Joy. Ease. I had major breakthroughs with them this week. There were still parts of me holding onto fear that I’m not doing my best if I am living my joy and living with ease.

The truth is: BECAUSE I’m living my joy and living with ease, I embody my purpose. I know because I FEEL IT. I am exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I need to do. There is no question.

channel a poem in 2 minutes

i said

is it possible

could it be any good

is there any point doing it

is there any point brewing it

without sitting down and stewing in it

AH! I caught you! part me that shows up no matter what

first guest to the party

mr why bother

the impossible imposter

i could give myself all the time

and i’m greeted by the same guy

i will ever be enough

so why not, open a portal

in the time it takes to take a shit

take a little word shit

sit on the typing toilet and let it ride

you can push or just let it slide 

let it go

let it flow

after all, you’ll never know

who might read it and think

ha! i’m glad this little turd exists

my day is a little browner for it

no need to edit, no need to stare

just wave goodbye

as it takes flight

and feel the way it feels

to just be light

I’ve been reflecting on how I dampen my own creative spark - how I inflict the same wounds that were inflicted on me when I expressed myself growing up. Whether through criticism, perfectionism, shame, or invalidation, I’m blocking my life force and hurting my spirit. It adds up. It sits in my heart and strangles my joy. Even when I’m telling others how important it is to support their creativity, and KNOWING IT, later, I still turn around and disrespect my own. WHAT THE FUCK?! This poem is an exploration of that heartbreak, and more importantly, a vow to meet myself differently.

Tender seed 

bursting forth.

My heart 

asking timidly

for permission to fly.

So many times

I’ve taken a hammer

and smashed you to pieces

before someone else could.

Bravely, you healed,

and waited,

beating quietly 

behind the door.

Taking orders

to swallow and ignore 

impulses

pulsing through you.

I can feel the bruised places

where you hid

under my skin

while I shouted,

No. 

Not here, 

not now, 

not like that.

You don’t belong.

But that’s my shame, not yours.

Acting on ancient orders

willed down through DNA.

Be small.

Shut up.

Obey.

I don’t want that anymore.

I want your raging river.

I want you spilling out over the banks,

slamming against rocks,

splashing and playing

with every creature that calls you home.

I love you deep.

I love you shallow.

I love you still, sorrowful, quiet.

I love you strong, willful, thundering.

Whatever

is the truth.

Thank you

for staying alive.

Now is your time.

I will be your biggest fan,

instead of head of the committee

of reasons why not.

I will put you on my shoulders 

instead of standing on your grave.

I will use my legs and hands

to bring us closer.

I will use my tongue and skin

to taste warmth.

I serve your army of love. 

A soldier of delight, 

marching toward wholeness,

jumping with joy,

dancing like a dolphin in your veins,

smiling at you, belly up,

from the inside.

You’re the leader now,

not a pet I let out

once a day to take a shit.

Take your place as Lion,

King of the Wild.

Fiery.

Unchained.

Loud.

My dad is 84.

He was born in 1939.

He told me on the phone today,

“AI

is the next big thing!”

You should get in on the ground floor.

Think of all the people you could reach, 

people in need,

lacking self-esteem.

They all have phones.

I am clinging to my iPhone 8 

and my 2017 MacBook Air

like life rafts.

Said goodbye to social media.

I don’t want to be linked in.

I’m tired of trying to keep up,

and fighting to stay current.

No.

So I just let go.

I’m not here to mass text

or robo call

or email blast 

or write on a wall.

Another empty voice

in a sea of information.

Chasing the newest thing

I have to have.

Waiting in line

to get ahead,

to beat the crowd, 

to be the best.

Losing a race 

I don’t remember why I’m running.

I want space

away from the noise.

That’s where my magic is.

I don’t need to help everyone

and be everything

to be something.

I’m here to go deep.

Heartbeat to heartbeat.

One 

soul 

at a time.

Fuck this.

I’m drowning.

Give me your hand.

I need to touch you.

Feel you, feel me.

I need to look into your eyes.

See you, see me.

That’s how I know

I’m real.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I wake up in the morning. Sometimes, I’m energized and excited for the day. Other times, there’s no amount of snoozing that can satisfy me. As a socially anxious kid going to school, or when I had jobs I couldn’t stand, I’d wake up with enormous dread and anxiety. Some mornings, I still feel the echoes of those emotions. My body remembers waking up into a life I hated. Now, each day, I am practicing waking up gently and giving my body space to acclimate, ease the transition, and imprint how I want to live. Here’s a poem about that. It’s called “Breakfast.”

