The Unbearable Ecstasy of Being

My whole being buzzes in delight as my feet rest on a rock, under deliciously cool ocean water after a brutally hot day. A slight breeze drifts off the harbor as I lean back against Shaman Guy. Explosions of fireworks sate my eyes, ears, and chest as the colors shimmy off the water and the booms reverberate off my chest.

I’m celebrating Inner Independence Day. The day when I became free and conscious of it. Free from the tyranny of my mind.

The contrast between the past few weeks and this moment is stunning. I’ve been spelunking on a soul level, watching layer after layer peel off. Anxiety, discomfort, fear, disappointment, tears have been my daily companions.

I’ve witnessed how my overachiever, good girl, and over-helper have been ruling my life.

Seen how wounds from my dad created the perfect conditions to foster the way I navigate the world – even gave birth to my gifts.

After a lifetime of judgment, I finally accepted that my emotions and my sensitivity are a great assets– both to myself and to everyone around me.

I’ve scraped away major cracks in the foundation of my life and my relationships.

Broken handfuls of images, conceptions, ideas about who I am and who I “should” be.

Questioned my sanity. Discovered that I haven’t been clear on what I want. Gotten good and pissed, disappointment, angry, sad.

Then pop.

After clearing all the cobwebs in my mind and gunk in my body, I dropped down.

I’ve lived for many years from my heart and from my beautiful overactive mind, with my mind running the show. After exhausting myself of the drama of transformation, I lowered my center of gravity to my womb. I crawled out of my intellect – which has been constantly pushing, striving, concocting a plan of what to do – and caught up to the present.

It sounds so trite – to live in the now, in the present, to listen to your inner guidance. And how many times have I spouted off living from intuition? Accepting what you feel? Creating a vision? Going within?

And yet it can be lovely sounding knowledge or the truth in the marrow of your bones. We all know from our spiritual training and inner work the principles. But to actually embody them in the midst of a crisis or when ever fiber of your being is writhing in physical or emotional pain is a whole different enchilada.

For the past few weeks, my inner voice has been yelling STOP. Stop devouring info on how to create a successful business. Stop posting on Facebook and sending out newsletters and email. Stop trying to figure out how to make massive shifts in my life, even though there is a significant need to do so. Stop doing so much. Just stop.

Instead? Do the opposite of whatever I’d normally do – take a nap under a tree, an early morning walk, rollerblade, stare into space. Trust my inner voice over my head, over what the outside world professes as the solution.

It’s scary to stop. I’ve felt very, very scared – to let go of all my old strategies, to trust who I am as a life force moving through this human body, as a healer, as a manifestor. Scary to have to ask for help, to need mirrors to help me see what was happening and how to squirm my way through it. To not be the one who could give, give, give to others – whether it’s money, or a shoulder, or wisdom, and instead be the one who receives.

And I am not alone.

So many of us are going through this shift. Connecting not just our head and heart, but also our wombs. Enabling a channel from our crown of our head to our feet on the ground to run through us. Relaxing into a more feminine, more powerful way of being.

Dropping out of my head is not what I thought. Quite frankly in some ways, it’s boring. There’s no buzz, no high voltage current running through all the mental gymnastics I’m used to. My intellect loved to come up with sexy ideas and seductive images that were little more than ways to entertain myself and take me out of being present.

Dropping into my heart and womb is slower, fuzzier, more patient and kind. Yes, there’s a pleasant quiet thrumming in my chest and a gentle swirling below my belly. But it’s not the somersaults and cartwheels and hey! look at me frenzy that I’ve been used to feeding on when my intellect ruled my existence.

Slowing down to lay this foundational way of being before I start creating a new dream is wise. Vital. And sometimes nerve-wracking.

My mind throws tantrums – figure it out NOW! Get to work. Work harder. My being says, no. Stop, slow down.

Much to my surprise, as I’ve listened to my womb-heart-way-of-being, my world hasn’t collapsed. My family has still been feed, errands completed, children shuttled to and from camp. Life goes on.

More surprisingly, in the midst of all my internal deconstruction, three healer-friends have suggested collaborating with me on workshops, a trip to Mexico is being fanned, an invitation to appear on a TV show accepted. Major healings have happened with family, friends and clients. None of which came about from any effort or planning-pushing on my part.

But all of that is sprinkles. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m enjoying being alive. I’ve hung out with my friends in our front yard without stressing about what’s next or needs to be done. Spent time with my family without being lost in my head scheming about a new program or what’s on the to do list. I’ve peered into a robin’s nest and seen three baby birds with their mouths wide open. Swam in cool rivers and dunked myself in the ocean. Woken up, crawled out of bed and into a hammock and drifted off into the most expansive state. Watched episode after episode of a TV show. Spent a day with a girlfriend and no kids (haven’t done that in years.) Rediscovered music I love. Exhaled. Savored. Soften. Loved and been loved.

I’ve been trying so hard to be successful, to fill a hole of not valuing who I am as a luminous being, that I’ve missed out on so much beauty and agony of being alive. The Unbearable Ecstasy of Being. I’ve been working so hard to make life happen on my timeline, that I’ve been blind to the perfection of timing that happens when you drop into the moment. If many of my fantasies and dreams came true today but I wasn’t present to them, it would be a hollow victory. Knowing that they will come true over the course of the next twenty years and most likely not in the way I think, while I’m living authentically and with awareness, in the enjoyment of the moment, is all I’ve ever wanted. And finally here, now.

Happy inner independence. May all of us be free to being fully alive, in the moment, in the flow of an abundant universe. Aho.