SARAH WOLF | WRITER, READER, GAMER
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My Inner Worlds
The integration workshop last month kicked me harder than April's module. While I can't write about it—still processing the awesome things that happened—I can post pictures of the natural beauty Matt and I got to experience in Sedona and the surrounding areas.
While in Phoenix for training, I noticed a red poppy theme and captured photographic evidence:
We spent five nights in Sedona after the workshop, not realizing we would need the calm, healing space that Red Rock country provides. Matt and I were both hollowed out when we arrived, and we benefited from quiet hikes and not being in our normal environment.
Below are two friends I met during our hike in the Secret Mountain Wilderness. I enjoyed quiet meditation next to both of them.
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Tomorrow marks 48 years of my breathing this planet’s air, consuming nutrition grown on its land, and hydrating from the vast water supply on the sphere we call home. It also marks the day when I honor the call I’ve avoided for the past several years. My creative nature must rise from the hidden dark corner where I stuffed it in my first decade on Earth. I use logic and reason to restrain its growth and expression, and guess what? Like any neglected child, it now has issues and requires family therapy.
When Matt and I signed up for a series of personal integration workshops this spring and summer, I knew changes would happen. Why would we invest in flying to Phoenix, AZ not once, but three times if we didn’t think there would be benefit? Our first training module occurred in mid-April and flattened me for an entire week. I could barely think and felt extreme exhaustion. The second week I felt better physically, but all the trauma and distress I thought I’d dealt with from my childhood came back. Not just to revisit the old material—oh no, I got to see new stuff. You know, the second season has to outdo the first or else the audience will get bored and no longer watch the show. I remembered more blocked experiences and had to process them. I woke from a dream last Friday morning that left me unable to eat much of anything the entire day. I’ll spare you the details. By Saturday I felt better and thought I had processed what the dream meant.
However, today I woke feeling ill because yesterday I did everything “old Sarah” would have done to hide from her feelings. I completely skipped meditation, yoga, and bodywork, while indulging in food, wine, and binge-reading fiction (which ironically was about a grown woman who remembered she was raped as a girl—even in my escape, I can’t escape). I’m tired of avoiding my power, my creative nature, my gift to those who are meant to read what I want to say or write in whatever form it manifests.
Yesterday was a taste of the life I’m trying to leave. I don’t want to be numb anymore. So my gift to myself is to stop running and hiding. Running away doesn’t work, and I’m only making myself and those I care about miserable. I have a structure in place to face my inner self and allow her to shine through the visage I allow the world to see. Do you like the conceptual art that aligns nicely with how I see that inner light?
Dear Tia left her physical body one week ago this morning. It’s hard to reconcile the loss when I sense her presence almost every day. Not everyone believes in life after death, or if they do, they may not have the sensitivity to know their loved one is near. I’m grateful to have that sense of knowing who from the other side may be around, whether it’s my grandmother or my beloved animal companion.
This week has been easier than I anticipated, yet harder in some respects. Aden, the baby brother, lost his pervasive happiness two nights ago and deeply grieved. Matt and I are okay with our own sadness, but seeing a child experience loss for the first time is unbearable. Aden’s smile is ever-present, like he can’t help his mouth hanging open in a goofy grin. However, nothing we did or said gave him any respite from not having his sister with him on the couch. He wouldn’t eat. He sniffed the edges of our duvet where Tia would sneak a nap in the warm luxury of Mom’s bedding, and we could feel his confusion, almost anger, that Tia wasn’t with him. Then he just settled on the couch in an unhappy lump of unmoving sadness where we unsuccessfully tried to cheer him.
His demeanor changed yesterday back to the bright boy we know and love. When I drove up to the house after work, Aden jubilantly raced down the front stairs and ran to my car as I parked. The problem? Our children aren’t allowed outside by themselves. From my peripheral vision I saw Gypsy, our escape artist, madly running down the street towards me. She was a block away, yet her instincts know when Mom is near. I laughed to see Aden so happy and back to his joyous self, captured my errant daughter, and checked on my husband.
Matt was lying in bed, drenched in sadness, and had no idea how our back gate had become unlatched. No dog could open it—I can barely force it open most of the time. To help break Matt’s mood, we went out for sushi, one of his favorite foods, and then watched a three-hour movie (not my preferred activity).
When we arrived home after our spontaneous date night, I opened the door and greeted Gypsy and Aden, while automatically looking to the corner where Tia would have been. I started crying, surprised that I had forgotten she would no longer occupy that space.
We’re one week out. Tears and sadness are normal. But I want the grief to be over. It’s much easier to comfort others than it is to comfort myself. Being in the moment and fully present with my feelings is not pleasant. There is no alleviating the pain except through time. The tenet of Yin yoga is holding an uncomfortable position for a period of time. While I have a physical Yin practice at the studio, I now have a real-life scenario where I get to practice Yin in an emotional place. I’m grateful for my life—the good, the pleasant, the yuk. It’s this blend that makes me who I am today and creates the potential for a most incredible future me.
Spring is just around the corner, night taking one more breath to whisper its final goodbye. With this last kiss, we can all wake from our hibernating selves and inhale the growing sunlight.
At this time of equinox, I shake off the cobwebs in body and mind, in hearth and home. The tradition of spring cleaning came from days of old when we relied on wood-burning heat sources and the light from candles to keep the darkness at bay during the long winter nights. I never really understood this need for spring cleaning until I had to light an apartment using candles for three solid days during a snowstorm (no power means no heat and no light). Afterwards I discovered black soot all over the beige walls, covering my white trash can and any other surface that smoke and its crud can cling to. It took a lot of scrubbing to get my home clean. That experience has made me incredibly grateful for electricity and the modern conveniences that come with it.
The past three months have been intense for my self-identity. I’ve cleared many old thoughts and beliefs that don’t work for me and probably never did. I’ve begun to abandon behavior patterns that destroy any chance that I’ll be who I want to become or accomplish the pursuits that bring joy into my life. There are some things that I’ve let in—that little creative girl who got stuck at some point in childhood, but now wants to join the game; that fearsome weird-looking part of me that others may not get, but that is essential for the work I crave to do. Now that dark and light will balance their energy in a moment’s passing, I also will bring equilibrium to those now-empty spaces and find more effective places for the new aspects of my self.
Every spring we have the opportunity to emerge from our winter caves and see the potential that quietly grows during the dark, still season.
What have you seen or experienced that you want to strengthen in yourself or in your home? How can you feel more love, joy, and gratitude for who you are and who you can be a year from now? |
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