What do we feed ourselves

as we warm up to waking?

Consciousness flips on, 

percolating like a coffee maker.

Bringing thoughts, 

sensations,

emotions,

fears.

All surfacing

over the embers of fading dreams.

Observe the texture of this tender moment.

Sometimes, my skin has melted into the sheets.

Deliciousness seeps 

into every pore.

Other times, 

my mind is a slip ’n slide. 

What seeks to be freed 

comes barreling down that bright yellow stripe between death and life

like a kid on the first day of summer.

A vivid rebirth, 

each time I open my eyes.

Just allow

each 

cellular 

stretch. 

Go slow, 

we’re remembering how to be alive. 

We’re learning

and learning

how to gently awaken.

How to move

with respect

for the pilgrimage we’ve taken.

Rock me awake 

like a lullaby, backwards.

Treat each crumbling eye crust like gold 

from the mines of deep rest.

Let the body tell the story of where it’s been

and where it’s going.

Ask it softly,

What do you want to eat?

What do you want to weave?

Show me the mark you want to leave.  

Paint me a memory

that feels

like ease.

I often find myself diving deep, into heavy emotion and big transformation. I love it. It’s what I do. But sometimes…it’s a bit much. Sometimes, the medicine I need more is just to play. To imagine. To be silly. So this week, I challenged myself to break out of my usual rhythm and do something different.

I am learning to lighten up.

To fill my cup

with flakes of frosted crystals

that leave sugar dust in lavender milk.

Little sips of silk,

the color moon.

I am learning to dance magic.

Sparkling fingertips,

swirling tornado hips,

enlightening a storm in the air.

I’m writing my own solar system.

A planetary play,

starring…Neptune.

A deep blue mystery,

one leap ahead

of everything I know.

A rainbow bridge that draws itself

one color at a time.

The rest of the poem,

an un-know-em.

Every line

holding its breath

waiting to be whispered into the sky.

A silver slingshot,

launches bright, burning giggles,

that light up the dark as they wiggle.

A pirate ship of treasure dreams

sets sail in open seas.

Where all the rules and threaded spools

unravel at every seam.

Tearing apart the insides of my heart,

so every love vessel is seen.

Let every wave break,

every hardening unmake,

so the river can rage different ways.

Let nature disrobe,

take off all your tight clothes,

so the awe of raw nakedness

speaks.

As our jaws hit the floor,

there’s an unopened door

to a place that our minds never reach.

The mystery zone,

the orangutan’s throne,

where hanging upside down

reigns supreme.

Where the breeze is exposed

to the tips of your toes.

And you don’t have to know what I mean.

Go ahead, flip the script,

to see wild tpircs 

who swing free on a flying trapeze.

Re-jigger your eyes

with a whole new disguise

so there’s no former you to be seen.

And then you’ll be free,

that’s the un-recipe,

to un-think,

to un-know,

to un-be.

Last Monday, I arrived in Mexico. Since then, so much has opened up. I’ve learned new words, met new people, walked down new roads…you know, things you do when you’re in a new place.  But the most profound opening has happened inside me. Thursday, some mild stomach issues suddenly became unbearable cramps, fever and an inability to do anything but lie down and occasionally hobble to the bathroom, for hours. It was brutal. It was gross. It was humbling. And there was nothing I could do. 

Except, I’m a badass witch that can move energy. So as I laid in bed, moaning through waves of pain, I breathed and shook and held different parts of my body, helping it pass whatever was moving through me. 

For the last year, since a mysterious download from the Universe, I’ve been learning from my own body and others’ to figure out how this crazy shit works. Each time, I unlock deeper discoveries and validate wilder hypotheses from my intuition. Being so sick and forced to surrender so hard to “something else,” I got another peek behind the curtain. Consider this poem a recipe.

There’s a splinter in my chest. 

I can feel it. It feels like heartache. 

Old,

and deep. 

I’ve been pressing into it. 

Hard. 

Squeezing the skin and muscles. 

Trying to force it out.

But that doesn’t seem to be the way. 

Okay.

How do you extract a splinter? 

You soak it. You soften the surrounding flesh.

With time, and the right conditions, 

it works itself out.

And so I gently bathe it, 

in warm, soapy love.

I sit patiently beside it and say,

“Take your time. I’m here.”

It aches? I ache with it. 

I place my hand on my back. 

I can feel the muscles start to relax. 

A tear bubbles to the surface.

Do we all carry hardened hearts? 

