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Unleashing the Waterfall

Waterfalls are magic, pure and simple. These natural wonders carve their own paths, roar unapologetically, are powerful and are beautiful just by being what they are. To find one by surprise is finding treasure untethered. Even those we try to tame, like Niagara Falls with its splash-shrouded tourists and campy honeymoon suites, retain a majesty above a world sleepwalking past the awesome to get to the cheap t-shirts.  In nature or on gilded paths, we are drawn to these magnificent sources of power in flow. Why?

Here is a thought. All we desire externally mirrors that which we crave internally. Waterfalls are the permission, the proof, the evidence of the great power in roaring, creating, shining, simply by allowing unimpeded flow. We as beings of divine energy are that energetic flow within a body for the human experience. We as writers express that flow in words, we as creators express that flow moment by moment, choice by choice, in the authentic lives we manifest. Yet rarely do we allow our waterfalls within. We choke them, dam them, sometimes even forget them altogether. Hearing the roar, feeling the splash on our cheeks, watching the cascades hurl over the precipice to  fearlessly transform the riverbed below is the closest we dare come to feeling the awesome power that is our own internal flow. Myths, fears, and outdated beliefs keep us safely behind the fence witnessing the world out there as our own waterfalls struggle, gurgle, gasp for survival.

The world is a better place with waterfalls, externally and internally. Energy in flow is what will heal, transform, and expand a dying world. Our words, our creations, our lives in flow are all in our control, and our choice.

What’s in the way? For each of us, the stories are different. Think of the river flowing toward the waterfall, the path of water diverted by currents and eddies, around boulders and fallen trees. Consider that river a metaphor for your internal landscape impeding energy flow. Currents and eddies are manic energy diverted into work that appears necessary and appropriate according to others, external referencing that does not align with your internal knowledge of self:  ‘keeping up appearances’ or ‘fulfilling the dream’ of others while sacrificing your own dreams and desires. Boulders are memories layered, buried and fiercely protected into hardened immoveable nodules that run and ruin your life beyond your conscious knowledge because the memory is too painful or to early for words to touch and release. Fallen trees are those beliefs and strategies that worked well to survive childhood, and have outgrown their usefulness in adulthood yet know no other pattern but to cling and slow down anything in their path. And consider the source of the river, our own internal flow of water energy in motion. Cry? No way, crying is for babies, it makes people worry, it’s messy, it’s wrong. Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.  Our divine energy navigating this obstacle course often has little left to roar, or even speak, and this becomes normal, and over time desired. Too much flow is felt as uncomfortable, inappropriate, dangerous. We can’t handle it. Better slow down, They can’t handle who we are or what we want to say. Better dial it back.  Those beliefs may feel like safety, but they are strangulation, and a death knell for creation. As a writer, words consigned to a meandering shrinking river will rarely reach the precipice of the light of the day.  The words themselves will join the obstacles, stuck and impeding what little flow remains, until there is nothing left to flow, to say, to feel.

What to do in such dire circumstances? Step one is awareness. Own your existence as an energetic being for which full energetic flow is life itself. Spend time cruising your internal river, sitting in the presence of your internal waterfall. What do you notice? Feeling avoidances, slowdowns, changes in mood? Do you breathe and allow space for what you feel, or do you push it down and get busy doing something, anything, to take the attention out and away from you. There is no right or wrong, only information. Notice what you notice, breathe, and keep noticing. That is all you need to begin a great adventure of exploration into an inner landscape longing to see you.

Waterfalls in nature are unmatched in providing information and solace. Our inner waterfalls are unmatched in connecting us with ourselves and in enabling us to share our unique selves with the world. So grab a box of tissues and have a grand old cry. Touch those boulders, invite yourself to crack them open and take a peek, clean up some soggy trees, play in the current and eddies, get to know and appreciate your river for what it has done for you, then step in and create it the way you want it now. invite the flow. Know it’s all you, you’re capable and worthy of whatever you choose to create, and like the waterfalls out there,  pure magic.

Want to learn more?

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.

CODE Model™ or Creation Out of Deep Energy™,  and Quantum TLC ™ are part of the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge developed by Louise LeBrun.

Visit
https://wel-systems.com/self-directed-evolution/

This new space for exploration includes articles, audio files, and referrals to CODE Model Coaches™ who can support and guide your journey.

Contact me

I can offer:

  • 1 on 1 conversations/explorations/coaching to discuss your writing and the story behind the story of not writing
  • Whispers from Within ™, a 10-day email exchange that delves into writing and limiting beliefs through daily writing and written conversation
  • Small group conversations, in person or virtual, among those of us called to write, exploring what lights us up in writing and what challenges us.

If any of these options resonate or pique your curiosity, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat.

Thanks for reading and for showing up!

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

Posted on

Lifting the Fog of Shame

Writer’s Block. Inner Critic. Projects start with enthusiasm, then slide into oblivion. Writers know these stories well. We call ourselves lazy, disorganized, silly. There are a million programs and courses claiming to help or cure these afflictions. In my world, the struggle to write is a cue. The root of the issue is shame.

Shame. It is the most insidious of our emotions, a slippery hybrid of rage and grief, replicating quicker than any virus, penetrating more deeply than the sharpest arrow, bearing the weight of a thousand elephants and as hard to pin down as smoke. I feel my shame as fog, maybe because I grew up on Canada’s East Coast, where both shame and fog are part of the landscape and have been for generations: low-lying billows of cloudy moisture that chill summer days into darkened dampness, obscure vision, hide landmarks, and threaten navigation while ruining our hair and our mood.  We learn to live with it. Ah, it’ll burn off by noon, we console ourselves as we don sweaters and wait it out. Over time we learn strategies to navigate when we can barely see the road, and over time, we don’t notice it at all. Can’t change the weather, we shrug. Life goes on.

Like fog over a town, shame roiling through our inner landscape penetrates everywhere and everything, obscures our vision, slows movement to a crawl, dampens desire to do anything except stay warm and dry and wait it out. Unlike fog, though, shame won’t just burn off, lift, or otherwise vanish on its own. We can’t control the weather. We can, however, choose to own the foggy apparitions of shame we carry. Owning the shame as our creation, and a genius one at that, is what invites the fog to lift and WOW, there it is:  a life of warm, sunny clarity, with visibility infinite and energy focused on who we are and can become, rather than creeping around obstacles and reinforcing patterns that keep us swirling in circles, searching and grasping for what is there if we only choose to see it.

