Over the last few days I have been experiencing a letting go of heavy thoughts, heavy ‘have to’s’ and heavy pressures on myself. Despite all I have written about putting aside any expectations on myself to write for others, to have the perfect site or to know where I am ‘going’, all these things have still been lurking in the shadows. Preventing me from simply expressing whatever is arising in each moment.
Yesterday I had the thought ‘what would I feel if I allowed myself to drop the driven, urgent need to produce or prove or endlessly practice before being perfect enough to show up?’ Imagining it I felt lighter, relieved, excited even. It was almost too good to be true! Could I really do that, could I really allow myself to feel so joyful, so spontaneous, so FREE Having no direction, no clue as to what was next felt so empowering, so liberating, so full of possibilities that I could hardly contain the energy of it.
And then this morning I was reading some posts from an online writing group that I am part of in which people were expressing overwhelming gratitude for the support and sense of belonging to this particular community. A community which is about the bigger picture, a community where writing about individual experiences are helping to create a vision of a new world, a new, open way of being, where all are lifted and held and inspired. Where people are writing because they have to, because they can’t not write. Not for money or self aggrandisement but because they are part of a larger movement that is gaining momentum as more and more people are pulled in to it.
And I could see that I need to be part of it, I am part of it, and I too can’t not do it. I don’t know what I am doing, I don’t know how to do it, I don’t know where it will take me. But I have to show up, every day, on faith, trusting that I will be led.
I want to be part of the bigger picture, where I am guided and supported to fulfil a larger purpose. I am not, however, going to disown or dismiss the anxious, scared and fearful little me that thinks it can’t contribute. Instead I am going to lovingly scoop her up, knowing that she is part of the whole and we will take the journey together.
After much waivering and uncertainty I wrote to the weight loss coach to ask if there was another way of working other than setting goals. Goals to me are like diets – as soon as you make them you break them. They set me up for failure, disappointment and self loathing.
In her response she basically told me that I wasn’t ready to commit, that what I believe is what I get, that I’m perhaps frightened of succeeding. And she asked me how I could live without goals. But I didn’t feel that she wanted to know my answer, because she can’t believe anything other than what she believes in! Yet she wants me to just drop my own beliefs …
I don’t believe in goals because the means don’t justify the end. They make me use effort and force to try and grasp what I think I want rather than ask Life what it wants from me (actually it tells me anyway!).
But most importantly they take me out of the moment. Instead of being present to what is, my mind goes into overdrive about what could be. My imagination … well … imagines… what life would be like if I was anywhere but here, now. I am pulled out of what is arising now, I lose connection with my body and my senses (quite literally I become senseless – which is a funny phrase because it is usually used in connection with the mind when it is everything other than that!).
But something is still drawing me. Curiosity? Desperation? Wanting to be right? Proof that I can’t be helped, that there is something seriously wrong with me?
It is at points like this that I become very confused and doubt my own knowing. My mind and body both say a big fat NO to going. But her words are like a screwdriver prising open the paint pot lid and letting in dust and dirt into the purity of the swirling colours. OK so that was a bit too poetic, but that’s what it feels like. Why am I going against what I know to be true for me? Perhaps it isn’t my knowing, perhaps my ego is so gigantic that it needs to be brought down a peg or two…. I now feel that I know nothing and I can’t trust my own thoughts, feelings, sensations….
Is this two steps forward, three steps back? Or is this some sort of dark night of the soul where I address my subconscious fears and after much kicking and screaming come out the other end happier and more fulfilled?
I doubt the latter, but we shall see …
It is the early hours. I am in meltdown. A combination of lack of sleep due to waking early with the light and many nights of territorial cats wailing through the night is having its toll on me….
Yesterday I made an appointment to see a weight loss coach. Every cell of my body is screaming ‘Don’t go there’. She is the antithesis of all that I believe in and all that I value, yet I am so desperate to curb my overeating that I am overriding my own knowing. Hardly a good start to my self care…
Perhaps I need to make this last ditch attempt to show myself absolutely and categorically that I do have my own answers, that believing an outside source who can magically solve all my problems is a fallacy. I am resisting her before I have even met her and all I can imagine is a giant tussle to get her to understand where I am coming from. Every word she utters puts my hackles up – cliche after cliche from the coaching world, the latest trends in goal setting and removal of obstacles…
Is the resistance simply a foil for not wanting to accept my discomfort and an excuse for not changing anything? Or is it my body’s innate knowing that what doesn’t resonate is not true for me? I wish I knew the difference…
I will go. More to rule out than to be open. To discount and dismiss like everything else in my life. To prove that no-one can help me. A self fulfilling prophecy… Being my own worst enemy….