-- a journey into awareness
What am I letting go of?
Not being true to myself.
Fear of being vulnerable,
of being hurt.
It’s easy to say this. But I’ve learned over the past year it’s hard to do. For starters, I have to really listen to who I am vs. what I’ve been conditioned to believe or what I perceive to be the expectations of others. But progress has been made, and it is time.
So this I am letting go of, and I’m opening to the new and what’s possible for me. And so it is!
If you find yourself in this familiar time of year, but are seeing and experiencing it with what feel like unfamiliar eyes, may your vision be sharpened to take in what you missed during all those years you saw what you expected to see and felt what you expected to feel. May you experience the unfamiliar as an unfolding and not as an undoing. And may you not take any of it, or yourself, even a tiny bit more seriously than absolutely necessary.
Nadia Bolz-Weber Dec. 16, 2023
I’m not feeling “Christmassy”. I don’t know why. I find myself trying to come up with a story, even though I know stories are just that. I’ve driven around looking at Christmas lights because that always brings me up…only it doesn’t.
My mind is in overdrive.
How do I let go of everything trying to get my attention? Wars, disasters, pleas for money, friends who are sick, endings… Everything is changing. Is it really unfolding?
I don’t know. So maybe I’ll just exhale and believe what my T-Shirt says:
“You must fight, take sides,
WIN!”
Join the drama….
The body holds me back
Keeping me safe
I don’t share I’m
not buying into the struggle
Because being happy in the midst of…
It’s not how “we” do
I believe it’s not about “Being Right”,
it’s about “Being Here,” breathing deeply
Feeling into my heart.
Relaxing does not mean not caring
Being happy & seeing the good
Doesn’t mean ignoring pain
Without my Centering Heart
My head goes into overdrive
Overwhelm moves into my chest
And the heaviness stops my breath
And then the world is a threat, others
Are a threat.
So, I’m learning
Breath, relax, trust
Become aware of my heart
And listen to the inner voice
It’s rooted in love and wisdom
It’s my hope and what the world needs
I’m committed to doing what is mine to do. My heart knows. I just have to listen.
I still feel like I don’t belong
and it always surprises me
I‘m connected to my back yard
It loves me and I love it back
I love people and I don’t know
why or where it comes from
I’m guided in ways I don’t control
The universe has many worlds
I’m not pretending everything is resolved. I am not asking others for solutions to what is unfolding in me. I’m experiencing my life as I am living it. I’m learning this is” getting it right.”
I see my own contradictions, e.g, I should stop drinking…and then I don’t.
So now, I’m noticing what encourages me to have a drink: sometimes it is because I enjoy a glass of wine, sometimes I’m upset and I’m numbing out, and sometimes I’m caught up in the expectations of others. I’m letting go of “how it should be” and I’m becoming more aware of “how it is”. It is no longer about a general rule or a “should”.
I choose to be free, and that means being honest with myself. It is being unapologetically me. It is only from this place of self acceptance and self awareness that I can choose more wisely. This is love.
Beliefs about the world,
God and ourselves
Shaping our lives
coloring our perceptions
determining our experience
Some beliefs known
others lying hidden
in cellular memory
to be unraveled
like a Gordian Knot
Slowly cutting the string
they’re brought to light
where in consciousness,
examined, we can decide
Is it true?
I’ve been in touch with the power of our beliefs for some time. Beliefs influence our perception, both what what we see and how we see it. And, as a result, beliefs determine our experience of things.
I’ve known my belief “themes”, for lack of a better word, for some time. Mainly “I’m not good enough” and “I can’t play with the ‘big guys’.” I’ve learned with help to see the consequences of such beliefs, e.g., self-sabotage, self doubt…. But I never felt a real shift.
Recently, in my work with visioning and meditation (translation, a form of prayer and listening to the small voice within), I received the core of what’s been driving me: “I was rejected by family, God, it was a done deal, there’s no use trying.”
Note: My family would be horrified to know what conclusions I came to as a very young girl. I’ve long sense done the work of understanding and forgiving those involved. Still, the belief was operating out of sight in my cellular memory. It’s what unrecognized beliefs do.
