Finding the Magic

Comparisons, Truth, and Magic

September 10, 2018

One of the things I am most grateful for is my ongoing relationship with Magic (the moments of connection between me and the Mystery). I say that because it is a relationship. That connection is a choice that I make more and more and more times a day, and the more I connect to it, the more I am led and the more connections happen.

I am now at a point where I can see magic in almost everything – even in the things that seem hard or impossible.

Once when I posted something on Instagram about being grateful, I got an email from someone telling me that I shouldn’t ‘only post good things’. She said people wouldn’t be able to relate to me if I wasn’t telling them the truth.

The truth?

That little email made me question everything that I put out into the world.

Whenever I send out an email that has a positive message, or gives the impression that life is good, I get unsubscribes.

I’ve had friends stop commenting on my posts, and stop answering emails – ones who were huge supporters of our move.

Comparison is such a brutal companion for so many of us. I feel it. Sometimes I am compelled to unsubscribe or to just stop looking at certain people or certain feeds. I feel triggered by the beauty or the youth or the truth or the challenge or the anger or the love or the success or the questions or the depth or the wonder or the insight or the delicacy or the talent that I see, and in the past instead of wondering about that, I have turned my face away.

One of the easiest examples of where I feel comparison is with our house. We have a beautiful house (for which I am profoundly grateful), but it’s not finished or even very furnished yet, and when I look at some of my feeds, I see lovely cozy spaces full of books and candles and comfortable furniture and kids and cats and art supplies and desks and plants and a real feeling of ‘home’. When I look at these I feel a deep longing for this in my own life.

The trouble with comparison is that it often also comes with guilt or shame or irritation or some other super-fun side order. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to, and that comparison can be one of your biggest teachers.

I invite you to try this:

1. Scroll through your Instagram feed until you find an image that gives you a twinge.
2. Really look at it.
3. Ask yourself these questions (but try to keep it in a spirit of learning more about what your soul wants. Don’t add guilt or shame to this.)

What is it about this image that makes me want?
When I look at this image, what do I want?
Is there healing or grieving that I need to do here?
What is this showing me about how I want to feel?
What can I do to bring more of this feeling into my life?

Seeing your own pain, your own wants, your own needs, and your own fears reflected like this may be scary at first, but by doing this you have a massive opportunity to heal your old stories and your old patterns. You may have some healing to do, but feeling those feelings will free up space for new dreams to come through.

In that space, magic can happen.

One version of the truth is that I have experienced heartbreak and devastating loss. There are things and people and dreams that I mourn, that I regret, and that I deeply wonder about. We won’t ever have kids. I struggle pretty much every day with visibility and relevance and who do I think I am? I have made peace with food, but I still carry weight. I am a hermit who has had her heart broken, which makes making and keeping friends difficult. There is stuff in my life that breaks my heart. I have guilt about where my life and my choices have brought me. I am a rebellious good girl (a Scorpio with a Virgo rising), so I am often in heated negotiation with myself. I miss my family and my country – and now my old adopted country – deeply.

There’s more – not the least of which is that I am afraid a lot of the time.

But the other truth is that in all of the hard and the sad and the afraid there is also a place where I choose to connect to an even deeper truth: that there is more to all of this life business than I can ever imagine or understand.

In those places and those moments, more and more each day, I actively choose to find the Magic. I know that the only power I have is the one to decide how I am going to react in this moment. Over the past 15 or so years, I have consciously developed a way of being in the world that is more curious than careful and more wondering than fearful.

I’ve discovered that I am more powerful when I do things on purpose.

I don’t run from sadness or comparison or fear anymore. I also don’t ignore it, or pretend it isn’t happening, or always put it out there for the world to see. I actively turn my face to it. I wonder about it. I feel it. I talk to it. I do everything I can to not install it into my stories and my cells (just to have it come up again later on).

Yes, I am still afraid, and yes, I still compare, and yes, I still have a ways to go, but I also have come to a place where it seems that everything has something to say to me. I have come to a place where I can see the story more than I see the fear. I have come to a place where nearly everything is magic.

