I just got off the phone with a friend who is going through an Enormous Life Event. It’s one of those rites of passage most of us will experience—the passing of a parent—with all its attendant emotions, requirements, and mind-splattering world alterations. In short, it’s an effing lot.
The first time I heard the word Ahimsa—the yogic principle that translates to absence of injury or non-violence—my body was torqued into a position of considerable pain.
I stood on one leg, the other bent with foot placed on my supporting inner thigh. Arms aloft, standing ankle in a chronic wobble, whole body alternately swaying and clenching to hold the position. Sweat bled from my hairline. I hung on each second, begging it to end.
The world of woo has changed pretty radically in the past 10-20 years. Slowly, surely the occult has become less other, and today we have influencers and celebrities freely endorsing their preferred mediums and shamans. CEOs now take vision quests and share these experiences with their leadership teams. Certain astrologers and their kin have even become celebrities themselves. Practices that were once strictly supernatural have become… well, kinda super regular.
A little over four years ago I went through the biggest transformation of my life. It happened fast, yet was a long time in the making. Difficult and complex. And as simple as an exhale once I allowed it to happen.
There’s a big movement happening, and it seems to me it is coming from the earth up. I can feel it under my feet on my daily walks, which I now commit to in taking care of myself. It’s been a long time since I regularly walked for my health. I’ve got a little more time for it now with work going remote, a little more flexibility. But that isn’t the real reason.
These are early days, still. This fact, if nothing else, seems clear.
We are “social distancing” and this is wise. We are trying to shop generously by leaving something on the shelves for our neighbor. Netflix hasn’t crashed (yet), which would undoubtedly send the quarantined over the edge.
We are witnessing the changing trajectory of our world in real time.
Last week a friend asked me to attend a sobriety meeting with her. As it turned out, she had to bring a friend or family member to this one as part of the program’s exit process. We don’t talk often enough, and this friend of mine rarely asks for help, so I said yes right away.
I have an absurd confession. Ready for it? Okay, here goes:
I do not consider myself a perfectionist because I have never created anything perfect.
See, I told you it was absurd. My lifelong battle with perfectionism and disappointment and hiding and isolation summed up in one blurt.
I am reading a memoir right now with that all-too-familiar blurb on the front: “Fearless” the blurber cries. I didn’t notice this until after I had taken the book home, begun it, and learned a little bit about what was inside. And I can tell you that if the book was truly fearless, I would have zero interest in it.
Today I want to talk about those people who seem to do whatever they want. You probably have one or two of them kicking around your life. And I’m not referring to trust fund kids, retirees with a variety of fulfilling hobbies, or babies. (Babies obviously always do what they want—in their pants or in the grocery store, restaurant, etc.)