02/19/2021
Before we let February 2021 pass us by, I challenge you to take a hard look at this last year and take some inventory. Look at the highlights and the challenges. Really examine where you felt pushed, loved, devastated, restored, and changed. Use this inventory to guide you in setting 2021 intentions. So much of 2020 was beyond our control, but I feel us moving into a new season where we can apply what we've learned. It's time for coming out-- lighter from what we've left behind, stronger from where we've grown. I'll share some of my own inventory and hope it pushes you to your own reflections!
In this last year I lost a lot of people and places, right on the heels of a divorce when I most needed my people and places. I lost myself in work and hustle mode. I shifted my focus to what I could do and I gave. A lot. I did too much then tried pulling back, lost the regularity of my meditation practice but held on where I could. I floundered and panicked several times but came back. I gave and gave and gave, mostly to my clients. I poured myself out utterly and completely, some days to depletion. I loved and loved as best I knew how, held so many on my back, held space, held it, held tears, held hands, soothed, kicked a lot of butts and pushed people, challenged people and talked them down over and over, reminded people who they are, who we are, who we will be. I refused to let them sink, cried together, celebrated. Dear God, we grieved, shouted, and wailed. Many days I was shocked at how God insisted on showing up despite my exhaustion and despair.
I cried fresh tears over the loss of my dad, many lost relationships, and the faulty childhood narratives I carried most of my adult life, how these narratives darkened my choices. I gave up toxic religion and found a God whose love never sleeps or gets weary with me. I grieved the old story I touted-- that I am too hard to love, and I discovered I had only been asking the wrong people. I put on my big girl un**es and decided it was time to mother myself at new radical levels. I became less hard, smiled more, felt more acutely, called more people "honey" and "baby," practiced more ooey gooey love without shame or fear. I slept less, watched less TV, found expansiveness in allowing others to care for me. I remembered what I like and let myself have lots of it.
I renewed soft and sincere eye contact behind masks and telehealth screens. I learned to sink fully into touch, realized the necessity of it, and how to be present inside it. I learned I am way more bad ass tough reliable than I ever gave myself credit for. I realized I still do some of the same stupid things I did when I was 16 and 26, why, and what I need to do about it now. I made excuses then told myself it's time to stop with excuses. I looked hard at myself and told all the little girls inside me we are good and loved and moving on now, then I did the doggone thing and moved us forward. I stopped trying to appease closed-minded people and decided it's ok to take a hard stand, even if it means you don't like me anymore. I breathed one day at a time and survived you, 2020.