What is shame?

To me shame is many things, wears many disguises, is multifunctional and multitasking, as slippery as it is wispy and, like an early morning on a spring ocean, is blinding and chilling to the core. Shame within me is a wailing wilful child, face streaked with tears of frustration, screaming at a world that punishes rather than listens to the knowledge of the universe she embodies and longs to share. Shame is also a lithe seductress, gliding in and around heart and lungs and gut, tingling and inviting, then clenching and wringing the very air and desire from body and mind, blocking the energy that is life, diverting it slightly, connivingly, with whispered stories of  ‘you’re not good enough’, ‘don’t waste your time’ and  ‘how dare you…who do you think you are?’ And shame is a decaying sticky blanket of undigested thoughts and dreams, half-chewed projects, and regurgitated memories, coating and polluting clear quantum energy into halting spurts of festering ooze. In the moment, shame blinds us to our words, our desires, our purpose, diverting or disconnecting our bodies and intellect from the divine signal that we are. In its grip, in any and all of its forms, we forget the divine and infinite being that we are and come to embrace the shame as ‘just who we are,’ if we notice it at all. And that is its most powerful venom: that of becoming normal and unnoticed in our existence, convincing us to shrink and twist ourselves to fit the stories shame continually hisses in our awareness.

Where does shame come from?

Everywhere, starting with the DNA from the parents who conceived you. Their shame, accumulated from their lives and the DNA of their parents, is all handed to you at the moment of conception. Your nervous system grows to it, and collects its own patterns and stories from what you hear in utero, and what you experience at birth and in childhood, all without your awareness or language to express it. As children, we experienced shame as a tool to ensure our compliance. Public scoldings, placed in corners or in hallways to be humiliated, being criticized or called out for missing a question, stepping out of line, being late … in other words, being human. Dare to feel it, to cry at the sadness, to rage at the unfairness, and more shame: what a sissy, big baby, until at some point, there is no more feeling. Numb, detached, hidden. As an adult, we are legally our own person yet internally, we continue to run the patterns of childhood, our training effective, our detachment complete, with reminders to keep us in line. Get over it already. It was in the past. Just move on. And all the while, shame keeps pumping out its poison. No compassion for anyone, especially yourself, who feels, who want to explore the roots of their agony, who want to choose different, do different, and make amends for the damage done by unjust, controlling, narrow-minded regimes. Pick a cause, any cause. Look at the anger, the sadness, the fierceness with which varied and opposing paradigms are ‘right’ and those in disagreement are ‘wrong.’ Oh, not cuddled enough as a child, someone sneers. Dismiss the sheer power of what is running our world into the ground. Shame. Yes, on us as children. Reinforced in us as adults, by us as adults. No clear way forward, no ownership of the internal blinding, festering fog of deceit running our lives.

We all want to be seen, heard, and acknowledged, yet we cannot if we do not first see, hear, and acknowledge ourselves and the truth of our experience. Lacking awareness, or bracing against the slimy blanket of shame, we give over our wants to others, raging for the attention we so rightly deserve, and so wrongly try to wring what we seek from ‘out there’ rather than allowing it to flow from within.

Is there a way out?
Absolutely.

Shame is energy, patterned to stories that, as mentioned, we are born with or acquire through our lives. Processing that energy is owning that we ourselves are divine energy, within and moving through our bodies for the human experience, bodies that are designed to be efficient processors of all energy, including food, thoughts, memories and emotions like shame. Allowing the stories and sensations to move and be digested, rather than avoid or shut them down, is the equivalent of the sun burning off the fog. Within all energy is information, and allowing that information to be processed and integrated both lifts the fog and expands our awareness, our knowledge, our lives as a result. And we create it all.

How do we invite the energy to move?

Generations of information is embedded in a human body. Much of the information is layered with shame, and from a time before we had language to speak it. Quantum TLC ™ (TLC meaning Triggering Life Choices, although Tender Loving Care is also in order for the awesome beings we are!) uses breath, relaxation and awareness of internal cues to engage the body’s natural ability to process energy. QTLC ™ in fact is the only way to digest information stored in the body. The brain cannot move memories stored in the body, so talking it out may help somewhat but in itself is not enough. My awareness, in my body, relaxed into the sensation, breathing and inviting the energy to move…

That screaming child: I listen to her. Acknowledge her. Cuddle her. Tell her she’s safe and smart and it’s OK. She has nothing to be ashamed of. She knew more than the people tasked to train her. And she’s reminding me that I still know more about me than any external system possibly can.

That slinky temptress, whispering promises of safety and contentment that only serve to keep me silent and isolated and on the fast track to an early death from toxic buildup of the energy that I am … I hold her, I thank her, for there was a time when those beliefs helped me survive until I could reconnect with my life. I acknowledge her, and remind her that I need that protection no longer. Internal safety is a superpower. No external force can touch it. Choosing from internal reference is choosing aligned with divine signal. No need to hate them ‘out there’ for who and what they are. Be who I am. Lead and invite by example, not by rage or coercion or manipulation. Be my divine energy in flow.

That decaying, sticky blanket … I pick it up. Examine it inch by inch. Shake it out. Hang it to air in the fresh breeze of awareness. Touch the beliefs deeply embedded in its wisps, hold them, feel them, choose if they continue to serve. There is the chilling dampness of a shameful moment relived, then a release … warmth and tingles, lightness, and a sensation of space … energy and place once filled with blocked energy now open for new, the tightness or sadness or rage also gone, digested as a quantum snack and absorbed for me to use as I choose, rather than mindlessly engaged in a pattern that no longer serves.

I do this now. I will do it again, and again, and again, as layers melt and more layers present, an infinite spiral in the infinite playground that is my life. Shame will always be on my playground. It will no longer be the playground bully. Given the attention it craves without a fight, it is my friend, telling me secrets I keep from myself, showing me shortcuts through the woods and abandoned lots within to where I want to be, giving me a shove or a smack when I need to notice something and in my mindful embrace, shares what it knows and drifts off like fog rising to the sky, revealing a clear path forward.

