Flowering Heart

[sabrinamari]

I forgot to tell a story of this weekend, a story that's important to me.

I spent a lot of time talking to someone I love, and I learned that whole new worlds are opening up for her right now, right this minute. And she has that shaky feeling, the one I have so much of the time: she knows she has to take a big set of risks to grow. She knows she has to do it now. And she's going to do it, but she feels kind of like throwing up. Sometimes, she starts to shake.

I knew exactly what to tell her, because I've spent so much time feeling this.

"It's OK," I said. "It's even good. Every incredibly good thing that happened to me last year was preceded by just this feeling. When you're standing in your doorway, about to leave, thinking, 'Why am I doing this? Maybe I shouldn't...' that means that probably, something wonderful is about to happen. This is a chance to retrain yourself, so that when you have this feeling, you know it's a good sign, and it means you should go ahead. It means that you are giving yourself a chance to be really happy."

She gave me a shaky smile, and I smiled right back. And it was good. She was still shaky. I will still be shaky. But it's OK. It's how we know we're walking the right path.

******

One thing I didn't tell her: every time you face a new round of possibilities, this feeling will come back. With every new start, every new chapter, you will experience it again.

There's probably never going to be a time when it stops completely. Trying to make it stop is useless, but learning to become stronger, to see this feeling as the ally it really is---that will make all the difference. That will take you in the direction you want to go.

Comments

[showingup.livejournal.com]

I'm choosing to see it as expanding my comfort zone, not leaving it. It seems to help, to think of that odd feeling as leaning against the moveable wall of the comfort zone to expand the space, like you do when you're reconfiguring an exhibition hall.

Next week, I shall go and find out what my voice is with a choir. I know I'll survive, that it will be enormous fun, that it is just what my body wants. Oh, I leaned against the moveable wall! - it's rolling away!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Me too. Watch it roll!

I just found a piece of homework I wrote up for Kelly (What are you afraid of?) almost a year ago, and I'm marveling at how much I've changed and how far it has already rolled back.

I like your metaphor. You've always managed to choose the most peaceful approaches to transformation...you are good at being gentle with yourself, even as you shift and shift again. It's nice to see a low-drama, yet highly effective approach (laughing...)

[showingup.livejournal.com]

We shall see how low-drama this is. Part of me is seriously worried that I'll suddenly start getting sinus and throat infections again, as I'm prone to them; part of me thinks I'm prone to them because my voice (in various ways) has been blocked. However, emails have been exchanged and phone calls made, so I am not going to back out now.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Hey love you can't back out now. Of course, your body may throw all kinds of things at you to try to make you stop, as that is often the way of The Resistance.

But you are a clever, clever girl and can negotiate with it. What can you offer it to get it off your back?

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm just going anyway. I will have a lift there and back, so no effort involved there. I will not have to audition, so no stress about that. There is no pressure to join in - the choir liaison chap says I can just turn up and meet people, and as I already know one person in the choir and one person in the orchestra (how had I forgotten that she's in the orchestra??!), I have a head start. They are in rehearsal for mid-April, so wouldn't expect me to join until the late summer, when they begin their next cycle of rehearsals for the new concert season; in the meantime, there is an informal singing group that takes place weekly, with various members of the choir and others sitting in a pub singing Elizabethan songs. No rehearsal and no regular commitment - pub singalongs are one of my natural habitats, and so once I've met people and been to a couple of rehearsals to see how they work, I shall go to the informal singalongs until the new cycle begins.

It worked itself out :)

[showingup.livejournal.com]

I will, of course, listen to Throat and Immune System and see what they want and how I can give them that.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Wish I could hear you sing.

Oh wait, recording devices do exist.

Grinning.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Also, skype. We has it :D

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Yup. I need to finish this grant draft and then I am all yours via the internet phoning device.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Also, I want to give you feedback on the pieces you sent me.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

I haven't done much since then. It is percolating, though - I did wake up having dreamed about it, and can't remember what it was. So not quite there, just bubbling away.

shaky feeling

[gracewillow.livejournal.com]

Having it right now because a Big Thing is happening soon. I very much want it, but at the same time I'm scared as all-get-out. It's new, therefore it's nervous-making.

Re: shaky feeling

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

So, I don't know how it works for you, but I have discovered that my opportunities for happiness are directly in proportion to how willing I am to tolerate this feeling. If you can get yourself to sit with it, you will be able to explore a whole range of really cool things.

I can't make this feeling stop, but I can say, "You're here, I see you, I acknowledge the important messages you are giving me, and we are not stopping. So, thanks very much, now let's go."

Acknowledging it seems to make it more tolerable, so I will often say, "So, this is what I'm feeling," more for me than for anyone else.

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

I am terribly shaky right now. This math thing is kicking my butt BIG TIME, and I am depressed and disgusted that I cannot seem to remember things that I'm told should be a part of the fibre of my being. I cannot, when demanded of me, produce an answer to a math question---I must sit and ponder it before I can go forward. And when sonmeone is looking at me, or I'm in a testing situation, my mind goes completely blank. I am stressing over this so much that I am physically ill at times. I am wondering if it's really worth it.

And then I'm shaky because of the creating-my-own-skin-care-business thing. Part of me really wants to go forward with this, in a real shop (not on etsy!) with floors and windows and physical space. Part of me wants to run and hide. Part of me wants to sit back and take life a little more slowly---I'm getting older, it says. So, I'm standing still. Shaky. Trying to summon the courage to finish what I've started, to find other, better ways to do this that will allow me some life without a constant, stressful burden to carry. I need more joy.

I'm really tired.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I think you need an ear. I have one.