Humans. Being.

For more years than I’d care to admit, I have always felt that something was missing.  I always felt that I didn’t have a clear direction for my life,  focus of what I wanted to do.  A clear path for how I wanted to show up in life.  I had no sense of belonging to something bigger than me.  I had no purpose.  No real sense of being.  So when I ran across a “quiz” on the subject, I thought, ‘why not?’  The answer that was given to me after answering a series of questions was that my purpose was a “Human.  Being.”  No additional explanation.  No resources to further consult.  Just simply, a “Human.  Being.”

WTF?

When I was in Bali, I felt a deep and real connection to God, Source, the Universe.  I had an all-encompassing feeling that every step, every person, every action, every word was being Divinely led.  Mine and those around me.  Divinely orchestrated.  Divinely held. Divinely created.

Divinely being.

I had a calm and peaceful knowing that I was perfect just as I am.  I was loved and accepted for exactly the me of this moment.  I had no feelings of needing to be different, better, thinner, smarter, funnier, more beautiful, more eloquent; nothing.  I was perfect in all my imperfections.  I embraced them and me.  I accepted and loved them.  I didn’t feel the need to change or control any of it.

The women I was in Bali with also loved and accepted me.  They saw me and I saw them for exactly who and what we were.  We were connected.  We were sisters.  We weren’t alone.

We were Humans.  Being.

Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Just humans.  Being what we were in that moment, then in the next moment, and the next…  I held great gratitude for that.  I allowed myself to embrace that, maybe for the first time ever, and to trust and surrender to it fully.

Surrender.

Not some laying down of arms in an imaginary fight I had lost.  But, to fully lean in to my intuition, my inner longings, my innate wisdom, and to embrace it and me fully.  To observe my thoughts, my musings, my feelings, and to not feel a need or responsibility to act on them or make excuses for them.  I simply allowed them to be.  I allowed myself to flow.  With no judgement.  With no analyzing.  With nothing more than acknowledgment, curiosity and reverence.

And I wrote.

I wrote with vulnerability, with honesty, with tears streaming down my face, with laughter bellowing out of my lungs, with my fingers and computer capturing it all.  Capturing it with flow, acceptance and support.  Capturing it with a knowing that as I wrote, I was healing some part of me.

Healing.

That part of me that had been afraid to be seen.  That part of me that struggled with wanting to be something other than what I was.  That part of me that was ashamed.  That part of me that had never been honest, had never seen the light of day, had been cowering in the shadows of my inner thoughts for years.  Since the first act of abuse.  Since the first time I felt that I was only here for someones else’s pleasure.  Since the first time I had been betrayed, used, rejected.  And all the times that came after that, like second acts to the play that my subconscious was producing over and over.

To control.

To control some part of me that I had tried hard to change into what I thought I “should” be, do, feel and look like.  I tried to control all of the things I could.  My weight, my words, my feelings.  Never to put out there how I really felt.  Afraid that if I did, I would only be abandoned and rejected again.  So I held tight to control.  I squeezed the breath out of it.  I looked at every facet of my life to see where I could have more control.  Only to feel more and more out of control.

So I shared.

I shared those parts of myself with abandon.  It felt good to allow those parts of me to be seen.  To put them out there vulnerably.  To trust and allow them to heal.  I felt whole.  I felt, for the first time in my life, like I really loved myself.  Loved all those parts of myself that I had shamed into hiding.  All those parts of myself that society had sent messages to that they were wrong, that I was wrong.  That somehow, because of all of it, because of the things I could and couldn’t control, I was fundamentally flawed.  No good to anyone.  Not worth love.  Not even from myself.

I also saw myself in others.

And them in me.  We held each other up.  We held the beauty and sisterhood in each of us as sacred.  We acknowledged that part of us as being whole, as being magical, and we trusted it.  We showed it to one another and found value within our Divine circle.  We had come together to heal.  We had come together to surrender.  We had come together to loose control.

Loose control.

We didn’t need it anymore.  I didn’t need it anymore.  I no longer felt the need to control my thoughts, control my feelings, control my tears, control how I moved my body, or what I put in my mouth.  I KNEW what to do on a level beyond outside influence and judgement.  It was absolutely a feeling of freedom.  A feeling of being exactly that which you are and embracing the hell out of it; both consciously and unconsciously.  Flying high on the freedom of connection to me and my Higher Power.

I listened to my body.

She told me wonderful stories of where she had been hurt, asked me to move and stretch into alignment, and thanked me for finally listening.  I thanked her also for all of the hurt she had endured.  All of the pain she had stored.  I thanked her for being so strong.  For processing all of the junk I had put in her.  From bullshit stories and beliefs, to processed food and laziness, to societal pressures and lies.  I embraced her.  And our connection was like nothing I had experienced before.

Or since.

Coming home has been less than magnificent.  Upon arrival it almost immediately felt as though I was being swallowed alive.  Hit with political anger and unrest.  Hit with expectations of holiday responsibilities.  Hit with financial challenges.  Hit with negative messages of “gaining the holiday 10” and the how to’s reminding you just how unfit you are to figure it out yourself.  Just how much you cannot trust your body, your feelings, your intuition, your inner wisdom.  Just how much you need “them” to tell you, guide you and disconnect you more into a “how to” of control.  “How to avoid overeating at holiday parties”, “how to survive the holidays”, “how to survive your family gatherings”, and on and on they went.

My Bali bubble burst.

I fell into a deep depression.  An utter disdain for life.  I no longer wanted to be here if this was it.  And I had come to this place before.  Why was I here again?  After all I had felt and learned.  After all I had done to change and heal.  I finally faced it.  And decided it was time to get my bubble back!  But how?  And still live in a society of negativity, a society bonding over strife and anger, a society of media-based addictions, of shock and awe, of terror, of being lost is the new found?

I didn’t have a clue.

My first instinct was to RUN.  Run back to Bali or Mexico or Thailand and never come back, never turn on the TV or read a Facebook post again.  Erase myself from this life and it’s addiction to division, to fear, to controlling what others’ think.  But that isn’t really possible…

Or is it?

Maybe I need to listen to my instincts, my intuition and get really curious and really real about what it’s trying to tell me.

Over the course of this year, I have committed to doing just that.

To listen with curiosity, acceptance and compassion about what my intuition, my instincts, my body is telling me.  And to face it with a supportive and open mind.  Not a mind of reaction.  Not a mind run by my fears, society, my past stories.  To face my inner messages with love and arms opened wide.  To sit with them and have vulnerable conversations about all the things I’ve been tucking away and hiding from the world.

And share them.

Share them like I did in Bali.  Share them with fear and tears.  Share them with joy and excitement.  Share them with human beingness.  In all its messy glory!  Share them with my fellow soul sisters.

So I hope you are open to taking this journey with me as I dive in to my deepest fears, my most uncomfortable beliefs, my dark, hidden truths.  And I hope you are open to having some of those conversations with me.  And with yourselves.  Because we are not alone.  Because there is strength in sharing.  Because we cannot BE without one other. Because we cannot rise without each other.  Because we are one.

Because we are humans.  Being.