Tag Archives: healing

Footage Friday: Quiet Rain

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It’s week 2 of Footage Fridays! Huzzah!!! (technically it’s my third Friday video, but I didn’t come up with the nifty alliterative name until Week 2 :P ). I’m falling into a really nice rhythm here. I film on Wednesday night, edit on Thursday night, upload overnight (because it takes FOREVER), and post on Friday. It’s great!

This video is a wee bit melancholy. I was having a sad afternoon-and-evening on Wednesday, and this piece of music jumped out at me from my “OK for videos” list (yes, I have a list like that…it helps a LOT).

I did most of this dance sitting in a chair. I’m an upper body dancer by inclination, and this just felt right.

It’s not a happy dance, but it’s a true dance. It exactly expressed how I was feeling. And that’s what dance is all about.

 

(If you can’t see the video, click here to view on YouTube)

…I’m feeling a lot better now

Breaking the Silence

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Words words words.

My head is stuffed full of words unspoken and words unwritten. I am stifled, smothered, crushed by the weight of unspoken thoughts and untold stories. I am self-censored to the point of utter silence, mired in the shame that comes when you feel that your thoughts and feelings are not worthy of expression.

When you look at me, you might think I look a little sad, a little tired, a little stressed. But I am drowning, lost in a sea of words and stories and emotions, and unable to find my way out.

I’ve been wanting to write this post for days. I kept writing “blog post” on my to-do list and then…checking Facebook, opening tabs for other people’s blogs, obsessively collecting information about the thoughts and feelings of others instead of being in my own head and heart and processing their contents. As if salvation was possible only outside myself, as if other people’s breakthroughs could take the place of my own.

The only expression that has managed to break through the chaos is dancing…brief moments of release and escape from the crowded prison of my brain.

 

Big changes are coming for my family. Big changes for me, the stay-at-home mama. Changes which mean stepping out of my safe little bubble, smashing through my comfort zone, and doing the things I’ve said for ages that I wanted to do…but didn’t make time or space for because I was too afraid. It’s already starting. And I haven’t said one word on this blog or anywhere else on the Internet.

I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Didn’t want to upset anyone or take the risk and fail. Thought that if I kept quiet and didn’t tell anyone, maybe the Big Scary Changes would wander off and bother someone else.

And that makes me shake my head in disgust, because the second-to-last real post I wrote was about my epiphany: how I didn’t want to live in fear anymore, wanted to live out loud and be 100% me 100% of the time.

“Now look at you,” my inner critic cackles, “Stuck in the mud, quiet and cowed like you always will be.” The untold stories threaten to bury me, to cover my head and suck me down into a life of silence and shame once again.

But, eventually, I stop them. I close down Facebook and all the other browser tabs full of other people’s stories. I open my word processing program. I begin to type this out. And the pressure inside my head and heart begins to ease. I start to feel more like myself again. Like maybe my stories are as worth telling as anyone else’s. Like maybe it would be OK if I just wrote what I was feeling. Like maybe this is only the beginning.

I know me. I know that in a week, or even a day, this collection of sentences won’t remotely resemble what I’m feeling, just as it bears no resemblance to how I was feeling 2 weeks ago. I’m an air sign, as changeable as the breeze. But this is my story right now…and I will tell it. Keeping silent hurts too much.

The words flow out of my head and onto the screen, and I breathe a little deeper, sit a little more solidly in my body, make plans to dance again tomorrow. I remember why I started blogging in the first place, remember the relief of letting my stories out into the Universe. I start to think of new stories to tell, now that the dam is broken.

There are always stories to tell.

An epiphany…

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I spent part of yesterday morning in a frenzy of self-doubt and worry. This in itself is nothing rare, sadly, and it usually makes me frustrated and sad in addition to the aforementioned frenzy (SO MUCH FUN!).

But yesterday, as I began the tailspin into self-criticism and doubt, fear and smallness, I looked at myself in the mirror. And all of a sudden, rage shot through me. I stamped my foot.

“What the HELL is this?!” I thought out loud.

And things shifted. Suddenly, I saw my life so far as a whole, patterns revealed and easy to see. I saw my past and my present, my achievements and challenges, my triumphs and fears. And over and over again, I saw myself playing small.

I saw myself constantly worrying about what people thought of me and fearing they might “realize that I was worthless and stupid” (“Realize”?!…WHAT?!). I saw myself hiding my light, pretending to be “normal” (whatever that means) for the sake of fitting in. I saw myself limiting my dreams according to what “they” said could be done (whoever “they” are), not even giving them a try on my own. I saw myself avoiding other people because I was afraid of what they would think of me. I saw an awful lot of worrying, shutting up, and putting things off.

I’m not saying this in a self-critical way, I swear, but it IS what I saw. 

I saw my gifts, lined up and ready…no…ACHING to be used. I felt the rage of pent-up energy longing to race forward while I held it back out of fear of what other people would think or say (what about what *I* think? What about what *I* have to say?).

I walked into the living room and I looked at my son, who radiates his light without even thinking about it, without questioning whether or not he “can” or “should.”

And it really hit home…

…All the times I hid that unique glowing part of myself so that I could fit in, or because I was afraid of failure or rejection, came rushing back to me. And I almost quivered with rage. I wanted to find every person who (directly or indirectly) taught me that it wasn’t OK to be me, that it was more important, more prudent, safer to fit in than to be myself, and PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE (I’m not a particularly violent person, so this was unusual).

And then, with all of these images flashing through my mind, I took a deep breath…and I said “Enough.”

Enough of this. Enough selling myself short, holding myself up to invisible (and imaginary) standards of how I “should” be. Enough hesitating out of fear and waiting to be “perfect” before I do anything. Enough limiting what I DO do to what I know I can succeed at immediately.

Enough hiding and pretending. Enough trying to “play by the rules,” dimming my light to fit in, enough trying not to be the weird one at the party. Enough assuming that people will think I suck…enough worrying about what they think, period. Enough assuming that someone else knows what I can and can’t do better than I do myself. SCREW ALL OF IT.

I want to live my life out loud. I want to be 100% me 100% of the time. I want to do what I love, and thrive. I want to be the person who walks down the street radiating joy and confidence, complimenting strangers and dancing in the rain. I want to be the person whe asks “Why not?” when someone says, “Oh, you can’t do that!” And then, if that thing calls to my heart, I want to do it anyway.

I’m so tired of worrying that I’m not good enough, not fit enough, not creative or talented or driven enough, not original enough, too old, too tired, too shy, too…unworthy.

Enough of this.

I AM WORTHY.

More than that…I AM AMAZING.

Amazingness is my birthright. It’s mine because I’m human and I’m me. We all come into this world as glowing sparks of light. We all come into this world shining our unique and amazing light. You’re amazing in a unique way that is 100% yours. You’re amazing because you’re human and you’re you.

Maybe it’s because I walk by this sign every time I go into my kitchen, but dammit, I’m ready to shine my light in the world. I’m more than ready. In fact, I’m shining now. My light is bursting out of my chest and filling every space I move through. I am blinding, shimmering, radiating light. I am ON FIRE…in the best possible way. It’s not that there’s nothing wrong with me…it’s that there’s everything right with me. My true self is beautiful, whole, and perfect because that’s how each of us is born…we just need to remember it.

Imagine a world in which all you had to do was inhabit your You-ness 100% of the time. What kind of magic would you make? What would it feel like?

Let’s try it together. Let’s paint the world in a glorious rainbow of unique colours.

Watch out, world. I’m done hiding. Prepare to be rocked.