Bony spines, laid brick by brick

to protect our tenderest parts.

But hardening doesn’t keep us safe 

from the hardness of the world. 

The wound inside remains, 

quivering within its cage. 

I’m reminded every time someone gets close,

or I’m in that certain pose, and my neck hurts. 

But my neck hurts all the time. 

A cold, dull pain I drag from place to place. 

It sits, like a stone. 

Heavy shield

I’m too tired to hold.

Every time I crash, I learn a new way to break. 

A new corridor breathes.

Life flows back

into parts of me I didn’t know were there.

The slower I move, 

the more my bones start to speak.

The cartilage unkinks.

My heart 

wakes up from the inside.

Pumping fresh blood,

a primal hum

shakes itself free.

It doesn’t want to be 

anyone I’ve ever been, 

only who it always was.

Born to swim, 

and dance, and run.

Go where there is life and take it in. 

Wherever you walk, create a path.

Smell flowers, light fires and laugh.

Sit in small, dark rooms with the walls painted blue

and cry.

Most of all, give it time. 

You can’t unfold all at once. 

You’re not a house of cards. 

Your being was built over years and years. 

And the threads of its coding are the oldest fiber. 

You can’t rush open space.

Gold only knows how to whisper.

So listen close,

and wait.

?

What if 

I let go of the thought

that perfect is out there,

somewhere else.

?

What if 

I have everything I need,

but never stopped

to check.

?

What if

I bathed in the warmth

of what’s here,

right now.

Here, my inner richness sits,

while I search the whole world

for the treasure I’ve painstakingly carried

every, single, step.

The gold inside

waits patiently to be discovered

the moment you open the door.

An ocean

waves, and waves, and waves,

knowing someday, you’ll come home.

Your hands reach out

to hold you.

Your heart bursts forth

to feel you.

Your eyes long to close

so you can see.

Okay, so that’s the poem I wrote for this week. But here’s the very first thing I wrote:

“Oh god, what am I thinking, I need to get into flow, how will I do that, just keep writing. Listen to something that will calm me. I feel really good about being here. I have some anxiety.”

Sometimes, there’s more to clear out before inspiration strikes. But today, this was enough. Every time I sit down to write, I’m afraid that nothing “good” will surface. But, 9 times out of 10, patience yields something I’m proud to share. If I can stick with it through my mind doubting and struggling to adjust its rhythm, I can find the flow. It helps me to think of it this way, to remind myself that my job is not to try to write. My job is to stay open long enough for my thoughts to get out of the way so something more interesting can come through. Of course, I put my brain to work finding the right words, and shaping what comes out. But if I let it get too involved, it strangles the magic. Here’s to the mindfuck of trying to not try, just the right amount. 

This week, I’m channeling Mother Earth. I wrote this poem craving groundedness, and ended up uncovering a wild, living spirit. Poetry uses the masculine tool of words to carve out the mystery of feminine space. From the security of structure, we can venture into the unknown and summon the muse.

I have a floor.

There are boards underneath me.

Wood. Cut from the tree.

Grass in crisp, fresh sheets.

Naked dirt streaks 

through my hair.

Rolling ‘round wild.

Spinning my spine’s spiral cage.

I stretch toward the sky

Legs unfolding in waves.

Ankles steer the flow

Guiding my leafy green toes

I press into the Earth 

with all my rebel weight.

And She 

presses back.

This week, I dove DEEP into my mind. I wrestled and wriggled and fought with myself. I straddled extremes and struggled to land in the middle. A symptom of this condition, I wrote two things. One - a gentler take. A description of the place I want to be, instead of the mind cavern I’ve been wandering through. The other - the cavern itself. The harsher environment and what it feels like to be there. I flip-flopped back and forth, a little of this, a little of that, unsure which was IT. That paralyzing uncertainty is all too familiar, so I’m choosing the third way. Here are both, co-existing.

Something Softer

I want something softer.

Something softer

than sticking my hand in the sharps bin of my mind.

Something easier

than wading through thoughts lined with booby traps and black holes.

I want to bathe in warm sand. 

Curves cradled, floating

in an ocean of shifting dunes.

Wearing each tiny grain like a stand-alone diamond.

Touching twinkling stars in a sky of smooth skin.

Lying peacefully under the blanket of the setting sun 

that falls and rises each day like slow, even breath.

Trusting the sky to stay open and the ground to stay firm,

I can rest.

The magic of nature’s wiser hand

carries me beyond my wildest dreams

and through my willful-est worries. 

