Hi resistance. I feel so lost today.
Resistance is a little sleepy and confused (like me, actually). You’re reaching out to me about this?
Well I’m not sure who else to reach out to?
I mean - your wisest self, bravest self, most energized self, most creative self… there are lots of yous who are equipped to help with this. I’m an interesting choice.
Yeah. But you’re who came to mind, so - I feel lost today. What do you think?
Is LOST really the best description? If BEING WITH helps us MOVE THROUGH and staying vague and not present is a way to make everything harder… which are you doing when you say you’re lost?
The second one. More specifically I feel anxious, and tired, and spacey, and like why bother doing anything anyway when everything is so hard?
What’s hard?
Silence.
Because I saw you getting ready for the day. Picking out clothes, packing your stuff for the coffee shop, excited about your projects. I see your life, and how things are actually going really well for you. So what’s hard?
I just feel like I’m in quicksand this morning.
Which is what resistance feels like.
Yup. This feels so convoluted because I feel like I am me, and you are my resistance - only I’m the one in resistance? But this is what I mean about how I feel today. Everything is all screwed up. I can’t even talk to my own self without it being all convoluted.
Oh honey. She gives me a hug and I start to cry. Your feelings are valid, you know. Everything I said about things going well, that’s all true, and it doesn’t mean you won’t have a lot of uncomfortable feelings anyway.
Yeah. Ugh. Now my back is hurting, I hate this chair.
Resistance rubs my back.
OK obviously I miss having a really affectionate partner. I don’t get hugs and backrubs and this sucks.
Yes, sweetie, that sucks.
Ok acknowledging that feels better. It feels so tangly because I also don’t want a partner right now.
Yeah for sure! So where are you at now?
I guess the work I want to do feels HEAVY and BIG and I feel weak and small in comparison. Oh I guess heavy is the wrong word. It feels out of reach.
And isn't this exactly what you help people do? Do the things that feel out of reach?
Yeah.
So what are the tools you would suggest for this situation?
Oh wow, resistance is going to make me take my own medicine.
OK here are the tools I would suggest:
Making your trust in your dream bigger than your fears.
Dream Lab to ask the dream what you should do today.
Alchemy Process for working with overwhelm
Alchemy process for getting answers from your dream
Alchemy process for acclimating to your dream
I mean there are more actually but any of these would work. Though of course we should mention the video for when you’re in resistance.
"So what are you going to do?" Resistance asks.
Alchemy process for getting answers from your dream
My question is: I want to feel energized and creative and I want to be doing things! You know a huge part of my dream right now is simply acting on all of this inspiration but my progress is soooo sloooooow. How do I get there?
All of my anxiety and tangled feelings are here with me in the meditation. Feels good to include them and not try pretend to be somewhere I’m not.
The field of creative dream alchemy feels like spring. A meadow full of flowers, soft light. My mood shifts so much through the grounding and connecting parts.
My dream shows up as a blue bird. Like a cartoon super bright blue birds. Oh there are a whole bunch of them! Maybe I’m Snow White? They fly around me. But as they do, they are guiding me out of the meadow, onto a path in the woods.
The birds are flying and moving. In circles often, but also they are getting somewhere. In the part of the meditation where I talk about how the dream shows up in the meditation I get it - my dream is showing me to JUST GET MOVING.
Laying in the field of flowers is great and important and we should do it every day AND ALSO let’s get on the path and get moving, let’s do that every day too.
I have to pause the meditation often, to be with my own experience without my voice in my ears.
I give my question to the birds and they can’t quite hold it. It’s too heavy. There is this struggle and it’s like - I can’t be fully connected to my dream AND be in this question.
The question starts to lighten up and I look more closely and see some bees are there, pouring honey on it.
It’s getting sweeter and lighter.
Now the birds can carry it. And they put it at the top of a very tall tree.
And I get this whole new idea: A notebook of SELF CARE PROTOCOLS.
Like: if I wake up feeling lost: this is what I do.
When I feel anxious: this is what I do.
Etc.
I mean, I have had SO MANY versions of this so many times in my life.
I need a new one for where I am now.
I sit with this and realize - I am still operating on some pre-pandemic protocols. The thing where getting up and GETTING MOVING helps me get into the mindset I want/need to be in for my work. My pre-pandemic self almost always had the ability to get myself moving no matter how lost or heavy I felt on any given morning.
What if I be sweet to myself, and recognize that who I am today today doesn’t have that ability?
Like sure, do that when I can because it works for me!
But on the days when I can’t - what’s the protocol then? I need clear plans or else my mood takes over planning my day and that will never go well.
I’ve been sitting with this question and only one idea is coming to me: make art. Make myself a latte, and a smoothie or whatever food I feel like, put on comfy clothes, get my art box and big sketchbook journal, put on soothing music, lay on the floor and make art. Express my feelings.
OK this feels embarrassing.
I mean - this is nothing I don’t already know about myself.
BUT/AND
Some days we can’t access the things we know.
Some days we can’t be our “best selves”.
And since I am in the process of planning calls for 2024 - I am going to do one on creating self care protocols for those times when you are not at your best.
Update: I added that call to the library!
I added 4 new calls this week:
Feb 15: Exploring Resistance and Creative Flow
March 12: Taking Inner Work Deeper
April 9: Letting Your Dream Come To You Instead of Chasing After It
May 15: Creating Self Care Protocols That Help You Be The Version Of You Who Can Do Your Dream
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