Did You Stop Too?
Yesterday I was flipping through some work notebooks. Every new year I start writing down my ideas, visions and goals for what I want to create that year. Some are lofty and unrealistic and some I absolutely crush. It is my place to collaborate with my Spirit and with the Spirit World. It is my place to dream about the future. This year I wrote that I wanted to have two retreats instead of one. I wanted to complete my book and get it published. I wanted to teach more trance classes, demonstrate in new states and put on an empowering conference. Like most, I was absolutely thrilled with the potential of 2020. I flipped ahead in the notebooks to the planning stage. This is the space that I write the practicals of accomplishing everything. You know, “call ____” or “sign rental agreement”. I date things so I know where I am in the process and when I did what.
My notebook stopped in March this year. Everything was still in the creation phase. The reality hit me that had I completely stopped dreaming. I completely stopped moving forward. The inner chaos created by the external world conflict caused me to retreat inside of myself. My relationship to myself and my spirituality ceased. I found myself in a cycle of anxiety, fear and fatigue. I am not unique in this regard. I think there was a great deal of us, just trying to survive a global pandemic, a changing political climate and civil unrest. When summer started I began to feel myself shift. I began to seek. I began to find opportunities to become still. (With three kids in the house and nowhere to go this wasn’t an easy task.)
What this revealed to me was that an alignment was taking place. In this alignment I was changing. I had heard close friends in the community talk about how this year was going to help us see everything clearer, including ourselves. This was my first moment of being able to see that it was taking place. My desire for a less chaotic schedule, relationships falling out of my life, other relationships becoming stronger, inspiration to learn things that I had neglected, journaling, prayer, and being present in each moment started to birth a peace I couldn’t explain. I began to define how I wanted to move forward from here. In fact, I am still in this phase of defining but it feels good to finally understand HOW I have found some truth in a world that is so confusing right now.
I had to define what living in alignment was for me. I had to define what living an inspirational life was for me. I could no longer solely go by what I saw on social media and try to emulate what I thought was “spiritual”. While I have always done things as authentically as possible, emulation feels a lot like taking someone else’s medicine and expecting it to heal you. While there are common things that help us all, getting down to the root of your soul is so unbelievably personal. I will share what it is for me to live aligned life under one condition: YOU DON’T PRESCRIBE A ONE SIZE FITS ALL MENTALITY. Rather, my hope is that you allow it to inspire you to go within, dig a little deeper and find what alignment and living an inspired life means for YOU.
Caring for my physical body
Journaling
Ego Checks
Consumption Checks
Meditation/Breath work
Slowing down
Asking myself if it’s “for me”
Releasing toxic relationships and thought patterns
Using my voice and personal power to advocate for equality, love and unity.
I’ll leave you with this…it’s a post I wrote in 2014. It amazes me how fitting it is for 2020 and it is a reminder that we live life in cycles and each cycle presents a beautiful opportunity for change…
“So often I hear others speak of change as a negative force within their life. This seemingly black hole that encapsulates all they know and all they thought they would ever be. The taker of dreams and identity. What if change was not that? What if change was the catalyst for truth, a mirror that showed you beautifully naked not to the world but to yourself? What if change was a tunnel of light that led you...to you? Today I encourage you to gently float with the tide of change and let it reveal to you, all the beauty in which you already are. All the things you already know, everything left to be discovered, and all the dreams you have yet to dream.”
With Love and Gratitude,
B