Traversing the Unknown Together, Apart.

I’ve been sitting here thinking of how to write to you.  Of how to tell you that I didn’t jump on the  ‘content train’ in the middle of a pandemic.  That I moved half-way across the country in the middle of a pandemic, even though my plans no longer made sense.  That I regret the decisions I made before I knew we’d be in the middle of a pandemic.  That I wish I could take them back.  That I don’t know how to move forward - not only because there is no ground on which to make a decision, but because there are no options available at the moment.  That I spent the night crying and wailing and shaking on the floor in disappointment and grief of the life I left behind, only to be stuck and unsafe, with no path yet in front of me.  I want to tell you that I’m annoyed that now we are in the middle of a pandemic, everyone seems to be turning to the tools and ideologies of work I’ve been doing and creating for years.  I want to scream, ‘where have you been? Why haven’t my cries been loud enough?’  And I want to scream even louder to those who still are not waking up, to those who will go back to some semblance of personal normalcy when the situation passes.  To the ones who are commoditizing off of this - I want to tell you that it feels icky to push my work.  Even though it comes from the core of my being and from a place of service, even though it is needed right now - I feel paralyzed.  So I’m telling you the truth.  Because that’s all I know to do.  Because perhaps you too will feel like it’s okay to feel paralyzed.  To not know how you’re going to survive.  To want to crumble.  To be in a place of massive contraction.  

If you are struggling 

if you feel like you are coming up against a brick wall 

if you keep having to learn the same things over and over again

if you're suffocating 

if you can't find your way out

you are not alone

not because others are with you

but because you are with yourself

and you can always find your way home

back to you.

I wrote the above words a year and a half ago.  I had just moved moved to New Mexico after so much insanity and contraction.  Doing so helped me to reclaim my power.  To come back to parts of myself I had hidden deep inside of my bones years prior.  And now, after leaving that place, I’m feeling a reversal experience.  One of confusion and grief and smallness.  And yet, on some level I know that this is part of the process.  That I’m being asked to incubate again.  That there will be a rebirth.  We are taught and shown that this process is devoid of stretching and of pain and of sorrow.  Those teachings are damaging.  We cannot sideswipe the shadow.  We must acknowledge it and hold it and tend to it.  It is the way home.  It is the way to wholeness.  And in our humanness, this way is not linear.  And so, here I am.  Here we are.  Traversing the unknown together, apart.  May you be where you are.  I grant you that permission.