Unraveling

Unravel, unravel, unravel. I am unraveling yet again. Everything feels off, nothing feels right, yet I can't point my finger to what it is. It makes me afraid. Afraid of letting go of a last tight grip on what I believed to be true, to be the way, to be the me. I am scared because I don't know what's beyond the unraveling. Mostly it feels like I'm outgrowing my clothes, literally and figuratively, and the storefront I keep (my business) no longer fits as neatly and sweetly. Clearly something has shifted inside, and therefore, something gotta shift on the outside. But what?

I entertain all options. Close shop. Move away. Start over. Then self-loathing enters. What's wrong with you? You should have it together by now? Are you just a change-junkie? Frustration breathes down my neck. And there I hang, in the transition time, as if on the edge of a cliff. My arms are getting more and more fatigued, I am loosing my grip, and eventually there's no other way than to let go. To stop trying to hold on, figure out, control, plan it out. There's only the free fall into the abyss of not knowing.

In the free fall, I feel freedom again. Why? Because left is only trust and the possibility of truth.

The inevitability of change

You've all been there, one way or another. We know that change is inevitable. We feel it in our bodies. We live it day and night. We sense it in the seasons. I consider myself an expert at change, and truth be told, I even get high on change, yet, sometimes it catches me by surprise.

Consider the words: Change. Revolution. Upheaval. Unraveling. Metamorphosis. Transformation. These words have weight and carry promises. They are alive, active, you can almost sense the volatile atmosphere and the flux between the outer circumstances and the momentary loss of inner equilibrium. Mirroring the natural world, we humans share an universal drive and desire towards change, I think, because we feel alive when we are moved from one place to another, from one perspective to another, from one leash on life to another. The possibility of who we can become, who we might discover, the betterment, the hope of being and living more fully. The desire to know and live who we are at heart.

Little to do but wait

But what about the quiet changes that sneaks up on you, slowly, slyly, from the inside? Not the dramatic, at times forced, changes stirred by new love, divorce, job loss, death or disease, but the slow nagging at your heart and soul, the inaudible whisper in your ear, that things just aren't the same any more.

This is a new kind of change for me. The dramatic changes I've lived, fully, and they required much doing and getting on with a new life track. This time, I feel there's little I can do but wait. And listen. In the wake of the me in-becoming, I struggle to not run away, make a strategic plan or find the next self help remedy to help me avoid this rollercoaster ride. Instead I sit. I cry. I journal. I dance. I speak with kindred spirits.

Meanwhile, my surrender deepens. I allow the full intensity of fears and frustrations to overtake me, and in it, I marvel at how tightly I've held on, it seems, for ages. To what? Suddenly its unimportant. Because in my nakedness I'm discovering spaciousness in my heart and trust in my soul. There is no turning back.

Quietly transforming,
Lone