There’s something about being humbled

that makes me feel safe. 

A cosmic smirk woven into every thread.

A pattern I don’t understand,

but must have a place in.

The Part of Me That Wants to Hurt

There’s a part of me that wants to hurt, that insists on it. It’s not as loud as it used to be. It’s not as much of me as it used to be. Usually, it’s not even there. But when it’s there, it reminds me of when it was all of me. When I was drowning in the fog. When I would lay down and pray to be taken, somewhere quiet.

Relief. I craved reprieve from an inside world that didn’t relent. It cast its shadow on the outside world, too. Every interaction threatened to confirm my worst suspicions. The walls closed in around my smallest parts.

Escape. I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was. But I couldn’t leave my body, so I shut the windows and boarded the doors. Might as well be swallowed into darkness. 

I visit this boarded up house from time to time. My nails remember scratching at the walls. My voice knows pleading to no one to let me out. If I stay for too long, I can feel the shrinking. My options narrow to two: explode into chaos or delete my existence. There is nothing between. There is no right amount of space to take up. It’s all, or none. There is no some. Some is too fragile. Some is too scary. Some doesn’t compute. And yet, life is lived in the some. Life hurts some. My body gets tired some. My mind slows down some. People move closer, and further away. And on it goes. No final rest. No perfect solution. The part of me that wants to hurt wants self-destruction, if it can’t have self-transcendence. Just being my self seems impossible.

Tell me, 

what is alive in this forest?

Where is the ripest fruit?

I cut down every tree growing green,

searching, swiping, staying 

on the surface.

I take a bite, 

and spit it out.

This flesh is bitter.

I know there’s something else that’s better.

I go on testing and discarding.

There’s no resting, 

cuz I’m starving.

Arms outstretched, 

eyes glazed over,

belly never full.

I’ve leveled the entire forest, 

and not found one worthy fruit.

What am I missing?

With sorrow and pity,

I fall to the floor.

Cheek to the dirt,

an earthworm squirms beside me.

Crawling, gnawing, writhing.

It eats and eats, 

longing for wholeness. 

Aching for more than it is.

Its hunger

feeds the soil.

Its struggle

completes the circle.

Every morning, I wake up and my brain begins its daily assault on that precious moment between sleep and wakefulness. My body is still deliciously tangled in soft, warm sheets, and my mind starts pestering me. “Hey, when are you going to text that person back? Do you know what you’re going to say? What about…” Working, drafting, listing, tasking. Peace is already a ghost. Should I just check my phone and start the slog?

Some days I make that choice. Jump into the deep end and start swimming. “I’ll feel better once it’s all done.” (But is it ever done?)

On days when I dive right in, it’s like running with my shoes untied. I haven’t taken the time to get grounded in what’s really important and move at a pace that FEELS good. “EVERYTHING IS AN EMERGENCY” urgency twists my stomach into knots and tells me the only way to unknot it is to start running. But, what if there’s another way? A slower way. Where I feel accomplished, and ENJOY myself???

I don’t remember the texts and emails that felt so urgent and important yesterday, or last week, or last year. The list never ends. So why not pave a new path now? Living kind of feels like the only thing that’s urgent anyway…

Sorry, I can’t talk right now.

I need to let this classical guitar talk to my soul.

I need to light this incense and watch the smoke dance toward heaven.

Your time will come.

But now? 

I’m holding a burning match, 

and I have to smell what fire does to wood.

I’ll write that email,

but first, I’m writing the world I want to live in.

I’m chasing the dream that tries to escape when I open my eyes. 

I’m cooking up a recipe for freedom.

A spell that spells:  R-E-L-E-A-S-E  the chains of urgency. 

Let awe transcend to-do lists.

Let me fill me with wonder,

so there’s plenty for both of us.

The mind that prioritizes body prioritizes spirit. 

The choice to check boxes misses the chance to choose wings.

This week, I’m sharing a poem I wrote on a night walk through a marina. Water often inspires me. And I am compelled to find two-dimensional words to capture my three-dimensional experience. In other posts and in life, I’ve been exploring SPACE. Nothingness, the absence of something. In this case, darkness, silence, and death, as the necessary opposite of LIFE. Today, I am offering Muunie the Artist, and Muunie the Coach takes a backseat.

A black sheet

draws itself closer, 

to tuck me in.

Sipping the pavement,

She sparkles, 

almost silent.

Thick, grey sky -

a near perfect mirror.

A white bird,

SQUAWK!

slices the darkness.

A silver body ebbs and flows in the water.

