Having walked our new shoes in, they are now comfortable, even though we are far from comfortable out in the shadowy woods, far from our manicured garden and white picket fenced comfort zone.
The big unknown, never seems friendly, does it.
We have worked really hard to make ourselves comfortable in our gilded cages.
Walls have gotten higher, security systems more complex. Whatever it takes, to keep us ‘safe’.
Safe from what?
These gilded cages are about as safe as it was for a lady in waiting in 14th century England.
The castle is pretty, the grounds vast, the politics volatile and shadowy dangers lurk not only in the dungeon but around every corner, down every corridor and behind every well-manicured rose bush.
Suddenly we realize that the woods may be shadowy, we may be tired and even lost, but we feel more comfortable than uncomfortable, as we sit down against a tree, to rest and reflect.
Could it be that we have gotten so used to being outside of our ‘comfort zone’ that we have gotten comfortable with the discomfort?
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable
We have always been taught to fix what is uncomfortable, and though I find that good practice, it feels like we have gotten hyper focused on the ways in which we can do that.
When in fact there are more ways than we have ever imagined.
And fixing what is uncomfortable does not mean we should not experience discomfort.
If oysters refused gritty discomfort, we would have no pearls
If coal refused heat and pressure, we would have no diamonds
If caterpillars refused the excess that led to dissolution, we would have no butterflies
Do you see, it is okay to be uncomfortable when we are changing and growing.
If we start to look at the discomfort as growth rather than us failing at life, we have already made a huge shift.
But fleeing the castle for the scary shadows of the woods, leaves us with 2 realizations
1) we wouldn’t go back
2) we cannot be in a state of fight/flight/freeze/fawn all of the time
There is no going back
Remember how I mentioned we were already a mile outside of our comfort zone?
This is important, because if Prince charming, or the cavalry or even our well-meaning ladies in waiting friends had come to ‘rescue’ us any time before this mile marker…we would have gratefully returned to our gilded cage.
Better the devil you know, so to speak.
But, all this traveling alone in the woods, the road less travelled.
Surviving the wolves and the scary shadows. The unknown, as scary as it is has given us time to quiet the noise in our heads.
We have had time to reflect and simultaneously time away from the ‘comforts’ of home.
And it is only now, standing at the mile marker that we take a deep breath and admit, we were never that comfortable, or that safe.
We can see now that we had followed the bread crumbs of castle living, into the gilded cage.
Rather than recognizing that we had less autonomy than the castle mice, we picked up each crumb and told ourselves they were little cakes and petit fours.
We have held so tightly to our conditioning.
When Marie Antionette, more than two hundred years ago said,
‘Let them eat cake.’
We told ourselves that inside the castle walls we had cake…outside, was revolution and certain death.
We never realized that death may not be literal. Death of the old is the birth of the new.
The death of a grain of sand could be the birth of a pearl of wisdom
The death of a lump of coal could be the birth or an illuminated diamond
The death of a lowly worm could be the birth of a winged beauty
There is no going back, if we went back now, we would realize we had outgrown that cage ages ago, we just did not have the perspective to see it yet.
How to stay calm and carry on
Well great, there is no going back and we are so used to being out in the cold, tired, hungry, lonely and scared that it is not even that uncomfortable anymore.
So now what?
We carry on leaning through trial and error that some berries are good and some
give us a tummy ache.
That some creatures are friendly and some nip at our heels.
Do we need to be hyper vigilant every moment of every day to survive?
If so, we may survive, but we surely won’t thrive.
To thrive we need to be able to feel safe.
‘What! Why?’ I hear you gasp.
‘We live in unsafe times in unsafe places, this is what we just established, we just decided to get comfortable_ish with that.
Now you want us to feel safe!’
Hey, I don’t make the rules of the game.
I, like you, I am just trying to learn how to play a fun and fair game.
The reason we need to feel safe to thrive is that we need to be able to rest, digest and heal.
We can only do that when we are not it fight/flight/freeze/fawn.
Such is the wiring of our nervous system.
Okay, okay, just breathe.
If you are reading my newsletter, you are not in soul preschool or even junior school anymore.
You are ready to face the challenges presented by the complexities of Earth School.
Learning from some of the more evolved animals on our planet we can learn how to down regulate regularly.
A buck (deer for the non South Africans) does not have the luxury of four walls and a door to keep him safe from predators.
He is regularly in danger and any day may be his last but he also does not dwell on that.
He gets on with the business of living.
When he is attacked, he instinctually flees and once he has avoided the jaws of death, he shakes his body, breathes out through soft flapping lips (I call this horse breath) and gets on with his grazing.
Do you want to learn how to do this too?
What tools are you using right now?
Let’s keep the conversation going.
I am available to support you if you want to book a session or learn how, drop me and email.
this link shows a buck down regulating by shaking after surviving a near death experience
Astrology Buzz
Libra Sep 23rd to Oct 22nd
we may find this to be a particularly polarizing Libra season.
With the eclipse energy and other things forcing us to look at what is not working in our relationships, we may not be comfortable.
But hey, it’s a theme and we may as well face the issues and find a way to balance it out as we establish a ‘new normal’.
Try to be kind, honest and fair in your communications and remember it is impossible to please everyone.
Scorpio Oct 23rd to Nov 23rd
there is an opportunity every Scorpio season to get to the bottom of an issue and clear the skeletons.
Shocker, it can be really uncomfortable but will allow us to build on secure foundations without being haunted by the bones in the basement.
The truth can hurt, but clearing the air and knowing where everyone stands is always best for developing deeper relationships or deciding when to walk away, without creating more toxicity.
Lunations for July
Libra New Moon Eclipse is on the 2nd of Octber.
Full Moon in Aries on the 17th opposing the Sun in Libra.
Keep an eye on my YouTube channel for forecasts.
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