One of my favorite lines from the film adaptation of the book "Eat, Pray, Love" is when the character Richard from Texas tells Liz: "Groceries, I think you have the capacity someday to love the whole world." Isn't that great? I feel like I'm on that path. Lately I've just been having so many experiences where I can feel all the sadness, the baggage, and the crap leaving! As one of my new friends said, "You are processing!!!" For instance, last night I danced (albeit somewhat guarded and under the influence of alcohol), but still.... I danced.... in front of people that I'm not related to. I hadn't done that in years! It felt so good to do something that used to make me so happy, sweating and shaking out all the bad stuff and just getting down with my nerdy self!
About a month ago, I had an experience that was so awesome that when I think about it I still can not believe that it happened; it was a Friday night and my group of friends in the Boulder area and myself decided to celebrate my transitioning offices by having a sleepover. Cosmopolitans were had, among other things... and then we rolled out our yoga mats and plugged in a video. It felt so good; the night air blowing through the screens, and stretching every muscle, and breathing with intent of clearing out my mind and just being still. Afterwards, my friends brought up this nifty toy called an inversion table. I didn't trust it at all. I stared at this contraption and immediately decided that I would not be participating. One friend hopped on and her husband flipped the table gently over with her on it and before I knew it she was hanging upside down by her feet. A minute later she flipped back up and smiled and got off like it was no big deal. Next, another friend hops right on and same thing, she flips, hangs, flips back and moves on. After seeing them I decided that it was safe and that I wasn't going to break the machine, so with a little coaxing I decided to give it a go. Immediately upon being strapped in, I was regretting my decision. I even voiced out loud that I didn't trust people, that I was scared and so to please be careful! All of that melted away the second I was hanging upside down. To feel what it would feel like to not be carrying around all this extra weight, all this extra baggage was overwhelming! It felt so good!!!! Of course I started crying, because that's what I do. It felt like all of the stress of the past 4 years had lifted off of my bones, my mind felt clear, and all I knew was that I never wanted to stop feeling like this. It felt so amazing to remember what it felt like to be carefree, un-jaded, and weightless. It made me realize how exciting it would be to just let go and that if by letting go of all that old stuff, what would that leave room for in my life? What endless possibilities of amazingness could rush in to fill all the spaces that regret, fear, and self doubt have been inhabiting within me???
Another important event happened a couple of weeks ago, I attended church for the first time in roughly a year. I did not realize how much I had been needing to go. I knew I was going to be emotional and when I realized that much of the service was going to be focused on praying, I knew the water works were going to start flowing! Prayer has always made me emotional, sometimes I think it's because I used to wish so badly that I could believe with all of my heart that just by asking or thanking or talking it out with a higher power that things would get better. Sometimes I just get overcome by the enormity of it all; that for thousands of years people have believed in something bigger than them, that wars have been fought over it, and that people of different languages talk to the same power; something that provides so much unity and at the same time so much division. Going to church sometimes serves as a grounding mechanism for me, I find my feet again and plant them in my beliefs, and the person I am, and the one I'm becoming. When I'm there I'm reminded that I am unique and loved, and that I have the capability and the opportunity to treat everyone I come in contact with in that same way.
A few years ago at church, Pastor Robert gave a sermon that stuck with me. It was about how we go through life and as things happen to us we put our guard up, we build our walls. He likened it to running. Some people when they run put their hands up in front of their chest, almost like they are boxing, it's a very defensive stance and really is ineffective; because the best thing a runner can do is run with their arms down, this allows their chest to open up and they in turn can breathe easier. Pastor Robert said that many of us were due for a Renaissance of the Heart, taking something that was once old and making it new again. I remember thinking at the time, that it was me he was talking to, that out of anyone I could think of I needed a proverbial new heart more than anyone. Little did I know, that I was not ready. I needed to sit with that pain for a lot longer. For four years now in the words of Laura Marling I've been, "cleaning all the crap out of my rooms, trying desperately to figure out what it is that makes me blue." And what I've realized is that what makes me blue is that I have sat around for 4 years learning how to let go! I have finally grasped that what I needed all along was ACTION! Enough analyzing!!! Dance, trust again, hang upside down, and love the whole world!
“It feels like a precious wound, like a heartbreak you won’t let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same; settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked around in this place, at the chaos its endured – the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured that maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic; it’s just the world that is and the only real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation… We must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation." -Elizabeth Gilbert
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