I’ve been trying to decide how to tell you, when to let it out and how to make it useful. I’ve made small attempts and hinted at it in my workshops and posts, it’s going to be real, raw and out there in my next book (already in the works and more along the memoir lines) but today I saw a Danielle LaPorte quote that made my whole soul breathe a sigh of relief and something inside me felt pulled towards writing this post.
“Getting off track is essential to our growth.”
– Danielle LaPorte
Last year, I fell off track, I got lost, confused and felt depleted in so many ways. It felt like I was drowning, I couldn’t keep up with emails, handle the tech hiccups on my newly launched love-child Aprecity and make sure everything was perfect for the pub date of “Eat with Intention” with out constantly feeling scattered and like I was letting someone somewhere down. To be brutally honest, I felt like I was just not enough for more of the day than not. Of course, there were brief intermissions when I was teaching, coaching or meditating by the water where I would connect to my higher self and rise above my human ‘situation’ (and boy did I look forward to them) but on the whole — it was a rough one.
I had teachers, mentors, people I looked up to, that fell rapidly from grace in my eyes. I saw things in them I couldn’t unsee, things I couldn’t align myself with, disappointment overwhelmed me as these former idols tumbled to the ground. Who can I trust? Who feels real? Who feels good hearted, well intentioned? What was I doing because of their guidance and what was I doing because it actually felt good to me?
I started challenging concepts and “spiritual truths” that had been drilled into my head. I questioned everything. I needed to recalibrate, to find once again what felt like the truth to me. To release what anyone had I told me and remember what the truth felt like in my body. To release somethings for good and to reclaim the things that really felt expansion for myself, uninfluenced.
I experimented with different tools. I stepped away from a rigorous kundalini sadhana temporarily and spent mornings with the ocean, listening to my breath, I tried vedic meditation on for size and reclaimed my spiritual practice as my own. I leaned into a breathwork practice that awakens my body’s energetic wisdom and connects me to an all sensory oneness. I release the rules and followed what felt good, juicy and restorative.
I cried. I journaled. I talked to girlfriends. I talked to trees. I talked to God, my guides, and even my deceased goldfish, Terminator. It all helped. And I didn’t judge myself for it.
Ah, the beauty in the breakdown.
The chilling breeze at sunset before the rays of light return in the morning.
I crumbled. Again, on my knees, like almost five years ago during the first ‘dark night of the soul’. Except I knew what was happening this time. I knew what to do. I had to surrender.
My only option was to give it all up, to turn it all over and welcome in everything that was flowing my way. To trust that amidst this pain was a divine lesson. In fact, the most beautiful lesson, the lesson we are constantly relearning time again.
HOW TO COME BACK HOME TO YOURSELF.
The remembering who you truly were before everyone told you what you should be. The returning of your trust to YOUR divine guidance system. The loving of all people but not taking anyone’s truth as your own.
THE PERMISSION TO FORGE YOUR OWN PATH GUIDED FROM YOUR SOUL.
Ah, the glorious taking back of your own power — isn’t that what everything always boils down to?
The story didn’t end there, in fact, it’s got a lot of twists and turns (potentially an entire book’s worth, if you know what I’m saying..) but like all great adventures, it never truly ends and often when we think we’ve made it through the worst, we still have that one final dragon to slay.
My dragon came from one final blow to the heart, someone who had been there for me every step of the crazy rollercoaster this year, who celebrated the highs and held me through the lows — just when I thought the coast was clear, when my magic was coming back at full force, when my smile returned to it’s normally steady state on my face and the twinkle was glistening back in my eyes — they took their mask off. They showed their true colors and like a flash of lightning, they were out of my life faster than I could process what happened and left me only with the shock pulsating through out my body. Whaaaaaattt?! You’re kidding me??
Ah, the greatest challenge yet! Would I let this painful knife in my back cause me to turn my back on my own intuition? Would I dismiss my own internal guidance system because I had given this person so much trust, so much love, because I was so off base in seeing them for who they truly were? Absolutely not. Hell no. I had come way to far. I had too much momentum. I was hurt, I was injured, but I had much larger sword in my pocket and enough life-force to keep going despite the blood loss. I had faith in myself and in my own healing capacity. It was there now, holding me up as parts of me felt very fragile again.
There was no wailing.
No,”why Universe, why?”
I finally saw it for what it was.
A friendly, removing of energy in my life that wasn’t aligned with my best interest. Of energy that didn’t truly or honestly care for or cherish my presence. A removal of a poison that had seeped into my blood stream like sweet, sweet, sugar and was never truly good for me at all. Or perhaps, was simply no longer good for me. A lie that I held so close and so dear to my heart that I had never truly seen it before.
Days later, I was back at the beach talking it over with Mama Ocean and feeling so peaceful. It was the most intensely gorgeous feeling. An integration of something I had said countless times in my teachings finally in every particle of my being. I truly knew that everything was happening for the best and that the present moment was exactly where I needed to be. And I didn’t just know that intellectually or because I read it in some spiritual self-help book. I knew it in my body, it swirled around in my breath, this knowing rested gently around my heart like a warm blanket.
I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, I’m not saying I didn’t cry or there weren’t moments of total rage at the absurdity I felt towards the whole situation, but beneath it all, on my level of truth, this knowing, this trusting held me on steady on ground. I felt peace at a level deeper than I had ever imagined.
Logistically, emerging from this cocoon of self-discovery wasn’t an overnight thing. It’s a work in progress. It’s still going on. During this whole process, I made some big decisions, I said yes to things that my whole body screamed, “NOOO!!!” to, I fell behind with things that mattered dearly to me, I still have a lot of repairing and restructuring to do but I’m bursting with excitement at this hearty undertaking. I’m ready, I’m willing and I’ve found my flow again.
I’m rebuilding my ‘house’, I’m throwing out furniture that I never liked to begin with, I’m hanging new pictures on the wall, I’m releasing and renewing at a pace that feeeeeeels good to me. I’m feeling my own light expanding by the day and I’m willing to do what it takes. I’m grateful for the past several months, I’m grateful for the peeling back of layers, the removal of the veil and the reclaiming of my life. I am so freaking grateful for this juicy life. It’s time to wake up, it’s time to rise and I couldn’t think of a better time to be standing here, eyes wide open seeing more clearly than ever, my heart as my compass and a fire inside of me that’s ready to rise, that ready to light the way and bring an unstoppable warmth to this crazy world. Who’s with me?
“why decide to rise?
Not for the reasons you might think.
In fact, these are the reasons that will make you sick and tired:
Do not rise out of obligation.
Do not rise because of feared consequences.
Do not rise because you think being tough
makes you smarter (it doesn’t).
Decide to rise because you want to expand — your being, your life,
your possibilities. Decide to rise because superpowers are meant
to be activated and applied in everyday life.
Decided to rise to explore your place in the universe.
– Danielle LaPorte
And so rise I will, trusting in my own divine wings and compass more than ever before.
xo,
C
In beautiful synchronicity, a few of my Aprecity members had emailed in this past month requesting a workshop on getting back on track, finding their flow again and coming back after feeling derailed. So naturally, I knew I was being nudged to come forward, to bare myself before you and to teach what I have so deeply recently learned. This upcoming Aprecity workshop on February 12th will be a deep dive into find your flow again, getting your groove back and finding the divine gifts that come from falling off track. If this is something that resonates with you, join us by signing up here for the 7 day free trial. I’m beyond excited to share more with you.