the edges of myself

Yesterday morning I had a hard time pulling myself out of bed. Harder than most Tuesday mornings. I felt heavy. My legs seemed to teeter a bit underneath me as I moved through my early Tuesday morning motions– trying to wake my sleeping beast.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings are a unique experience for me. I wake up, roll out of bed, throw on a hoodie and shoes and head to the studio to teach a 6:15am Pilates Equipment Class. Early mornings are not my best time. I am in every sense of the word a night owl. Nights are when I shine. My creative juices flow, I come alive. Mornings tend to want some space and time. It takes a bit for my lights to warm up and turn on. I am not my most capable self. That’s probably why it took me until I was at the studio and trying to teach that I realized I was actually very dizzy.

I get lightheaded on a fairly regular basis. I am familiar with standing up and needing to take a moment to get my bearings. That was not this. My bearings were nowhere to be found. The world was spinning around me– or I was spinning within the world. Either way– the effect was discombobulating and disconcerting. I drove home and immediately made myself food, thinking perhaps that was the root of my spinning.

Negative.

I headed back to work to see my next client at 9am– presuming that this dizzy thing was going to fade and I’d be back on track.

Nope.

About five minutes into my session with my incredibly generous and understanding physical therapist client, I texted my next client to cancel our session and cancelled the rest of my day. A dizzy Mandy has a hard time being a helpful Mandy. It’s hard to turn your focus outward when something in your brain is telling you everything outside of you is spinning.

So why exactly was my world spinning?

I believe we have a “system overload” situation here. I am moving through a rapidly shifting inner landscape, doing my best to trust myself as I move forward. But the truth of the matter is– I don’t really have a clue what I’m moving forward towards. I am being asked to navigate a space for myself that isn’t defined by any of the rules I’ve learned to play by thus far. And though I’ve finally moved past just the intellectual grasp on this expansion and into an energetic understanding of it– there are massive parts of me (my brain for one) that are incredibly confused and would LIKE AN END GOAL, PLEASE.

I’ve plunged into the depths of me only to find that there is nothing concrete to grab onto– and my edges are RAPIDLY EXPANDING. I suppose a little dizziness is to be expected. I am in the midst of toppling my previously erected structures of care-taking and tending to others first. I am being asked (by my higher self) to create a time and structure for MYSELF to re-frame my writing practice, not for anyone other than ME. And apparently my soul is really quite serious about it. Dizzyingly serious.

“No, you will not be seeing clients today– you will be turning inwards and REFLECTING, dammit.” (voice of my soul)

I am responding the best way I know how to respond. I am looking inward. (Great idea soul, It’s not spinning in here). I am settling into myself– and reminding myself to connect to the ground and all the energy that flows up and out of it. I am asking for and receiving help from my friends and family as best as I am able. I am looking out on the vast, mysterious undiscovered landscape of expansion that lies in front of me and reminding myself that change is the ONLY CONSTANT.

My dizziness is asking me to reorient myself. It’s turning my up side down and my down side up– or making everything seem like a sideways venture. As I reorient myself to my new reality I realize that I have been preparing for this expansion process for years. I have slowly been amassing the support structures necessary for myself to soften into when the time came. And when I remember to soften into those structures, to feel my feet on the ground and acknowledge the energy that flows through me from the earth, I feel less sideways.

I woke up this morning with the world feeling much more stable– because my belief and trust in myself had grown deeper roots. It is true that my path forward is unknown, but there is one thing that I am certain of. I am ready to be seen. I am no longer comfortable hiding. I am stepping out from behind the curtain in full regalia ready for what awaits me.

And my witch is coming with me.