It’s been a strange couple of months, with much geysering of emotions, memories (my own, and pretty much everyone else, too, from what I’m hearing), and watching myself be in old patterns and feeling the intense frustration of it. I’ve been feeling the call to listen, in a way I just don’t remember ever feeling it before. Not to read books, or take classes, but to listen. Just be quiet and listen. All urgency to hurry up and get busy or make decisions must stand aside right now.

I’m feeling picky about what I let into my brain, recently. I don’t care about the source, but I can instantly sense yes/no to consume this or not. This feels aligned with the deep listening impulse.

And I haven’t done enough of the listening recently. Holidays and busyness slowly overtook it, even though I’ve always sensed the risk of ignoring the call. Aha moment today…I see how my religious upbringing co-opted that sense of “I’m going to be in trouble if I don’t…”, but it’s actually my own innner intelligence. Yes, that’s also God or the One or the Divine, but it’s not “out there” that the reckoning will happen, but right here. I’ve felt an intense pull to be quiet for awhile. I hope to do more of that in the coming week.

I wonder what it would be like if we had a different way of holding this day…the eve of the new year. I noticed the familiar let down feeling of not being invited anywhere, the scramble feeling of trying to figure out how to organize something that resembles the images of this day that we’re fed. In reality, that image has never felt right for me. I did the fancy dress up party thing in Cleveland once. It was fun, but rang hollow in some way. Maybe it wasn’t the party; maybe it was just me.

This day feels to me like a day for depth. A day to grieve the losses and sheddings, acknowledge the fear of leaving the past behind, celebrate the wins (meaning, correctly interpreting and executing my soul’s call), and explore the possiblity of listening even more deeply. To feel the gentle lengthening of the gray days, and assess what might be planted in the coming months. 

For me it’s no longer a day for making magical wishes to fulfill a self-improvement list dictated by cultural norms. Tried that and flopped, over and over and OVER. My soul, I realize, doesn’t give a shit about any of that stuff. My ego worries that hearing and aligning with the soul’s call will will leave me alone, ugly, unwanted, in unbearable pain. That it will take me places I don’t want to go. But right now everyone else’s definitions of anything feel flat, no matter how many pretty pictues or words or how much logic they are wrapped in, so, “Hello, empty space I’m left with!”.

It’s a different day, now. I can stay and feel the fear talking. Unexamined, I could let it run its program, and walk me on the safe side of things. The joy of doing so much developmental trauma work is that after enough support to experience safety, it drops away as the priority. I can feel it dropping away – it’s already in progress. ACK! I don’t know where this leads. And there is fear even as I write this truth. 

I could turn away from the deepening. Immerse myself in “manifesting”, and comfort, and a million different self improvement projects, or martyring projects. Go finish my Phd. I might appear more normal. Only I would know I am betraying my depth. 

I continue to receive messages from others that the depth is not welcome. It’s amazing how loudly and clearly others say it and I try not to hear. I’ve heard it my whole life. I scale myself back out of respect, to keep the peace. Perhaps I could stop doing that and just let others deal with it, see it, move away from it and me if they must. I know I can tolerate the pain of that now. I’ve got good supports and a lot of skill now for letting those feelings wash through, letting that fire transform me. And still, it scares the living fuck out of me at times.

So this is what sovereignty is? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! A bit of a giant cosmic joke feeling here. If people knew, well, geez, I don’t know. Would they really want it?

I’ve gone long. This started as a little FB comment on Adya’s clip about depth, but here we are.

Please know you are not alone. You can acknowledge your depth. There are others. Even though we live in a culture that at best, doesn’t support it, and at worst, despises depth, you can still walk this path. YOUR path. No matter what it is. 

I love knowing you’re out there. If you feel the call, I hope you’ll listen, even just a little. I like to think about what the world might be like everyone listened to their depth and allowed it to express through them, even just a little.