It’s been awhile since I’ve written here, I know. I’ve been going through some fairly large changes lately and simply haven’t felt the urge to write here. Actually the urge has arisen occasionally, but the mojo simply hasn’t been there to do so. An interesting development in my life recently has been that my body has been deciding more and more what I will and won’t do. I say it’s my body, because it feels rooted in the physical, but I’m sure those roots extend much further in me to a deeper place of knowing. There has been somewhat of a work strike going on in me lately where I simply can’t do many things. An example of this is that something in me simply wouldn’t let me make travel plans for this winter, with a strong urge to stay put. There have also been some stressful business things going on and I’ve only occasionally been able to rise to the occasion of tackling them. It seems that an inner wisdom in me is telling me to rest, to just be, to take care of myself on many levels and let the world and others take care of themselves.
I’ve also been capable of being functional, so it’s not really a wholesale work stoppage. I’ve been able to do household projects including making a large compost bin, make good healthy meals, swim laps at the new indoor pool in town (I’m up to 750 meters now), do workworking projects, etc. The nice flavor of all of this is that I am taking really good care of myself. I’m even flossing my teeth daily which I’ve learned for me can be a good baromoeter of self-love. I’ve even begun a more vegan-oriented diet, eschewing all dairy and eggs in addition to the vegetarian diet I’ve been on for a couple of years now (I’ll be writing more about diet/truth/compasion in the future as much is brewing there for me as well). Even my meditation practice has improved greatly, as I’ve really just wanted to sit, to stop, to be still, and to get closer to understanding what has felt like a molting process.
So what is molting away? That’s been a very relevant question for me as of late. The more I’ve sat with this and moved through various layers, the more it feels like I’m letting go of being the responsible one, the good one, the one who can always be counted on to hold everything together with super-human capacity. That “Ted” feels very “done” to me. As I look at it, I think I forged into that person very young. After my family split up when I was a small child, I somehow took on the sense of responsibility to hold the family together and make everything work out. I also became more attuned to the needs of others to the point where I’ve now begun asking the question, “where am I in the equation of my own life?” Obviously I have opinions and make choices, but there is often such a balancing act of trying to take so many others’ needs into consideration that I don’t necessarily have immediate access to what it is that I may want. So what I’m finding, in this work stoppage, is that I simply don’t have a lot of capacity to do anything that is bourne from a fear that if I don’t do it, then everything will fall apart. Let it fall apart if it will, but at the moment, something in me is simply not allowing me to continue in that role of the utterly responsible one. Done. Simply can’t do it.
It’s interesting that accompanying this boycott has been such a strong self-care component. I’m feeling much more clean, much more pure in my body these past few days, partly from diet and exercise, but also because something that is not real, that is fear based, is molting away. The molting, though, doesn’t feel like an external, skin or feather-based molting, but has rather been internal, with a sloughing out of impure intentions and fear-based behaviors. I’m also having some egoic dissolving too in that I don’t have much energy to tout myself or present myself in a form that is in any way less that real and true. I think I may start a 3 day fast today as it feels like an emotional detoxification is already underway and that a little fasting/cleansing might help to support this process.
One reply on “Molting”
I fasted about 30 minutes and then realized that fasting was an appropriate concept at the time, but the truth was that my body was asking for nourishment rather than further cleansing. Nice when answers just naturally appear.