Here's the Path. Now Walk It.

Who else has one hell of a holy-whoa full moon hangover?

If you are raising your hand right now, hi. You are my tribe.

Shifts have been rolling in, fast and determined, which is what happens when you let the feisty phoenix give your life and soul a fiery blast.

I’ve been feeling the shift coming on for the past few weeks, which is why I stepped back from anything that drained me, started drinking ridiculous amounts of water, and focusing on healing myself over everything else.

As much as I want kids, I’m really glad I didn’t have them this month, because they probably would’ve demanded things. Like love. And food. And it was all I could do to get myself food, much less love.

Fully surrendering the illusion that I have any brand of control over my life did not come easy. Wading through the muck that was floating to the surface was a Shawshank Redemption-style army crawl through the sewer of my soul.

I want control. I tried to wrest control. I did everything in my rather stubborn power to make the universe bend to my will.

And, sure, the universe will bend to me.

But not by doing what I was doing.

What I was doing just made the universe laugh at me.

(Rude.)

Because, as ever, I need to focus on what’s happening internally.

I had to fill up my own damn cup - by crying, moving through old emotions and energy that got stuck in my spleen sometime in mid-2007, roaming the seashore, and drinking green juice and eating potato chips. By meditating and reading Harry Potter. By connecting with my heart and higher self and watching Netflix.

The human and the divine in one big messy orgy of It’s Goddamn Time and This Shift Is Coming Like It Or Not.

Halfway through, I hated it and was mad at it.

Now that I’m on the downhill slide, I like it.

It feels good to move through something big and dark-feeling and come out the other side with your light back on.

Here Are Some Things I Learned (Again) And Hope To Remember This Time

(Note to self: Remembering simply requires daily practice.)

Connect daily with my light and heart and higher self. It’s all in there, I just have to tap in.

Sweat and yoga it out, every day. Move out anything that wants to malinger.

Notice and be present with any shadows or dark spots. Love myself through it all.

Love myself through it all. Yup.

Have fun. Best way to shift into a higher state of being and vibration.

Fill my own cup daily. Just ask what feels like a soul and body sigh of relief and do the thing.

Blaze my own light and vibration. It works even better than shielding and clearing, though do that too.

Be fully and happily in a “whatever happens happens” frame of mind - with money, relationships, work, and life in general. It’s always “this or something better” and as I feel it all here now, life will organize it for me, all the faster if I keep my grubby mitts off.

Feel what I want to feel now - instead of waiting for the love or abundance to give it to me, because it won’t. The universe is mirroring my internal world back to me. So I can just go ahead and feel loved and secure and abundant right now, and the outer world can do whatever it damn well pleases.

Now is the only moment that exists. So I’m gonna be in it and enjoy it.

Taken in Mill Valley after staring at the ocean waves for awhile.

There’s the path. So we just gotta walk it and enjoy the motion.

Trust Fall Off a Cliff

Yesterday, I got some scary-ass guidance.

It happened right here on this ridiculously pretty California beach, as I sat on the sand in my favorite place to get answers.

I've been getting - and ignoring - a few messages for months. Since I'm also getting close to falling off the burn-out cliff, which would force the issue, I'm doing my best to pay attention.

Guidance: Take a month off.

Brain: I would love to, but I can’t afford it.

Heart: Take a month off.

Brain: Yeah, but money. MONEY IS A THING, YOU KNOW.

Guidance: You are not to worry about money.

Brain: EASY FOR YOU TO SAY, LIVING IN THE ETHER WHERE YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY RENT OR BUY ORANGES.

Guidance: You don’t have to buy oranges either.

Brain: But I like oranges.

Guidance [sounding put-upon]: We’re getting off track again.

Taking a month off feels like both a soul sigh of relief (the feeling I always tell my clients to follow) and a red-alert-panic-button-you-gonna-be-homeless-crazy-lady alarm.

Now, I wouldn’t take it completely off. I’ll still be working with my current clients and groups and anyone who knocks on my door.

But I won't be searching anyone out. I won't be launching, sharing, marketing, newsletter-ing, or posting things of the Amber-Is-Sorta-Inspirational-(?)-But-Mostly-She-Seems-To-Be-Talking-About-Monkeys-Again oeuvre on instagram.

Not trying to make money, when humans do actually need money, would be full-blown surrender.

I would be required to trust the universe to send me what I need to be able to keep my house and my car and my oranges. Trust in myself and what I’ve already done, trust in my shaky nervous system not to go crazy with fear.

I’m not 100% sure I have it in me.

I've been getting guided to write more and take a month off for ages - and just haven't done it. Because, fear. Also: possible homeless and orangeless...ness.

But I can't keep touting "follow your guidance! follow your guidance!" to the world at large if I don't follow my own goddamn advice.

What if I did just follow my intuition and stopped doing things that drain me and just did things I love? What would happen?

We’re about to find out.

Trauma Tuesday

I look fairly normal, right?

