Hello, Soulglow :)
It’s not new news that I’ve been letting go of a LOT lately. The first module in Elizabeth DiAlto’s Wild Soul Movement program is around release, surrender, and letting go. I’ve been doing the program for years now, and as I began this most recent round, I had ALREADY been releasing for a couple months. As I continue to work my way through the rest of the modules, I just keep on letting go!
All the while, strangely cognizant that I was entering a period of deep release, and then aware at points along the way that this period was lasting, that it was still somehow in quite full effect. It started as a simple clear knowing, a silent message that one day made itself heard. The message held steady and then grew with that same simple clear surety.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve had a similar understanding start to show itself – this time around the messages on my walls. And no, this isn’t another euphemism for intuitive insight lol. I mean the literal messages on my walls! I’ve been papering my walls for as long as I can remember, though the content has, um, matured along the way.
the wall to wall teeny bopper beefcake of my youth lol
I’ve talked before about the period of time after my divorce, after I grieved the loss of my marriage and was ready to get back to the business of life and living… except for one small problem. I was so unmotivated, uninspired, and just plain uncertain of what I wanted out of life anymore. I went through what I’ve called a “following the breadcrumbs” phase (detailed in “pivot point 3” here.) As I found and followed my breadcrumbs, I collected all the wise words and inspiring quotes that particularly resonated with me and slowly papered my walls with them. Ads from magazines, collages and vision boards I made, and index cards – so many index cards on which I scrawled quotes from books and blogs and later, mantras I created myself. Anything that captured something I felt or something I wanted to feel.
My office, from 2015 (but not that far off from where it was earlier today)
As that feeling grew stronger, I FELT stronger, more solid, more grounded in this world. Like staking a plant so it can bear the weight of its own flowers, I was both rooted and supported by the physical surrounding I created for myself. And from that solid steady place I made such great green growth!
A couple of weeks ago though, I got that subtle simple sense that “it was time.” I started to realize as I looked around that I’d grown beyond what I’d created. Over the last couple months I had been slowly removing pieces that no longer spoke to me. I felt less compelled to add new things. Without realizing it, I was in the process of warming up to the idea of letting go of my cocoon, my creation, my world within the world. I feel grateful that it was only a couple weeks to a couple months of figuring this out and then choosing to stay here, a relatively short period of time in which I chose the comfort of this space I know over the unknown nextness of what was vying to replace it.
So today was the day and I took it all down. I rearranged the furniture, dusted the corners, and examined each item I took down to see if it still had a home on my walls. I could give you a number, a percentage of items I ditched versus those I kept. But it would be made up and not really the point. Suffice it to say that I so easily got rid of a LOT. It was beautiful to realize that I had internalized lesson after lesson. That so many things I wanted so much to believe down deep, I now totally DO believe down deep!
Because that’s why I posted all those things. To see them and read them regularly so that I could internalize and own them, make them a part of what I know and who I am at my very core. Or rather, to provide a safe space for those parts of myself that were already there to come out of hiding, to speak up more boldly, to step into daylight with me.
Here are a couple of gems that didn’t make it back onto my wall, but were integral to my path.
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Be the girl you were too lazy to be yesterday. That one was from way back, one of the first things I put up when I was first trying to pull myself out of the depths of melancholy. Now, I didn’t think I was lazy, but I didn’t have a better word for what I was feeling, and the energy of the words and the image spoke to me way too much to worry about whatever negativity might have been living in that label of lazy. Plus, wine glass, great clothes, hot shoes, gorgeous hair, glowing skin. And doesn’t that facial expression speak volumes? It all made me feel very un-lazy, and helped me get very un-stuck.
Set your pace. To succeed at any challenge in life, you’ve got to tune out the noise around you – the footsteps of others (ahead and behind), distracting “advice,” doubters who tell you it can’t be done. Instead, focus on your inner voice. Setting your own goal, charting your course, and trusting your instincts take courage, but they are the surest route to crossing your personal finish line like a winner. This was from a feature Self mag used to run on the back page called a moment for yourself. I had several of them on my wall. I’ve always had a strong inner voice, but over the past 6 years I’ve realized that I had been accessing merely a fraction of it. That evolution has been one of the most rewarding elements of my life.
You can complete a project by dropping it. That little sentence was so freaking revolutionary to me when I read it. I shared here (in pivot point 3) how dropping all the extra responsibilities in my life was crucial to getting through my divorce. I knew I had to do it, but there was still some lingering guilt and latent feeling like I “should” be able to do it all. Because even when we reject shoulds, they still find a way in a side door sometimes. These words from Arianna Huffington freed me of all that and helped me really own it. Which also helped me to take on fewer things that didn’t light me up going forward. Priceless.
Just because you HAVE it to give doesn’t mean you have to give it. I first heard of Dr. Deb Kern from Elizabeth DiAlto; I misheard her name and so mis-wrote it on my little card, but trust that the message was received clearly! My ex and I used to say something similar about being parents. People would always tell us that we’d be great parents, but we had zero interest there. We would ever-so-modestly serious-joke that we would be great at a lot of things but that didn’t mean we had to do them all, and then proceed to list other more random things that we’d be great at but were also opting out of lol. Over the last few years I started to make that connection to my energetics as well, that I don’t have to be run down to the ground in order to say no to something. That’s really allowed me to up my self-care game and create days that feel much better and more mine than ever before.
You can watch the video podcast here. I have it queued up to the spot where Dr. Deb talks about this. It’s SO powerful to see and hear it directly from her. Afterwards I totally recommend starting the video from the beginning. It’s so good.
Well friend, that’ll do it for now. If you’re still with me, you rock. I so appreciate you, and I hope you’ve found something to squirrel away here that will serve you.
I’d love to hear from you. Click the email icon at the top of the page, or come say hey on Facebook or Instagram!
xxoo, cc
P.S. While I was working on this post, the following two songs came on and I couldn’t shake the urge to share them. So here you go :)
Snatam Kaur: Ek Ong Kaar