It’s been a lot of work, but the work has been worth it.

So the truth – for me – is that there is more to this life than I can possibly imagine, and that I get to choose to be present for and to respond to it in the best way I can in each moment. None of those moments are perfect, but I’m doing my best to make more and more and more of them Magical.

That is my work in the world; that is what I want to share with you! That is what makes me want to run up to you, laughing, and show you the latest weird bug that has appeared, or the family of monkeys who wake us at 4am, or the way the sun is touching the trees, or what is in my heart. That is what I want to write about.

There is a path through the forest, and there is a light just around the bend. Can you see it? Do you want to find it with me? Let’s go together!

The more magic you see, the more you’ll find. 😉

That’s the truth.

Finding the Magic

Let Yourself be Silently Drawn

April 11, 2018

My husband and I have recently begun seeing an acupuncturist. Well, we thought we were seeing an acupuncturist. She’s also trained in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda.

For many years now we have been doing everything we know of to help ourselves feel the very best we can feel. While living here that meant a lot of fresh juices (with a Vitamix, not a juicer) and salads and raw things: because raw is obviously the way to go right?

So why were we both still feeling rubbish a lot of the time?

During our first session, when she did her thing, she found that both of us were incredibly depleted. Our ‘digestive fire’ was very low. When she asked us about our eating habits, she told us that actually what we were doing – putting a fresh, cold raw juice in first, and eating lots of raw veggies – was actually making our depletion worse. What we needed right now (all of this can change as we heal) were things to fire up our digestion, not dampen it down.

And you know what? I knew it. I never felt great after a salad. I knew that I felt better when I had cooked stuff alongside the raw, but so many people said that raw food was better for me, I ignored my body and ate salad. (I am looking forward to healing my fire so much that I feel great eating salads!)

So along with other things, we have been starting each day with a cup of hot water with fresh ginger in it. We’ve been having soups instead of salads and cooked veggies instead of raw ones.

And we are starting to feel a lot better.

I’m telling you this story because my procrastination tactic for the last hour included looking up things that might support this new health – and when I found myself reading about these amazing adaptogenic mushrooms, I started to laugh.

When I was a kid someone told me that mushrooms didn’t need sunshine to grow. That (and the texture) freaked me out and I couldn’t eat a mushroom for years and years (and still have to decide it’s okay on a case-by-case basis).

We try so hard to be good. To be positive. To shine. To glow. To be in the light. To feel the fear and do it anyway. To be high-vibe (save me from this term!) all of the time.

We either avoid or fondle the darkness because in the dark is where we find our shadows, our intensity, and our broken-ness.

Why can’t we also find our health and our healing in the dark? Why can’t we just see that the only way to healing is to see the goodness in both?

Nature knows.

As we work our land and begin to plant things, we are discovering that – despite what we have been told – growing things don’t necessarily need a lot of sunsine. In fact, there are some things that need full sunshine, others like dappled shade, others like full shade, and some like near-total darkness. Everything here is finding its way and doing its own thing. Some plants grow deep roots in the earth, some grow a shallow web of roots and are barely clinging on, some grow bigger roots up and away from the edge of the river or mountain (to brace themselves so that they don’t fall down or in), and some simply send roots out, hoping to catch on to something.

Everything does its own thing. There is no value in one over another. Each has adapted to do what they need to do. None of those plants or animals or insects is wishing that they were different. None of them is wondering whether they are right to feel best in the deep, rich, protected soil of the rainforest floor, or whether their faces should stop following the sun (many do!).

The Equinoxes are the only two times in the entire year that there is equal light and dark. They are the only two times – and last only a short short time – that the earth is in ‘balance’.

There is, in fact, no way to always remain in balance. There is no having everything. There is no perfect way, because your way might need more light or more water or more raw vegetables, or more meat or more mushrooms than mine. Your way this time around might need more quiet or more parties or more books or more hiking or more paragliding and less flying than mine. Your way might need more music or less scent or more children or more pets or more security or less dancing or more introspection or different beliefs or more shoes than the person you are thinking ‘has it all’.

