I’ve had some fairly significant revelations lately that have led to adjustments in intention. One of these, specifically, is the idea that if the universe’s path for my growth really is working in the service of my best interests, then I have nothing to fear from rapid shifts other than the temporary vertigo of the adjustment. The universe has earned this trust with me over time: how many times have I braced myself for the pain of releasing attachments only to find that everything that fell away from me was nothing I needed anyway, that no matter how initially difficult the shift I have always ended up happier and better off than before?
I was a little afraid of the way this past Wednesday’s full moon was going to show up for me. I read so many articles posted online about how this moon would highlight our unhealed patterns, would bring up everything that wasn’t working for us, would call for so much surrender and release.
I always find myself clutching my teddy bears, saying, no, please don’t take this away from me.
And it never takes the big dream. It only just refines it, washes the mud off the pearl, gets rid of the obstacles in the way.
So over time I have learned that I have nothing to fear.
And if I have nothing to fear, then I might as well stop bracing myself and surrender. I might as well ask for more speed, since slowness isn’t actually protecting me. If all is working in my favor, then I am willing to sacrifice some temporary bodily comfort for the satisfaction of shortening the timeline, of reaching my goals just a little bit sooner.
This full moon absolutely revealed patterns to me just as it promised. Only they were beautiful and humbling and illuminating in the exact ways that I needed. Some of them were even flattering. Some of them were giggly and delicious, even if they no longer serve. So much about the past now makes sense in a way that it didn’t before. There is no other way to interpret this than as being beneficial to me. There is no way this isn’t good.
I wasn’t planning on being up until 10am last night and then awake again at noon. I had almost forgotten what it was like to surrender to more awakening at that speed, the kind of speed that destroys days or weeks with its demands of your full attention, that lays plans and schedules and errands to waste. But I don’t know why I was surprised, because obviously it was exactly what I had asked for in acknowledging that I had nothing to fear from rapid growth, that it could actually benefit me by bringing my future even closer to me in the present moment.
Last night I played the song that I listened to on repeat as I was getting ready to leave New York and start my life anew. (Last Hope by Paramore, I’ll link it in the comments.) Immediately all the surrounding externals were brought back, the bite of the cold air in winter, the glistening streets I walked down at 4 in the morning after a gogo dancing gig at a high-end bottle service club, the headphones in my ears. I don’t know how I knew in that moment that there was hope for things to get better. I certainly didn’t have any evidence of it at the time. I didn’t know then that I could live the kind of life I’m living now. If I had, I certainly would have chosen it over that. All I had was this tiny glimmer, this quiet quiet voice telling me to go to LA where things seemed happier. “It’s just a spark, but it’s enough to keep me going…”
It actually surprised me, present day me, how dark and contracted and hopeless that all felt. I have been so focused on my forward movement that I haven’t bothered to look down, because to look down would be to risk sacrificing my momentum, a crucial necessity to the journey that I can’t gamble. So I forgot that despair for a moment. I had to.
I cried, a lot, to my own surprise, and I held myself in that, and felt myself being held in that. I felt myself being allowed grief. I had to be so still at times just to allow myself to stay present with it. I loved myself through it. I stayed present with the challenge of accepting myself through it. But I let it happen. I let it be weird. I let weird be ok.
I had stopped journaling sometime around 2015. I had so much trouble keeping up with all the details of the narrative that I let my entries lag until they had accumulated so much energetic guilt that I chose to avoid them instead of moving forward and just writing from the present. I was almost a year behind in telling my story. I am so concerned with laying out all the details in a clear and thorough manner that I can’t even write in my own journal without staying faithful to narrative consistency.
I also know that this doesn’t actually serve me. I know that my most compelling writing comes from dropping in and being present. Years ago someone spilled soy sauce on my journal’s open page and I grieved the stain of its perfect pages so much in that moment even though in hindsight it’s one of my favorite things, that I now remember the spill and the moment it happened so vividly whenever I flip to that spot, that its imperfection is what makes it so memorable and endearing. That the honesty of the present situation is what I’m trying to capture, and not the perfect retelling.
So last night I found that last composition book where I left off, and then I turned to the next page, dated it, and wrote several pages straight from the heart. And I forgave myself for not having written during these last years of transformation. I released myself from having to catch everything up, because I trust myself to remember the parts that are important. Because I know that I have never made a mistake that has not served me. Because I know that it is my truth and not my perfection that is what is most beautiful.
The truth is that when what’s happening to you feels too good to be true, your priorities shift from documenting your feelings to compiling the evidence. I made sure that I could track all the information I received. I saved photos in a folder titled “synchronicities.” Some of them I’ve shared here and some of them I have not. I have had to have the confidence to trust that if things are meant to be then I don’t need to prove the narrative to anyone, that time itself will separate truth from illusion. I have had to take a step in perfect faith. So be it. Proving myself by explaining things only serves me when it helps others to understand themselves in the process. When I can make sense of everything then I’ll share. But it doesn’t make sense to publish about the experiment before the results are in.
The thing is, by journalling again, I know I’m no longer afraid to own what is happening to me, to trust that my feelings and the evidence are congruent. I was so afraid to admit certain things to myself because I didn’t feel worthy of them. I was so afraid to love the soy sauce stains. I was so afraid that my worthiness was in perfection.
I have kept a series of journals since the 7th grade, and ceasing them to cross the bridge into this underworld was one of the biggest sacrifices I made on this journey. Allowing the failure of the perfect narrative in favor of the rapid expansion I could barely explain was a straight-up death, no joke. I went into this blindly. I threw out the structure that had been my compass.
Sure, I shared on Facebook. I kept photos. I made videos. I took notes.
But starting up writing in my old journals again, handwritten, for my eyes only, is a great act of self-forgiveness. Beginning them again organically without my perfectionism is to be an entirely different person than I was when I chose to leave them off. Choosing my present beauty over my narrative perfectionism is enormous evidence of transformation.
And I shouldn’t be surprised that this is happening now, because I did decide that I could handle more vertigo and more speed and more discomfort in my ascension since I knew that I could release them from their correlation to fear.
But magick always surprises you when it happens.
If I’ve gone mad, then I’ve gone mad.
But I really think things are working out more beautifully than I ever could have allowed myself to imagine. And I’m not going to rule out that possibility just because I’m afraid of being wrong.
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