Its time to choose

has passed.

I am a recovering overachiever. I no longer want to value myself based on how much I’ve done. I want to feel good as often as I can, not because I’m “productive” enough. I want to enjoy my life! I want others to be able to enjoy their lives! And I want to live in a world of people enjoying themselves. Not one where we’re all grinding ourselves down to fit some status quo.

I see people (myself, my clients, my friends, people out in the world) who are exhausted and unfulfilled. Trying our hardest 24/7 and rarely landing. Rarely permitting ourselves to just be. I think this happens for a lot of reasons. We live in a world where being “busy” is not only the default, but is praised. So there’s external pressure. But also, we keep ourselves busy because, we LITERALLY don’t know what else to do. We are INCAPABLE of relaxing. If we even dare take time away, when we get there, we sit down to “relax,” twiddle our thumbs for five seconds, and then start making plans or pick up our phones. We’re crawling in our skin and reach for ANYTHING to alleviate the discomfort of just inhabiting the present moment, as it is.

Even typing that, my stomach turns. There’s an automatic aversion to SPACE, NOTHINGNESS, SILENCE.

And yet, we CRAVE it. We’re exhausted. We live in a perpetual state of stress. Even the activity we most prefer to “unwind,” (watching TV), activates our body’s stress response. But the idea of just closing our eyes and breathing, not taking in any stimuli to give our brains and bodies a chance to decompress, terrifies us. We say we want rest, we desperately need it, and yet, we make a full-time job of avoiding it. WHAT IS THAT?!

Here’s a glimpse of it in action. What I’m noticing in myself lately, is a tendency to pile on. I tell myself I’m going to make breakfast. I find myself making breakfast while washing a couple dishes and listening to a podcast, and oh, I wanted to sweep the rabbit cage, so I’ll do that while the eggs are cooking. And when I walk over to their cage, I notice a plant that needs to be watered, so I put the broom down and go get the watering can. I need to fill it. And oh, my filtered water pitcher is empty, so I put the watering can down and start filling the pitcher. Now I’m back in the kitchen so I peek at the eggs I remember I’m cooking. 

WOW. Chaos. Exhausting chaos. Jumping from one thing to another without finishing anything. Letting my mind ramble and bounce. Picking one thing up, then setting it down to pick up another. Why? Why not just do a task? Start it, stay on it, and complete it.

Peering under the hood, I think my inner overachiever is calling the shots. Everywhere I turn, something needs my attention. Facing so many somethings, I want to get the most done as efficiently and quickly and simultaneously as possible. The more I cram into each moment, the more time I will have later. Right?

But wait, remember my tangent about how we never actually arrive at this imagined future where we relax and focus on what we want? THAT is the problem with the overachiever program. 

Letting our overachievers run amok presupposes that at some point, we will earn the ability to underachieve. All that hard work and multitasking will finally pay off. Any one else feel like they’re still waiting for that big pay day? There’s a problem with relying on this system to manage our work ethic and life satisfaction. The input and the output aren’t balanced. We’re constantly outputting and running on empty.

So I challenge you to create more balance. See if you can find moments to rest, whether it’s a whole weekend away or two minutes in the middle of the day. Instead of treating them like another space to fill, try letting it be empty space. Try balancing doing with not doing, instead of balancing doing one thing with doing another. Maybe you’ll land in being an achiever. Because for me, being an overachiever feels more like being a never-enjoyer. I’d like that to change.

I wonder what today will be.

~ a total blank slate ~

anticipatory, unknowing

Who am I today?

Who am I here?

I hope, I feel

I am excited.

~ an adventure ~

I wonder what I will decide.

being as present as possible so I can absorb as much as possible

I can’t take it all in.

~ bubbling ~

Something has opened.

~ explore ~

What’s possible in this body?

I had a major creative block when it came time to write this week. I post on Wednesdays. It is Friday. Wednesday evening, at the end of a long day, I sat down to churn something out. It did not churn. I felt completely disconnected from my creativity. I forced myself to sit at the computer, typing up choppy strands that didn’t add up, frustration and angst mounting. While I ground my gears fruitlessly, I was boiling beets I had just bought for a much needed healthy meal. Before I knew it, something smelled weird. I kept grinding. Eventually, the smell worsened and I forced myself up. All the water had evaporated and the pot sat on the stove heating four scorched beets in a cloud of black foam.