Find your way. Stop trying to be something you are not. Lean towards the things you love. Allow your roots to grow into the places where you need support. Turn your face to the sun or the moon or the stars or the earth or the wind or the sea. Be open to the lessons, try to understand what’s coming up to be looked at and learn from it. The spiral is a very important shape in the natural world. We are cyclical and rhythmic and as connected to this planet as any other growing thing.

If you are a tree, stop comparing yourself to the vines. If you are a vine, stop comparing yourself to the mushrooms. If you are a mushroom, stop comparing yourself to the flowers. There is potent medicine in all of them. And their vibe is just as high no matter where they are growing.

You are here for a very important reason: to be you. Rumi said: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” If you are longing to put your face in the sunshine, find some. If it feels too bright, go into the shade. But do what feels good and feels right for you. There is no such thing as sustainable balance.

What do you want? What do you love? What feels good? Start there.

Costa Rica, Finding the Magic, I AM

Magic Happened.

May 10, 2017

Today I am going to tell you a story about Magic.

Several years ago – and I can’t remember exactly how many, but it’s more than 5 – I was part of a wonderful coaching circle led by my friend Jamie Ridler. Jamie IS Magic, and the circle she led was all about us moving our creative dreams (and lives) forward.

During one of the calls, Jamie had us visualise our future self. Now, I am more auditory than visual, so I have found visualising a challenge in the past, but Jamie always manages to get me to ‘see’ something.

I saw myself in a house. It was mostly white, open plan and all on one level. It was quite modern looking, which is weird because I always pictured myself in something else. There was a large deck around it and a walkway to it, kind of like a dock. I have always wanted a dock, so I intervened and put it onto a lake – because nothing else made sense to me.
The me that I saw in the house was wearing light clothes – I was even in a skirt. (Me?) I felt comfortable. Peaceful. Soft. Grounded. I knew who I was and what I was doing. My days were filled with love and creativity. I was connected to something more. Most of all, I felt a sense of freedom. I had stopped searching for something.

When Jamie gave us time to journal after the meditation, I sketched the house and then, over time, forgot about it.

Two years ago when we started picturing our house, we were going to build a wooden bali-inspired house, but in the living here and the understanding Costa Rica (especially that bugs LOVE to eat wood), we have changed our plans. Now the house we are building is an open-plan, one level, very white, kind-of square, modern house. With a huge deck that you have to walk across to get to the door.
(I’m sure YOU can see the connection, but I didn’t.)
Fast forward to last week. I was sitting on the couch with my husband and we were having a conversation about True things. We were quiet for a moment and out of somewhere I got a strange feeling of, ‘oh there you are!’ and felt this weird click.

In that moment I knew that somehow I had caught up to my future self; that we had finally come together and were now the same person. I had forgotten about the meditation, but in the middle of the click I remembered it and saw me and the house and all of it. I felt a strange sense of peace and what I can only describe as yesness.

Holy holy holy.

The most interesting part is that I never – not once – aimed at that image. The house was nothing like I thought I would live in – and I was in a skirt for heaven’s sake! But for the past six or seven years I have been focusing on those feelings: Peace. Soft. Grounded. Knowing who I am. Love. Creativity. Connected to something more. Joy. Gratitude. Belief. Wonder. Transcendence. And Freedom: Magical Freedom.

I didn’t plan it, but somehow, even all of those years ago, I knew. Or someone or something did.

In that moment I could only sit and breathe and wonder, and it has taken me a few days to process it all. I feel different, and all I can feel right now is gratitude. There is so much more to all of this than we can possibly imagine. It’s a Mystery and a dance and a conversation.

Listen to your nudges. Listen to your feelings. Ask for help and signs and support and messages. Follow your instincts.

Find the Magic and it will take you places you can’t even imagine.

I love you.

Older Posts

Comparisons, Truth, and Magic

Let Yourself be Silently Drawn

Magic Happened.

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