Where have I been?

I’ve been on mountaintops, rain pouring down on my bare skin, my chin tilted towards the sky. I see the clouds with my third eye as I step out of my humanness and into my soul. My crown connects to the heavens with my element drawing the line that channels source through me.

I’ve been in lotus, up dog, down dog and corpse pose along riverbanks. Sandy bare feet, wet as my soul animal splashes down among the rocks in front of me. Nahko and Trevor Hall filling the air. Choosing to tune the city around me out, turning up the volume of nature’s heartbeat.

I’ve been sitting on rocks in Ireland, the sea ebbing and flowing in front of me, muffling my cries to the Universe for help. Why do I feel like this? What are you trying to teach me? I fucking give up. I surrender. I am simply a soul in a human experience, my body now floating at sea, surrendering to the forces bigger than me.

The mind overcomes things faster than a body does. The mind processes quickly, but a body holds the trauma at a cellular level and slowly processes and integrates.

The more you ignore the body…

The more you feel you should get over it…

The more you get mad at your body for being slow and not doing enough…

Not being enough…Not having enough…

…The more the body rebels.

It digs its heels in and forces you to listen.

Our bodies will only allow us to fully awaken to the consciousness within us when we deepen the mind, body, & soul connection. Our minds awaken faster than the body does, we have to give the body time to catch up. We have to give the body time to rest. Otherwise, it will take even longer to process, integrate, and awaken.

Be patient with the body. Love the body. Rest the body. Pamper the body. Nourish the body. Move the body . Be with the body.
And so that’s where I have been.

I’ve pushed my body hard leading up to this life path.

This life path I’ve chosen is one where I am marrying my soulmate. I live across the world with him, the oceans between me and all of the faces that lead me to this point. He is the masculine polar match to my feminine being. The beach to my ocean. The sun to my moon. The one person it’s been easy with. The person who fate introduced me to on a tour bus in Cuba. The man who supports and loves me on every level, every fragment of my soul. He knows things that I’ve never told anyone. He accepts me fully for who I am. He matches and pushes my adventurous, free spirit, wanderlust, entrepreneurial side. He shines light on me when I’m hiding in my shadows. He is the only person I have allowed to see all of me and feel all of me. He has taught me patience. He has taught me trust. He has taught me unconditional love. My rock.

This life path that was chosen for me, is me, my dog and my best friend travelling the world together. My passport is filling up with stamps. I no longer know how many countries I’ve been to. I no longer can keep track of where I was when. I have gotten to experience so many different cultures and environments and now I get to experience the challenge that most people never get the opportunity to: to live abroad. I am now immersed into a completely different culture. I observe how the postal workers are. The office people. The bus drivers. The cab drivers. The bartender. The pet groomer. I see the daily stresses of our local grocery store staff. I know what it feels like to be a foreigner lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces.

This life path my soul contract Is assigned to, is one where I am in the service of light. I am a healer. A lightworker. A feminine leader. I teach people how to choose love and light over fear and dark. I empower, inspire and mentor women through their spiritual awakening. My creativity and leading from my heart is my life purpose and gifts to the world. I get the freedom of choosing how I show up to my day and how it gets to play out. I get to connect to women on a soul to soul level. I get to work with one of the leading coaches in the industry. I get to be part of the rising of the feminine and be a leader in this movement.

In order to be on this path, the path that my soul contract chose, I had to say goodbye.

I had to say goodbye to Dad who I always leaned on. Dad a cowboy, me his little cowgirl. And then one day his little cowgirl grew up and started breaking hearts. But whenever my heart was broken, or uncertain, I would call Dad. He was the last person I said goodbye to in the airport before I flew across the world to join my love. I peeled myself out of his arms and turned to runaway towards security before he saw my heart break again.

I had to say goodbye to Dylan. My best friend. The endless nights on his couch, late night walks or drives to get food, pondering life’s mysteries. The taco Tuesdays. The road trips to Calgary and Banff. The friend I would spend Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve with. Hunting sasquatch under the full moon in the mountains. Falling asleep many times on his couch because I was too tired to drive home.

I had to say goodbye to Mom. Mom. Open and curious to my weird hippie spiritual ways. We shared many late night “water cooler” talks in the kitchen, about the growth journey I’m on and how it was all playing out. The ear that was always selfless and open to listen to me talking over and over again about the trauma in Dominican. She lived vicariously through my travel stories, dreaming about the day JP and I would take her and Dad to Ireland.

I had to say goodbye to Payton. My best friend for 21 years. The wine nights. Sober nights. Fat kid nights. Diet down days. The excitement around boys which grew into excitement around men. The break ups. The puppy play dates. The bitch sessions. The lash parties. The late summer nights on the patio. MMA. Coffee. So much coffee. Rock concerts. Sushi dates. Shopping days. The sister I never had.

