Finding Your Way Home
Me and Zoey, finding our way home...
The roadmap home cuts through the distractions and that which needs to be left behind
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Have you ever noticed how this crazy upside-down world can feel like navigating a colossal distraction? Look over here. Don’t feel that. Rush on by this. Life happens and we lose pieces of ourselves. Our soul whispers to us, waving her arms frantically…and yet we carry on moving further away — forgetting who we are, what we desire, what feels good to us, what is our truth.
It’s the way the world is programmed. Don’t feel badly if you’ve been sucked into it and you are nodding your head as you read this. The way you know is that you sense a gnawing discomfort within. The spirit doesn’t like to be discarded.
Where do you feel a bit squirmy, like you just can’t make peace with it as much as you try? Is it a relationship, with your own health or self-care, in business…and what about those dreams you once dreamed? How did they slip away? What have you been rushing right on by, ignoring the cues, pretending you don’t see, feel and sense the disconnection?
Maybe you even acknowledged it to yourself from time to time, promising that you would find your way home again. Are you ready to shine a light on it — to see it for what it is and what it has to tell you? Maybe yes. Maybe no. I wasn’t, but that didn’t stop it.
You are only a different choice away. It’s like finding a missing puzzle piece that fits perfectly and slipping it back into place.
Profound yet uncomplicated, it only requires connecting to how you truly feel. This feels right / this feels off. This feels like me / this doesn’t resonate at all. This feeds me / this depletes me.
…and then taking action to support it.
When was the last time you checked in with yourself about anything — from the simplest interaction to the most complex — from where you buy your groceries, to how you approach your healthcare, to who you spend your time with?
Life will present myriad opportunities for this to unfold continuously throughout each day and interaction. Are you paying attention? Most recently it came in the form of a health detour for me. Without digressing too much, let me just say that it put me to the task of walking my walk and talking my Best Self talk…not just writing about it.
Cliché as it may sound, I know that there are no coincidences. And when out of the blue my knee blew up like a grapefruit (as I wrote about in my last blog) and seriously derailed me, I knew there was something else at play that I had to dig for.
Aaaah, life excavation. We are the archeologists of this human experience and precious life.
Do you want to sit by and scratch the surface and push some dirt around or do you want to roll up those sleeves and get your hands in the mud so you can get to the good stuff? Well, honestly…the uncertain, more timid side of me says…option A. The Universe had other plans.
Back to the knee. I went all in. I asked it what it had come to tell me, why it had derailed me, what I needed to see. It didn’t unfold instantly, but I knew that if I asked, I would receive. When an event happens, we tend to react and start moving quickly. It’s as if we feel like we must race to the finish line, but that’s not where the solutions lie. In fact for me, it was time to slow down.
Initially I felt vulnerable and scared about receiving a diagnosis. Lyme. OMG..not Lyme. How is that possible? The world started spinning around me. I started scrambling and looking outside of myself to doctors and others for answers…answers that only I could ultimately answer. And this is where the journey began…my journey home.
What seems so simple has become so foreign to most of us — that we are our own authority, we ultimately know what is best for us, we get to make the final decisions and we will be the ones living with the consequences of those choices.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we need to be the doctors, lawyers, professionals, builders, etc. of our lives — we simply need to know how to check in and say, yes, this decision or path or protocol feels right to me or conversely, this doesn’t resonate at all. It’s that simple.
When I first moved to Woodstock over 16 years ago, long before my Best Self Magazine journey, long before making any conscious mind, body, spirit connection, long before gleaning the wisdom of many teachers, practitioners and life itself — I maneuvered day to day, event to event in reaction mode.
I remember when my friend Lysa, a RN and Integrative Nutritionist introduced me to the notion of mindful eating and kale salad…light bulbs started popping. She told me to notice how I felt when I ate, what I ate, how I ate it and when I shopped for food…and where. It was so simple, yet such sage wisdom that has never left me. In a way, it invigorated my senses and gave them voice. Today, when I look down at a basket full of organic produce in a market that feels good to be in — my whole being smiles inside and out because I am feeding myself.
When deciding how I was going to proceed with treating my Lyme, I witnessed myself and how I felt in the office of doctors and practitioners — this feels like dead energy, or this feels like I can get healthy here.
There isn’t an aspect of my life that hasn’t been transformed along this Best Self journey. Sure, some messages have felt more aligned with me than others, but we are all a work in progress — healing and becoming. It’s so easy to lose ourselves in this world of busyness and productivity, not to mention world upheaval, but that is not how we reveal, feel and heal. That’s how we bury parts of ourselves and run from the truth of who we are.
I allowed myself to experience what the Lyme had come to deliver — and trust me, I didn’t like most of it at first. It knocked me off my feet in pretty much every aspect of my life, but I agreed to take its hand and be guided. I could no longer run in circles, dodging what was before me — but I also couldn’t exercise, walk my dog, and I lost my drive to continuously push, push, push. I felt quiet, detached, unsocial and uncreative. I lost my mojo and sat in what felt like a low-grade depression holding pattern. I didn’t feel like me. But I talked to my knee and thanked it for working so hard to heal. I thanked my body for being so strong…and I waited.
Its revelations didn’t happen in my time. I had to be patient with both the physical and emotional healing. I committed to observing. Finding your way home is steeped in trust — trusting yourself and your ability to navigate whatever comes up.
I spent a solid month reconnecting to parts of myself and mainly asking myself does this feel good…does this path, this person, this advice, this food, this business choice, this friend, this option…feel good? If not…it was time to pivot.
I had a reading with a spiritual teacher and the message that came up for me was that I was being stopped in my tracks so that I could leave behind that which had been poisoning me. That hit me like a ton of bricks and resonated deeply.
I feel like I’m entering a new life chapter of how I maneuver my way through life and business and it is clear that there are some things I no longer need (or want) to drag along. I bet you can relate. We can get so accustomed to lugging emotional baggage everywhere that we forget it is our prerogative to put it down and walk away.
There’s no time better than the present to lighten the load — to get clear — to believe — to remember who you are and where you want to go.
Have you wandered too far from home? Are you feeling a little homesick? Start by reconnecting with yourself right now in this very moment. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and see what pops up for you.
Dorothy said it best, There’s no place like home! And you get to decorate the house — you get to decide what stays, what goes, what is no longer needed and should be cleared out of the closets — and most of all, add in that which makes your soul sing.
Is there something that’s been dragging you down? Dump that which has been poisoning you and step into a reinvigorated YOU. Yes, that may mean saying No, or letting go or setting a boundary or walking away — but it’s a lot harder to shove that somewhere in your life it no longer fits. That’s exhausting and self-destructive.
After calling myself to task…I can tell you, it’s possible.
For now, I’m being more mindful, taking slower steps…and going off the grid for a week of camping in northern Maine. What’s your reset going to be…and what are you being called to witness?
I would love to hear how the Universe has been knocking at your door — is there a place where you’ve been denying parts of yourself? Please share in the comments below.