What are the aspects of ourselves that we do not need to take with us?
I love my acupuncturist, Chris. I go to see him for all kinds of seemingly bizarre reasons, usually not physical ones. I just go when I get the feeling that I need a reset of some kind. An energetic reset; an emotional realignment. He always reads me accurately and I leave his office feeling alive and reinvigorated and balanced.
I made an appointment to see him in mid-December just because it seemed to be time. By the time the day arrived, I realized what I wanted to address. I was feeling overwhelmed; like the undertow was dragging me beneath the waves and the riptide was pulling me out to sea. You know that feeling? Like water pressing up against you on all sides. Breathing is shallow and disconnected. Sounds are all sort of muffled. Toes scrambling to touch the sand.
We are awaiting the reawakening of the light.
After reading my pulses, Chris calmly said, “Your pulses have given up.”
Whoa, I thought. That resonated deeply with me, the way I had been moving through life. Nothing was really wrong but I was just going through the motions, feeling disconnected from myself and my life.
He went on. “There are several layers of this kind of pulse rhythm. The first layer has the quality and emotion of ‘I don’t care.’ The deeper level is depression. And under that is the pulse of ‘I give up.’”
He talked about the time of year and reminded me of these milestones:
December 21st was the Winter Solstice. The time before the solstice is a time of darkness. It is the darkest time of the year. The longest night. We are awaiting the reawakening of the light. It is a time to dive into our shadow; to explore the darker and hidden recesses of our being. The shadow wants to come into the light. We have the opportunity to draw forth the shadow and bring it into consciousness so that it can come into the light. So that it can be illuminated. Then we have a choice about whether this energy is useful for us.
We have ended the year; we have ended the decade.
Powerful times.
To add to all this change, we are moving into a leap year. The energy of the leap year is that really and truly we have the opportunity to leap into the next phase of our lives, leap into the next year, the next cycle of life.
This is a time to reassess and clarify.
I have nothing to say
What are the aspects of ourselves that we do not need to take into the next year, the next decade? What are the aspects of ourselves, or our narrative, that need to be left behind?
Chris left me to rest in the warm and darkened room, with these questions and with acupuncture needles in my sacrum and along my spine. I felt the tumultuous waters begin to calm and I floated somewhere between waking and sleeping. I heard the question. What did I need to leave behind?
I sensed the answers.
What came to me loud and clear was that I hold the belief that I have nothing to say, that nobody wants to hear what I have to say, that what I have to say doesn’t matter, and that, in fact, I don’t matter. This narrative emphatically hinders my journey, my own healing evolution.
What kind of funeral service do I want to create?
Yes, definitely time to leave that narrative stay behind. Maybe I can just, plain and simple, let it go, take it out of my backpack, leave it on the side of the road like an old tin can that has been tossed out. Or maybe, I will hold a funeral service for that narrative.
Hmmmm, what kind of funeral service do I want to create? Now it gets kind of fun. One of my favorite recipes for releasing an old pattern is called “Rant, Scribble, Rip, and Burn.” It is a process I often use and is a sure-fire way to trigger a shift.
Here’s how I do it:
Give the judgmental voice the microphone, the voice that says, “You don’t matter. You have nothing important to say. Nobody cares what you think.”
Then, tell that voice to take the microphone and rant. Let it rip. No holds barred. No censor. Rant on.
Speak it out loud, every nasty thing that voice has to say. I scribble it all down, using my non-dominant hand. I rant, scribble, rant, scribble. And then, I rant and scribble some more.
When the wave has subsided, without reading the undecipherable scribble, I rip the pages up into tiny pieces. Rip. Rip. Rip. I start to feel the pleasure current moving through me. The energy of the ripping is as potent as the energy of ranting and scribbling.
I will take a different voice into the leap year
I gather all those scattered bits of paper from the table, from the floor, the chair. I even found a few under the bookcase in the hall. Then I put them all into a metal bowl, a cast iron skillet, an outdoor grill, light ‘em up and let ‘em burn. As I watch the fire burn away those little bits of paper, I know that I am leaving this tangle behind. Guaranteed, this process shifts the energy and starts to lessen the grip that the old narrative pattern. Guaranteed.
Lemme tell ya’, when I feel the release of that suffocating belief, I feel like running out into the street and singing at the top of my heart and lungs, singing some wonderful song from a musical. I want to dance down Main Street with a brass band. I want to sing the freedom I feel. I want to shout out the joy I feel. I want to sing in a gospel choir. I want to say Amen, thank you, Jesus.
This voice that tells me to be quiet, I am leaving it behind.
This one is not coming with me into 2020.
I will take a different voice into the leap year, the next decade, the rest of my life. A voice that is discerning and not damning. Supporting and not strangling.
A voice that says yes. Yes! Ring out! Sing. Speak. Shout to the hilltops. You matter. Your voice matters. LEAP.