminal space to the transformation of caterpillars to butterflies. Liminal space is the cocoon stage. A cocoon can feel like a dark night of the soul. Liminal space can be unnerving. We can feel like goo. We’re running between idealism and disillusionment feeling like we’re stuck in the middle of what we know might be possible and the stark contrast of the current reality around us.
Embedded in this dissonance is substantial opportunity for breakthroughs, innovation, radical change, life-altering shifts, and awakenings. But, the waves are choppy and it is easy to get disoriented. Set your intention; identify a goal or an area for change. Make a plan. Or at least a to-do list. When things get choppy, do the easiest smallest thing on that list. Rest if you need to. Then do the next. Don’t over do it. But keep on doing it. Small step by small step. |
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