Working in the Wind: The Storm that Changed Everything
You know that moment when you observe everything in slow motion? You realize that you’ve lived in your own fairy-tale movie and someone’s pushed pause, and you see each moment frame-by-frame where all the detail of your life is in micro-focus.
Suddenly, the life that you had once known, and your current life met at a crossroads. This is the place on the path where you can choose the road you’ve known, and the one that is new and exciting, and yet, scary and unknown. All the things you’ve known about your roots are exposed and you must choose – the old life that is familiar and seems easy from this close-up view, or, walk down a new and unfamiliar path.
Upon further inspection, you realize that you’ve been down this familiar road so many times that you’ve become complacent and literally annoyed at the same ‘ole scenery. It’s nice, and yet, you see all the shadows and darkness that once were lit with sunshine. Those places that have formed an imprint so deep that the sheer journey of walking down that path again now seems raggedy, old, and uninviting. You see that the roads aren’t maintained, there are cracks in the sidewalks, and the paint is chipping on that old house. These things annoy you because once you saw a glimmer of hope. The hope of potential. Except this potential has become a big letdown. You’ve watered the flowers and swept the sidewalk in front of that old house of your imaginings. But, the wind keeps pushing the leaves right back into the crack where the house meets the sidewalk. The water that goes down the gutter in that one leaky spot has formed a dent in the concrete. You look back at this picture that you had in your Mind and realize that the path will never be sparkly, and may never be what you had envisioned. And, while the thought of a pristine and sparkly home of your former soul is a nice imagining, you realize it isn’t going to be, and it never really was.
So, you come to this ah-ha moment during that frozen moment in time. And, you know you need to choose the different path. Perhaps you’ve known this your whole life, but opted to ignore it. You swept this idea under the rug for so long because you thought that ignoring it and going down that same path was easier. You’ve walked those roads for a long time and for many miles. It seemed easier, but, it wasn't.
You finally realize that it’s been the biggest thing holding you back. You’ve been wishing and dreaming a made-up reality that never existed. You’ve escaped to the nearby landscape and forest for so long because your mind’s imaginings were a way to create a different ending. Maybe holding onto this idea was a way to escape taking responsibility. And, maybe that’s the entire pattern you were trying to escape from in the first place.
When the wind and storm constantly erode the cracks in your soul, you also start to deteriorate. You’ve taken this escape route your entire life by daydreaming a better life. You’ve been abused by the harsh conditions and have learned to forget to trust the roots of your soul. You realize that you can’t escape. You’re right back where you started and the decision is right there in your purview – once again. That thing that you didn’t want to become, is already growing inside you. The seed planted long ago has grown into a tree larger than life itself. The tree seems so large and stable, but, one day, a storm hits and changes things in that instant. Like lightening, you are downed by the light that flashes and enters your whole being. The wisdom of the flash of insight is the knowing that you’ve longed for. You shake in your bones by the winds of the storm. You shake so hard that the limbs of the tree become unstable, and everything changes.
The memory of the old path is still there, but you now see it differently. There’s no going back. You can’t un-know the very thing that sparked the lightening wisdom that filled your being and changed everything.
Escapism is a coping mechanism that seems fun and exciting. But, it’s like working in the wind and eventually erodes the very dreams that you had to begin with. You learn to keep the rosy-colored glasses on because the darkness on the path seems too scary to confront. The monsters that might lurk out of the dark forest may eat you alive. So, you keep going down that same easy path, living a world of make-believe with characters that you’ve softened and animated so that others might embrace the story too. In that micro-focused view, you’ve projected all the good things and buried the darkness in hopes that you’d allow others to see the beauty of all the characters in the story.
The day the lightening came and changed everything was the day the story changed.
The fairy-tale you told for so many years was made-up.
The characters weren’t all sparkly and glistening like you had imagined. They had a dark side that projected and formed these shadows of darkness in yourself. The happy ending that you wished for would never be. All along you were focusing on what might become of the keeper, and would they ever try to walk down a different road to see a new and shiny place. Except, they were too scared and the darkness consumed them. They lived in the dark and this ruled their life. There was no changing their mind. The keeper of the house was so focused on the way the leaves kept accumulating in the corner of that old house. It was their job to maintain that old house and keep it from deteriorating. They became so stuck in the routine of looking down at all the dust that they missed that there was a different path. They became consumed with the work of keeping up the sweeping and cleaning the cobwebs. So, you escaped into the forest, basked in the sunlight, and smelled the wildflowers. The keeper would question when you would try to show enthusiasm for enjoying this different path. They demeaned the way you tried to help with the occasional dusting and sweeping. The keeper became so skilled that they didn’t really enjoy receiving help. They didn’t show appreciation and lacked common gratitude when you helped with the sweeping and cobwebs. After a while, you weren’t sure how to help and escaped to avoid connection - to avoid criticism. This escapism became your pattern. You were so rooted in this escapism that your own roots became weak. You ignored your own intuition to keep up with the story.