I wasn’t in the headspace. I wasn’t in the bodyspace. I had waited until the last minute and then the last minute came and I couldn’t. I was really sad. I was really angry. I had nothing left in the tank. Not only had I not made enough space to write something, I hadn’t made enough space for myself in general. I felt myself running on empty as I dragged myself through my commitments and hoped for the best. But it came back to bite me, as it always does. And my apartment smelled like burnt beets for 48 hours to remind me.

Thankfully, I had yesterday off. I got a massage. It changed my life. I felt completely reborn and committed to preserving the S P A C I O U S N E S S I had just recovered. Today, a new moon, I effortlessly found myself creating a blackout poem from old morning pages. This is how I want it to feel. But in order for it to feel effortless, the work I have to put in is holding space. Noticing when I need it, and making it happen. Saying a clear, firm and loving “No.” when the grinder wants to keep grinding. “I know you don’t want to, but it’s time to stop. Your beets are burning.”

I don’t want to be any of these things,

the shards of someone else’s dreams. 

The rings on these fingers,

the bottles on the shelf, 

whether they used to be mine or they never were,

now they all look like chains.

Clothes that never quite fit

covering skin I no longer recognize.

All masking fear.

But fear can’t hide from love with patience.

And I’ve got time.

Have you heard of “mirror work?” You look at yourself in the mirror. I spent some time doing this yesterday, and it’s a doozy. I hate that word. Then why would I use it? It communicates the ridiculous challenge of practicing something that seems so self-indulgent, but is actually profound. Looking into your own eyes forces you to confront the humanity of the being in front of you. Yes, it will surface all your ego shit. But that’s just layers of identity built up around you to protect the precious life you’re carrying in your body. Communing with it forces you to find the path to love for that self. We often find less barriers to love for others - assuming they lack some fundamental flaw we think we have to hide, or that they are somehow more worthy. But that’s all just a story someone told us once that we’ve kept around. To keep us safe from rejection. Looking into your own eyes, you hold the keys to opening deeper parts of yourself and showing them they need not fear rejection. I am here. And I love you.

I started writing about some anxiety I was feeling - I call it “Ambient Anxiety.” Sometimes, it feels like it’s about something specific on the horizon, in my case, a call I have in an hour or so, then I have to get to the airport for a flight later. But there’s also an accumulation of smaller things, lingering from the past. I lost a crystal someone gave me last night. I tried to go to a different cafe for breakfast, but found out they don’t serve food on Mondays, blah blah blah. It doesn’t amount to much, but it’s hanging out there. (Update, as I’m editing this a couple days later, none of these things still carry an emotional charge.)

And yet, that little amount of “aliveness” never really goes away. I can usually find it when I look for it. And if I look for reasons, they’re there, too. Sometimes identifying reasons brings it on stronger. Thinking about that call sends a teeny spurt of “oh god!” energy through my stomach and chest.

I can try to think my way out of the feelings. I can try to convince myself there’s no real reason to be anxious. “It’s going to go how it’s going to go. I’m prepared. I’ve done these before. I trust myself to be in the moment and know what to say.” And yet, the feeling sits there in spite of my reasoning.

I can also remind myself that there’s an energy that comes with just caring about something. I want this call to go well. I am invested in what I’m doing. I care about the person on the other end. I can more easily accept this feeling as a natural byproduct of my attachment to what I’m doing. And I can have compassion for the version of myself that has these attachments, even though there may be a more advanced, more Buddhist version of myself that wouldn’t. But I’m just not there yet.

Here’s what else I know:

1) The Ambient Anxiety does seem to come and go. It’s unclear to me if it’s always there, waiting to surface when something triggers it, or if it’s triggered anew each time by an event.

2) I can close my eyes, focus on it and breathe. This helps me feel more “in control,” so to speak. It feels better in my body when I slow down, let myself sense it and accept it.

3) I am the one deciding that it is a “bad” thing (because it’s uncomfortable) and deciding what it means - that it’s about the call or the airport. That usually feels true to me in the moment, but looking back, those individual events no longer trigger it.

4) It helps to set aside whatever stories and associations I have, and be with the sensation itself.

“Okay, I’m noticing a tightness in my chest. It feels like my breathing is constricted. There is a warm pulsing around my heart. There is a concentrated tension in my forehead. When I bring my focus to it, the pulsing in my chest seems to intensify. My head feels heavy. Numerous thoughts compete for my attention. My stomach feels full, there is a churning energy that rises and sinks. My shoulders feel heavy. There is a wide, achy expanse across the middle of my back.”

5) When I take the time to patiently and non-judgmentally inventory the sensations I’m experiencing, one by one, as they come to my attention, they seem more manageable. I can be aware of them without fearing their impact.