We can’t change the weather, or anything in the external world. There will always be fog. There will always be shame. We can choose how to use it: to maintain our stories and spin in circles, or to engage the spiral of evolution and plunge in, trusting we know the way. Choice, like internal safety, is also a superpower, along with the knowledge that we cannot get our own life wrong. There is no wrong or right. There just is. Like fog and shame and all we create, including our writing and the process we use to find our words, is both beautiful and genius.

How do I Learn About Quantum TLC ™?

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.

CODE Model™ or Creation Out of Deep Energy™,  and Quantum TLC ™ are part of the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge developed by Louise LeBrun.

Interested in learning more?

Visit
https://wel-systems.com/self-directed-evolution/

This new space for exploration includes articles, audio files, and referrals to CODE Model Coaches™ who can support and guide your journey.

Contact me

I can offer:

  • 1 on 1 conversations/explorations/coaching to discuss your writing and the story behind the story of not writing
  • Whispers from Within ™, a 10-day email exchange that delves into writing and limiting beliefs through daily writing and written conversation
  • Small group conversations, in person or virtual, among those of us called to write, exploring what lights us up in writing and what challenges us.

If any of these options resonate or pique your curiosity, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat.

Thanks for reading and for showing up!

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

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Pen and Punishment: Revisiting history with the power of choice

We are writers. We long to be writers. We wish we had time to write. I’ve been in all categories, and continue to meet folks who share in the joyful angst that is the call of the written word. The unspoken question: if we all want to write so damn badly, why is it so hard to just sit and do it?

Consider this.

When were you first introduced to writing? Was it a kindly teacher who encouraged you to use your imagination, gave you constructive feedback and ample time to finish? If so, you’re probably not even reading this. You are fluently writing your 57th manuscript and wondering why so many writers you know complain and drink so much. For me, writing emerged from me early, too early according to my first public school teacher, who expressly forbid me from writing because five year olds shouldn’t know how to read or write.  I couldn’t help who I was, but I learned very quickly if I didn’t want to be punished, to put down my pencil and do what I was told. Over time, what I was told became who I was. Follow the rules, avoid the punishment.

Ironically, punishment in early schooling often involved writing. Who remembers writing lines? I will not talk in class, written 50 or 100 times. And the drudgery of cursive writing class, getting criticised or even smacked on the hand for Os not properly shaped, As not pointed enough. Grammar class: endless drills on rules (and their gazillion exceptions in the English language) or the classic: write me 500 words on why you should not use the word ‘stupid’ in class, or whatever else transgression warranted punishment.

And punishment was not limited to the classroom. Did you have a diary? Did anyone read that diary, or a journal or letter or note, without your permission? It may have been a bratty sibling, a probing parent, or a nosy friend who entered your private world uninvited and used your words to shame, humiliate or otherwise kill your confidence and your joy.  We learn quickly in moments like that to find safety in hiding one’s words deep inside, especially things intimate and important to you. The thing is, the best writing to read is that which is intimate and authentic. Hard if not impossible to protect and share at the same time.

Then, enter high school and literature and writing become a literal requirement for a high school diploma. Pressure to perform, with zero choice in the topics, titles, or creative output.  Read this book, submit this essay, write this exam or fail, all with the timer ticking, regardless of whether you liked the book or had anything to say about it. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve met who said they haven’t picked up a book since high school, read little and write even less … people I feel would have much to share with us and the reading world if such an ingrained hatred of the craft wasn’t so deeply embedded.

What about those of us who insist on writing, then harbour the hope like an aching, unresolved, unrequited love?

We are living in a horribly delightful thing called a double bind. Taught that something is wrong when we know in the very cells of our being it is right for us. Trying to live by someone else’s rules when we know congruently in ourselves those rules are best for them, not for us.  Double binds run silently, buried with memories forgotten and feelings dismissed, dampening efforts forward with squirts of negativity that slow us down, make us feel like we’re pushing against something, raise doubts, shake our confidence, and plant the stories that we are wasting time, that it’s too much work, that you’re not any good at this anyway. So, given the opportunity to write, you tell yourself the house needs vacuuming. Maybe you’ll write after the kids go to bed. Or go to college. Or get married. Then there’s grandchildren, so the cycle repeats …

The fact is, the body remembers everything and has no ability to judge what serves and what doesn’t. Only we can do that, we as the divine signal that is us, the essence that is who we are and knows why we are here can take ownership of our lives and choose what we want. If writing emerges as a desire, yet is met with resistance, consider a new pattern of thought. Rather than labelling yourself lazy and trying to push through, consider yourself a genius and allow the resistance. Mindful pause yields wisdom; pushing through yields words on paper and even more resistance as the pattern is repeated.

The good news is, we as writers and as human beings have two important tools at our disposal: awareness and choice.  With these tools, we can create the life we want. It starts with a breath, mindful and relaxed to the base of the spine, inviting and allowing the inner space for whatever surfaces. Chances are, the words you’re searching for are there, under a shameful sticky blanket of memories and feelings from a time past, a person long gone. And you have the choice to stay stuck or to invite the release. It’s more fun than vacuuming. Plus it serves you longer and further, for your writing and anything you want in your life.

And you don’t have to do it alone. The CODE Model™, or Creation Out of Deep Energy™, is something we each can learn and live from, and we live and learn best in connection with others on the journey.

For example, I can offer:

  • 1 on 1 conversations/explorations/coaching to discuss your writing and the story behind the story of not writing
  • Whispers from Within ™, a 10-day email exchange that delves into writing and limiting beliefs through daily writing and written conversation
  • Small group conversations, in person or virtual, among those of us called to write, exploring what lights us up in writing and what challenges us.

If any of these options resonate or pique your curiosity, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat.

Want to know more about The CODE Model ™?
Read the offerings or reach out to me or any of these awesome women listed below.

Thanks for reading and for showing up!

