Turns Out, I Am Literally The Bee's Knees

I was reading a book in the sun, drinking free coffee (my super power is scoring free coffee) and minding my own business, when a bee decided to land on my thigh.

Memories of my childhood are fuzzy. Our brain processes information differently when we feel intense emotion and, as an empath with no coping skills, I was constantly flooded with feels. So my brain trained itself to survive the moment rather than record it for later. But a few of the memories I do have are of being stung by bees - screaming because a bee bit me on the inside of my mouth after it landed on my sandwich on a camping trip and wearing jelly sandals for a week because the top of my foot was so swollen I couldn’t wear anything else.

So when the bee landed on my leg, I panicked a bit, wondering if it was about to poke me with its stinger.

Then I noticed that it was cleaning itself.

Its little stinger retracted and extended as the bee gently washed its torso and legs and fuzzy little bee butt. I had to consciously keep breathing - in and out - to keep my cortisol levels from spiking, but it was astonishing. I’d never seen a bee take a bath before and I was rather honored that it chose me.

I love it when dogs and children wander up to me of their own accord. Like they’re drawn to me or feel safe with me. Or maybe they see the unicorns over my shoulder. I don’t know. Either way, it always makes my day a little bit better. Same with this little bee giving itself a wash on my thigh, even as I wondered the entire time if I was in for a sharp sting and a few days of swelling.

But the bee continued to bathe itself while I watched and, when it was done, fluttered gently off into the sunshine.

Image borrowed from this lovely Etsy shop.

Image borrowed from this lovely Etsy shop.

Dedicated To Everyone Who Confuses The World

From refusing to enter the world (the female doctor trying to deliver me had to call in a burly dude with forceps to yank me out) to some serious sexual dysfunction in my 20s that Kaiser had no idea what to do with for years (that was a festival of terrible, let me tell you) to this morning when my doctor sat staring at me for twenty minutes with a deeply confused look on her face, I’ve been baffling western medicine since 1978.

Guys, this is how I became a hippie in the first place. No one else ever knew what to do with me.

Luckily, I've always been physically healthy. Sure, inside I was a giant ball of traumatized anxiety sponging up every emotion within a three mile radius, but I figured that was normal. Mental and emotional health is so deeply tricky because no one else can see the inside of our heads, and we've always lived there so don't know anything else.

While any number of arguments could be made both for and against my mental health, I feel much better and happier than I ever have in my life and I chalk it up to being a relentless - and one could even claim obnoxious - hippie. Playing with energy healing sorted me out nicely, which is how I accidentally fell into Hippie-As-Profession. When people ask me what I do, I tend to say something like, "I just want everyone to feel better."

Which is both true and also how I end up confusing every well-meaning person who's ever asked me what I do for a living.

Now I'm just laughing in my living room because OH THIS WORLD, YOU GUYS. Do any of us know what to do with it? Even a little?

Since we don't, I think we just keep looking for our own answers, our own truth, and chalk up the days where you get a message from your doctor saying, "I think you can take care of this with an $8 over-the-counter medication, let me know if that doesn't work" as a serious win.

Especially when you spend the rest of that day cheerfully driving down the coast with the top down, eating shepherd's pie in the window seat, and reading your book in the November sun.

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And if you come home to a delivery of your new Harry Potter sheets emblazoned with golden stars and owls - well that’s pretty much perfect.

(Speaking of rampant hippie-ism and energy healing and being both confusing and confused, I did an energy healing on youtube related to all this today. :)

(Book pictured is Capital Gaines, which I loved.)

Worlds Colliding

Outer World:

Voted, finished laundry, made a doctor’s appointment and a pot of soup.

Decided that was more than enough adulting for one day.

Inner World:

Untangled multiple thoughts, worries, fears, and desires that don’t actually belong to me and sent them on their way.

Played in a future timeline of farmhouse and babies and goats and friends eating barbeque cooked by someone who isn’t me. (Husband? Imported barbeque expert we’re fancy enough to hire?)