6) There are things I can do to shift how I’m feeling (like writing about it, talking to someone about it, or channeling it into a physical activity).

Here’s what helps me most with Ambient Anxiety: naming it, observing the sensations it produces, and reminding myself it’s a sign that I care and am alive, even when I can identify other stories and explanations.

It can be helpful to list the stories, but it’s more helpful to set them aside and focus on the feeling itself. The stories always change. One day, I link my Ambient Anxiety to a phone call, the next, it’s needing to do the dishes. In a year, you’ll have 365 different stories, most of which will be behind you and won’t trigger the feeling anymore.

Working with your relationship to the feeling is where the magic is. I’m personally not expecting to wake up tomorrow without any attachment to life or feelings or events or people, so it’s unrealistic to think I won’t experience it.  Any time I can be that honest with myself and that connected to reality as it is, I feel more grounded, more self-trusting and just, better. I hope anyone reading this also feels better about their Ambient Anxiety. Bye for now…

I often find myself 

bouncing from track to track,

never letting the train take me.

Hovering over the controls, 

unsure which knob to turn.

The choice I don’t realize I’m making 

is to stay above ground.

To avoid digging in 

and getting my hands dirty.

I want to be covered in mud.

But not here. And not like this.

Someday.

For now, I’ll keep carrying this shovel, 

in search of just the right spot,

wondering what it would feel like

to move Earth.

To give birth

to raw pursuit.

Who would I be on the other side?

What has to die

for Life to find its way through me?

There’s freedom in joining the tide.

You can rest your head

cuz your Soul 

is rooted.

Control is fruitless,

It steals your Juice-ness.

So close your eyes and take a bite. 

We’re here 

to be 

ALIVE.

Even writing this, I found myself caught between possibilities. Trying to imagine which word would land with an imaginary reader. Just up in my own head with ghosts. Truth is, I have NO IDEA. And no amount of grinding my gears will make me know. There are times when careful planning and minding the details are essential. But many more times, I’m driving myself crazy, pouring out energy, wrestling with the 2%, thinking it’s going to make or break the other 98. The pursuit of perfection leaves us burnt out and discouraged. Sometimes, we need a break. Sometimes, we need to let time offer perspective. Sometimes, we need to just decide it’s done and move on. But it’s easy to flail around in the frustration loop. It seems like complete satisfaction is just one forceful brain-rack out of reach. That’s exactly when it’s time to put it down, stand up, and be done. Maybe for now. Maybe for ever. I feel it right now as I type. I’m tired. My brain hurts. But the mystical Perfect Blog Post is just one sentence away! Nah.

I’ve bounced from low lows to high highs

so many times. 

So many trips up and down inside. 

Right now?

I’m dancing on air. 

The lightest I’ve ever been,

Always comes after the darkness.

I emerge,

I remember I can breathe again.

And actually, I’m better at it than I was before.

What felt like drowning, was learning to swim.

Retreating in, to find deeper wisdom, and resilience to weather the feelings. 

When I’m in it, everything hurts so bad I forget who I am.

It feels like I’ll be lost forever.

But,

I never am.

Something clicks and I’m climbing out somehow.

Just yesterday, I was upside down, convinced, 

“I’ll never get unstuck.” 

Then something struck.

A block dislodged, and suddenly

I’m in the eye of the storm 

and I can see the clear, blue sky above me. 

Hope. 

Fragile, but delicious.

A tiny sip of fresh air.

My heart opens and I start over.

Doubts come, and I’m easily knocked down by tall towers of who I think I should be. 

The smallness of feeling thousands of miles from my dreams. 

What is right in front of me never seems like enough. 

But that’s a lie.

Faith is hard to hold onto, in the face of so much fear,

so much conviction that it won’t matter.

That I don’t matter.

That my house of cards will fall

(and it will). 

But never building feels like death. 

So I use every, single, brick. 

A smile from a stranger. A moment of self-honesty. A salad because leaves taste like life.

One small “yes” to trusting myself. 

One small step.

Then another. 

Then another.

So if you look up and see a crack,

build toward the light.

Shame is corrosive,

It burns to the touch.

Agent of anguish, 

turns my insides to dust.

