If last week, I felt like a stone that has been tossed by the current, finally settling into place on the riverbed. This week, I feel ever more grounded and centered. I think I feel like my peace lily, so content at my desk.
I feel generally that certain equations in my life are adding up in a novel patterns recently to create success. I love it. All the ingredients are coming together for a delicious meal.
For example, take my long-held desire to delve into a certain book. Say, I’ve had this book on my bookshelf for four years. I’ve even picked it up and read the introduction, but I wasn’t finding the time to dedicate 12 weeks to this course. Enter the essential ingredient: community. A friend of mine in the Global Shapers Community invited me to attend his Artist’s Way weekly sessions and I said yes, thank you, I have been meaning to do this and this friendly support is exactly what I needed.
Exploring the Artist’s Way
Over the coming 12 weeks, I will be delving into The Artist’s Way with a community of peers. I will write about my experience with the course and my daily morning pages (which I have done before, and love returning to this practice) here on Substack. Please follow along and leave a note in the comments. Do you have any experience with The Artist’s Way? What does your creative practice look like? Do you enjoy reading about creative insights in this form?
I love being a woman with a gorgeous desk.
I say this because this week has been a turning point in some transformations and changes taking place in my mind, body, and spirit. I welcome these changes as I think they were much needed.
Somewhere in the last 3 - 4 weeks of traveling and being off of my schedule, I forgot to start my mornings with filling my own cup by meditation. When I got home, my prayer revealed to me something that I have learned time and time again: I was asking why I was feeling down and spirit told me, “Like you’ve learned before, you have been neglecting your spiritual life and you need to turn back towards it.” So, I did. I returned to my practices of prayer and meditation.
I reset my morning routine, and it is even better for me than it was previously. I added an extra hour of time for myself.
I have been checking in with my heart more and listening to what she wants.
I have decided to put more effort into embodying the ideal self that I want to be. For example, I let go of the comfort of wearing my athletic wear all day, and have embraced my femininity, which told me she wants to be dressed nice every day. My femininity wants to show up that way. This is also how I want to be as a woman and as a wife someday. I want to be someone who not only takes good care of herself, but also dresses well. Dressing well is a joy, a nice luxury, a pleasure. So, I did it this morning. After a bike ride, I took off the sports clothes and I put on an orange sundress that my mom gave me. Now, I find joy in feeling like a grecian woman cooking in the kitchen.
I have felt successful and joyful with these slight changes. These shifts in patterns are crucial to growth, like a vine adjusting to the trellis that it grows upon. One must seek what one needs, like the flowers seek sunlight to bloom.
Resistance is the shadow of the dream.
Saturday night, as I was falling asleep after an evening of self-reflection, I was reminded of a fairly clear memory from when I was younger. I think I was 10 years old because I was writing about my first childhood crush. So, I would sit in a tide pool on our shore. This particular memory is of a time when the current was stronger and was flowing north. I bathed in the tide pool with the water up to my chest and grabbed handfuls of sand. With the sand, I wrote the things I desired or was focused on wanting into the water. I loved watching the form the word would take; its swirly letters expanding and thinning out as it was swept north by the ocean. The words dissipated only a few inches- moments- blinks after I wrote it, but it still felt lasting. This was not fleeting because this was a form of prayer for me.
I remember thinking of my future-self having these things that I wanted and enjoying the liminal space of longing. Although what I can recall now is mostly being focused on my child-romantics (boy crush), I hope and think that I also dreamed and prayed for other things. Even if I wasn't truly ‘prepared’ for them as I learned I wasn't truly ‘prepared’ or interested in a relationship at that young age. I didn't even want to kiss this boy crush, but I did very strongly desire romantic love and an eventual committed relationship. With time, this came true for me.
I laughed a bit at myself last night recalling this memory to think that my love's name resembles that name I wrote so much. At least, the first two letters are the same. I think that I've always had a soft spot in my heart for “H” and “J” names. “J” because of the family name, James, and “H” perhaps just because I find it beautiful. I consider myself beyond lucky because my love has both these letters in his name.
This is one example of resistance as the shadow of the dream. As a child and young girl, I focused on the resistance in my life towards romantic love. “I’m too young. My parents don’t approve. The church doesn’t approve. I don’t know...” Fear and uncertainty. Whereas, as an adult, I got to let go off those fears because romantic relationships are normal.
What held me back as child no longer holds me back. I sought love intentionally and consciously. I knew that the resistance no longer had a hold on me because I released that childhood shame and discomfort. I knew that if I pursued it, the dream would guide me. When I met my fiancé, it was the right time for both of us because our dream together loomed larger than the resistance.
Things are adding up differently now, because in more areas of my life, I’m releasing my limiting beliefs and choosing to embrace my hope, my dream. I wish the same for you, if you wish it.
Merci for reading.
sincerely,