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

To learn more about The Code Model ™ and the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge, visit:

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Cleaning out the Toolbox

We are resourceful creatures … from the time we are born we develop strategies, patterns, and habits to get what we need and want. Somewhere between the dependence of childhood and the independence of adulthood, we too often drop or lose the most important tool for our growth: choice. And in the loss of choice, those strategies, patterns and habits take on lives of their own. What once worked for us, now has us working for them.

My recent NaNoWriMo experience smacked me in the face with this. Halfway into the 30-day challenge, I was frustrated, frantic, and writing gibberish in a feverish  pursuit of what? Online badges and a word count that matched the daily charted average. ACK! and Yuck … I had turned an invitation to embrace the joy of daily writing into a punished pursuit of virtual baubles and praise. An ingrained strategy to write only when necessary, when there was tangible reward, was running me ragged and in the frenzy I forgot my ability to just STOP for God’s sake, breathe, and choose.

Do I benefit from a daily writing practice?
Yes, I do. Sort of. I’ve come to realize I benefit from daily writing PLAY. Practice to me speaks of needing to rely on routine and repetition to improve. In this moment, what I need is space to allow my words to flow, invited and embraced, with a sense of curiosity rather than an eye on the clock and the word count. My strategy of writing when needed: for school, for editors, for assignments earned me a living for years, gave my life purpose and money, the two things I thought were essential to life.  That strategy, however, was developed when I was a child, to get through a world I found baffling because long before I had lost touch of the essence through which it made sense: I had lost touch with ME as divine energy, and the body that processed all I encountered and created. The essence that is ME embraces creation; strategy relies on repetition to succeed. To survive, strategies generate fear of the unknown that, if we are detached and unaware, keep them running long after their serve their purpose. My strategies don’t know or care that I am an adult, that I am no longer five years old in need of the care and praise of adults charting my life. These strategies believe they ARE my life until I stop, breathe, and choose: am I in this moment living MY life?

That said, strategies remain useful tools. Once I’ve chosen MY life, I can employ strategies to build, grow, connect, develop … whatever … to create my chosen life. When the choice is from ME, there is no wrong. When I’m running strategies,  on automatic or avoiding a choice, then I get the same old same old that after a while feels constricting, heavy, frustrating … because I’m no longer creating my life, but seeking to fulfill a pattern that in the absence of choice is running me.

I’ve spent years awakening to the numbness, feeling like I needed to fight it, then feeling like it was too hard, so I allowed the pattern to run. Now, I know thinking it’s hard, that it’s requiring a fight, are strategies on top of the strategy to keep things from moving. Yep, layers upon layers of stories, like patches upon patches to contain a flow straining to dance in the infinite space to which it belongs. Constricting, heavy, frustrating. STOP, pause, breathe, choose … its that easy to release the strategies, one by one. This does require embracing the unknown … allowing movement into the newfound space and not dashing back to the familiar … for in that unknown is where we creatives truly shine, thrive, live.

So while NaNoWriMo for me was a bust from the awards point of view … a few badges, no certificate, no 50,000 words … it was a gleaming success in terms of my awareness, and my appreciation of how I choose to spend my time and how I choose to write this book in progress. It will not be through discipline and practice and word counts and deadlines. I am done with being run by strategy. It will be through mindfully choosing to spend time with my writing, as I would a loved one or a friend, not out of obligation, out of joy.

Space to breathe. The everything else follows. YES to all of that.

Thanks for being here.

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

To learn more about Decloaking and Living Authentically and other offerings in the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge,
visit https://wel-systems.com/
the brilliant website of its founder, Louise LeBrun, https://louiselebrun.ca/)
and the powerful offerings of CODE Model Coaches™ Stela Murrizi, https://sparkingthesacred.com/
and Sheila Winter Wallace, http://bodygateways.com/

Posted on

The Power of Salty Surrender

Swimming is one of the few actions that makes my body happy. Swimming in mid-September in northern Nova Scotia takes a special devotion to aquatic bliss. As I stood on the shore in a waning day of summer, one of the few days not boiling or drowning its visitors, waves lapping in a rhythm of dare-ya dare-ya, I pondered how badly I really wanted to swim. Perhaps just savour the sea air, turquoise sky and gently-warmed sand? Maybe wade in, just to my knees? But the body knows what the body knows, that the bright ball of energy that is ME at the base of my spine WANTS TO SWIM … NOW. And with that clarity of thought came the brilliant awareness of how all of this is a metaphor for the process that allowed me to reclaim that clarity in the first place.

The answer is always YES in a quantum energy life.

My beach outing follows my fresh emergence from Decloaking and Living Authentically, a five-day intensive gathering of women seeking to reclaim their essence, reconnect with their bodies, and live their lives as creators of every moment, awareness by awareness, and choice by choice.  A week ago, I may have dipped my toe in the surf, shivered and backed away. I should read, I should enjoy the view, and my standby favourite, I should write, the stories would run.

Today I feel the pull of habits versus truth, habits formed from a childhood of avoiding danger, risk, and mistakes that no longer serve the life of an adult yearning to create, do and be all that is possible, and then some. And today, I allowed the chance to choose differently.

I have spent much of my life standing on the shore of the great expanse that is life itself, admiring it, loving it, longing to float and splash and travel through it, curious about what it held in the depths and beyond the horizon. And, I had made myself content to build sand castles and beach art with whatever drifted to shore, telling myself it was a great life of my choosing while underneath the truth of my experience, compressed and overlooked, slowly turned my skin to stone and my energy to rage. It’s too cold, too dangerous, too much work, too risky, the stories ran as I numbly gathered sand and scavenged the shore for supplies, you’re just fine here, doing what your ancestors did, what everyone around you is doing, proud traditions, hang in there, discipline and dedication will gain you great rewards. As a writer I began to wear thin from all the chatter within. Spinning stories endlessly in life left little energy or enthusiasm for creation of any kind, including those of words. The few pieces I managed to write were squeezed and silenced by an increasing number of stories and habits using everything from deception to outright bullying to ‘protect’ me and the life I had come to know as mine. Until one day, my divine signal within that is actually me shouted ENOUGH and I began to remember parts of me long buried in the sand, started to excavate, dust off, own and release the stories that, out of my awareness, had grabbed the wheel and were running my life.

