I have been having the most interesting time during the past few days. It began when I returned to what I thought was an obsession, a compulsive pattern of mine. When I get attracted to something, I want it and "fight" tooth and nail to get what I want. As gracefully as possible, that is. That pattern has been true much of my life and usually I am not proud of it. As if it is wrong somehow, or even shameful to go after what I want. More about growing up female in a patriarchy on another day.
Let me back up. I didn’t marry until I was 38 years old, and the thought of living with another person, much less a partner, was unfamiliar to me, except in my family of origin. I remember early in my marriage I was a bit surprised because when I loaned a friend some money to buy a car, my husband was curious about my not talking with him first about it. "Oh," I wondered, "I don’t know these new rules." By projecting how I would feel if he did that to me (ah, empathy...), I learned to be more courteous and collaborative rather than continuing to make all my financial decisions by myself, which I had done for so long. Seemed to work better that way.
In any case, for several months around my 70th birthday, after three of my five family of origin members passed on to another space and time, I realized more viscerally how this physical life can be very short, or very long, and I wanted to do several new things for myself. So many practices, healing methods, and meditative and mystery school processes have helped me throughout time.* I actually have great gratitude for the isolation of the pandemic because I found more time to listen more deeply to my Soul during these past few years than ever before. Many types and styles of practices assisted me for the past 5 years of transformation and growth, and I am very glad I have also been able to participate in the healing power of psychedelic medicines in safe and well-guided settings, amongst peers, colleagues, new friends, and facilitators.
A year ago when my 99 yr old mother’s health got worse, I decided I could retire from my psychotherapy career (after considering this idea for a few years), and I had never really thought about that idea before then. Naive, silly, or limiting myself and my dreams, I know not what. I realized that I could actually retire and open up space to do something else in my life. having been a professional career woman for 45 years. I have always been a very hard worker, nose to the grind, focused on learning, making money, being a good girl, helping others, and enjoying my career, as if work was the most important part of life, or at least a primary foundation or grounding for whatever else I have done. So, I began making plans to retire and move forward, shocking some of my peers because after all, psychotherapists work until extremely old ages, if they want to and can.
More than a year ago, I began creating a new website that went through many drafts and phases finally culminating in my current website: SacredFreedomRevolution.com The website partly attempts to define my interests these days and my mission and hopes for a better life for all.
Then when my mother died, I decided I wanted to buy a beach house and live at the beach or at least stay at the beach for some parts of the year, and yes, knew I could rent a place, which would be wiser than buying a home there, hurricanes and all. After reading Ann Morrow Lindbergh and May Sarton as a young woman, I romanticized this dream of living at the beach, being some sort of creative artist, even though I never took that seriously because I grew up very middle class with fear and insecurity about money and having enough. Scarcity vs. abundance.
Also, by this time I had been living in a city, Nashville, TN, where I have lived for almost 50 years and although it seemed kind of wild and adventurous to think about leaving Nashville, I felt ready. I have my family to consider though, and I admit and confess to having moved them around a lot (probably far too often) even if in the same town. A repetition compulsion,** developed when my family of origin moved from town to town, house to house when I was young. So again, I thought, “oh, it’s just my usual pattern of moving,” which I have enjoyed in my adult life but which became a coping mechanism or defense for all sorts of feelings, having been traumatized by so many moves in my early life.
Being busy has been my primary coping skill and moving frequently helped me do that! My geographical and emotional roots were often shallowed by moving so often, making for a pretty anxious person. Earlier, moving was not in my control but was my parents’ decision. So, having mastered moving myself throughout my adult years, I learned to just stay put for awhile as the years have gone by. I have loved every home I have ever lived in and homes became a constant energy or force throughout this life of mine, setting me up to love looking for homes, engaging with homes, picking homes that fit my current phase of life, and more. Perhaps attaching me more to homes than to people at time, along with my attachment to every pet I have ever had.
This beach longing voice, a part of my inner being, had been getting louder and louder.A few years ago, I traveled down to the beach and spent almost a month there, feeling into what that would be like to live there. My family came too and it was delightful. I am not sure words can describe how much I actually LOVED it, being in a remote beach area, few people, lots of sand, shells, sea creatures, big birds, salt, and a different kind of light and air. In the Forgotten Coast of Florida, there are no high rises, no big box stores, few cars traveling the roads, and forests all around the beach areas, offering us so much oxygen, animals, sunrises, sunsets, and bird life, I just LOVED it. Peace and quiet, not the hustle and bustle of city life. Not as much concrete and noise, truck fumes and sirens, stores to shop in, and crime.
