7 MINUTE READ
I’m feeling good that my a.m. routine is finally starting to take shape as I want it to. When I lived in California, I would get up every day at 5 a.m., journal, meditate, do yoga, and eat. I would often get out to the ocean for sunrise. Yes, getting up at 5 a.m. did require me to go to bed around 8 p.m., but I didn’t mind. I enjoyed getting up before the sun, even in the winter months. However, since moving to the East Coast, I have found it hard to get up before 8 a.m. It’s difficult to tease out why, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has more to do with geography and the Earth’s magnetic field. I don’t have a more formulated theory around that, so I can’t describe it more, but I’m sure it will take more of a defined shape over time.
As I shared a few journal posts ago, celebrating tiny steps as the best way to achieve my goals, the same thing happened with my a.m. practice. It is an interesting mind shift from “I have to.” to “I get to.” I’ve been journaling for a long time ( way before I started posting these entries online). But, like a lot of my practice, that went out the window when I was in proper survival mode. That’s the thing about the concept in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Suppose you need to meet your basic needs, shelter, food, and security. Then you don’t have time or resources for spiritual practices or self-development. I’m happy that even then, I practiced what I preach, and that is to not “should” on myself. I accepted where I was, unaware of the concept behind Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and hoped I would return to my daily practice someday.
And then, once I got to a certain point in my healing, I could take baby steps towards my spiritual practice, whether in the a.m. or at another time. I indeed wanted to return to what I had for many years. I had this a.m. practice this way before I moved to California. And to some extent, it bothered me that I lost it; however, I refused to beat myself up over it as I said, accepted where I was, and celebrated each baby step toward my goal.
It hasn’t been that long since I reached the space where I could have enough capacity to do my spiritual practice in the a.m. And then, very shortly after that, I started posting these journals online. At first, I was intimidated by this feeling of self-imposed pressure. But, then once the routine came in, and it was easy to do what I needed to post them on the Internet (there was a lot of technology to set up to make it happen), and I got used to that process, I was “scared-cited” (excited and scared at the same time).
There’s a scene in the show my so-called life where Angela is breaking up with Jordan. Jordan wants to sleep with Angela, and she’s not ready. Before this, Jordan was teaching Angela to drive, and she made a few dents. She has this metaphor for the pressure of having sex and learning to drive. She says about the break-up, “It’s sort of like when you let me drive your car. And I loved it. It made me feel powerful and also really terrified. Like I wasn’t ready for that much freedom.” And that’s a good way to describe how I felt for a few days after posting these entries online was easy.
During my healing over the past year-and-a-half, I’ve recognized stages akin to the stages of childhood development in the areas that I was healing and growing in. Depending on what skill or level of the craft I was learning, the stages of development could last days, weeks, or months. So that feeling of being scare-cited, like Angela shares in my so-called life, “powerful and also really terrified” and not “ready for that much freedom” in posting these journal entries lasted for maybe 2 or 3 days. That’s it. And in fact, the third day of feeling that pressure but posting anyway is when I wrote The Story of the Child of the Light, which I’m still very proud of. So I’m no longer terrified, and I am flying free end this new-found freedom. I could not have that freedom until this moment due to being unempowered – involved in controlling toxic relationships. Relationships that are no longer here and no longer holding me back.
I also want to celebrate how much work I have put into my business projects in the past couple of months. Months of diligent work have gone into the back end of these projects. Jobs that most people don’t even know exists. Some tech people might understand it, but I doubt they would even get excited about a conversation. Even so, I could talk excitedly about it, but I don’t want to bore anyone with the details. There is a part of my work that has taken me more than two years to get back to. It’s s phase that allows me and my students to thrive. Having done all this back-end work, I am ready to engage in that phase of business again and I’m proud to share that I’m not scare-cited; I’m just excited. I am more than ready, and it is perfect timing.
This business phase that I’m re-entering involves working with other business owners. And for the past year-and-a-half in business and personally, I’ve had lots of difficulty working with, for lack of a better word, “flaky” people. Don’t get me wrong; I am all about radical self-care. I’m not the type who says, “You said you would be there. You had better follow through with it; otherwise, you’re flaky.” I understand life gets in the way, end sometimes someone might say yes in the moment and change their mind later. That’s completely okay. However, I would much rather someone have enough self-awareness and not overbook themselves, so they show up to their commitments more often than they change their plans. But in the recent past, I wasn’t encountering much of that.
I don’t base my future expectations on the past because I am a creator of my future, and I’m continually improving, so, therefore, my future is as well. However, I was not looking forward to the possibility of reencountering a lot of flaky people. Even though I was still working on strengthening my base in my business (that back and work I just mentioned) and wasn’t yet ready to move forward with partnerships, the Universe threw me a wonderful alley-oop. Alley-oops in the Universe are unexpected shortcuts or gems of wisdom that make things more accessible than I had expected. It’s not a free pass, but it’s just a leg up that seemingly comes out of nowhere. So the alley-oop I got from the Universe was my latest podcast guest. Not only was it delightful to speak with her, but booking with her was everything I wanted booking with a partner to be. she was impeccable with her words. She was quick to respond, asked for clarity, and gave clarity when asked. She shared vulnerably on the podcast, and even when we had major technical glitches, we worked so well together to solve the problem, neither one of us acting annoyed or short with one other. She is the kind of partner I want to work with and the type of person I want in my life. This experience is what eliminated the scared from the scare-cited and left me only excited for the next phase of my business. Words can’t even describe how awesome this feels!
In a world full of shoulds, (“most of this should have been done before”), capitalism and patriarchy, and the like, to know deep in my bones that I’m in the right place at the right time, doing things in perfect timing and never behind, knowing I am always in the right place, and trusting the timing of life is one of the best gifts I could ever give to myself. Not only that, but being excited about the next stages and not rushing to get there is a huge accomplishment for me. One that makes me extraordinarily proud of myself!
