A Daily Practice
It is so synchronistic that this week's blog/podcast episode is about the power of a daily practice, because I have never been more grateful for mine.
Something happened this week that I’m not ready to go into specifics about yet, but I will say that it triggered me in about 100 different ways. It’s one of those sudden tragedies that would throw even the most well-adjusted person for a loop. Thankfully, I have been riding the waves of grief like a pro surfer and I am so unbelievably grateful to have taught myself how to do that.
There was a time, at the very beginning of my healing journey, when getting triggered could knock me on my ass for weeks, if not months! It would derail any progress, bring forth those dreaded default settings, and unravel any good habits I had worked so hard to establish. I would have to isolate, hibernate, and melt into the goo of my emotional chrysalis. It was all I could do just to process.
I talk in the podcast about a metaphor I often utilize to describe the feeling of traveling through life pre-healing and it’s one I stole from vampire lore. There are some vampire stories that speak about vampires being able to turn themselves into a mist, in order to move in and out of spaces undetected. That was me, in the before-times—a mist.
Organization was not an option. Focus was accessible to me, but only in extreme amounts. It was either 12 hours on a task, resisting stopping to even eat or sleep, or nothing for months and months. My extreme executive dysfunction and struggles with linear time (lol) were a constant source of frustration within myself and for the people around me.
Like so many intuitive decisions that the universe has inspired in my life, I didn’t initially realize I was beginning a daily practice. I just gravitated towards what made me feel better; lighting a candle, writing in my journal, pulling a tarot card, and prayers of gratitude. After a couple of years, I added stretching and eventually (after a lengthy struggle) work. But it was a long process of streamlining and organizing. As always, a balanced marriage of the spiritual and practical was what served me best. But that is much easier said than done.
When I received the news this weekend, I braced myself to fall apart. But when I woke up Monday morning, all I needed was a good, hard 15-minute cry. I let it all out, then let my body move me through the steps of my daily practice. Waking the dog, breakfast, yoga and meditation, rehearsal, work. The steps are as autonomic, at this point, as breathing. All the self-care I need is built into my schedule. I don’t need to disperse into a mist or fall to pieces, I am tethered to the earth by my daily practice. It nurtures me, it protects me, it reminds me how I heal. I don’t have to build anything or tear it apart, all I have to do is step into the flow, and there it is. There I am, on my way to the other side of this moment, this wave of emotion, this way of being.
A daily practice is a foundation you can build on. It’s a holy offering to the altar of yourself. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. It channels your energy into an arrow of manifestation, aiming right for the bullseye of the life of your dreams.
My daily practice is my sanctuary. I didn’t realize how committed I was to it until this week—a week I would have barely made it through—even a year ago. I am full of gratitude for past me, for putting each brick into place, removing and replacing the faulty ones, escalating on the healing spiral, revising and revisiting and facing my faults, mistakes, and struggles, and accommodating my needs and difficulties. For doing The Work, which now allows me to live; in my truth, attuned to the vibration of love, in healing, allowing me to know that I can carry myself through anything. Blessed be.
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