And, then came the big storm; the wind blew, and lightening filled your body with a jolt. You finally saw that there was a different way.
You realized that the old path was never the easy one. It only seemed easy because it was a routine that you performed so many times. You didn’t even know to see that there was another path. But, the storm created the flash of light that changed everything.
It lit another path.
And, instead of up-keeping the old sidewalk and sweeping the old path, you walked down a different road.
And everything changed.
This creative writing piece is my first, and describes how I learned to escape at a young age to avoid the criticism of others. This escapism became a deep-rooted pattern that eroded my core so much that I became unable to know my true self, understand my own intuition, and let alone trust that I could follow it.
I have had a lack of confidence for much of my life and didn’t know what it meant to listen to my gut instinct. I have been told by many healers that my 1st and 2nd chakras are shut down.
The 1st chakra, also known as the root chakra relates to how we ground ourselves into the earth and anchor our energy to manifest our world. This is the root of my Being and it’s no wonder that I have been living in a dream world for as long as I can remember. It became an easy, but dysfunctional coping pattern to escape into a dream world where everything was rosy and rainbows.
The 2nd chakra, also known as the sacral chakra, represents creativity and the emotional body. It is also the key to our sensuality. Because of its location at just about two inches below the naval, the sacral chakra is also related to our lymphatic system and our immune response.
The rosy-colored dream world wasn’t my true reality, and I now know that over time, this erosion led to sickness throughout my whole childhood that was fueled with antibiotics that poisoned my ability to heal on my own and contributed to even more erosion of those same areas within my chakra system. I have suffered hormone imbalances, migraines, body aches, lightheadedness, food intolerances, and severe seasonal allergies.
The lack of trust in my gut and deterioration of my intuition has also led to low-level life-long depression and anxiety which I never labeled, or treated. I was so eroded of my true nature that illness has become a pattern.
Visiting my hometown and realizing this pattern has allowed me to shift my perspective and know, with 100% certainty that I can create a different reality. Being immersed in this deep-rooted pattern under microscope view is the exact thing that I needed to propel myself to make the change that I've been longing for.
I know I can heal and the light that fills my path has begun to shimmer with the beauty of my own being.
I have taken the last 10 months to get to the root of my ineffective patterns and focused on healing in all areas of my life. Some things that have helped me with this new way of seeing things are as follows:
Dr. Charley Cropley's Radical Self-Healing Retreat which focuses on how having an honest and kind conversation with ourselves can radically heal all areas of our life.
doTERRA Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade (CPTG) Essential Oils: I utilized specific doTERRA essential oils to enable my healing and reduce my toxic load. The oils I've used are: DDR Prime, Zendocrine, GX Assist, PB Assist, and various oils to boost my mood and immune system.
Law of Attraction Success Planner (Delux version): I purchased this life planner that has helped me to define my life dreams, create behaviors to support those dreams, and track my progress along the way.
Whole30: This is a diet that I have adopted as a lifestyle that is based on eating mostly whole foods and avoiding foods that can cause inflammation and illness.
I have engaged with various private forums on Facebook that have allowed me to connect with others who have also been poisoned by fluoronoquine antibiotics (FQs). If you think you might have been poisoned by taking antibiotics like Cipro, Levequin, or Avelox, click the following links and a moderator will determine whether you fit the criteria for joining the group:
Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Group: a group of members who believe they have experienced varying negative symptoms/ side-effects by taking FQs.
Fluoroquinolone Sanctuary: a group of members who have suffered depression and/ or anxiety as a result of taking FQs.
If you quiet your mind and pay attention to the behaviors that don't nurture your soul, you also might find the root cause of your illness. We live in a world with quick fixes and Big Pharma pills for just about every symptom. But, those things often come with a price to pay and you start to realize that the quick fix doesn't solving the main issue.
I encourage you to ask yourself some of the following open questions to get you thinking about your own dis-ease so that you can start to unlock the keys to healing.
Where in your body is the illness manifesting?
What does focusing on that area/ chakra system tell you about your illness?
What repeating patterns have you experienced in your life that could be contributing to your illness?
What is it that you would do, or become, if you had no fears?
What behaviors might be holding you back from achieving your dreams?
What steps can you take to make daily progress toward your aspirations?
May each of us find the answers from within to thrive to our truest potential.
