Friday, I found myself driving to work at 7:00 am, wearing my standard yoga garb and sipping on green juice in my Prius. I laughed out loud at the crunchy stereotype I was fulfilling, but less because of how it looked and more because of how good it felt to be myself, crunch and all. For months now, I feel like I've been fighting an internal battle between my employment reality and cries of my soul, unfulfilled. To be more specific, I've been accommodating a professional role -- fitting myself into tight spaces and keeping parts of me outside the door when they don't fit.
Guess what? It isn't working.
Given my broad background of diverse employment and my multitude of degrees and certifications, it should be evident that I grow tired in positions that aren't quite right for me, or that I feel stifle me, or that undermine my core values. But, alas, my juicer doesn't turn kale leaves into currency, and so I find myself in an undesirable albeit temporary employment situation while I take the next steps to move forward.
The impatient person in me wants to shout, "This sucks!" Then retreat into my creative cocoon overnight where, using black magic (and purple, and turquoise magic, too) I come up with a way to launch my Ayurvedic Health Coaching and Intuitive Counseling business overnight. The next morning, I would arise gracefully into My New Life. Ta-freakin-da.
Life doesn't work that way. Even if you read, "The Secret." Life requires more patience and a bit more planning. **BIG SIGH**
So I continue to do what I do and in my free time* continue the ever-present task of fulfilling my curiosity about life, about how I relate to the world, and about how I can thrive as the sensitive being that I am. And that, right there, has helped tremendously. I've been reading about how emotions change our molecular structure. I've been reading about how the psoas is the seat of our soul and has so much to say about how we process and release fear in our bodies. I've been ingesting Ane Axford's Sensitive Sunday's like they're the coffee and bacon I've been missing since I switched to green juice. (Oh, just kidding about the getting ridding of bacon. That would be crazy).
The past month or so, I've been working hard at something that doesn't fulfill me, beating myself up about not liking it, beating myself up about not being brave enough to move forward, becoming stressed out about the whole situation and, BAM! My body says, "That's enough, thankyouverymuch" and takes me to the InstaCare where I become a regular for a few weeks and wrack about about a $1K in medical expenses, down two courses of antibiotics, and end up with a systemic Candida infection that was worse then the UTI that started the whole mess. "Fine!" I shout to the Universe. "Message received! I'll change something, damnit!"
Here is where I would like to say that I took my regular stroll through the woods, where the trees whispered secret messages of healing and promise, and where all my problems melted away into solutions, just like the drizzle that turns to stream in the deep crevice that is Ravenna Park. Because that happens to me sometimes. But not this time. This time, there wasn't much that I could DO to find the answers. Instead, I had to UNDO.
It was like my own words hit me smack in the forehead. How many times in a yoga class do I talk about "un-doing," letting something go, finding more ease? Uh, a lot, I talk about it a lot. Especially when it comes to students who have been injured through activity and especially for those sensitive bodies that respond like thermometers to stress and tension. So I knew I needed to undo.
Then, I was listening to Sensitive Sunday Live about how highly sensitive people (HSP's) have a tendency to feel like they are broken and need to be "fixed." In that mode, HSP's tend to make more rash decisions about treatment. Because HSP's can be more prone to "disorders" or body issues than hardy folks since their bodies are those sensitive thermometers I was talking about, HSP's really need to learn to UNDO -- to retreat and go within and allow themselves to relax, unwind, and figure out what is going on before they react.
React = InstaCare Super Bill.
Relax = Body communication, honest self-assessment leading to, oh, I don't know, all of that healing information I have in my proverbial healing suitcase?
So I scheduled some time for myself to undo. To relax. To allow myself to just BE. And to be creative -- to create things, to knit and draw and color and create, without thinking about my body at all. I meditated and received the images of what it was my body was craving and what it needed me to let go of. (At which point I said, "Really, body? You really want me to get rid of yummy coffee? Well,....shit.") I received a few healings from classmates that confirmed what I had already seen in meditation and so I moved forward in healing my body.
A funny thing about life is that often when you create movement in one area of your life, movement in another area can open up, too. So as I started taking the steps I needed to build back a healthy body, I found the next step to moving forward with my employment situation and the courage to ask for what I needed. I set up a meeting with my boss and told him (in a very diplomatic way, of course) which thing sucked and where I'd like to move forward.
As I regained communication with my body, learned to undo and find ease, I also released some fear that I've been holding. Not all of it yet, but some. I have this fear that I will not be good enough. That I won't be able to make a healing practice work. But in this time that I've been working with my body, I realize that I DO have tools to aid in healing and that they are valuable and will be valuable to those who seek them out.
Things aren't moving as quickly as I'd like, but they are moving. I have some decisions to make about how I want to shape my future. Luckily, I know that I can take some extra time to undo, to relax, to move within, and to be patient so that I can begin to shape the professional future that my mind, body and spirit are in agreement with.
