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Alignment

In the Gap

August 21, 2017
in the gap

in the gap

 

Maybe I’m in the black, maybe I’m on my knees
Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes
But my heart is beating and my pulses start
Cathedrals in my heart.

~ Coldplay, Every Teardrop is a Waterfall

 

Not long ago, there was a full solar eclipse. It was on March 20, 2015. Why do I know this? Because I was in the middle of one of the biggest changes of my life. We had left England and we were staying in Canada for a few days before taking the first flight to Costa Rica.

We were literally in the gap between one life and the next. I remember driving somewhere with my music on shuffle and hearing Coldplay singing about the gap between the two trapezes and feeling like that was exactly where I was: dangling in mid-air, hair flying, hoping beyond hope that there was going to be something there when I reached out my hand.

The last one? March 2016. How do I know that? Because we were in the middle of the final, final pack. The decision had been made that this was forever and we had to go back to the UK to deal with everything there. That particular time was, for personal reasons, one of the hardest of my life.

Athena Perrakis of Sage Goddess taught me that one of the ways to understand this eclipse is to look back at where you were during the last one.

Well, during the last two, I was in the gap; in the middle of leaping headfirst into a new life. And since then, I have spent time in some dark places and some very bright ones. I have moved through being proud of myself, afraid of where I live, ashamed of not ‘living up’ to my plans, coming to terms with what I saw as the excess light here, becoming more balanced as I found more darkness, letting go of some dreams, opening up to new ones, being lonely, being more in love with my changing husband, and finally beginning to create my business. I have faced some fears – both real and imagined – and let some things go. So much of what happened was because I was not conscious of what was happening, and looking back, I can see how much of it was actually of my own making.

So what does that tell me about this one?

Well here I sit again, in the gap between one life and the next. We are in the last months of building our house. We are about to move and finally finally unpack. Most of my things – what’s left of them anyway – have been packed since just before the last eclipse. I have just recently begun showing up daily to my writing (I’m on 24 days in a row), and I have learned to really pay attention to what is going ON, not what I think is going on.

Jason Miller wrote a great post about this eclipse. He offers a few suggestions but the one I like the best is this: “The moon and the sun are off the table, leaving a wide empty space to be filled. Fill it.”

During this eclipse, I am looking towards the next one. Where do I want to be then? I want to have healed my inner program of threat and fear. I want to have healed my inner program about being afraid of money. I want to have opened to more visibility, be writing another book, and be happy in my home. I want a labyrinth and a loving community.

I want to feel FULL; prosperous in every way.

So I’m committing today, under this eclipse, to focusing on clearing up everything that is in the way of that. To focus on building the cathedrals in my heart.

Bring on July 2, 2019. I am ready.

xo

 

 

 

Alignment, returning to the fire

Just Show Up

August 2, 2017

“When you imagine your future, do not think that you will be the same then as you are now.” – Sanaya Roman

I started writing this yesterday, and wanted to wish you a very happy beginning of August, but there were men here working on our rental house and it was so loud, I couldn’t even think. So I popped my earphones in, listened to some music, and got sucked into looking back through my blog.

vision board full 2010

(My Vision Board from January 2010.)

It started off with me copying and pasting some of the quotes I have used in the past, but then I just started to scroll backwards, reading three posts at a time, until I had reached page 75 and a post I wrote in 2009 about the strangeness of memory.

I remember all of it. I remember taking every picture and where I wrote each post. I remember learning how to upload the chapters of my book. I remember how I felt, how I yearned and searched and wanted and dreamed. I remember how lost I felt and how worried I was that I was never ever going to ‘get it together’. I remember the people who used to comment on every post, and I wonder where some of them are now. When I follow the links back to their old blogs, most are long gone.

It was a strange feeling, watching Future Self me reading back over letters from Past Self me; a me that feels so far away and yet so present. I am still her in so many ways. Her questions, her dreams, her proclamations, her wishes and her hopes are all still a part of me. I am so proud of her, so in awe of her, so grateful to her for showing up and writing what was in her heart, and for always asking for more.

Earlier this week I wrote a post about just showing up, and so I have been spending time at the page every morning. As I wrote this morning, I thought a lot about about mySelf and all of the things that I have been wanting and dreaming about for years, and where I am compared to where I thought I would be by now. 

I know now that all of the good things that happened in my life happened because I showed up. And I don’t mean rocked-up-to-the-party-once-and-went-home, I mean when I knew something was right, so I showed up up over and over again, even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when it was hard. Even when all I wanted to do was go to bed.

 

vision board meghan genge 2010

(Detail from my Vision Board – January 2010. P.S. I own those glasses!)

 

And that is a big shift for me. My natural inclination is to stretch towards freedom, but rules and structures make me want to run screaming into the night. Sitting here looking through the eyes of my past self, there are so many more things I wish that she had showed up for.

But here’s the Magical bit: now I know. Now I know that in a few years I will be sitting somewhere looking back at this letter. Now I know that that me will want so much to tell this me to just show up.

It’s not about weight.
It’s not about money.
It’s not about love.
It’s not about health.
It’s not about anything.
It’s about tending the fire:
My Fire.
It’s about showing up, over and over and over again.
The way my future self would want me to.
And making her happen.

xo

Alignment

90 Days of Showing Up

July 28, 2017

Warning: there’s a bit of swearing in this one. 😉

”I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. It’s time.” ~ Brene Brown

 

I’ve always been the girl with the plan. If I wanted to write a book or lose weight or start exercising or learn something, I would sit down and figure out where I wanted to be, then work backwards. If you were to open any past planner of mine, you would find at least one countdown on those pages.

But I never got there.

I never got to the end of the countdown with success. I never ended at my goal weight, I never wrote 50,000 words in a month and I never got to ten push-ups.

Why?

I think for four reasons:

  1. I’ve always been a bit rebellious and my ‘screwyouiwon’tdowhatyoutellme’ notion sadly even works on self-imposed rules.
  2. I was getting something out of staying where I was. If I never got there, I wouldn’t have to see what there meant.
  3. I bought whole-heartedly into the notion of ‘be gentle with yourself.’ But instead of doing that, I used it as an excuse to not show up if I didn’t feel like it or if I was tired or if or if or if…

And that’s all crap. Yep, all just excuses.

Yesterday I did a long guided meditation in which I asked my guides for the answer to a question. There is some stuff I want to clear, and this seemed like as good an idea as any. I went in, I sat at the feet of a guide, and I asked my question. The answer?

“Stop fucking around and show up.”

Not your usual answer, but I took it, mostly because I’ve been getting the same answer for weeks in my writing and my course creation and my journalling: just show up.

Over the past twenty-four hours, I have read the other part of that phrase four different times in four different places: stop fucking around.

Those words? Five times in two days? Really?

Today I counted – because that is what I do – and I realised that it is 90 days until my birthday. And within those 90 days, we will be moving into our house. Usually that would have me making a Plan and writing a goal in my diary.

But not today. Today I am admitting that that doesn’t work, and instead I am going to stop fucking around and just show up at the page. Every day. No matter what. No matter how I feel or where I have to go or what I have to do. Everything counts. This matters. My work matters.

I matter.

90 days of showing up. 90 days until my birthday. 90 days.

I can count that down.

It’s a good Plan.

xo

 

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