It has occurred to me that I struggle with the transition of the seasons ‘out there’ because I carry within the unrelenting Season of Shoulds … and every season brings inevitable grief that all the Shoulds remain unfulfilled.
It’s a stark and unforgiving landscape, this season of Shoulds: scorched and drowned and dusty and foggy. Every change out there is embraced as the potential of change within. Yet every solstice and equinox brings the hard truth that nothing changes at all, except the weather. The damning grief, frustration, hopelessness … continues on.
It doesn’t have to. I choose this dank and clenching space. It’s a pattern of the past, from when I knew no other way to live.
Years ago I discovered a new way to move through the world, and a new way to live and discover more of me, that is as infinite and relentless as I choose it. Creation Out of Deep Energy, or CODE Model ™, defining me as a divine signal in a body for the human experience, of and from the Source and always connected to the infinity that is, rather than simply the body alone. The body, then, a miraculous processor of all energy I encounter: food and drink, emotions and thoughts, memories and experiences, all transformed and integrated into the infinity that is me as I create my world and align with my reason for being here. Yet for much of my life I lived a very different way, trained and patterned by the generations before me and the world around me to live and be judged by others’ creations and purposes, in exclusion of mine. When life is kept small and unchallenging, deeply patterned and protected, all seems well. In that smallness, however, is no room for resilience, for curiosity, for flow of ideas or energy of any kind. There is no capacity for change.
Ironically, I live in a part of the world that is blessed with four distinct seasons. Change is literally in the air, nearly all of the time as each season emerges, peaks, and ebbs into the next. In a world fixated on external referencing and isolation of self, ‘the weather’ has been reduced to the wee conversations we allow ourselves with strangers and sadly, with those we care about as well. Meanwhile, in my paradigm of all ‘out there’ mirroring our states within, the seasons evoke powerful motivations, inspirations, and desires. What I have discovered, however, is as I brace against the inevitable change, my joy at emergence soon dims to grief at what will be. In the icy depth of winter, I long for the warmth of sun on my face and scent of early garden flowers, yet as the snowbanks recede and days lengthen, I grieve that I haven’t spent winter’s cocoon writing my book, building my business, cleaning my closet. As spring flowers nod in May showers I long for the heat of summer, for days floating in salt water and feeling the vibration of the waves through the warm sand on shore, yet in the midst of summer I can already see the leaves changing colour, feel the cool sting of autumn in the air, and I panic. Summer is so short, goes the story, when it is exactly the same length as the other seasons. How I hold summer, however, is disproportionate, fighting the inevitable equinox that will bring cooler nights, crisp apples and a world slowly preparing for hibernation. But that’s okay, I tell myself, I will have lots of time in the winter to read, to write, to knit … And then it’s winter, and then it’s spring, and what have I done, except wish it away and feel the shame of failure.
Why do I do this? First, it’s the how I do it. Simple, really. Our point of power is the moment we’re in. The past is done and unchangeable. The future hasn’t happened yet and hinges on the present. If there is no action in the present, then patterns of the past run unchecked or hopes for the future swirl unresolved. To look out the window at a crisp winter day and think about spring moves me from my point of power to ‘should’, or ‘could’, or ‘maybe’. The only thing created in any of those states is a conversation are empty promises and biting criticism … why don’t you, why haven’t you … in the words of a very wise woman, blah blah blah. To look out the window at a crisp winter day and own how I use weather to distract myself, to give myself permission to avoid things, is a step toward releasing the blah blah blah and staying in the moment where I can choose to do what I want. I haven’t been in school in decades, and my children are all living on their own, yet I still check the cancellation list during snowstorms seeking those magic words: ‘school cancelled.’ I work from home, and I set my own schedule, yet in a deeply held pattern still crave permission to take a day off, goof around in my pajamas, break the routine, even though any routine I have is one I have created. See the crazy? I do now, but I don’t always until I feel the pangs of grief, the clenching of fear, then stop and listen until the ‘should’ story is revealed. I should be writing. I should be more profitable. I should, I would, I could, I will … while I AM stirs and shifts, overlooked by the patterns that run so quickly and easily when attentions are directed elsewhere.
At the first of this week I opened my curtains to a picture postcard of blue sky and a world coated in the marshmallow glove of fluffy mounded snow. Today I watch as snowbanks shrink in a light steady rain, tufts of grass appearing here and there in optimism. All week, I have welcoming the warming weather while grieving the end of winter … which in truth, was the end of excuses. No more storms to ‘knock me off my schedule’, no more cold to keep me snuggled inside, or deep darkness to shorten my workday and invite early bed. What I set out to do this winter, has not all been completed. I have, however, accomplished things of which I had not imagined. I was on the road more, immersed in stunning vistas and rich conversations. I learned what pipes freeze when and how to fix them. And I wrote, but not in the way I’m used to, by chapter and word count and deadline. I wrote instead by impulse and instinct, which in my old world looks messy and frivolous. In my infinite paradigm, it’s authentic and easy when I drop my shoulds and coulds and simply let go. Like life itself.
We have been taught to live a linear life in a world that runs in cycles. The seasons. The moon. Daylight and darkness. We as humans need the constant flow of air and blood to survive; we need the infinite flow of energy and creation to live. I live in a place that outside my window reminds me daily of the change, shift and flow that is a rich and abundant life. This approaching end of February is no end to winter, it is an end to my season of shoulds. The patterns in me grieve and rattle in the sudden chill of new space. The I AM Is enjoying the moment. I look forward to spring, as I look forward to this moment and embrace the invitation of change, of the ‘out there’ to stay in my moment within where power, choice, action all live. Easy as watching snow melt, when you know to pause, breathe, and let go.
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CODE Model™ or Creation Out of Deep Energy™, and Quantum TLC ™ are part of the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge developed by Louise LeBrun.
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As a CODE Model Coach™, I engage Quantum TLC ™ for my own discoveries and can guide you in learning how to engage it for yourself. I offer:
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