Conversations like Decloaking put you back in the driver’s seat of your life, and in fact, insist you stay there, minute by minute, choice by choice. No handing off responsibility to a therapist or drug or trusted friend. You are the expert of you. I am the expert of me. Empowering? Absolutely! But in this moment when I’m about to plunge into freezing cold water, well, what the hell do I do now?

I stared at the water, knowing what I know. I braced against it. I’ll freeze. There will be other days. Curl up in the sand with a book and be done with it. I breathe,  feel the warmth of me at the base of my spine, the tingling of anticipation as I imagine the cool caress of the salt water, floating weightless, nowhere to be except in this moment. I wanted it. And I allowed that I could have it. Uncomfortable, maybe. Trust that it’s worth it.

Wading in to my knees was easy. Water creeping up to my waist, hoo boy that’s chilly. I stop, breathe, let the sun warm my back, swirl my hands through the surf to slowly acclimatize. A choice point: go back to the warm sand and embrace half-hearted joy in getting half wet, or breathe, surrender, and invite the full experience I want to unfold.

I breathe, relax into the gentle rocking of the waves, lean back and let the water take me. A brief gasp as the northern surf engulfed me … then an absolute peace. As I swam, I cooled to the water and it warmed to me. I floated, bobbed, felt its strength in supporting me, gave thanks that I live where this expansive and beautiful vista is mine to visit any time.  After a few minutes of bliss, a new truth emerged: it was indeed bloody freakin’ cold. So I  swam to shore, towelled off and lounged on the sand for an hour watching seals bob for lunch and seagulls dot the sky. I was also making connections, feeling how the sensation of surrendering to the momentary shock of the water was very much like surrendering to a new or different story arc, one that may seem to be more work or too risque or headed in an unknown direction. I’m mindful now of how often I brace against writing into the ‘unknown’, where I don’t have deadline and outline and word count clearly laid out, how unwilling I am to feel the momentary darkness of the unknown even though I know that it will lead to something awesome.

It was a perfect afternoon, perfect moment by moment, and a perfection I would not have experienced if I hadn’t trusted what I wanted, surrendered, and opened to whatever happened next.

How many times do we rob ourselves of what we want, of what energizes or inspires or fuels us, because we tell ourselves no, we’re better off without it, that’s weird, no one else is, that’s selfish, it’s scary … Paul Simon sang of 50 ways to leave a lover, while each of us know at least 537 ways to deny ourselves of anything and everything from an extra cookie to the trip of a lifetime because, oh well, this and that, blah blah blah. It’s a life and a choice. Life is swimming in September, relying on my body to know the temperature and conditions rather than a calendar and childhood admonishment that you’ll catch your death ... Trusting yourself is life, every time. There is no more powerful space to write from, or live from.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

To learn more about Decloaking and Living Authentically and other offerings in the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge,
visit https://wel-systems.com/
the brilliant website of its founder, Louise LeBrun, https://louiselebrun.ca/)
and the powerful offerings of CODE Model Coaches™ Stela Murrizi, https://sparkingthesacred.com/
and Sheila Winter Wallace, http://bodygateways.com/

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When ‘it’s too soon’ becomes “it’s time”

My labour this long weekend was in my basil patch, surrounded by my most favourite aroma in the world harvesting glossy emerald leaves for pesto and fresh basil lemonade. In the moment there was glorious peace and flow of creation.

Just behind it, though, was the energy straining to move, that would not be denied despite my best efforts to avoid it.  Back to school, back to work, back to autumn …  such sadness it evokes, yet to be grieving, angry, hopeless on such an abundant day seems wrong.  ‘Back to …’anything feels constricting, counterintuitive to me, to anyone knowing they were born to evolve, yet there is a sense of comfort, an image of safety, in returning to what was, even if only in the mind. An avoidance of loss, of danger of death.

And there it is. The pressure in my body, telling me it’s exactly the right time to pause, breathe, and dive straight in to how I hold death.

Labour Day weekend this year doesn’t just bring up my perennial grief at the end of a summer gone too soon. It also marks the 10th anniversary of our purchase of the cottage, a family play space with the ulterior motive of serving as a second address, heralding the slow dissolution of our marriage about to begin. It’s the first weekend of this ‘second address’ being mine, and an ongoing reminder that the card games and beach walks and rainy days spent building Lego are gone in a flurry of children evolving into young adults, with university and careers and their own relationships to play in. Who am I if I am not the mom with a houseful of kids, or even a house?

It’s also been a week of grieving other people’s children, sudden deaths of young adults in their 20s and 30s. There was a time when I would have felt the sadness just enough to fuel a prayer and condolences and a slight curiosity as to how these things happen. Now I find myself on a teeter totter of energy intense and active, on one side grief and fury that rages against a world claiming evolution yet killing our children before it is time, on the other the complete absence of feeling, numb and mutely watching all going on around me as a movie, not engaging, separate from it all.

It’s a choice point of separation that exists only in my mind, that my body says ‘no more.’

Who am I, and who do I become when I get off the teeter totter, the merry-go-round, out of the hellish playground altogether and own all that I feel, everything, nothing, and all in between, to drop the labels and live from what I know rather than what I ‘should’ do, or what is the norm?

I become someone comfortable with death as a part of life, life as a part of death, knowing that life, death and everything in between are labels for the experiences we as divine energy have in human bodies. I become someone who sees life and death becoming currency in the hands of those wanting our trust and our cash for their own selfish uses, terrifying us with stories to sell us products to defy aging, protect us from evil, or earn us a place in eternal life. We come from infinite energy into a human body for an experience on Earth, we return to infinite energy when time on Earth is done. Who would each of us become, what would our world become, if we owned and trusted that there is nothing to earn, no space to buy, no need to measure up, no fears to push down? All we have and all we need is breath, awareness, and the moment we are in to choose, create, and own our creation.