Quietly raging

it poisons the pipes

Feeding on hatred

And starving out life

Each hand built pyramid

Cut down to sand

Nothing left solid

Nowhere to stand

A tool for control

Now an unchecked power

A tortured seed 

Blooms a tortured flower

My fragile spark 

Craves somewhere safe

To light my way

And grow in faith

A different voice

That stands in power

A golden shield

Shame can’t devour

What is it about shame? It tears us down, but it also hides. It’s so intensely uncomfortable that the mere mention of it makes me want to crawl into a cave and never come out. But that’s how it stays alive, stays active. We don’t recognize it or call it out. Most often, we accept its claims that we are not good enough, and keep moving. It knows exactly where our sore spots are, after all, it created them. So we let it tell us exactly how intolerable we are in all these uniquely specific ways and let it steer our behavior. We avoid the things it programmed us to avoid. At some point, someone told us not to do something, yelled at us, hit us, embarrassed us, withdrew from us or left. Whether we know it or not, those reactions get imprinted in us. DON’T DO THIS THING OR ELSE THIS OTHER THING WILL HAPPEN TO US AGAIN. And we spend our lives tiptoeing around these landmines praying they don’t explode in our faces.

Even more problematic than the behaviors shame wants us to avoid, is the way this mechanism embeds itself into our consciousness and erodes our sense of self. Take a moment to consider a time shame spoke to you. How does its voice sound in your head? I’m guessing it wasn’t super polite. It’s usually pretty aggressive. It wants us to avoid whatever it thinks will be so intolerable AT ALL COSTS (even if it means agreeing that WE are intolerable). It may be telling us we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT pee our pants at the dinner table. In that case, we’d probably agree. Okay, shame, I hear you, I also don’t want to do that, so I will ask to go to the bathroom. But sometimes, it tells us we ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT make a total ass of ourselves by singing karaoke because only attention-seeking ego maniacs would get in front of an audience and think their voice deserves to be heard. Okay, shame, first of all, WHOA. You didn’t need to take that tone with me. Clearly you don’t want me to get up and sing in public.

But what do I want? Maybe I’m afraid that I will look dumb or I won’t sound good. Maybe I’ve seen people sing at karaoke and it felt cringey and that’s not how I want to come off. But…do I really want to live in fear of this bully? Do I want to smack down every thing I’m curious about or challenged by like a whack-a-mole? That’s kind of what it feels like to be yelled at like that - whether it seems like someone else’s voice or my own. Shame is not afraid to take the floor out from under us or cut us down so low, we wouldn’t dare sing karaoke, let alone, think we deserve to have a voice. It’s a slippery, slippery slope.

So, how do I stop shaming myself? A few things have to happen. STEP ONE (and this is the easiest, the hardest and the most important step) commit to not shaming yourself. It’s the easiest because it can be done simply and quickly. It’s the hardest because we have to mean it and take it seriously. If we’ve chronically self-shamed, it’s hard to take ourselves seriously. So, don’t take this step lightly. Take a moment. Place your hand on your heart. Take a breath. Tell yourself in these words or your own: Self, I commit to not shaming you. I commit to listening to you and creating an environment where it is safe to say what you want and need.

Great! Now, STEP TWO is enforcement. I’m going to level set with you. You are not going to overnight stop hearing shame’s voice. Although if you do, congratulations. I can’t wait to read your blog post. The key is how you receive it. When you hear it, you will interrupt the pattern of piling on MORE SHAME. As soon as you catch yourself in this cycle (it may take a few tries), place your hand on your heart, take a breath, and remind yourself of the commitment you made. Feel the energy of that commitment - grounded, aligned with your higher self. Remind yourself why you made it. 

STEP THREE: let yourself feel the physical sensations shame brings with it, while staying grounded in your higher self. Remember that intensely uncomfortable feeling we will do anything to avoid? Well, the more we avoid it, the more power it has over us. When we turn away from it, we reinforce the message that the feeling itself is intolerable, will overpower us, or could kill us. As gross as it is, this is simply not true. So, when that feeling bubbles up, keep your mind focused on your commitment to yourself and use it to observe the physical sensations that come with the shameful thought. Maybe there’s a tightness in your chest. Breathe and watch it. Maybe there’s a churning in your stomach. Breathe and watch it. Maybe you feel disgust in your groin. Breathe and watch it. There’s — No — Rush. Notice if the feelings get more or less tolerable. If they are getting less tolerable and you feel yourself being consumed, let yourself drop it for now, take a few breaths to reset, and go do something else that brings you back to Earth. If it feels more tolerable, congratulations! You’ve processed some of your shame and taught your body that it is okay to feel. Now you have more agency to do whatever it is that you actually want to do. You are more free to not act from reaction or avoidance. Good job!