So, when this belief came to me and resonated so deeply, I knew it was what’s been driving me. With the consciousness I hold now, I could see it is not true and never was. I feel lighter. It has lost its power over me.
We all have stories. We all have hidden beliefs. I want to testify that we can be free of them. Be free to love more fully ourselves and others. And so it is.
In some traditions
Nine is completion.
For the Hebrews
nine is a symbol of truth.
When multiplied, nine
always reproduces itself.
For me, nine has meant
a shift…to what I don’t know.
But something has changed.
I still want him beside me,
so much I can feel him.
He grows inside me.
Still, something has changed,
beyond my knowing.
I stay alert for clues, seek
guidance in the mundane
listen to the whispers of truth
floating on the wind.
Alert, aware, curious
nine months makes a baby
nine months ends a cycle
opening to what is and
what is to come –
nine, the number of magic.
You can feel a shift before you can define it or understand it. I’ve learned when you feel, the key is to pay attention. Stay in the heart/body, away from your head. What a strange journey life is. How unpredictable is the way grief unfolds and shape shifts. And how mystical is rebirth.
Sometimes windows aren’t 
just windows.
It’s the choice between
seeing out
vs. closing out
Feeling safe
vs. warding off prying eyes
Light
vs. dark.
Simple decisions sometimes aren’t.
Living unafraid
vs. being prudent
Going for it
vs. the right decision
Fear
vs. ……
Symbols reflect values.
Embracing life
rejoicing in the world as it is
seeing all of it…
Windows will win out.
Mammoth Cave, KY
I’m allowing myself to cave
seeking aloneness
avoiding groups.
Am I sinking into my own
personal nationalism? The
same that I critique countries for?
Build a wall keeping out?
or maybe keeping in
the energy that is so low.
Things are shifting: the change may be
minuscule. maybe seismic, but
definitely different.
I allow myself to not show up
promising, to myself, that this will not last.
Praying that the heavens will show the way out.
Epilogue
I know all things cycle: summer into fall into winter.
But I love spring and have to remind myself that pulling, in as in winter, is exactly what I need to be doing right now….and, it’s ok. To honor what I’m feeling, as the edges of a space seem to be opening up. I don’t know what it means but I don’t have to. It will do what it does.
Grieving has taught me, if nothing else, the process has its own rhythm, its own wisdom. My job, so hard and yet so easy, is to listen.
“Maybe it doesn’t want to be identified.”
from The New Yorker Jan. 9, 2017
Maybe, just maybe, “it” doesn’t want to be identified because once it is, people stop paying attention.
“Oh, just a robin.”
We all yearn to be seen and understood. Yet too often, once we “identify” someone or something as being a certain way, we stop paying attention. We never really see them again, blind to who they are now. We see what we expect to see. We stop being curious.
True, we come by labeling legitimately. Identifying things and making distinctions have been key to surviving: knowing a poisonous mushroom from a morel ; a copperhead from a harmless garter snake, a stranger from a member of your tribe. It’s how primitive man (and woman) lived long enough to discover the world. An unidentified difference equaled a perceived threat until someone, brave enough, curious enough, got to know it.
Practically, the ability to identify something also means we don’t have to think about everything all the time. “I know [fill in the blank]. It’s OK.” It’s the practical side of stereotyping. You don’t have to start from scratch. You draw on your experience, cultural norms, what you’ve been taught. You can build up a “that is safe” pile. But then, by default, you also have a “that is dangerous” pile you tend to fear.
So what’s the downside? Our preconceived notions limit our experience of the world, as well as our experience of people.
When labels or how we identify something becomes the primary mode of interacting, we stop experiencing life. You see what you remember as being there, what you think should be there: the uniqueness and diversity within groups is missed, change unnoticed, exceptions dismissed if seen at all.
So yes, “that’s a robin.” But maybe it doesn’t want to be identified, categorized, put in a box. 
Try getting curious. Let yourself be surprised. Notice, what’s different about this robin.
In relationship you experience life!