*Free Time -- Time so limited and scarce I have to pinch myself to make sure it's real and I'm not having wet dreams again.
Guess what? It isn't working.
Given my broad background of diverse employment and my multitude of degrees and certifications, it should be evident that I grow tired in positions that aren't quite right for me, or that I feel stifle me, or that undermine my core values. But, alas, my juicer doesn't turn kale leaves into currency, and so I find myself in an undesirable albeit temporary employment situation while I take the next steps to move forward.
The impatient person in me wants to shout, "This sucks!" Then retreat into my creative cocoon overnight where, using black magic (and purple, and turquoise magic, too) I come up with a way to launch my Ayurvedic Health Coaching and Intuitive Counseling business overnight. The next morning, I would arise gracefully into My New Life. Ta-freakin-da.
Life doesn't work that way. Even if you read, "The Secret." Life requires more patience and a bit more planning. **BIG SIGH**
So I continue to do what I do and in my free time* continue the ever-present task of fulfilling my curiosity about life, about how I relate to the world, and about how I can thrive as the sensitive being that I am. And that, right there, has helped tremendously. I've been reading about how emotions change our molecular structure. I've been reading about how the psoas is the seat of our soul and has so much to say about how we process and release fear in our bodies. I've been ingesting Ane Axford's Sensitive Sunday's like they're the coffee and bacon I've been missing since I switched to green juice. (Oh, just kidding about the getting ridding of bacon. That would be crazy).
The past month or so, I've been working hard at something that doesn't fulfill me, beating myself up about not liking it, beating myself up about not being brave enough to move forward, becoming stressed out about the whole situation and, BAM! My body says, "That's enough, thankyouverymuch" and takes me to the InstaCare where I become a regular for a few weeks and wrack about about a $1K in medical expenses, down two courses of antibiotics, and end up with a systemic Candida infection that was worse then the UTI that started the whole mess. "Fine!" I shout to the Universe. "Message received! I'll change something, damnit!"
Here is where I would like to say that I took my regular stroll through the woods, where the trees whispered secret messages of healing and promise, and where all my problems melted away into solutions, just like the drizzle that turns to stream in the deep crevice that is Ravenna Park. Because that happens to me sometimes. But not this time. This time, there wasn't much that I could DO to find the answers. Instead, I had to UNDO.
It was like my own words hit me smack in the forehead. How many times in a yoga class do I talk about "un-doing," letting something go, finding more ease? Uh, a lot, I talk about it a lot. Especially when it comes to students who have been injured through activity and especially for those sensitive bodies that respond like thermometers to stress and tension. So I knew I needed to undo.
Then, I was listening to Sensitive Sunday Live about how highly sensitive people (HSP's) have a tendency to feel like they are broken and need to be "fixed." In that mode, HSP's tend to make more rash decisions about treatment. Because HSP's can be more prone to "disorders" or body issues than hardy folks since their bodies are those sensitive thermometers I was talking about, HSP's really need to learn to UNDO -- to retreat and go within and allow themselves to relax, unwind, and figure out what is going on before they react.
React = InstaCare Super Bill.
Relax = Body communication, honest self-assessment leading to, oh, I don't know, all of that healing information I have in my proverbial healing suitcase?
So I scheduled some time for myself to undo. To relax. To allow myself to just BE. And to be creative -- to create things, to knit and draw and color and create, without thinking about my body at all. I meditated and received the images of what it was my body was craving and what it needed me to let go of. (At which point I said, "Really, body? You really want me to get rid of yummy coffee? Well,....shit.") I received a few healings from classmates that confirmed what I had already seen in meditation and so I moved forward in healing my body.
A funny thing about life is that often when you create movement in one area of your life, movement in another area can open up, too. So as I started taking the steps I needed to build back a healthy body, I found the next step to moving forward with my employment situation and the courage to ask for what I needed. I set up a meeting with my boss and told him (in a very diplomatic way, of course) which thing sucked and where I'd like to move forward.
As I regained communication with my body, learned to undo and find ease, I also released some fear that I've been holding. Not all of it yet, but some. I have this fear that I will not be good enough. That I won't be able to make a healing practice work. But in this time that I've been working with my body, I realize that I DO have tools to aid in healing and that they are valuable and will be valuable to those who seek them out.
Things aren't moving as quickly as I'd like, but they are moving. I have some decisions to make about how I want to shape my future. Luckily, I know that I can take some extra time to undo, to relax, to move within, and to be patient so that I can begin to shape the professional future that my mind, body and spirit are in agreement with.
*Free Time -- Time so limited and scarce I have to pinch myself to make sure it's real and I'm not having wet dreams again.
