I was born during the last gasp of disco.
To this day, if Got To Be Real comes on, I will dance in public. Whether dancing is appropriate or not. If inappropriate, I may restrain myself to shuffling my magenta Converse under the table, but some form of movement will always mark the occasion.
I’m forty years old, sliding rapidly into forty-one, and I’m still figuring myself out. I have a lot more knowledge than in previous years and decades, but virtually every week something new unfolds.
The unfolding of the self is goddamn relentless. Especially when you’re dedicated to the process.
Dancing makes me happy, that I know.
(Though I have to relearn it every few years, when it slips out of habit and my happiness levels decrease by approximately 22 percent. )
I need to be in trees or on a mountain or by the beach at least once a week for my sanity, that I also know.
Writing helps me find my center and my answers.
Color, bright color, delights me and I try to wear some every day. T-shirts with electric banjo-playing squirrels and rainbow jetpack-riding unicorns are always at the top of the laundry rotation.
Making myself stew - or anything else that doesn’t involve crackers or popcorn - feels deeply nurturing.
I decorate my house in the colors of the lower chakras: red, orange, and yellow. Plus turquoise. Coincidentally, the chakras I struggle with most.
I want to feed a giraffe, see the Northern lights, and learn to sing.
Tapping in as regularly as I’m able supports my perspective unlike anything else. I need to bask in that love and peace and anything-and-everything-is-possible, which is where I go when I channel. And it works best when I take other people with me.
Sometimes I feel like Neo in The Matrix - discovering just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
(Not so much with the sweeping black pleather jackets and jiu jitsu, though. Sadly.)
The longer I follow this channeling path, the weirder it gets.
First, it was "You get messages from an unseeable, unknowable source."
Then it was, "You can talk to Joan of Arc."
Then it was, "Yes, unicorns do drive past you on Harleys if you're in a bad mood." *
* because there ain't no one, in this world or any other, who wants me in a bad mood.
Then it was, "There are beings on other planets who want to hang out with you and put on a sweet light show."
Days when I write and move and channel and visit nature and make something just for the fun of it - those are the very best days. Because at some point, it’s not even about knowing yourself, it’s just about getting through the day with as much presence and joy as possible.
But my brain tries to talk me out of each and every one of these activities. Partially because my brain is a bit of a jerk, but mostly because I’m so used to not feeling good that when I do feel good, my brain gets concerned and does its utmost to nudge me back where things are comfortable.
As an empath and a person who doesn’t much enjoy discipline, I’m often wallowing in the energy and feelings and perspectives and thoughts of others. Which means, extra anxiety with a whipped cream topping of fear.
I used to get mad at my brain for spitting out anxiety-inducing sludge from the moment it comes online in the morning to the moment it passes out in the evening. Then I realized it’s attached to my tweaked spinal cord and constantly-in-fear-of-being-devoured-by-a-saber-tooth-tiger nervous system.
It’s doing the best it can, given the systemic information it’s being fed.
Holding energetic boundaries is difficult when your physical system is compromised. (That’s last week’s bit of unfolding fun.)
When I try to convince my nervous system that saber tooth tigers aren’t a thing in Mill Valley, California, circa now, my brain does its best to collaborate the story.
Sadly, nobody believes it.
Then I get mad because energy is my thing and why can’t I fix my own and ARGGHHHHHHHHH.
While healing is sometimes a quantum leap, it's more often a slow slog of small adjustments.
It's a day-by-day and moment-by-moment process of remembering to honor your feelings, follow the nudges, and point your brain toward what you want (rather than fears and worries) while enjoying the present moment.
I often wonder how anyone can do all this while also doing anything else. Anything at all.
So we have to nudge our brain into resting - by breathing, by moving, by making something, by stepping out into nature, by connecting with the quiet voice behind the brain hamsters.
I'm still learning how to do this - it's an evolution that unwinds through the lifetime of your soul (so, basically, eternity) - but I know it's happening.
Bit by bit, my brain and nervous system re-align and life starts to mesh effortlessly with spirit instead of imaginary saber tooth tigers.