Death is all around us, when I choose to see it. My basil plants, harvested of their leaves, will die, their stalks and roots and the soil that sustained them composted back to the earth. My children will leave this Earth someday. For generations we have been taught how wrong it is, how devastating that children die before their parents. Absolutely it is. But at what age and what stage does loss of a loved one from Earth feel okay? My grandmother was 96 when she died; her death did not feel easy because ‘she lived a good long life’ and it was the ‘natural order of things.’ I miss her keenly, memories slicing like the edge of a knife, until I choose to open to another way to hold death. Not loss, but transition. Her essence returned to the infinity of the divine, still with me and a part of me, as energy rather than her voice and body tangible in front of me. So comforting, soothing as one of her crocheted blankets.

Who wouldn’t choose a blanket to curl up with rather than a knife? Or the scent of basil?

When I forget who I am, a divine signal able to create safety within myself, the only safety there is, I choose the knife, keeping the hurts fresh and the rage on standby. I tell myself stories and cling to memories for fear of allowing energy to move, light to shine, joy to enter, life to expand, for expansion brings me closer to my signal, myself, something I and generations before me was taught to hide, lest we behave dangerously, destroy something or be destroyed.

In the sunshine of awareness, grounded in the moment we’re in, the choice is clear.

Our power is in the moment, in ourselves, lived in the choices we make. I choose to allow the moments of sadness, the moments of fear, knowing that they cannot hurt me, and allowing them to move will free me. I choose to set down the knife and allow the world to shift, to change around me. To smell the basil and smile, not because it grew, but because of what I learn in the letting go.

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Tap Dancing in the Minefield of the Heart

It’s a conversation that’s been a long time coming.  On the outside things look fine; on the inside something is missing, feels off, irritates or just plain hurts. For years, explaining things away, rationalizing that things are great, good enough, okay, as much as we deserve since others have it a lot worse. Until either the body gives out or refuses to carry the lies any more. We have been taught to tell the truth, that the truth will set you free. We have also been taught that the truth can topple carefully-constructed lives and cause pain and chaos, that some truths are better kept as secrets. How others feel, keeping their secrets and lies, is more important than our own health and well-being.  That betrayal of self is okay, celebrated, even, in the preservation of a system, institution, or life crafted to maintain or control rather than evolve and grow.

Well, in plain language, time to call bullshit on all of that.

Be yourself and tell the truth. How simple and rich an existence would we each have, how powerful and awesome the lives we would create,  adhering to that clear and natural law of engagement.  Never has this been more obvious and more unsettling. Knowing clearly who we are, owning clearly our truth, enables us to weather storms of confusion and create our path to the life we want for us and for the people we love. It begins with honouring our own knowledge and instincts, listening and learning when something feels off or catches our attention. It begins with choosing different for yourself, choosing authenticity every time, even when it hurts.

It means examining what we consider healthy relationships, and owning how we may sell ourselves – and by extension those we care about – short, claiming to be honest when we are hiding secrets and spinning stories to ‘keep the peace’ or to remain okay with ‘good enough.’

It means having that conversation that’s been a long time coming.

Many people will refuse to believe in their own power to transform the world because their own created world is ‘okay the way it is.’ Everything is a choice, and I get this one. I lived this way for years, until it was time that I couldn’t any more. Years after I awakened to new possibilities, I fought like hell to keep everything balanced and smooth, the world I had created based on what I learned as a child and young adult, and the new emerging world that I knew in my cells was my present and future. The thing is, the two worlds were in direct opposition. What I created I based on what I knew, my history, my need to be productive according to the standards of others and protected from the outside, a protection that manifested as isolation and that really never works. My emerging world is based on who I am, the divine signal here on Earth with a purpose, emerging choice by choice and moment by moment, safety  and referencing internal, being and living my authentic self and giving space for that to change as I learn more and choose differently, a constant flow of energy within and without, creating rather than replicating, evolving rather than protecting. Running both scenarios is akin to driving while stomping the gas and the brake at the same time. It’s a choice that seems safe in the moment, but will kill you over time, and it very nearly did, a couple of times. If disease or body wear doesn’t get you, the suppressed rage does.

The more I awaken the more I know that an inauthentic life will kill me, that spinning stories based on beliefs of others that hold little meaning or sense for me will only keep me churning in circles and detached from my life, and from those in it. Keeping secrets and telling lies, especially to myself, keeps no peace – it creates a barrier to a deeper more fulfilling relationship, creates an illusion that can never grow or be enjoyed. When is the last time an illusion hugged you warmly, wrapping you in scent and heartbeats and the soft warmness of someone you love? Those choosing illusion may not know what they choose, or that there is another way, but the body knows when the warmth it feels is authentic and when it is a story spun by a mind too invested in control to allow the truth.

Then there is the R word: risk. Better to have an illusion than nothing at all. Better to have ‘okay’ than zero. How long, though, can an awakening evolving infinite spirit survive on ‘okay’? When you love someone, feel the depth of connection, know there is so much more to experience and create and live, how long can ‘okay’ sustain the excitement, the promise, the joy?

Exactly. Which is why I chose to have a conversation, the toughest I have had to date, to look into those trusting blue eyes and speak my truth, which was to own that I was  being lied to because he was lying to himself, and that was no longer okay with me. I know his stories, I know they lie in wait as his source of protection against a world that has demonstrated over and over his heart and feelings are not safe unless he hides and controls the arena where they are revealed in tiny glimpses. For years I skirted the mines as my way of loving him, protecting him, conveniently protecting my stories and strategies as well. Getting close but not too close. Controlling access through clever wordplay. But skirting the mines gradually reduced my playing field to a space too small, no room for words or imagination or hope. I was lying to myself and my world of expansion was in limbo. I had to stand up for me, stop playing the victim in my own story and the peacemaker in his. It hurt. It was frustrating to feel him in the moment choosing strategy over truth. It felt, well, shitty, which makes sense. I was calling bullshit on stories that have run for decades, his and mine. Of course there is pushback, denial, defence. From both of us.

There is also promise and space that didn’t exist before. When the stench of manure drifted away, we were still standing, still talking, his eyes still held mine and were still that gorgeous shade of blue which told me I was seeing him – not his stories or that arrogant veneer of a soldier that runs the minefield – but his authentic self. A separate and equally powerful godforce that deserves space and time to own and make his choices, the space and time granted to me over the years by my awesome tribe of enlightened women who ensure I don’t have to navigate my minefield alone. It is time for me to be that presence for another, without expectation or demand. A few of my mines have just disappeared.

