I have not been writing much in recent weeks despite my desire to help others thrive. The truth is that I have been going through tremendous spiritual change since COVID and it has been difficult for me to process and to understand. So many of us have these spiritual initiations and few of us have the support we need to make it through the process. I am not an expert in this area but I did feel the need to write about where I am now.
And the process is downright scary.
When January 2020 arrived, I felt fantastic and ready to meet someone to fall in love with and move on to the next chapter of my life. I did not imagine that I would be walking into a huge dark night of the soul made complete by in real life monsters who sought to punish my views of modern psychology, tell me that I was not a good writer, or drain my energy to the point of not knowing if I would ever recover it. I have also had multiple experiences of men trying to usurp my authority and push me around — both physically and spiritually.
While we are on a spiritual journey, we have to come to terms with the fact that there are people out there that may or may not have your best interest at heart. I continue to choose to believe that all of these difficulties are important for my future life purpose and I have seen glimpses of what that may be and yet simply want to return to life with the lessons I have learned so far and find some peace.
I’m not sure I’m going to have that choice.
Over the past few years, my writing has promoted a spiritual view of relationships and that of psychology. I still believe that the most important parts of our life are found in the context of our relationships and that modern psychology focused on just the mind or CBT misses the point of why we live on this planet. We are all here for a reason.
We are in a time of joy after the pandemic has been lifted. This joy must be experienced and felt. It is the joy I felt when I return from Argentina and found a part of my soul again. I’ve been working on another book and this excerpt continues to speak to me:
I stood waiting for the music to start. The venue was a hidden restaurant behind a hotel in a very local section of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I would not have been able to find it on my own — my Spanish is still questionable and forget Argentine Spanish which is really a blend of Spanish and Italian. Manual gave me exact directions and I still worried about getting lost. As expected, I still had trouble finding the entrance. The door was tucked off to the side and I only found it by hearing the faint sound of tango music. I never liked traditional tango music but hearing the sounds of live guitars and the bandoleon make my heart sing.
I walked through the entrance and followed the sound of the music down a winding staircase. The walls were covered with old-fashioned music posters highlighting all the great tango musicians and singers from the 1920s to the 1940s. There was history in this venue and I definitely felt that I stepped back in time to an era that appreciated music more than our modern era. I arrived and the venue was packed with women in 4 inch heels and beautiful tango skirts and the men in their loose fitted tango pants. I stood and looked around when I noticed a black cat sitting with my friend Manu. She seemed to love the music and was not shy around other people. Like most cats, she was living her best life but this one found her home in a bar and loved to be around strangers. While I acquainted myself with our new friend, Manual was speaking with a tourist from the UK. I looked up from petting our friend and made eye contact with a stranger. The cabaceo is the way tango dancers ask each other to dance — something so simple as eye contact and a nod communicates so much more emotions than words could ever express.
I allowed him to walk over to me and soon I was standing in his arms. I could feel his heartbeat on my chest. His embrace was warm and secure. He smelled sweet and spicy. I felt my body relax. I closed my eyes and waited for the moment to take the first step. He whispered in my ear something in Spanish about the beauty of the music. Then, when his frame moved, I moved with it — each of us contributing to a beautiful collaboration. I whispered to myself, “I’m happy” and for the first time in a very long time could feel the joy and excitement make an appearance after so much healing and darkness. “I am happy when I dance,” was all I could think about and I made a mental not to never forget that moment. We danced a full tanda and he escorted me back to my friend who seemed shocked and had a huge grin on his face. My physical body completely relaxed during that twelve minute love affair.
“You found your love again,” he said.
“I found myself and I love her,” I responded.
Now at this stage of my journey, after some crazy spiritual experiences where I continue to feel bullied — the call to find this part of myself again has been initiated.
Over the course of the past week, I had a profound awakening experience. I suspect many people did and this is a beautiful thing for our world. We need more and more people to wake up and speak their truth. We need more people to set limits, find their joy, live their purpose and help members of their local communities. Yet, for me, it was as if my special day — my birthday was co-opted by some external force and my ability to live in my joy was shortchanged. It has been a scary experience for me and the desire to simply return to the dance floor and find some joy and grounding has significantly increased. I’ve been alone much of this transition trying to find the power to use my voice again. I’m not going to have much of a choice — I’m exhausted and its time to just tell people to go “fuck” off and focus on my own healing.
Love is an important part of my values system. I love love. Love has always been very healthy for me. Love is a very powerful emotion. My fear for our future is that we forget about its importance. We have lived in this place of trying to enjoy the love of our families and increased our desires to seek connection with others through intimate relationships. It has been a beautiful, although difficult time, and I hope we can all enjoy this momentary pleasures and peace that are making its way to us.
We also need to have more fun and live life according to our own desires, passions and creativity. Love is a powerful force but so are our emotions and need for pleasure. These are the hallmarks of the divine feminine and I fear that the progress we have made to this point are going to be threatened by a resurgence of masculine energy that seeks to return to the old ways of being instead of embracing a new world.
If I could go back and tell my self one piece of advice — it would be to let your heart sing. I made a huge mistake by not telling someone that I loved them and then was somewhat manipulated into saying those words to someone else simply because I believed a friend of mine knew more about spirituality than I did. I didn’t realize how much power I had to create the life I wanted. Most women do not realize how powerful they are and that has been the path of my healing journey. Not saying those words and continuing my journey into this darkness was of my own doing and if there is anything that I can share with you about what it means to live life it is this:
Do not hold back your words when the heart wants to speak its truth.
Here’s to all of you who may be undergoing a spiritual transformation. I honor and see the light in all of you and wish you the best on your journey towards becoming your authentic selves. I don’t know what that is for me yet but I will commit to writing about it so we all feel less alone. Thank you to all of you for the spiritual work that you do and for those people in the mental health world who honor and support the spiritual communities. The world needs all of us and it would be a beautiful collaboration if we could figure out how to honor and respect each other. Something tells me we are going to need to collaborate.
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