“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Be gentle with yourself, they have said.

Remember you are a fragile soul, I have read.

Even the kindest words can be poison.

Because I have only listened to those words when fear or grief has caused me pain.

And instead of making me healthier, they caused a kind of paralysis.

Because sometimes we need to be gentle with ourselves, and sometimes we need permission to play small.

But now that we are grown-up, most times we need know that we are strong and capable and that we have what it takes to take the next step.

Most times the best course of action is not to stay fragile.

Most times the best course of action is to put on our big girl pants or our invisible crown and prove to ourselves that we have got this.

It’s our internal Supernanny that we need, not our fairy godmother.

Take the chance. Make the leap. Sit on the naughty step. Get off your ass. Clean your house. Eat your greens. Play bigger. Get dressed. Make the call. Move your body. Do the math. Book the ticket. Take responsibility.

You’ve got this.

xo

“Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous, there’s really nothing to lose.” – Jewel

The powerful shifts of 2012 began this morning before I had even gotten out of my pyjamas.

My cells feel scrambled and the world looks different than it did 20 minutes ago.

I started the day listening to the last Circe’s Tribe call recording. In the opening meditation, Jamie had us visualise something that included a colour and an emotion associated with it.  The colour that I saw was pink, and when she said emotion, I thought that I felt panic.  I have been feeling that feeling off an on for a few months now and I have been swallowing that feeling down, giving myself heartache in the process.

I almost stopped listening, but then a question came into my head: “Is that actually panic that I am feeling? Is it really fear or could it be another energy? Could it be power? Excitement? Passion? The colour was pink after all?!”

The question stopped me cold.  In that moment I realised that I have the same reaction to all of the great big strong emotions. Afraid of their bigness, I call them all the same thing: fear. Being afraid of them meant that I stopped knowing what they really were.

That realisation brought on the most incredible feeling of expansion.

Then anxiousness.

Then excitement.

Big excitement.

And then I wrote this in my journal:

I commit to meeting my emotions, naming and allowing them; letting them be as big as they need to be and expanding myself so that I am big enough and brave enough to hold them.”

There’s that feeling again, but I am going to walk over and meet it face-to-face.

yes.

“I feel my boots trying to leave the ground, I feel my heart pumping hard. I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.” - Mary Oliver

“Are you still writing?”

I hadn’t spoken to him in 10 years, but in the 3 minutes we spent on the phone, he asked if I was still writing.

“A little,” I said.

A little?

I still can’t do it. I still feel apologetic when I talk about writing.

Then someone I love asked me if I actually wanted to be a writer… after all, I don’t act like one.

Do I?  Do I want to be a writer? Do I love writing?  No. I love words. I love words that when strung together have the power to create inspiration and connection.  I love what is possible when you write.

The truth will be evident to anyone who really knows me or who reads this blog occasionally.

The truth is that writing scares me, but it is actually bigger than that:

I scare me.

I can’t just sit down and write for the sake of writing. I could never paint for the sake of painting or cook for the sake of cooking or tidy for the sake of tidying, or exercise for the sake of simply moving my body. In the past, everything with me has had to be a production, the creation of something wonderful or be in some way A BIG DEAL.

So it is no surprise that I just stopped trying. Grown-up life just didn’t have the fireworks that I craved, and feeling that electric every day with no return just creates disappointment. Then, forgetting that I had given up shooting for the moon, I went through hell trying to figure out what was wrong with me and why I wasn’t living up to my own perceived potential.

That’s where 2012 comes in.

Marianne Williamson said: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

It is my light that most frightens me, but I have spent years focusing instead on the darkness.

2012 is about focusing on the light.  Period.  But instead of giving myself more pressure to be, do and feel all at once, 2012 is about emerging.

Emerge for me is traveling the distance between the dark and the light, choosing to step closer to one and farther away from the other.  It’s made up of one choice, one step, one feeling at a time and being patient if those movements take a little while.

I am capable of miracles. I am capable of magic.

…and blinking, I step closer to the light.

xo

Image and Sculpture by Paige Bradley