Nope!

Turns out, I’ve been a walking bundle of traumatized nerves my whole life.

I, hand-to-god, had no earthly idea.

While the world is a traumatic place, I haven’t been through any noticeable trauma (dead dads and miscarriage and breakups aside), so I assumed the word didn’t apply to me.

But there’s a whole subtle trauma underground. Emotional trauma, systemic trauma, empath trauma. They’re like the ninja turtles of trauma: Big, green and will karate chop the heck out of your throat, but no one quite believes they’re real.

After a charged but ultimately no-big-deal conversation on Tuesday night, I catapulted into a 24-hour period of shaking, must-flee, all-my-feels-are-like-fingernails-down-the-chalkboard-of-my-system panic experience.

Needless to say, it was zero fun.

It didn’t really cool down until I ran to the network chiropractor’s office the next day for the first slot they could give me, threw myself down on the table, and yelled “FIX ME!” Which they did.

In the past, I thought I was just being an overly-sensitive drama queen.

That’s the thing about emotional neglect and self-abandonment. (Two terms I don’t particularly care for but have been reading about anyway because they seem to explain a lot.) They’re more or less invisible.

We humans are deeply adept at normalizing and sweeping things under the rug - mostly because we don’t realize it’s an issue or know what to do about it if we do happen to notice.

It’s only been recently that I’ve recognized that this sort of reaction to a fight or any kind of harsh energy or emotion isn’t normal. Or maybe it’s all too normal and few of us really know what to do or how to talk about it.

After my system kicks into high-octane fight-or-flight (but mostly flight), I cease functioning in any normal fashion. I flood, my brain goes hazy, and I become one giant throbbing nerve.

Which is just as much fun as it sounds.

I’ve done a lot of emotional and energy healing, but my poor physical nervous system is so tweaked it can take me down in a hot second at the first sign of trouble.

This is why I have never allowed myself to do any kind of drugs or keep any kind of sleep aids or alcohol in the house, because in these flooded, panicked, in-severe-wracking-systemic-and-emotional-pain moments I will toss back anything handy without giving the first damn.

Which means that on Tuesday night, when I was mid-trauma-trigger, I didn’t have so much as a spare melatonin tablet.

So I went for a drive instead, which may have not been the best plan, all things considered. Luckily, it was after midnight and no one is on the road in Marin. I drove around Tiburon until I calmed down enough to go home, then I worked until I calmed down enough to go to sleep. Then I woke up with a pounding heart, a deep sense of dread, and no idea how to feel better.

The hardest piece of this is the Having No Idea How To Feel Better.

Suddenly, my attraction to energy healing makes sense. For the longest time, it was the only thing that helped me feel better.

To be fair, I have a much better idea of how to feel better than I did in my twenties. Sometimes I can even remember that the trauma spin cycle will eventually end, leaving me much better off. But it’s hard to believe, mid-trigger.

What I learned to do was avoid trauma-triggers. Which means it’s very hard for me to have an argument with someone or, really, any kind of meaningful relationship. Because something jagged eventually and inevitably crops up that requires normal-person communication and possibly a bit of a disagreement and my poor overloaded system just can’t deal. So I run away, silently screaming.

Empaths end up wrangling insane amounts of trauma. Because every human on the planet has been traumatized in some way or another, and very few of them have the privilege of the time, money, help, and knowledge needed to heal. So we just go around sucking it up, all day long.

Energetic boundaries are great, but - as I am currently realizing - very difficult to hold up when your physical system is compromised.

Add in inherited ancestral trauma, whatever you got growing up (because your parents got it growing up), and any of the things that actually happen to you in your life, and it amazes me that anyone gets out of bed. Much less holds down a job and goes to the grocery store in any sort of regular fashion.

Long story short, I had no idea my system was holding so much trauma, and now I know so I guess I get to do something about it.

Big hug to all the other traumatized bundles of raw nerves walking around out there like normal people. You’ve got this.

Ego Explained In a Holy Whoa Moment

In the shower this morning, I was washing my hair and having a little chat with my higher self.

You know, as you do.

I was wondering why I triggered so hard over an aspect of my intuitive work. So I was feeling around and my guides were like, “I ain’t touching that one” and so I got nudged up to my higher self (wise self, small voice, whatever terminology lights your fire).

Here’s the booming, oh-holy-shit response I got:

“The ego triggers when you aren’t honoring your highest calling.”

Well done, higher self. That was a serious mic drop.

My first thought was, Wait a second. My ego goes the most apeshit when I AM honoring my highest calling.

To which my higher self replied, “Your ego goes apeshit when you’re pursuing your highest calling. Honoring your highest calling has a different flavor.”

Huh. Okay. Sure. Let's do this then.

And images flooded in:

Me, triggering when someone who hasn’t been doing this channeling stuff as long as I have gets tens of thousands of youtube views when I get, at best, dozens.

