Is this really what you want?

here it comes, here it comes

CW: description of an intense panic attack

It is not surprising to me in the least that I haven’t written a newsletter in a few months. Whenever I thought of doing it but didn’t I struggled with feeling inconsistent and guilty over not providing something that folks expected of me (though not one of you has come barging into my DM’s demanding it, as my inflated ego warned me could happen at any moment).

Credit: the internet (if you know who actually made it go ahead and email me)

It’s pretty incredible how often my brain lies to me. Lately it’s felt like more of an attention-seeking, shame-ridden worrywart than ever before. If I don’t make the time to thoughtfully and compassionately consider the contents of my current reality as a catalyst for this I just end up feeling anxious and resentful. I’ve gone full weeks steeped in grief and anger wondering, “Why is my brain doing this to me? Why am I still struggling to reach the surface of the water?” Why, why, why.

But when I remember to slow down and bring giant, slow gulps of air into my lungs I can always clearly identify that this is a season of intense upheaval and releasing for me. Of course it feels like a roller coaster ride. Of course I feel like a failure. One of the most important platonic relationships of my life dissolved at the same time I entered into the healthiest romantic relationship I’ve ever been in, I returned to acting and took on a huge role and commitment after a five year hiatus, I am wrestling feelings of restlessness and bitterness and hope on a daily basis about the remote job that I work, one of my mentors passed away, and I am finally participating in consistent therapy to try to make honest amends with my trauma and difficult ADHD-related behavioral patterns.

Okay. Yes. That is so much. And we’re not even counting the weight of surviving in post-Covid capitalism.

Nothing makes me happier than wading through thrifted bits and baubles

My boyfriend and I went on a trip up north last weekend to retrieve the last of my belongings from my brief stint living near the lake (sigh), and after a series of synchronistic and activating events I ended up barreling into a very lengthy and aggressive panic attack. This is actually pretty unfamiliar territory for me. I have high functioning anxiety but I don’t typically experience full attacks — I’d say I’ve had maybe 2-3 total in my life prior to this event. But this was something else. I had eaten an entire gummy, which was the catalyst for it, as opposed to the 1/4 I usually consume. At first I just laid on my side in our hotel bed chatting silently with my spiritual team and asking for some reassurance and honesty, which led to me focusing on how closed off I felt and how deeply I wished for my heart to be open again. They said to me, “Is this really what you want?” and I replied “I am carrying so much grief and it’s all sitting in my body and I want it out. I’m done. Take it.” One thing I’ve learned about my guides is that they love to give me what I ask for, but it almost never arrives the way I think it will.

About five minutes later I started to feel trapped so I tried to open the window and realized that wasn’t possible in this hotel. I began to shake from head to toe and as calmly as I could I told my partner that I was headed into a panic attack and I needed fresh air, so he jumped into assist mode and brought me outside (thank you, J). The body shaking became rather violent and uncontrollable and I was trying to very casually comment on the weather to distract myself but my heart kept saying “here it comes, here it comes.” He led me to the inside of his pickup truck, and it all exploded out of me like I was giving birth. I couldn’t stop sobbing and pounding my fists on my legs. At one point I heaved, “I feel so inconvenienced by this!” And he just kept telling me to let it happen, which was the best advice though also the toughest. It all went on for quite awhile. I’d come up for air, try to make a joke, the shaking would begin again, and I’d roll back into the grief. Later on my door was open and my partner stood just outside of it keeping an eye on things while I shifted back and forth trying to quiet my body. I finally began to settle when I asked him to play one of my favorite tracks, Sit Around the Fire by Ram Dass.

One of the bits I love most is when Ram says:

It's really time for you to see through
The absurdity of your own predicament
You aren't who you thought you were
You just aren't that person

And in this very lifetime
You can know it
Right now
The real work you have to do
Is in the privacy of your own heart

I deeply love this because it is good for when you are having panic attack or when you are trying to pick out pasta at the grocery store. It is good for every moment, because it tells us that every moment is a portal into trusting ourselves and our emotions. When viewed by the heart we can see the truth of ourselves and we can love it. Does a panic attack feel very, very bad? Absolutely it fucking does. I never want to go through that again. But did I also get an unbelievable amount of information from it regarding the healing my heart requires and what wants to be released and how I can ask for and receive care? YES. God, what a gift that I have all that information.

And this certainly doesn’t mean I need a panic attack to learn valuable information about myself. I’m having to reconcile that I still have a harmful habit of pushing it all down so deep that a panic attack is what had to occur in order to kick up that debris so that I could pivot and take better care of myself. The hope now is that I can continue to find new ways of gently moving my grief around on a daily basis so that it doesn’t create and pull me into a devastating event every few months. I owe it to myself to have a renewed relationship with feeling “bad” feelings. I don’t need to be afraid of them anymore. I’m going to survive feeling sad and angry and guilty and ashamed every day. Because the truth is, I already do! And I survive it all! I have plenty of proof of that! But now I just get to fully open the door again and hug them and let them talk for a minute, like a neighbor dropping off a cup of flour, rather than seeing them and slamming the door and hoping they don’t have a key or access to an open window.

What’s so funny to me is I’ve done this before. When I went through the psychospiritual coaching program I experienced so much similar upheaval and struggle and release. And I absolutely thought I was done. Oh, I love my feelings? Finally! The rest of my life should be a breeze! How unbelievably hilarious. We will always be discovering new ways in which we self abandon and sell ourselves short and then we will have to try to remedy our hurts in new and improved ways. Again and again and again. We will be tending to the fire forever. We really must learn to enjoy our lives alongside it all.

Walking away from my coaching practice has left me raw. I have not enjoyed a lot of this time. I have missed connecting with like-minded folks and creating content and providing a safe space of discovery and emotional alchemy for those who need it. But I was always honest about being tired and overwhelmed while being a coach, and the longer I’ve been away from it the more I realize I really just had so much more work to do, so much more forgiving and grieving and questioning and loving and losing and building and receiving than I ever anticipated. I never actually had the amount of internal space that I assumed I did.

I do want to guide others again. I want to read tarot every week. I want to create fun hats and shirts and greeting cards. I want to return to being an intuitive and insightful space for any person who feels stuck in narratives that feel stagnant to them and help them connect to the questions and answers and pathways that provide new life. I’m not ready yet, but I hold that desire in my heart. I will return, at some point. I’m trying to honor the timing of my body, it just takes about 10x longer than I ever want it to.

Let your shit take its time. It’s going to whether you want it to or not. It took you years to build those walls around yourself, so it might take years to break them down again. Don’t let that scare you, though. The golden thread here is that we can experience emotional magic even when we are afraid of it. I may be grieving the exit of my best friend but I can also laugh so hard my face hurts when my boyfriend shows me photos of a cockatiels and compares them to my many moods.

There will always be joy available. You can be so incredibly mad at yourself at 1pm and deeply appreciate yourself by 1:07. You aren’t abandoning your anger if you allow yourself to feel hope, too.

You have room for everything. You are a scholastic book fair of emotion and memory and impulse. Go buy a dolphin poster and then take yourself out for a personal pan pizza because you managed to finish a whole book for the first time in awhile. Be 12 again. Be 7. Be 22. Write down what you wanted at each age and how you felt when you did or didn’t get it. Look at all of you. Give thanks. You’re alive.

I love you. Thank you. See you next time.