Conversations are like potato chips – you can’t have just one.  Reclamation is in layers, evolution is ongoing. My conversation was like removing the topsoil from the minefield.  We see the stories now. We can avoid them. We can take agonizing painstaking hours to diffuse them. Or we can simply choose in the moment to let go of the story and the mine disappears. Choice by choice. Conversation by conversation. Each authentic to self, creating something authentic and awesome when combined. That’s the life that creates, that we were born to lead. In my world, anyway.

—

The unique and comprehensive WEL-Systems® body of knowledge offers a powerful new context for personal evolution and change, including articles and audio clips available free of charge to pique your curiosity and invite your exploration of self.

Decloaking and Living Authentically is a conversation that will take you into the much deeper dive of who you are, as the thinker behind it all.
Listen to a free sample here.

As a CODE Model Coach™ I welcome your comments, inquiries and conversations: contact me for an introductory chat

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, story doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

 

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A Tale of Two Mondays

Monday mornings are infamous in a culture conditioned to have fun on weekends and go back to the ‘grind’ of work/school/paying bills/paying dues. Off we trudge, lunch bags in hand, grieving the past days of sunshine and steeling ourselves for the days ahead, just like our ancestors did. No wonder I woke up feeling achy and sore like an aged labourer. I was repeating a pattern set long before I was born. However, I have something my ancestors did not: knowledge of myself as Signal in a body for the human experience, offering a new way to move through the world, and ownership of my choice to do it or not.

Sounds easy, yes? Know different, choose different. Part of the knowing different is listening to body cues – pressure, pain, or stiffness, for example – then breathing and relaxing into those sensations, inviting energy to move and information to present itself. Often this looks like prolonged periods of mindful breathing, relaxation, and quiet as the brain calms to let the body do its thing. However, silence is uncomfortable for most of us, particularly those of us with Signals pushing to be heard through the droning demands of the outside world. Writers are especially adept at filling the inner void with constant chatter of stories, often developing elaborate explanations for why this hurts or that annoys or this other thing just isn’t working.

So this particular Monday I awoke to a rainy day with head swimming, lower back aching, and the desire to do little except burrow under my quilt and wish the world away. My choices were many. I could claim that I had a virus, pop some Tylenol, go back to bed and wish for Tuesday to come as soon as possible. I could yawn and stretch and make breakfast, because of course everything can be fixed with a good meal. I could suck it up and push through, go to my desk and plunge into my do-list.

Instead, I chose ME. I did go back to bed but mindfully, stretched under the covers and breathed. I breathed into my lower back and relaxed. Breath gentle and steady, owning the wisdom of what my body was locking down and inviting it to move. And there it came, a memory in my awareness of frustration with another’s choice and actions spun into a story that kept a ball of righteous rage spinning deep in my lower back: fire energy that I could choose to use for creation, instead choosing to lock it away, keeping me achy and in place rather than energized and in flow.  So easy to stay stuck in the feeling, to keep the frustration going when it is about another person. Why don’t they know better? Why do they keep doing that to themselves?  Meanwhile, my energy stays diverted and my intellect insists I push on and not let it bother me. Sheer genius.

Genius that no longer serves if I choose to evolve and live fully in the life I am creating, moment by moment.

The thing is, once one story emerges, others will follow. More ownership of creation required … in this case my knowledge that I had started my Monday morning lockdown on Sunday, binge-watching Succession past when my body wanted to go to bed. A two-pronged genius approach here. Lack of sleep guaranteed I would wake up feeling like I was hit by a train. And hours immersed in a streaming service meant I was not present to my internal stream of consciousness, the flow of energy into words into my expressions to the world. Stay silent, stay safe. That may be true in some circumstances, for some people. It is not true for me. How to alert me to my misguided choices? The body never lies.

After I owned my binge-watching hangover as part of this intelligent yet misguided creation to keep my fire energy locked down, I could touch yet another story churning beneath. Write a blog today? No, don’t have time.

Hmmmm. I have an entire day spread ahead of me. As a contract worker I have more control than most over my external demands of time. No room to write my own blog? Of course I have room. Space is infinite.

And here I am. Back pain is gone. Head is still a little swimmy, but I’m only one coffee in. Body is relaxed as words flow, not squeezed under external pressure, invited to flow from within.

How many Monday morning agonies are tied to the stories found in workplaces and schedules, the lack of room for change or adaptation, the ‘we’ve always done it this way‘, or ‘too late or too old to change now‘ or the myriad of other ways we as humans convince ourselves that change is scary, habit is productive, routine is the grease to the human wheel of survival.  Well, habits can be reframed and reformed and patterns can be interrupted, and if we as a world want things to be different, we as individuals need to be honest with ourselves about where we choose habits and patterns of others, take ownership of all we create and choose mindfully for ourselves.

This blog is proof of what happens with ownership, choice and mindful breath. For you it might look like something else … a chapter outline, a pitch to a publisher, cleaning out the closet, whatever you hold as something you want to do yet to this point have avoided doing it. There is a reason why you haven’t done it. Honour that in the moment, and open to learn from it. Then the stigma of Monday morning may fade into the infinity that is a quantum existence, where, as the beloved Lady Violet from Downton Abbey, we ask, puzzled, “What is a weekend?”

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The Brilliance of Being Sideswiped

It was over in a split second. But the memory lingered like a scratched LP, playing over and over,  chafing annoyance to indignation that could be dismissed only a moment until the replay. There was wisdom itching to be heard, if I paused and allowed it.

Would I dare let myself do that?

And so began my Saturday morning, one like so many others made revolutionary by the engagement of quantum processing.