I traveled to another beach for a retreat a month later and again, loved the light, the air, and the peacefulness the beach offered me. Fast forward to my looking at houses online and finding out of the blue a realtor who sent me a few listings, and who said he had a special connection to one of the houses having lived there for awhile himself, 7 years ago.
As I tried to tell my financial advisor about my plans, I described a similar romance that also happened when I met my husband. I have a knowing. We might call it falling in love or we might say, I just have a knowing when something fits for me, it fits, and I want to live inside it and all around it, and it works out somehow. Not without conflict or stress at times, but feeling so aligned with me.
Of course this beach house was too expensive and surely someone else would buy it before we could decide about how to even think about such a move. I even traveled down there alone to see this and other properties, and it didn’t feel good really. Not having my family there, being alone, wasn’t what I wanted, although I have often said and consciously thought in life: "I just want to be alone more." Being alone there without my family did not fit, however, and I gave up this idea for awhile. On the back burner thinking, why not take the leap?
Weeks later the desire, the obsession returned. I am writing about all this particularly to tell this next part of the tale. Usually when I want something I am driven, I stride toward what I want with blinders on, tunnel vision so to speak. This time I didn’t want to live my life that way or be as anxious and aggressive about what I want, and having learned from so many amazing teachers, mentors and energy healers lately, I decided on a different strategy. My financial advisor said, “Be patient (the interest rates are high, there may be a recession, people will start selling properties for 1/2 their price soon, just wait.” So sensible.
Patience is an important value for me to practice and is not natural for me. So, I decided if this was "meant to be,” then it would happen and if it wasn’t meant to be, it wouldn’t. I had heard that before from so many people including my mother, and I thought maybe I would sit still with this and see. Still thinking to myself, life can be so short. Now, writing about it in my sweet state of patience.
What I realized is that this process is about trusting in life, or the divine, or the Great Mystery. Or, having faith that what happens, which is surely not always in my control, is OK, it just is. As Byron Katie recommends, life just is, and we can accept life as it is. If we struggle against the flow, we use a lot of energy and drain ourselves. Yes, I have influence and can navigate around choices and options, but I cannot make things happen like I had previously hoped or thought. What a myth! Just doesn't always work.
All of the sudden one week, as the beach house desire got whetted again, I realized something that I have not consciously experienced before: It seemed like I have already “moved” to this house at this particular beach location. I was there already. I joked with my husband about it, after setting up normal tasks to see if we can sell our house and for how much and what plan to use to make such a big decision as this. Ideas popped into me or out of me, like putting us on the waiting list for an Independent Living space here in town so that when and if we need such a space, we will have moved up the waiting list and can make that happen. Like, not wanting to give up residence in Nashville, realizing we can always return, rent an airbnb, see our friends, our doctors, and family often. There were so many options about how to make this happen, I am still amazed, believing that it would happen. And, if it didn’t, that was OK too. Sure, I’d be disappointed, but I am practicing detachment along with living my dream even before I get to live it in this physical 3D reality - if I do.
As I realized I had already moved in some plane of my life, some interesting feelings and fantasies arose. One morning, I woke up and realized that I was already enacting in my body, mind, and heart, where I would walk the dogs down there at the beach. Maybe I would walk them out onto the 350 ft pier that penetrates the bay, but maybe I would walk the grounds of the community first with them, then feed them, and then take them to a nearby beach where we can walk in the white, warm sand, and view the ocean, the sky, the sun, and breathe that beautiful, satisfying salty air that envelopes us. I saw myself doing just that almost as if I was now leading a parallel life there along with being here at home, walking the beautiful green, spring time streets of Nashville after a nice rain. No longer as needy or pushy about the physical move at that point, because I was already there.
I am also holding on to this quotation as I allow these energies to flow:
"The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight."
~ Joseph Campbell
* I want to thank so many of my teachers and mentors in my life, here are but a few: growing up with my parents; Breathwork training with Kenneth Robinson and Linda Manning; Art and Soul, Tobi Fishel and writing circles; Jenna Longmire and the Tree of Life Mystery School; Tammy Roth and all that she is and does; Rebecca Campbell and the Inner Temple Mystery School; Virginia Satir on a beach in Destin, FL for a month in the 1970's, learning all about family systems and magic; all the groups and circles I have participated in and all the members of these circles; my family; my friends and my clients, and so many more.
** That phrase, "repetition compulsion" and even the term "obsession" and "psychotic" are such pathologically oriented terms, I like to believe that many types of thinking, feeling and experiencing life are just fine unless they cause distress - even though I know sometimes we get into trouble using our best survival skills later on in life when those behaviors may hurt us more than they help us.
