When I opened a heart channel on last year’s Grand Conjunction, my
world tipped upside down. My relationship with my body and my mortality
was challenged in the most visceral and terrifying ways. There have been
surges and ebbs, and the occasional glimmer of normalcy, in more than
five months of rampant and pervasive anxiety (the kind where your inner
vestibular vibrates 24/7). As I write this, I’ve strung four good days
together with no anxiety, panic, melt downs, energy spikes or pain. I'm
not ready to claim it as a corner turned but I am enjoying feeling like a
functional human again.
At about the three-week mark, back in
January, I was told that part of this energetic shift and opening was to
enable me to channel new voices called The Council of Light. A couple
of weeks, I began doing that.
It is the first time I’ve
downloaded a body of work as a road map for future writing. I shouldn’t
be surprised though. This is very much in alignment with my desire for
2021 to be about laying foundations, not stacking bonfires. Across those
13 days of channeling, I was walked through everything from embodying
peace and the spirit of adventure to the energetics of light and a
powerful healing process that if you receive The Re-Authored Life each
month, you’ll have in your hot hands.
The first practice I put
into motion was an invitation to let go of 52 things. The wisdom of it
segues beautifully with James Clear's Atomic Habits—of
the power of small, incremental change. Rather than shifting habits,
this is about clearing away what is no longer in alignment with you. Or
we can Marie Kondo it—letting go of anything that doesn’t bring you joy,
light you up or make you feel good about yourself. Or we can Jodi it: get rid of what gives you the shits.
The Council were very non-specific about the ‘what’ of it. It can be
physical clutter, crappy old patterns of behaving, relationships you've
outgrown. Basically anything old that's weighing you down, exhausting
you in its maintenance or making you feel shit about yourself.
The
great thing about this...in letting go of the old, we make space for
the new to come in. Just one small change a week adds up over a year. And
as I discovered, creates real time ripples of unexpected change.
The
first week I let go of the shitty clutter at the end of my kitchen bench. There
was no reason for it, other than it had accumulated there, roped
more and more friends in, and then attracted a very vile and thick
covering of dust. It felt too hard. So I left it there. But I walked
past it dozens of times a day and I felt crap every time I looked at it.
It was, like many things around the house, a cairn to just how sick I was/had been.
Even feeling exhausted and unable to cope, I was determined to
clear that bench off. And I bloody well did, because it turned out, take
one or two things off the dreaded bench, and it suddenly didn't feel so
overwhelming. It was done faster and easier than I anticipated. This
was an additional bonus. And yes, I felt like a legend for having a
clean and clear bench.
The following day Dave decided to clean the outside of all the
drawers and cupboards—something we probably haven’t done since the
kitchen was renovated. I was a little gobsmacked as to how obviously the
energy had moved outward from my small drop in the pond to encompass
the entire kitchen. He also cleaned the hob and finally put the oven on
self clean.
The kitchen is much brighter without the clutter—I am certain clutter actually sucks light from a space.
Week 2 I attacked the other end of the bench and we’ve now had a
mostly clean and tidy kitchen for almost a month. It is easy to keep up.
It is a joy to cook in there of an afternoon. And the biggest
realisation is having a clean and tidy house is hardwired into the
identity of "I am well". I'm determined to have more external markers of
this to reinforce my continuing journey into radical, sustainable
wellness.
Week 3 coincided with the dark moon. I let go of a
painful tangle of trauma dating back 30 years. It’s not the sort of work
I would want to do every week, but I leaned in when it came up. This
week is easier—there’s a coffee table, topped with books, yearning to be a
clear space. And next week I’ll be letting go of this old format
newsletter.
What would your life look like in a year, if you let go of one thing a week?
Monday is Solstice and the perfect time, regardless of where you are
in the world, to embrace a small weekly practice of shedding. I’d love
to know what you’re ready to toss in the metaphoric box marked ‘throw
away now and forever’.
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