(I talk about anxiety producing events in this post. Read only if you want to. I don't mean to inflict anxiety onto anyone but I heal so much within myself by writing it out.)
Nothing is out to get you, my higher self whispers in my ear again this morning.
You are safe here.
This message has repeated itself to me many times in many forms over the last few years
but I haven’t been able to embody it quite yet.
"Did you lock the car?" My mom asks as we walk into Panera last week. "Yes Mom, I did."
"But I didn’t hear it lock."
"I’ll lock it again," I say.
She needs some butter for her bread and as she leaves the booth she asks if I will watch her purse. As if with me sitting here someone is just waiting for the opportunity to come snatch her purse. "Yes Mom, I will." I also said "It’s no wonder I’m neurotic." Not very nice but I felt so annoyed. Mostly because these are the things that I repeatedly say to my husband who also gets annoyed. But I can't help it. I desperately want to know that I am safe. Just like my sweet mom, I need to hear the click of the door lock.
Growing up my dad had guns all over our house and an alarm system set up along the drive way. 'Alert zone one' and 'alert zone two' are now jokes amongst my siblings but it definitely left the impression that I was never really safe, even at home.
Our phone number and address were unlisted in the directory because my parents didn’t want anyone that we didn’t know to be able to find us. I was the only kid with an unlisted number. I became hardwired to feel afraid.
My young friends watched murder movies at sleepovers in middle school. I remember them laughing as the man in the bathroom stall threatened to dismember the woman using the restroom. I sank as deep as I possibly could into my sleeping bag while plugging my ears and trying not to throw up.
As an older teen my dad bought me a small can of pepper spray to carry along with me when I went jogging. As an act of rebellion I didn't take it. Once I was followed by two men in an old truck. They had their windows down and were saying things me that I couldn't hear with my headphones in but I could tell what was about to happen. I ducked into my neighbors yard and hid behind the red barn for quite some time. Perhaps my dad was right.
One of our coworkers at the ranch where my son was born had just lost her best friend. Left in the bottom of a Lousiana outhouse for the authorities to find. I still can’t use outhouses.
A couple weeks ago my daughter went to the school's haunted house for Halloween. I assumed it would be age-appropriate and smiled as I handed her $7 to run inside with her friends. I had been told that the kids had had a blast last year and my daughter trusted that it would be fun. When she returned a few minutes later she was pale and distant and asked to go home. She had a full panic attack in the car and couldn't get out when we pulled into our dark garage. God damn it, I thought to myself. Why on earth is terrorizing people considered entertainment?
I called the school principal on Monday and expressed my concerns. She agreed that an
R-rated event shouldn't take place on school grounds and offered a deep apology for my daughter's trauma. I know I can't protect my children from the darkness but I can advocate for them. I can show them that it is ok to feel deeply and be sensitive to things that others don't seem to mind. Even more importantly it is essential to stand up for yourself when something doesn't feel right. Sometimes it is so hard to navigate a world that doesn't make sense to my soul. Those familiar old alien feels begin to surface again.
I understand biologically speaking that humans are predators. Our sharp eyes set together at the front of our faces. But I have never felt like a predator. I have always felt like prey.
Heightened adrenaline feels normal to me and I think this is why I have craved the buzz of coffee most of my adult life. It makes me feel good to be on guard. Hyper vigilance runs deep in my family and seems like it might be a necessity in our culture or even on our entire planet. Why is it like this here?
My counselor tells me that I don't have to trust humanity but I can trust in God, whatever that means to me. (What exactly does that mean?)
My chiropractor encourages me to seek the peace he finds in Christianity.
My massage therapist sends me pictures from a book called Metaphysical Anatomy that explains nasal polyps are my body's way of putting a barrier up against life.
Ayurveda unveils how our lungs carry our grief.
My spiritual mentor helps me see how I am afraid of my own light. My power and intuition. That my body is self-protecting by physically blocking off my third eye. (The polyps I currently have are covering my ethmoid sinuses which are right between my eyebrows.
I find this so fascinating!)
German New Medicine describes asthma as a death fright conflict and chronic sinus problems as my body's self defense against something that I think "stinks."
Well, it is this. This feeling of being saturated in fear is what I reject. The feeling that "something is out to get me" is what I think stinks. That we have to lock our doors, carry pepper spray, watch out for ourselves and our children so closely to prevent bad things from happening. That war and hate and killing are ongoing elements of life on Earth. I reject all of this to my core and I don't know how to make myself feel safe enough to heal my breathing issues.
But I do know this. Laying alongside me on our bellies, my children dig in the dirt to find star fossils. My dog snores softly in the morning sun as I stretch on my yoga mat. Our donkeys bray when they see me in my pajamas, carrots in hand. My husband holds me so close that I feel held by God. My mom visits as much as she can, hungry to be part of our lives. My cupboards are full and my garden grows and my eyes see beautiful things every single day. This is what makes sense to me. A life of peace, beauty, harmony. A life close to the earth, wrapped up in the seasons. I take pictures of the things that I see and the words flow in and I share what comes through. My pictures are my medicine. My voice. My gentle way of contributing to the way I wish things were on Earth. Full of peace.
It makes sense to me why my story of mold illness transpired. It was another form of not feeling safe and needing to be hypervigilant about everything. It also tried to give me a sense of being in control. If I stayed out of most buildings, cut out most foods, whittled my life down to the nubs then maybe I would finally feel safe. (This didn't work. I felt more afraid.)
The news churns out stories of hate, despair and destruction. I try to skim over those types of headlines and tend to avoid all news as much as possible, but I still can feel it. Can you?
It feels unavoidable. The current state of the world, as presented by the media, feels impossibly unpredictable and unsteady at large. But if I dial down the anxious outside buzz and zoom in a little bit I would say that most everyone I have ever met have been good hearted humans. It's as though the small percentage of the population that has evil intent gets more time in the spotlight than all of the kind-hearted souls combined.
I know I came here to help with this process of rebalancing an out of whack world. I have always felt called to do more. But at the same time living on earth feels so incredibly at odds with wherever I was before this incarnation that I oftentimes get paralyzed and long to go home. Can my little splash really make that much of a difference?
I will keep trying. In my own way I will stand as strong as I can and share the beauty that I see and hope to inspire others with the love and kindness that overflows from my soul.
Just like you I am tired. But we are still here, a little bruised, a little shaky, but still shining.
Bright Light Humans for the win.
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