I was leaving my mom’s place in the city, headed home as I have done hundreds of times in the 10 years she’s lived there.  A shiny silver Civic whirled past me in the roundabout and ended up ahead of me on the ramp leading to the highway away from the city.  The irritation began as a mild annoyance – as swift as it was in the roundabout,  the Civic was now taking a nap when speed was of the essence, holding at 80 clicks when at least 100 was needed to merge into the double lanes choked with weekend traffic. We weave into the lineup and I pass the Civic, gliding among the slow-movers and the serious speeders to find my own space and settle into my 90-minute commute. But there was too much traffic to find my rhythm,  and a slow-mover hogged the passing lane while each new on-ramp pumped more cars into the fray. I braked and held my space in the thru-lane, watching for the passing lane to clear. I checked my shoulder, my side mirror, and the light on my mirror that blinks to warn of cars in my blind spot.  A car approaching beside me. And another. And another. The car ahead of me brakes suddenly and I did another quick check. Finally all clear and I pulled out to get around the halting lineup ahead of me.

And there it was. A blur of silver directly beside me, out of nowhere. I did everything right, everything I always did to drive safely and I was about to sideswipe a car in the lane beside me. And not just any car. That silver Civic.

I yanked my wheel to the right, pulling me back in my lane until the car went by and I pulled out behind. It braked hard, I matched and hung behind until it completed its passing and pulled back into the slower lane and I passed, kept passing,  glancing back only to ensure the way was clear and the Civic was well behind me, before pacing my speed to the fastest cars ahead, feeling nothing but the need to get home, as fast as possible.

Then I took a breath, and felt everything. The heat of the past few seconds – or minutes, maybe? – swept over me, through me like a firestorm. The horror that I had nearly caused an accident. The surprise: I checked for cars and there weren’t any. Where did it come from? The indignation: I looked and signaled, they should have seen me coming and waited. Another breath, and it surfaced, underneath it all, churning and festering: The Shame.  A sensation I knew all too well, had felt most of my life about anything I did or said, too loudly, too quickly, against the rules or against the grain, any time I ‘stepped out of line’ or ‘crossed the line.’ according to those scolding me. And here I did it to myself. I crossed the line into a lane I thought was ready for me and did something wrong. I nearly caused an accident, could have injured or killed someone, and it was my fault. How could I.

I glance in my rearview mirror, stomach clenched at the sight of every grey and silver vehicle gliding behind me as the darkened air filled with light rain.  I had not seen the driver of the Civic, didn’t know if there were passengers, knew nothing of their reaction to my inadvertent lane change other than the braking after I pulled behind them, braking that could have been their scolding, their retribution, or a simple compensation for the steep hill we had just descended. In the vacuum of facts, my imagination spun wildly,  replaying the flash of silver beside me over and over as the driver, also imagined, shouts obscenities, calls the police, is the police, flips me the bird, grabs a gun. I contemplate not stopping for gas, for fear the Civic behind me would follow me off the highway and confront me at the pumps. But letting my body lead, as it did when I avoided the crash, I pulled off at my usual station and coasted to the pump with the yellow stripe, the one that with every use provides a donation to the children’s hospital. Giving to sick kids brought a moment’s relief from the relentless harangue in my head, the yellow strip reminding me I wasn’t that bad a person as my inner voice punished me more than any irate driver or highway patrol officer ever could.

I breathed as I turned off the car and glanced around. A few cars at the pumps, scattered pedestrians entering and exiting the restaurant, going about their Saturday, not paying any attention to me at all. I breathed again, opened the car door and prepared to face whatever awaited me outside the safety of my tiny metal cocoon. Still nothing except my beating heart and the scenario running in my head. As I stood there, nozzle in hand, filling my tank, I chose to empty my head and let the scenario take form. I imagined the Civic driver,  not in appearance but in behavior. I saw no gender or hair color or outfits; I only heard the heat of their words, words I would have said if I were them. You fucking idiot! You nearly killed me! Where did you get your licence, in a Cracker Jack box?  How dare you risk my life like that! You don’t deserve to be on the road! 

As my tank slowly filled with gas, I allowed the words to be real, allowed the ghostly image of the driver to pace in front of me, furiously awaiting a response. I invited myself to stand my ground, feel the heat, and let words slowly flow from my heart, authentic and sincere. I’m sorry, was my response. I honestly didn’t see you, but my actions no doubt scared you.  I am sorry for that and grateful you’re not hurt. 

I breathed, watching the numbers on the pump spin slowly upward, feeling the heat in my body inching downward to the base of my spine .  There was more to say.

I know it seems like I’m a crappy driver because I almost hit you, but it also seems it’s because I’m a good driver that I didn’t. 

The numbers on the pump stop spinning. The image of the silver car looming out of nowhere in my side window stops its replay. It’s because I’m a good driver that I had the reflexes and presence of self to pull back in my lane without hitting cars ahead and behind, safely out of the way of  your car beside me, all in a split second. 

I don’t believe I’m  a crappy driver. I’m a good driver who is human. I make mistakes. Thank you for enabling me to learn today from my mistake. 

Heat flowed downward, following tissue and nerves into the ground as the ghostly figure melted into the damp rainy air. I created the entire situation, as clearly as I created the scenario playing out in my mind. The early irritation with the silver car. The near-miss that shocked my system but caused no harm. I needed to allow that being ‘good’ does not always mean being ‘right,’ that my capacity for reaction is an equally powerful tool of creation in a world that we are not of, but in.  On the highway of life, cars will come out of nowhere. The fact that we don’t see them is neither right or wrong, it just is. How we react and move forward is our choice, our creation, our gift, whether it looks that way to others or not.

When in danger, I let my body choose and my body chose not to die, crash or break anything. My body chose to do the next thing I needed and avoid an accident, and then chose to keep reminding me to learn the lesson, all while my intellect remained frozen in the moment of near-impact,  The lesson I needed to learn took not a literal smack to the head, just a proverbial one.  I allowed that the encounter on the highway was not one of incompetence, but of brilliance.

I pulled back on the highway as the light mist intensified to heavy rain. I merged into traffic, found my spot, and felt my rhythm.  During the drive home, the flash of silver would appear on occasion in the corner of my minds’s eye and catch the breath in my throat. Then I would breathe and rerun my new  scenario. I’m a good driver who is human. Good by my standards, because the word ‘good’ in this moment still holds some lessons for me. A good driver.  Of my car, of my life. Exactly where I want to go, not always recognizable, but always what I need to follow my signal and live authentically in the moment.