The leaves are everywhere these days.  They look lifeless and dull.  They have succummbed to their transition, leaving their mother tree and are waiting to be swept up.  There was something about these leaves today that made me stop and think about my own transition. I have been working hard on re-launching my yoga project, Soba Yoga, and at the same time working on trying to figure out a marketing plan for my counseling/health coaching services as well as keep up with homework for my business planning class. Phew.  All this when I am doing a cleanse of sorts to hopefully heal some chronic conditions.  To say I have felt like the leaf a lot of the time is an understatement.  But it’s not just all this busy work that has me feeling like the leaf.  It actually goes much deeper than that.

The busy work has been bringing forth a lot inside of me.  These things have always been there but are rising up to the surface at a rapid pace for clearing.   That’s the thing about transformation…there are no short cuts.  You don’t receive messages in a fuzzy way.  Nope, the Universe doesn’t have you playing Sherlock Homes.  No guesswork; just smooth clarity.  This can be refreshing and at the same time overwhelming.  Yesterday when I woke up sore from life, my mind wanted to go into self pity mode.

Why can’t I just work a mundane job and spend my money and time on traveling the world?

Why does life have to be so difficult?

I picked up the book “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert that has been sitting by my bedside just waiting for me to start it.  One of the lines on like the third page gave me my answer.  Gilbert writes

Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are within you?

And there it is.

The answer to my whining.

I certainly can go back to working full time for someone else and make a commitment to traveling the world but….

what I get in return is…..STILL keeping the treasures locked inside, shoved down far enough that I can’t see so there fore no one else can.

And just like any emotion we repress and shove deep down, it would continue to attack my gut, my muscles, and my bones.+

See that’s the thing….it has become deeply apparent that….

When you have a calling you don’t have a choice.

Obviously we all have free will so in that respect we do have a c hoice.  But for me the choice is to choose freedom or suffocation.  Now that I have one foot into the door of self employment I see that there is no way for me but both feet in.  Following your heart puts you on an emotional rollercoaster.  When inspiration is high….I am in the flow.  I am right there and it’s all I can see.  I feel the euphoria of creativity and passion pulsing through me.  When I stop and wonder….that my friends can be  my down fall.   I have to stay in this altered reality where what I am creating is ABSOLUTElY going to come into fruition.  That is where the fallling away begins for me.  It’s a falling away from old limiting beliefs.

Gilbert writes in “Big Magic” that fear is an intimate part of creativity.  That creative people are inherantly also quite fearful.  The key is not to fight the fear but instead to invite it in.  She shares that it’s like you let your fear know that it can come for the ride in life but that it can’t drive.  You are the driver.  I would say that is exactly what it feels like.  When I stop the busy work and feel the fear, my first inclination is to get back to being busy so I don’t have to feel it.  But lately I will try to just stay there with in and breathe it in letting the tears flow.  The fear is there to help protect me from being hurt.  It is the big girl inside of me that has to let fear know…

We are going to be ok.

I promise.

I got this one.

My fear thanks me and my breath slows down.  My mind stops racing even for a moment, and I exhale deeply.  Old patterns die slowly like leaves on the trees.  Sometimes they come back and when they do they do they are not as pronounced as they once were because you are aware of them.  They don’t take you on a ride in the same way as they once did.

Transformation feels so clunky and awkward at times.  I don’t feel like myself at all these days and that it is not easy.  I cry at the drop of a pin.  I have mucles that are sore and tired.  My heart aches with a mixture of fear and excitement.  I am reminded of the day at 23 when I stepped on the plane at Logan Airport to Fly to Dublin Airport in Ireland to live for four months. It was my first time leaving home.  I had just broken up with a long term boyfriend within a month or so before I left and I had no idea what lied ahead of me on the other side.  But one thing I knew for sure was that

I had no choice.

I had to go.  Period.

And I did and it changed the trajectory of the rest of my life.  So will this next step.  If you are feeling dead inside and wondering why, might it be that there is a part dying off inside of you that you are not ready to let go of?  What would it be like to acknowledge that life is ever changing and that means that you too need to change with it.

Let go.

Let transformation happen.

Let your fear in and then give it a hug.

Let the tears flow.  Don’t hold them back.

This transformation thing is not easy but it IS necessary if you are ever to find the heart in your soul.  Creating Soba Yoga taught me one major thing…..

You have a calling that is bigger than you.

Follow it and let it tell your story to the world.

Namaste, Cheers and much love all wrapped up in a beautiful early Christmas package.

Love to you!

Looking for some support along the way towards wellness?  Come meet with me in my office in Watertown, Ma for a consultation.  Contact me