If you haven’t seen Anchorman, shame on you! (And just wait for it…) And if you have, we clearly share the same sophisticated taste, and there’s some foreshadowing for ya. But let’s rewind a little because I have been off the grid for a couple of weeks and I am super pumped to catch up!
I’ve mentioned before that I have some decisions to make about what’s next for me, and my deadline is quickly approaching. Toward the end of June, my parents are coming up to stay in their Washington house—and my home since October—for much of the summer, and while I love them dearly, I’m pretty sure our roommate days are over. I mean, it’s crucial that I have my uninterrupted time and space to read, write, meditate and binge on The Good Wife. (Brian, you are a dead man for getting me hooked on that show!)
Anywho, prior to my aforementioned 10-day retreat sans communication with the outside world, I was spending a whole lot of time and energy really trying to "figure out” my next move. The big decision for me was location—either get my own place up here in nature heaven and continue long distance with the Babes, or head back down to my old Spirit-sucking stomping grounds in southern California. (OK, that was super dramatic, but let’s just say that my last memories of the good ol’ OC were less than life-giving. And I do believe that “wherever you go, there you are,” so clearly this was fear-directed thinking.)
I put “figure out” in quotes because I have done enough soul-searching by now to know that this never works. When it comes to these big decisions, my first instinct is to go straight to my head for internal research, list-making and information gathering: pros and cons, risk versus reward, knowns and unknowns, possibilities and potential disasters, friend polling—heck I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bar graph in there somewhere.
Thankfully, as I was getting nowhere and running out of popcorn, I started to lean a lot more into faith and have more patience in the unknown. And while I do strongly believe in waiting for inner guidance, I left out a very important ingredient, perhaps the ingredient that should quite literally rule my world: my heart. I sadly neglect her sometimes.
“Follow your heart” has become such a cliché that I’m not even sure I ever really understood it until now. I think I always just took it as a blanket statement for listening to my intuition, but I’m starting to realize that for me, it goes so much deeper than that. Or at least I finally have a better recipe for it.
I’ll never be able to put into words my experience at that retreat, but I will share a major takeaway that is responsible for one of my big spiritual “shifts” since I returned. It is this: All I need is within me.
Now, you’re probably thinking that it’s just another cliché—and it is—but I finally felt it rather than just heard it. Before I left for my trip I told myself that I wasn’t going to think about anything the entire time I was there. I was going to give my brain a much-needed rest, and in turn, my Spirit a nice, long break from it. I vowed to consciously stay in the present moment and fully be with each experience. I would invariably keep an open mind and an open heart. And I would commit to the suggested 10-day complete disconnection from the outside. I kept each promise to myself.
And I have never felt so incredibly full…and I have never needed less from anyone or anything. All I need is within me. I now know this to be true with my entire Being.
I was a little worried about coming home, that the high of the group energy would wear off and that my old ways would start creeping back in, but I am realizing that all that is completely up to me. If all we need is within us, then we need to stay there, shop there, love, nurture and protect it like the sacred space it is.
Because I was so internally “clean” when I got home, whenever a crazy—and previously very common—thought popped into my head, it was rather shocking and even quite comical. Ohhh hellllll nawwwww. I hear you. I see you. But b*tch, you be downright cray cray. This chick is CLLLLLOSED for business! I’ve literally started to have these conversations with the thoughts in my head, and for some reason, it helps me to see how absurd they are. It’s not judgment, just a little playfulness and a lot of discernment as to what energy I am going to allow permeate my sacred space. And crazy enough, these b*tches have been stopping by a whole lot less often.
In my last post I shared my recipe for embracing the unknown: listen, trust and wait. But I now have a lot more clarity as to what I should actually be listening to, and it doesn’t involve a bar graph.
So now I’m home. Heart open. Full of all that juicy goodness and feeling awesome. And I still have a decision to make. All I need is within me. All of the sudden my lists, polls and comparative analyses seemed so silly. Irrelevant. Circumstances are just…stuff. So why would I base a decision on stuff…when all I need is within me?! Yet when I take away all the stuff, all that’s left is LOVE. I couldn’t believe how quiet it was. Follow my heart. And then…as if the answer had been there all along, there was no longer a decision to make.
Babes, I’ll see you in A Whale’s Vagina.
Love, Lists & A Whale's Vagina