Nausea

That was what I felt when my Rolfing guy pushed on a spot deep inside my hip during our session Friday afternoon.

I didn’t just feel his pressure in my hip, I felt a sickening feeling deep inside my abdomen. Foreign. Undefined.

A part of myself I had no connection to, no understanding with, no acknowledgement of.

Then on Tuesday morning I woke up with a pain.

I had dreamed about a fictional fight with my ex, where he hadn’t told me he was moving to San Diego (no idea where that hypothetical came from). When I confronted him, he acted as if I was overreacting and started talking on the phone to a woman at work. I ripped the iPhone from his hands, hung up his call, and woke up.

Woke up to queasy pain in my lower left belly.

Later that morning, as I sat in Panera trying to write and enjoy a shortbread cookie, the email came.

The rental house in St. Louis (which is both underwater and renting at below my monthly overhead cost) needs a new heater. The current one (12 years old) has crapped out and is leaking carbon monoxide. Fml.

I quickly packed up my stuff and drove home so I could be in immediate proximity to my own private bathroom.

(Details are tmi. But you get the idea.)

Since I was useless, I sat down in the leather chair in the corner of my bedroom and listened to a mediation on my new iPhone app Meditation Oasis - a ”Guided Meditation for Anger.”

And that’s when I found it.

Deep inside of me, on that lower left side of my abdomen, is a knot.

A blockage.

A dense oval of packed darkness, energy that has been contained, for years, decades, inside a thick leather shell.

I found where the anger lives.

Left free to discharge, anger is just an energy. Just a measuring tool to give you information about your life and how things are affecting you. Just something to let go of and let it continue its way in the universe.

But … I don’t get angry.

It’s not my “go-to” emotion. I just get frustrated or annoyed or another word more socially acceptable. I’ve even felt a bit evolved for avoiding such a bad feeling.

But of course, that’s bullshit.

Of course I feel angry. Of course I get pissed. I just quickly pushed it down into the knot, for long-term storage and avoidance.

I go straight from anger into self-doubt and guilt and shame and other feelings that fit into my story loops.

I force the anger into the compaction inside my belly, avoiding any admittance that I’m capable of anger, that I’m justified in being angry, that I have the right to stand up for myself.

The angry turned into a stagnation. 

It keeps me from being able to fully ground. From being able to fully be present. From being able to fully connect with the infinite.

It blocks me from being all of myself.

But as much as I want to create a space for it to be free, for it to discharge, for me to learn from it and just let the energy free back into the universe, I couldn’t yet.

The blockage is safe.

I’m afraid if I release the constant pressure, if I let it free, it will explode. It will consume me. It will consume the universe.

I’m afraid that if I’m no longer blocked, if I can be all of myself … then I will be too big.

Like she said, I’m not afraid of my darkness, I’m used to that.

I’m afraid of what I could become.

The bigness, the infinite possibility, the grande power … it terrifies me.

Oy.

Yes, I promised to Be Bold EveryDay.

And as much as being bold is about publishing the 55-Things post and creating a Facebook group for INFJs and shooting video in public. As much as being bold is about asking for reviews of my podcast and asking for help and asking for a playdate.

As much as being bold is about speaking my truth, I think the most bold thing I will ever do is this.

To have the boldness, the courage, the strength, to allow myself to be healed.

To allow myself to be great.

To allow myself to be everything.

#thatisall

–

What is your relationship to anger? Do you have feelings or emotions or hurts that you have been storing in your body? Do you have something blocking you from being all of yourself? 

Please share your story, comments, questions, reactions below – I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. EveryDay 2: Is Bigness a Side Effect?

There is a disturbing amount of space and eternity in the old growth redwoods.

Disturbing because, as my BFF said in her blog post today, stillness and silence means that you can’t hide behind your addictions, you can’t hide behind your busy, you can’t hide behind the distractions with which you’ve been self-medicating.

In the silence, you can’t avoid the real.

So to begin my annual personal retreat, to end a year and begin the rest, I traveled to the woods and wandered.

I abandoned the facade I had been propped up behind.

I found myself again, in that ancient space.

Mid day, I stopped along a creek because I knew something was to come.

And there, inside the Northern California coastal fog, I heard what really happened last year.

Last year, I grew up. Realized that life, that this world, is not black and white.

I found humility. Surrendered. Relaxed. Got quiet and still.

I let go of control. Stopped waiting for control.

I started to pray.

I started to forgive.

I became aware of the criticism.

I found empathy and compassion. For them. For myself.

I learned how to trust.

I learned how to ground, center, hold space, wait, open, receive.

I let go.

That even though I felt like I didn’t get as much done as I should have (which is not really true, I later realized I got tons accomplished last year), what I needed to take place in this journey did happen.

I did the most important thing possible. I did what was necessary.

I grew.

But of course the journey did not end there.

The next day I spent in a motel room bed, watching television (the prevalence of reality show programming is fascinating) and suffering from a migraine and the side effects of the medications required to keep it at bay.

But I wasn’t upset.

I didn’t feel like I was wasting time on my retreat. I knew that in that moment, what I needed was for my body to process what had happened.

I needed to just be.

Then I woke up and returned to the woods.

I found a stone bench in the middle of a grove and just sat.

I asked.

What do I need this year?

How do I need to grow?

What do I need more of in my everyday life?

I felt it through me, surrounding me, permeating the branches and the moss and coming up through the decaying logs and needles underfoot.

Peace.

I need to learn how to bring peace into my life. Every day. To exist in a peaceful, serene, centered and grounded state.

To have Peace be my daily life, instead of just my vacation.