Jumped into a novel plot that’s been unspooling in my head for months but hasn’t made it onto the page because my creative resistance has been mighty.

My favorite part of the day:

When the inner and outer worlds begin to blend, because I’m writing or channeling a group session or sharing the inner thoughts of my stuffed therapy otter.

Sometimes when I’m blending the inner and the outer worlds, the soup boils over or I forget to unwind what’s mine and someone else’s and end up on a roller coaster ride thanks to a ticket that I didn’t buy.

I live so completely in my head, in other dimensions, that grounding and remembering to be human is crucial.

Taking a walk through the redwoods, making a cup of tea, crawling into those freshly washed sheets for a rest, feeling my feet in my slippers, looking at the tiny pumpkin sitting next to my copper turkey candle holder because I am autumnal AF.

Staying present and grounded is a constant practice when you spend most of your time jumping worlds and timelines and soaking up other people’s energy. I’m still learning how to wrangle it all in a way that best serves me and the world. I don’t know how successful I am, but surely I’m improving. If nothing else, life is much happier and easier than it used to be.

Whatever worlds you occupy, just keep going. Jumping between them gets easier.

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Transformation

Transformation can feel like: 

  • Every bad choice you’ve ever made rising up to throttle you. 

  • Spending the morning in bed. 

  • Anger blooming up out of nowhere. 

  • Old wounds doing a rain dance on your liver. 

  • Crying in the middle of an outdoor mall.

  • Wondering if you’re too damaged to get any of the things you want.

  • Events you thought you'd made peace with mooning you on the freeway. 

I may or may not have experienced every one of these symptoms in the past seven hours. 

It’s been a fun Thursday. 

I know I’m going through a transformation, but it’s easy to forget that and just feel like I’m failing at life.

Failing at life A LOT. 

Like everything I thought I knew is in question and all of the divine timing messages I get are complete bullshit.

Because obviously I have failed. A LOT.

But failure is a judgment and self-judgment never shows up more powerfully than when you’re about to burst into something new. 

So if you’re in the midst of a WTF-is-going-on-and-when-will-this-end? phase, you’re probably transforming. 

It’s not super fun. It’s rarely easy. But it’s worth it.

Transformation is how we do what we’ve never done before, how we step into our next evolution.

Transformation takes a lot out of you. Sometimes laziness is called for, as your entire system re-boots and your brain re-patterns. You’re doing quite a lot, even if it feels like you’re mostly just watching Netflix and eating half-off Halloween candy. 

But the more chrysalis processes from which you emerge, the faster the transformation goes.

The first few cocoons I crawled into were long, drawn out, painstaking, and painful. Now I can move through something relatively quickly - in a few days or even a few hours. It’s still painful, but I can usually see my way through it or beyond it.

So even though I spent a few minutes worrying that I was going to need years of therapy to work yet another uncovered trauma (good lord, do they never end), I got that nudge that said, “No, you don’t. Just keep moving through the feelings and being gentle with yourself in the process and this will quickly pass.”

It’s easy to make multiple “I Have Failed” arguments when most of your work is in the 5th and 7th dimensions and most of life happens in the 3rd. But if you’re arguing with yourself, it means your brain is far too involved in the process, and the brain mostly just operates as a 3D recording device.

Brains are certainly useful, but not so much in deep processes of transformation for which your brain has zero reference.

Hush, brain hamsters.

In the midst of a transformation, the best you can do is take care of yourself. Lots of gentleness, lots of care for your body and nervous system, lots of nature and water, lots of rest. Zero judgment of your path, your process, or your results. Just let yourself transform.

Times of transformation are not times to expect a lot from yourself externally, because you’re switching worlds and moving internal mountains and getting ready to emerge anew.

Caterpillars halfway to becoming butterflies aren’t getting much done, I guarantee it.

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Halfway to butterfly. Hence, totally fine that I have a sink full of dirty dishes.