Autumn Equinox Blessings | Metal Element 🍂
‘Probe the feelings, not the soap opera’ - Gwyn Williams
It takes a great deal of courage to walk away from things in life that ultimately weren’t meant for you, no matter how much you wish they were.
Good Morning my friend,
Happy Autumn Equinox to you 🍂
I hope you are feeling full, spacious and free.
Yesterday, I met with a precious friend who is near and dear to my heart. We had a powerful conversation about the hollow shapes of grief and how it shapeshifts around shame and letting go. We spoke in depth about sadness and idealism and how much it hurts when you stand to lose what you thought you wanted in life.
For me, this profound grief emerged when I admitted to myself that I would never be a clinical psychologist. Something I had been training for since I was a child. And it wasn’t because I couldn’t do it (although my ego wanted me to believe so); it was because the medical model in Australia was so broken and wrong for me. It was an antiquated system with no room for spirit, and I wanted to help people in a way I’d never be allowed. I wanted to touch people. Breathe with people. And live with them in their humanness. I was never going to fit into a medical system.
And boy, did I mourn that image. I lingered in my grief for months. I felt like a failure. An utter embarrassment to myself. And I couldn’t see how my life would ever feel successful. I felt weak and vulnerable, distraught and alone, and it took some deep soul-searching to rediscover my core values. I needed to see what was under the image, the paint that made the picture, rather than the picture itself.
It took a while to re-engage my imagination and open my heart to new ideas. After 20 years of seeing only one thing, it was hard to draw something else. It took a great deal of patience while I learned to let go because my grip had such a strong muscle memory.
But it takes a great deal of courage to walk away from things in life that weren’t ultimately meant for you, no matter how much you wish they were. Especially when it hurts to let them go. And it takes even more honesty to admit to yourself that the image is no longer a good fit. Metal will arise in your life as the handcuffs that lock you in or the sword that cuts you free, and sometimes, you remain in shitty situations because the suffering you can see feels safer than the unknown. You succumb to a spiritual Stockholm Syndrome and start to condition to the sense of your suffering. You normalise it and move on with the mundane.
It takes considerable bravery to shed the lies that mark the boundaries of your comfort zone and strength to face the full wave of your grief. But in letting go and facing the unknown, you come to know what it means to feel. You discover what is deeply important to you and what was missing from your previous masterpiece. Sometimes, you discover that you never even met yourself outside the lines of your ‘comfortable’ life.
May you face incoming change with bravery and strength ⚔️ And may you embrace grief with grace and soul ☯️
Namaste, my friend x