I returned to the small town of my temporary residence (which of course has a Starbucks, can’t escape that, lol), sat down in a booth with a grande coffee with 5 raw sugars and my laptop.

I wrote. 

I wrote dozens of journal pages replying to my annual retreat writing prompts, revealing who I was last year, who I am right now, and who I want to be.

I recommitted to what my life is about.

I decided how I am going to grow this year.

And I determined how I’m going to do it.

Yes, I’ll be sharing more about the EveryDay project that I’ve committed to this year, in the weekly video blogs, on the daily LYTD podcast, and in future blog posts.

And next week I’ll share more about the Live Your Truth Guide to Your Annual Retreat, where I’m giving you the exact process I went through last week and how you can create it in your own life (including the behind the scenes details of my journal prompt responses and my 2012 plan).

In the meanwhile, for today … here is the thing.

Before you can know anything, before you can hear a voice from a higher power, before you can listen to your own intuition or find the truth or know what you already know deep in your soul, you need something.

You need space.

Silence.

Time.

Connection to the eternal.

Whether you find that connection in the old growth redwoods or a church service or hot yoga or running a marathon or flying a plane across the sky, you must make your connection.

To remember your truth, you must create space for your truth.

#thatisall

Did you do a personal retreat or annual review? What process did you use?

What are your words, goals, vision, themes, resolutions, commitments for 2012?

Please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. Beginnings Require Ends.

You cannot make them love you.

You cannot make them understand you.
You cannot make them forgive you.
You cannot make them accept you. Respect you. Be faithful to you.

You cannot make them accept themselves. Forgive themselves. Love themselves.

You cannot make them accept each other. Forgive each other. Love each other.

You cannot make them let the forgiveness in.
You cannot make them let your love in.

You cannot fix them.

You cannot save them.

You cannot defend them or protect them from everything.
You cannot keep them from being hurt.

You cannot make them give up that addiction.
You cannot make them accept your help.
You cannot make them accept the brilliance and beauty of who they really are.
You cannot bring them back from the dead.

Those you love are never really gone.

You are not broken.

You are not defective.
You are not alone.

The darkness called addiction, depression, lonely, anxiety – it lies. I promise.

It can get better.

It will get better.

Change is inevitable.

You have hit a turning point of infinite possibility.

There is a reason you are here.

You have a purpose.
You have a point.

You are powerful.

You are important.
You change people’s lives.

You are a good mother. Father. Sister. Brother. Daughter. Son. Wife. Husband. Partner. Lover. Friend.

You change the world, just by your very existence, just by being a full expression of who you really are.

You are loved.
You are understood.
You are accepted.

You are beautiful.
You are enough.

There is nothing wrong with you.

You are perfect, just the way you are.

You are brave.

You are strong enough to handle anything.
You will be given what you need.
You are capable.

You are forgiven.

You are whole.

You know your truth.
You know your purpose.
You know what you must do.

You are the architect of your own life.

You are going the change the world.
You are going to do your great work.

You write your own future. 

There is no impossible.

Today is a new day.

Related posts:

1. Reflections of a Midnight Insomnia.
2. How to Change the World

It is that time of year.

Whether it’s in the blog post I just read about a last week of December journal-a-thon, or my client yesterday afternoon who shared how she is working on her 2012 goals, it’s time to create the next plan, the next set of goals, to begin everything that will come to be in the coming year.

I feel that shift.

The standing on the precipice, that tension that builds on the edge of grand release of creation.

But I have not begun to plan 2012. Yet.

Yes, I have tons of ideas and outlines and goals and dreams and desires – coming up with ideas is never the problem for me.

But … before I can sit down to create the 2012 plan, before I can begin everything that will come next … I need to end.

Before anything new can be brought into existence, a void must be created into which it will be born.

So, to that end, I am finalizing documents, purging stuff, mourning hurts, forgiving wrongs, recognizing resistance, releasing tension, accepting truth.

I am letting them go – the illusion of control, the idea that I can be perfect, the belief that there is a magic pill that can be swallowed, the theory that I can make them love, like, accept, understand, appreciate, respect me.

I am opening up a space inside of me, naked and raw and vunerable – opening my hands unto God and the universe and the energies that flow all around us – taking a deep breath – and surrendering into the quiet expanse.

I have faith that the answers, that the plan, will come.

And in the least likely ways, I imagine.

So the last week of December you will find me roadtripping to somewhere different and quiet, somewhere they serve coffee and eggs for breakfast, where they say hi to strangers on the street, where there are trees and sky and water and the fresh smell of earth.

I’ll be there working on finishing and emptying and space creating. I’ll be reviewing all my ideas, feeling how each of them resonate with my soul and living your truth and bringing acceptance to the world. I’ll be opening myself up to whatever is the next.

We shall see what impossibilities can happen.

I’ll let you know.

–

How are you planning for 2012?

Are you reflecting on this year and clearing stuff out? Are you doing a big end-of-the-year retreat, are you meeting with a coach or are you working through a system? Do you create an annual plan or set of goals or themes for the year, or do you just flow with what comes?

Related posts:

1. What I Found in the Wood.
2. The Cavewoman Inside

False hopes. Misaligned expectations. Wishes uncommunicated.

Assuming that something, someone, somethey was so aligned with you that your thing will automatically happen.

That you will get in, that she will say yes, that he will want you, that they will buy, that the big heavy box under the Christmas tree will contain a Nintendo (instead of two dolls with two bricks weighing it down).

We should still have hopes, dreams, wishes.

Of course. That’s the stuff out of which amazingness is born.

The problem comes when we assume everyone else has the same dream.

We assume instead of asking. Instead of speaking ours out loud.

What’s your dream?

And … why haven’t you told them?

No related posts.