Missing Puzzle Pieces
Welcome to your front row seat. This blog is an ongoing chronicle of my healing journey. It is not glamorous by any means and you won’t find any prescriptive how-to-magically-cure-your-life offerings here. Instead, I share about quiet moments turning inwards, addressing the urges to escape or numb, uncovering my soul’s voice and my heart’s desires, accepting everything that is currently here, all while developing trust in a plan bigger than me- A Divine Plan.
There are countless reasons to avoid this path. It is messy, uncomfortable, and extremely unpopular. There are a gazillion posts with catchy hooks, the newest shiny gadgets, and fortunes invested in keeping you distracted. For those of us who learned that it isn’t safe to inhabit our bodies or to be ourselves or feel our emotions, resistance and disruptive defense mechanisms will likely arise.
Yet, if you feel a longing inside for days spent doing more than sleepwalking through your life, a desire to be connected to something deeper, wider, and higher than your ego-mind, a calling to be free of the roles that are not truly yours, to step into your soul’s purpose, to truly know yourself and be seen, well, you’re in the right place.
Instead of scanning these words with your attention elsewhere, I invite you to drop into this moment. Take a few deep breaths and arrive here now. Perhaps bring a cup of tea and the willingness to be present with yourself. Maybe place a hand on your heart and open to the infinite well of compassion that resides in there while committing to bring some extra curiosity and self-acceptance.
If I’ve encouraged you to spend one moment turned inward, my work here is complete. If I’ve planted a seed that healing is a series of small moments of awareness coupled with kindness toward yourself, I consider my writing to be infinitely successful. If you’d like to know more about the practical application of this method, keep reading, because I have a lot to say.
Last week I wrote about how important it is for us all to let our gifts shine through and bring our own unique medicine into the world which desperately needs it. Shortly after I posted, I was instructed that there was more to say.
Yes, my soul gives me assignments and yowza, can she be bossy. She is a fierce tigress, not a koala bear. And she wants me to step further into my Truth, my Medicine, my Purpose. No holds barred.
Yay?
I have a tendency to be nicer than she’d like. To pull punches and soften the edges. She reminds me that sometimes fierceness is what it takes to get a message across and that this message requires a bit of bite.
I was on a walk in the woods, which is the equivalent of going to church for me. Nature is my temple. As I wander through the trees, my mind quiets and inner wisdom emerges.
She says I need to add more emphasis to the post I shared. To make it abundantly clear that is imperative that everyone step up, into their power, and bring their personalized medicine into the world.
By medicine, I mean uncovering the Truth (capital T Truth, emboldened, she says) of the soul’s essence, flavored by our own unique experiences in this life. The gifts that only each of us can share, the exact gift that is needed at this time, in this place.
To highlight this … um… demand (let’s call it what it is!) the flashlight app on my phone has been mysteriously turned on at least a dozen times over the past week. I keep finding it ablaze, draining my battery, and shining on… well, the inside of my pocket mostly. But also into the darkness. A metaphor. Does she ever love metaphor.
Always the good student, I endeavor to shine some light on a pattern of darkness I see playing out frequently in our culture. A tendency to stay stuck in victimhood, refusing the call to action, citing diagnoses (physical and psychological), genetics, and history as an excuse to stay stuck.
Imagine that we’re all part of an eight billion piece puzzle. If you don’t share your medicine, your puzzle piece is missing. No one else can replace it- they all have their own pieces to represent.
As you know, puzzle pieces are not tidy. They aren’t uniform. They are all very different, and there are no backups or substitutes. When you don’t show up, there’s a hole.
If you’re a piece connecting two other pieces, as they all are, and you don’t show up, those other pieces are left dangling. Given all the other folks who haven’t answered the call, some of us are trying to hold down an entire segment of the puzzle without any connecting support.
Yes, it’s challenging to do the inner work and reassemble your wholeness and self-worth from the shreds. I’m not going to suggest that it’s easy or fun. It is not. It is, however, rewarding in ways you’ll never know until you engage, and the resulting joy, love, and peace can be blissful much of the time.
I’m also not going to coddle anyone and say that it’s ok to sit this one out. This isn’t kindergarten. There are consequences to refusing the call. This isn’t gym class and you don’t get a free pass from volleyball practice because of cramps.
We all have cramps.
Don’t leave your team in the lurch, getting pummeled by balls that you were meant to bump up so someone else could launch them back over the net. (I’m not great at sports metaphors, so I hope that makes sense!)
This is a time of great awakening and you have an important role to play.
Even if you have insomnia, cPTSD, IBS, CFS, ADD. That’s no excuse to sit on the sidelines nursing wounds. We need you to show up, sleepless and bloated, distracted, or on edge. Whatever your wounds and your weaknesses are, they color and shape your piece. It helps the other pieces find where they belong and nobody else can do that for you. For us.
Maybe you’re a perimenopausal urban hermit with a wonky sacrum and a tendency to suppress anger and be nice to keep others comfortable. Oh wait, that’s me. It’s doubtful anyone else has that exact shape, which is why it’s so imperative, my soul again informs me, that I’m in the mix.
That my hormones and discomfort and growing edge of speaking Truth when it will not always be graciously received is exactly the role I’m meant to play and without that role, there’s a big hole in the plot.
So, my friends, come out from under the covers and turn off the TV. Come in your fuzzy slippers and bathrobe if you must. Or come in a tuxedo if that perks you up. Bring your heartburn, your inability to focus, your predilection to escape, and your addictions. Be awkward and shy or bold and boisterous.
It’s all welcome here. These facets of you might not be the Truth of who you are but they are real for you for now. Part of the work is accepting it all, acknowledging all the parts and bringing them to the light.
Just be yourself, exactly as you are at this point in time and continue to unravel that which is not you so that your Truth can be revealed. Easier said than done; believe me, I’m well aware. You might need to rewire your nervous system and rewrite your entire script while attempting to stay present as your protector parts scream “RUN AWAY!”.
If so, that’s your entry point, not an excuse to go back to bed.
“What’s in the way IS the way” is an aphorism I learned from Eva Beronius. She talks about turning towards the seeming challenges, with curiosity and compassion, courage, and non-attachment. Rather than latching on to a diagnosis or wound and claiming it as a self-defeating identity or using it as a reason to check out or run away, we can work with whatever is alive in this moment and use it to inform the journey.
It all begins where you are in this moment with a commitment to being with yourself, to stop rejecting, criticizing, neglecting, or abandoning any part of you. It can be as simple as one conscious, loving breath, one generous word of self-assurance, one affirmation of your willingness to be here now.
The puzzle is incomplete without you. And that emptiness you feel inside will not go away until you fill in the gap that is yours to fill.
What’s one small step you can take today to honor yourself? Me? I’m going to hit the “publish” button even though it feels terribly uncomfortable. Then I’m going to make some space for that energy to move through me. If I pay attention, I know my body will tell me what she wants.
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