The quiet that speaks

This week has been riddled with emotion. Whatever it is I've felt, I felt it 200%. I suppose that is normal for me, however, the swing in such short time periods is not. Last week after participating in a group relations conference, and specifically a Shamanic ceremony to open the conference for staff I found myself "plugged in" and vibrating at a strong frequency. Elizabeth asked me on a break if I was still tingling. I told her I always was. David said, "what a gift." And I had to bite my tongue to agree without sarcasm. It is a gift, but sometimes this gift can leave me really heavy. I've likened it to hearing many different radio stations at once (and essentially not hearing any one station in specific). Learning to manage that can be, and has been, the work of my last five years. Being such an emotional being is interesting. If I let myself, I can get swept up into feelings. Carried away as though I were on the end of a million colorful balloons, each one filled with a different emotion; joy, pain, sorrow, loss, hurt, excitement, anticipation, fear, curiosity. I often have to remember to choose gravity. I wrote yesterday about having a choice to defy it, whenever I choose rooted stillness over emotion, I am being earth. It's a choice I only really developed a knack for recently. I thought the strength of emotions were too great an opponent. I felt myself subject to my reactions, slave to intuition and instinct. Now, I understand what it means to choose. Terri made a remark about pain and suffering; pain we experience and cannot help, but suffering is a choice. Interestingly, at the same time, Sir Ken Robinson was across the street saying the same thing. In the 11th grade I learned that repetition means something is important in a story. So perhaps in my story, it's worth really remembering that I can choose suffering, or I can make another choice. Today I made another choice.

I think I've also come to the conclusion that love does not have to be proven. It is not subject solely to words or even to actions, it, too, is a feeling and it simply is. In previous relationships I found myself sacrificing parts of me for the good of "us" thinking I was insufficient in some way and required modification. I realized I was doing the same thing again. Trying to prove myself by enduring things that no one should have to endure. Being treated poorly by someone who allegedly cares for me, I had to ask myself what are you gaining right now? Is this what God meant when you were told you would not break from loving? I am not sure that it is. Actually, I know that it is not. As this repeats in my own story I have to take from it that while love can be intoxicating, that drunkedness is a choice. There is the other side of love that brings clarity and a chilling sobriety. It is like the highest of highs because we feel alive and connected and limitless, not slow, disoriented and heavy. I was choosing the shadow forgetting the value in the light.

What I've learned, and what I'm learning (over and over again) is that there is no right or wrong. Family and friends can give you advice and try to point you in the directions they think are best, but ultimately life is a lesson you have to learn for yourself. Coming to care for, listen to be in awe of, guided by, and grateful for yourself and your own divinity within is a journey we all take. And in my experience, the closer I get to myself the more quiet it is. The opinions of others fades to a whisper, a hush over the crowd. I'm there at the River bank surrounded by green, draped in white with the sunshine hitting my belly. Eyes closed, I can hear the birds the stream, the movement in the water and the breath of God stir the trees. That silence is the voice I've been trying to listen for.

I realize that my life does not look like I thought it would. I don't look like I thought I would. And I'm making peace with both. There is a tendency to get so caught up in....numbers and letters. Weight and titles. And while not completely disregarding them, their importance in my life has shifted. I care about them, but I am so much more than them. That is a freeing place to be in. Letting go of pictures, the examples in my mind and replacing them with what is. Leaving room for what could be. Being at peace with both.

I knew two days ago when I didn't want to be alone, that it meant it was time to let go. It wasn't the physical aspect of being alone, I didn't want to be with my thoughts with the quiet that speaks. My thoughts and that silence which would say, "This was not God's will for you, let it go." I tried to justify it and even in preparing to do so, I saw the fragility of the argument. The fragility of me. Vulnerability is sharing your story with those who have earned the right to hear it. That openness without connection is simply over share. I was losing myself. I was losing myself in nan effort to prove I could stay when really it is time to go. Where will You go if you stay here?

Similarly, those things and people I chose to invest energy into, I have changed that significantly. I can no longer be in relationship with people with whom I cannot be fed from. It is reciprocal, we pour into one another the energy of ourselves. Some people do not pour which leaves you empty, and some people pour negativity, which leaves you like a poisoned tree. I was tired of losing limbs. Jill Bolte Taylor was right, you must take responsibility for the energy you bring. And I have a right to refuse it. So I have been. Choices and quiet. I could not continue to allow my choice of wanting these people in my life to disrupt my peace and ultimately my access to my Self. The cost was too great. I had, have, to take responsibility for the energy I took into my sacred spaces.

It feels like growing up. And at the same time it feels like being who I've always been, coming back somehow. I feel a bit heavier. Perhaps not a feather in the wind, perhaps now I am something else. Something more substantial that can rest when it needs to on solid ground and bloom where I'm planted should I choose. I can recognize that this isn't my first lifetime and throughout the last I left myself clues and insights. When I see them, I smile despite myself. I am in a process of unlearning and as a result, gaining access to the entirety of me. Right here, by the riverbank, surrounded by green, draped in white with the sunshine at my belly with the breath of God stirring in the trees.