Me, triggering when someone who’s saying the same thing as me on Instagram gets hundreds of hearts and comments when I get crickets.

Okay, that’s far less mysterious than I initially imagined.

My ego goes nuts when I spend my time comparing myself to others rather than trusting and following my path. When I’m happily doing my thing, I don’t care what others are doing or what the response - to their work or mine - happens to be.

Dear Future Me:

For reference, “doing my thing” is writing and channeling and making things for the fun of it and sharing from the heart and resting and having fun.

Not scrolling through Instagram or Youtube and making up all sorts of stories about how I’m doing it wrong or aren’t as good as these other people or whatever other nonsense the brain hamsters spit out that day.

Love,

Present Me Who Just Talked To Our Higher Self and Wants to Help Us Remember This For Next Time, a Next Time That Will Probably Be In Two Hours Given Our Current Track Record

All that said, it’s totally okay for the ego to trigger! We be human and that’s what happens. No judgment needs to be made when the ego fulfills its function.

Life simply goes more smoothly and happily when we notice that the ego’s function is to demonstrate when we’re out of alignment with our soul and purpose.

Right. Got it.

Triggering is cool, feelings are cool, deep dives into the depths of suffering are cool. We just want to notice where all these things are pointing us, rather than getting lost in the experience.

Because all things - good, bad, indifferent, hideous and transcendent - are simply pointing us where we need to go.

Taking care to notice the message our soul is trying to send us through the feelings and experiences is what helps life really begin to move in a horses-and-sunsets sort of direction.

When Your Writing Coach is a Ghost

Six weeks ago, I was elbowed by the ghost of Mary Oliver in a bookstore.

She offered to help me with my writing, which was very kind, because she has the whole of the cosmos to play in, as well as any number of superior writers.

But she offered, I accepted, and here we are.

Her first assignment was to write a page a day.

So I dutifully made a folder on my desktop, which I labeled Mary Oliver and used to stash each day’s page.

Whenever this assignment drifts across my mind - like a tumbleweed attempting to cross a twelve lane highway during rush hour - I assume I’m doing pretty well. Sure, I’ve missed a few days here and there, but surely I’m a good student, one a ghost wouldn’t regret taking on.

Turns out, I haven’t been doing well at all.

I looked at the folder today. Between February 19 and today, March 25, I’ve written precisely eight pages. And that’s only if you include this blog post, which I most certainly am.

Why I need a writing coach is becoming wildly and brutally apparent.

One of the aforementioned pages was a conversation I had with her, which I will share with you now, even though it doesn’t portray me in the best light:

Me: I need to feel some more things first.

Mary Oliver: No, you don’t. It’s self-indulgent. The writing comes first.

[Me: Wanting to argue, but deciding against it.]

Me: This is showing me my inconsistency. You said a page a day and I’ve done maybe five pages, partial pages, in a month.

Mary Oliver: Are you going to let that stop you or are you going to do better?

Me: I don’t like the word better.

Mary Oliver: Don’t trigger, just commit to your writing, the way you know you’re meant to and you know you want to.

Me: I’m tired.

Mary Oliver: You’re being whiny.

Me: Yes.

Mary Oliver: Sigh.

Me: So what do I do? How do I move forward?

Mary Oliver: How do you want to move forward? I can’t tell you what to do and you shouldn’t listen to me if I try.

Me: I want to write fiction. I want to write that story that keeps playing like a movie in my head when I take my walks.

Mary Oliver: Then do that. Write those stories as best you can. Trust the one that is meant to come through will. Just keep going.

Me: I’m so tired.

Mary Oliver: I know. I used to get tired too. Just keep going. Nap if you need to, walk to the trees if you need to, but keep going. Just don’t give up. It’s not time to give up.

Me: Is this resistance?

Mary Oliver: Does it matter? Just keep going. Take care of yourself, because that’s good for the writing, but keep going.

Stop overanalyzing everything.

Do your utmost to show up consistently and trust the unfolding.

There are seasons in writing just as there are seasons in nature. There are seasons in your life just there are seasons in the life of an oak tree.

Allow the seasons. Allow yourself to rest when you feel fallow and bloom when it’s time.

You’ll bloom when it’s time.

----

Mary Oliver doesn’t seem to put up with whining, nor should she.

Whining is definitely not my most attractive trait.

It’s a tricky balance between being really gentle and kind with yourself and … not whining.

(Maybe that balance is only tricky for me.)

I want to be consistent. That’s why I started my Moose in the Kitchen blog oh-so-many-years ago. (Thirteen years ago? Fourteen?) That’s why I started writing this blog again even though I’m not sure anyone actually reads it.

I want to be in the steady flow of words, the one I was able to access so easily for so many years.

I want to finish things, things I’m proud of.

I want to stop beating myself up for being where I am, rather than where my brain says I should be.

I want the ghost of Mary Oliver to be proud of me, or at least feel fairly confident that she’s not wasting her time with me.