& then there was Cass. It was weird saying goodbye to her. There was no sadness, just an accepting and knowing energy between the two of us, understood and felt by both. The friend I am so energetically connected to. I can feel her whenever I desire to, no matter how far away we are. When I think of her, I think of big open skies and flat fields. I feel connected to the nature of home through her.

To be on this life path that I am meant to be on, I had to say goodbye to 25 years of friends and family, 25 years of vast prairie skies, 25 years of old identities and conditioning. I had to say goodbye to myself and all of the parts that made me me that were no longer serving me in this next chapter of my life.

This means death of old self. Death of ego. In order to be reborn, there must be death, and where there’s death, there’s grief.

Yet it’s so easy to ignore the grief and just focus on the positive exciting things to come. When you ignore grief though, the body will rebel.

And my body did.

I moved my body across the world.

I expected her to fine tune into a new frequency.

I expected her to adjust to mountains instead of open and expansive prairies.

I expected her to adjust to tourists, buildings and trees surrounding me in my home space rather than space and nothingness other than harsh, dry, flat landscape.

I expected her to adjust to a new climate, food, and water.

I expected her to adjust to sharing my life in close quarters with a human who I was in a long distance relationship with for 15 months after living on my own for a couple of years.

I expected her to adjust to the comedown after months of pushing, stress and long work hours leading up to the move without burnout.

I expected her to easily adjust to being off pills that altered my reproductive cycle, my cycle of creation, my cycle that makes me a woman – a pill which I took religiously every single day for 10 years.

I expected her to have a handle on the PTSD symptoms in a whole new culture, language, environment, home and sea of unfamiliar faces.

I expected so much of myself, and my body, and I didn’t give myself the proper space and time to grieve, process, let go, settle, integrate and celebrate.

And so my body revolted.

My body felt heavy.

My mind got cloudy.
My brain got foggy.
My vibe dropped. My hip locked. My PTSD came out in full play. I began to resent my new environment.

I tried to force my way through. I tried all of my tools and techniques to nurture my vibration. I continued to push my business, sign clients and create content.

But.
My body felt heavier.
My mind got cloudier.
My brain got foggier.

I lost control to depression, anxiety and PTSD.
I hated the tourists. I hated the language. I hated the food. I hated the buildings. I hated the busyness. I hated the tourists. I hated them some more. I hated the culture. I hated the people. I began to react to situations rather than responding. I shut down.

And so I stepped back.

I stepped back from social media. From signing new clients. I even stepped back from travel.

I went inwards. I welcomed the heaviness that I had been avoiding in. I allowed myself to get lost in it.
I spent time on mountaintops and rivers and watching clouds float by as I lay on my back in open meadows. I meditated. I prayed. I journaled. I read. I stretched. I fire breathed. I danced. I exercised. I kundalini’d. I watched the sunset. I cried. I allowed myself to sit in the heaviness for days. I allowed it to move through me, as big as the wave was, rather than push it down.

I grieved. I grieved the familiar faces, the old identities, the old memories, the old chapters. I allowed myself to be angry that this life path I’m meant to be on meant saying goodbye to everyone. I allowed myself to feel sad that I don’t love my new environment. I allowed myself to feel all of the low vibrations even though I had so many reasons to justify why I should be happy. I accepted whatever has been coming up as it is rather than justifying and denying it or feeling shame around it.

It’s still there. Just not as much. It’s mostly moved through me, just fragments and slivers of sadness still scattered around, but there’s mostly peace now. Now is the time to take time to celebrate this manifestation that I am living in. Of traveling the world with my best friend and my dog, serving women and helping them awaken, transform and up level. Of living a minimalist life to be able to travel. Of living such a beautiful life.

I will embrace it as a reminder to slow down and be – to allow the body to catch up with my mind that’s processing and letting go much faster.

I will put myself first, my self care and creativity first, and everything else after.

I will not feel shame around the emotions that come up, good or bad, because who is to say that how I deal and feel with my own personal journey that is set out specifically and uniquely to me is wrong.

I will allow myself to be supported by the masculine role in our partnership. I will surrender to the sweetness of our moments together because it is still all so fresh and we are living that moment we craved for months to be able to touch each other’s skin every single day. I will accept that there are days that I will feel sadness as I adjust to my new life, and I will allow him to hold me on these days because I can feel sadness and happiness at the same time, I don’t have to choose one or the other.

I will be patient and kind with myself.

I will give my body time to process, integrate, adjust and settle.

I recognize that I am like the ocean, with ebbs and flows and just like mother nature, I have cycles and seasons.
I am ready to allow myself to be seen again, but in this time, in a different more vulnerable way.

My breakdown, is someone’s beacon of light, so I will share.

xo Mary

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Photo cred: Stephany Stefan