do what now?

Poking my toes in the waters of SURRENDER the last couple of days. What is it? What does it feel like? And I found myself bumping up against all the negative connotations of surrender:

give up
give in
being down
and out
failing
losing
succumbing to a loss of control.

So I tried to turn that last one around:

give up control
open
relinquish
cleanse
trust
faith
peace

I find myself ricocheting around in a box between attempting to be open to the process and the possibilities and wanting PROOF NOW. I realized how many times I say to myself "But how will I KNOW?"

So I wrote down these words ...

Be at peace.
Trust the truth inside the mystery.
Allow the answers to appear.

Surrender. Supplication. Trust.

Oh trust. Why are you such a mountain? And what do I do about my fear of heights?!

monday musings

Here it is Monday morning and I'm sitting here at work feeling like I'm just barely surviving lately, and wondering how to move beyond that to a life that feels like thriving. I need to do some more visioning around this, but I was reminded of the page above which gets at the kind of things I want more of in my life.

I want to have more energy, to feel healthier, to be able to move without it being SO HARD.

I want to feel more pro-active and less like I'm just clinging on by my fingers.

I want not to be mired in indecision and fog.

I want my house to be warm and welcoming. A refuge and not just a dusty pile of crap shoved into rooms.

I want a balance of alone time, and fun outings with friends.

I want the patience to allow myself time to create this life too. 

I've started working towards some of this. I try and balance recharge at home time, self-date nights, and social outings. More to do, and I need to manifest more in-person circles in my life, but this is a work in progress.

Started clearing out my house over the last few days. Really really looking at basically everything I own, and if I don't love it, or need it it's going either in the trash, or into the back of my car to be dropped off at Goodwill. 

Eat better. Move more. Drink more water. I'm trying.

Meanwhile, (and maybe it relates in a way), I've been feeling like I've been neglecting my scrapbooking lately so I'm working on a small-scale Week in My Life project this week. Even if I only get a handful of pictures each day, I think it might be good to really document where I'm at right now. And some craft time will be just the incentive to finish re-doing the new craft room!!

Onwards...

seeing the season

the lilac bush in my backyard

Fall is normally my favorite time of year. The crispness of the air. The smell of sun warmed leaves underfoot. The change of seasons. But right now I'm tapped out. I've been fighting off a virus or something for the last 2+ weeks and while I want to revel in autumn joys ... mostly I've just been hibernating. But I'm trying to just breathe, and let myself rest. To honor this month's nesting. To sit quietly in my living room and watch the squirrel couple (one grey, one black) scurry around in the evergreen tree outside gathering branches and making their nest for the winter. 

Transitions are coming. Surrendering is on the horizon. And as such I am trying to honor the quiet. It's just not easy some days where there are so many things to do and so little energy to spare. So like that lilac bush up there, my fall might be a bit more muted than I'd like... but it's still beautiful if you can see the IS instead of the SHOULD BE.

Day 1

October brings with it, every evening, gifts. And already my head hurts from the truth and the #fiercefuckingmagic.

But I'm trying to find my way with my vision book. And maybe some little poemlets. And so after the day one prompt -- "we all need room to show up as ourselves" -- I meandered through my magazines pages and this found me.

(This little pink mum with a yellow streak in its hair clearly took to this prompt too...)

Showing up as yourself...

Who you are

What you do

Where you go--

The more beautiful you can become.

Your story improves with time.

Secrets of self-preservation

Yours to define

Splendour

Like having a secret power

Beauty from within

now revealed

Written in layers of bliss.

My word for October

Nest.

I am starting to think perhaps I will do better with monthly words, rather than one word for the whole year. Something relating to my attention span, or lack thereof I suppose.

So I was sitting there last night at self-date night eating my pizza (sadly no beer thanks to the cold pills) and pondering what word might be calling to me to dedicate October to. And then I remembered that strong pull I'd had earlier in the day to do some major cleaning and re-organizing in my house -- if I can ever get past this stupid cold and get some energy back -- in combination with my continuing exploration of my inner self... and it came to me. October is about nesting. About drawing comfortable things towards me, and letting go of the things that don't support me. 

We'll see how it goes over the next 31 days... 

"Thirty days has September ..."

How often I say that ... and how profound these last 30 days have been. Lots and lots of soulwork this month. A table that I can't really eat at any more as its covered in magazine clippings. An ever growing stack of tattered magazines. (I tried to resist that copy of Simple Living I really did, but there I stood in the check out line for so long that I couldn't help myself! :) Two volumes of vision books that are radically changing my relationship with myself ... which changes everything else.

Between my visioning "homework" and this stupid cold that's been hanging around for two weeks now I haven't had a lot of energy for writing here. But I want to try and change that in October. Things to process, and the call keep coming to me to find words. So we'll see how that goes.

order up!

Tuesday night I came home from work utterly fried. My brain hurt. My eyes and fingers hurt. All of me hurt. It's been super stressful at work lately -- partly its the time of year, and partly its a bunch of projects all converging at once at the worst possible time of the year. And of course, it was the first day back to work after a three day weekend. 

So I was ALL as my friend and former co-worker would say. 

But there was this little voice in my head as I was driving home which said "Hey. You don't have it in you to fix yourself dinner. Why don't you take yourself out for pizza and maybe a beer. Wouldn't that be nice?" 

And sure. That sounded great. But there were a million reasons not to do that. Money, time, having to face eating by myself in public, the fact that I had just been to the grocery store the day before and had a whole fridge full of food...

But I've been learning to listen to that little voice. So despite some anxiety (turns out being exhausted is a good way to dampen the doubt in my head!) I got back in my car to drive a couple minutes away, down the hill, to a local pizza joint. 

In my head, as I'm thinking about solo dining I'm always imagining exquisitely awkward conversations about my solo status, and I'm always sure I'm going to have to justify my existence on the planet to my waitress. But in reality she just took away the second place setting, and took my drink order. 

And hey, I don't even like beer that much, but lemme tell ya, that $2 draft Yuengling was the tastiest thing ever. And by the time I was halfway through the beer, all the way through with my salad, and digging into my first slice of pizza I realized I had this huge grin on my face and I couldn't stop smiling. Some of that might have been the beer! But mostly it was a combo of being proud of myself for being brave and doing this thing. And of course, partly that sitting there in my booth (a little bubble of ME), just BEing and eating yummy food, and having a drink was exactly what I needed in that moment. 

Go me. 

Self-care. Leveled UP!

and bonus: enough leftovers for two more meals of yummy yummy pizza. It's my total favorite pizza ever.