Listening is the hardest part.
Which voice is authentic and which is forced?
My body, she doesn't want to expend a lot of energy right now - especially as dusk falls on these long, winter nights. She calls for warmth, domesticity and sleep. I heed her, because she knows -
she always knows.
I stopped in to visit my senior friends on Black Friday -
it's my way of resisting the 'what is' of the dominant paradigm.
However, my compassion was nowhere to be found as I struggled to present myself to the moments at hand. The meditation CD, that BG has lovingly pushed play on every Friday since I stopped showing up, dripped with words spoken by that same damn talking head - only, this time, she sounded robotic and removed. "Commit to your highest self," her feigned British accent droned on.
I asked E. how his Thanksgiving was. "Nah," he responded, with a shake of his head. "When you're allergic to bird, Thanksgiving is not a celebration." "ALLERGIC TO BIRD? It's just not possible," my inner wise woman cried. A. was late to join us. I motioned for him to move into a leather seat within our circle. He eyed me, up and down, with his Latin stare. "You gained weight," he said in his lilting accent, after our meditation was complete. "Yes," I responded, without shame or guilt. "Why?" he wanted to know. "I just have," I replied, as he accepted my answer without question.
(Do I emotionally eat? Can I layer myself with weight as a means of protection? Was I over-consuming fat burritos
because I have a depressed sense of self? Am I dancing less?
YES! To all of it. "Am I depressed now?" I asked myself this morning, as I sat looking at my own
shadow behaviors, as well as some of my addictions and over-consumptions. Perhaps, there remains pieces of me that I continue to hide, repressed emotions that I avoid and a gnawing emptiness that I still try to feed through external stimulants. And? So bee it...)
My curves are simply back. The only difference between now and my 20s, however, is that I am doing my best to allow my body to expand and contract - without fear that it means anything. Can I cultivate compassion for myself in knowing that I am not this container and that it is merely an expression, responding in every given moment to external, as well as internal, forces? Can I just let myself bee wherever I am? (YES!)
So, G comes over and shares her story of near Adrenal meltdown in the Philippines, how her kidneys are taxed and she, too, is undernourished (by lacking water). Her reflection is just too potent to ignore so, after she leaves, I write down and color in my current mantras,
"My presence is a gift." AND,
"I AM NOURISHED BY UNCONDITIONAL LOVE."
I am releasing my unhealthy addictions to having my deepest core wounds continually reopened. Those veins are now closed - a new story has begun.
So, C. texts me and invites me to attend a theatrical performance with he and his mother, who is in town visiting him for the long, holiday weekend. Again, I can't dictate where and how the honoring comes ~ I can only receive what the Universe sends. Prior to the show, B. arrives and we pick up where last we left off - kind off. Only this time I am gentler and I am acknowledging him for his specific gifts. One truth is that I'm calling in the Divine Masculine for PROTECTION, as there's been some strange "stalking" energy of late. (Yes, I am inquiring as to where this energy resides in me.) Plus, when I asked B. for help right after my birthday last month, he showed up hugely by bearing Owl Medicine and ceremony.
Thus, I'm learning to honor that my relationships can mirror life's natural cycles - there's ongoing and continual death, as well as rebirth and, sometimes, it's even with the same person over a short period of time. So, I reciprocate B's generosity right back to him - giving him medicine this time, as well as offering him a down-home way of being and enjoying. In the process, I sink further into embodying REGENERATIVE EXCHANGE. Then, he says, "Where intention goes, energy flows. Where energy flows, LIFE GROWS."
