Maybe. Should be.

The whirlpool of romance and work

I can’t count the amount of times I’ve thought about writing a newsletter in the past month. I’ve been saturated with guilt at certain moments, assuming I owe an update or a consistent experience to everyone, and other times I’ve sat firmly in the position of, '“It will happen when it wants to happen.” I feel pretty strongly about that last bit of posturing, in general. I think that theme has been fairly clear in this process of exposing my inner world via occasional inspired newsletter. I am extremely interested in welcoming and allowing inspiration, not pushing it. I’ve pushed a lot in life, so I am luxuriating in any slowness that I can access. That being said, I have some things to say about feeling urgent all the time.

I confidently utilize that posturing of slowness in pretty much every area of my life right now, but I can still get pretty lost in the sea of choices and forget the good and honest weight of action. And then what begins to happen is I assign a lot of urgency to choice-making, which barrels in accompanied by the anxiety of making a wrong choice or not making a choice as soon as I believe a choice needs to happen. This urgency and anxiety is very much present in my career questioning right now. A VIP in my life recently pointed out the obvious urgency coursing through me, and since he is someone who is new and still learning about me, it was fairly striking that he clearly noticed it in my language and body as I was discussing my ongoing fears and agonies surrounding my job and all the things I want to do but am not doing or am afraid to do.

I am so afraid to miss out on something I maybe should be doing. Maybe. Should be. The whirlpool flows faster.

I have had so many different jobs in the last decade. I’ve been a barista x8, a bartender, a personal assistant, an office manager, a treatment consultant, a critical response line agent, a grocery store clerk, a psychosynthesis coach, a director, an actor, a cashier, the list goes on. I’ve tried it all. I have sort of an everlasting gobstopper of job flavors in my mouth at all times, and I remember the ones that tasted sweet and the ones that left me sick. What I know for sure is the joy of creating and of being on my feet and using my hands, and the very odd personal exhilaration of emergency problem-solving. I dream about being a teacher and a speaker and a full-time working actor and director and a shop owner and so many other conceptions of me. I fear not being able to do everything and I loathe the tunnel of having to choose just one thing. I want to vehemently avoid doing that, but feel strangled by having to live in a capitalistic container that demands it of me. I see videos on Tik Tok of people who quit their 9-5’s and took a massive risk to build the business of their dreams and I remember I technically DID do that but then I set it down and I get so angry about that choice.

I take my responsibility to my body very seriously these days. I ignored her for the majority of my life, genuinely not knowing how to talk to her, and I’ve been paying the price for years via chronic inflammation and a host of other issues that require direct and intentional care. I am so proud of what Rose House Coaching was for me and to the people who I was lucky enough to serve through that channel, but after three years of pushing and creating and holding space and absorbing, I was so tired. My body was in fight-or-flight and asking me for silence, practically begging me to learn to receive properly instead of living in output mode. So, I set it down. And it felt wrong and right at the same time, and often I wonder if that was truly the correct thing to do. But then I look at the timeline and trajectory of things and what is flowing into my life now because of that choice and I feel a calm knowing settle over me, and I feel that it was meant to be. When I teach Human Design I very adamantly remind folks who are Generators (the work horse of the system) that their sweet spot is actually the consistent act in their lives of picking things up and setting them down. The gathering of information, the trial and error, the surprise of a full-body “YES!”, the aggravation of a realized “No.” So, I am trying to remember that investigation is part of my beloved way of being, and sometimes a sense of urgency means that I am close to making a choice, and this is a helpful feeling to follow instead of something to fix, avoid, or fear.

There are things in my life that are going very well right now after many seasons of upheaval and challenge and grief. There are seeds that have been planted for awhile now that I know are actually going to push through the dirt when the snow melts in a few months, and I will finally be ready to work with the long-awaited medicine that arrives. As of late I have been delivered into the steady hands of deep intimacy and I am saying yes to the experience of being temporarily dysregulated as I confront true relational safety. To anyone else who has been in dysfunctional relationships their entire lives who find themselves momentarily caving in when someone arrives and stands solidly before you, I see you. We are doing the damn thing. What a gift.

I am also currently fixated on assisting my other personal relationships in finding a new rhythm as I enter those spaces with a renewed devotion to presence and curiosity. I am bringing a bottle of wine, setting down my phone, and looking into the faces of friends that I have known for years as if it is my first time seeing and falling in love with them. I am learning how to more clearly identify when I am scared to give because I was traumatized into believing that reciprocity only works if there is a scale-balancing act. I have been stunned and elated and overwhelmed to realize that I can give without expecting anything in return and I can receive without worrying someone needs something from me. I am integrating the experience of honest intimacy as the portal to seeing and honoring and celebrating the humanity in each other without the weight of shame and guilt behind it. True intimacy is a deep and abiding freedom.

It often seems to be the case that whatever I am learning in relationships also applies to the work that I do in the world. So, what would it look like to engage in reciprocity with my work? What am I really receiving from what I’m doing? Am I opening up or it causing me to close? What does my body think about the work? Am I supporting my body in engaging with it? Which season of my life am I in (what are my devotions, my hopes, my opportunities) and is this work speaking an accompanying language? If it isn’t, am I okay with that? Is there another purpose behind this work that I maybe haven’t locked into yet? A hidden gift? I think that a lot will shift in my career this year, but I need to remember a very special something that I reflected in an earlier newsletter: everything takes its time. And also, sometimes we take action and things STILL want to take their time. Let’s sit and be with the flavor of action and waiting. Let us know that action begets action and let’s celebrate ourselves for using our good, strong, skillful will. Let us come to the window and watch the birds while we wait to see what’s next. Let us enjoy the fruit.

AN EXCITING THING — awhile back I put up a request on my Holy Architecture instagram (formerly Rose House Coaching, if you’re just arriving here) for requests for an advice column section, of sorts. And one of you finally submitted a question! I apologize that it has taken some time to provide this answer, but I really hope more of you find your way into my inbox as I’d love to include this section regularly moving forward.

Q: How would you recommend dealing with people in your life being irritable with you when they’re stressed?

WOW YES, thank you, I feel this. I think we all feel this. It takes an enormous amount of self-reflection and redirection of habits to not project onto each other when we are mentally and/or emotionally activated. So on that note, I think it’s pretty impossible to avoid this situation, right? It’s simply going to happen. People you love will throw their experiences at you because they haven’t yet developed the full capacity to hold it on their own or to be mindful of not scattering it outward. You will also do this to others again and again without meaning to, and that’s okay, it’s the nature of the beast. I think there are some concrete, actionable ways of dealing with this sort of energy, like walking away or asking for some distance while they move through their emotions. But it might be true that sometimes those actions feel impossible in the moment or appear inaccessible because you find it very difficult to ask for space without feeling like you’re throwing salt onto the wound. To that I would say remember what is within your control at the end of the day if nothing else is: your capacity for filtering the experience. What others do is truly a manifestation of their own experience and has absolutely nothing to do with you. It is truly difficult, yes, to have someone cast anger and stress in your direction, especially if you are a highly sensitive person (hello, I am in that boat rowing next to you). However, I can confidently attest to the commitment of remembering and reinforcing and integrating the truth of respecting someone else’s experience while staying firmly inside of your own. There are a few different ways that I regularly support myself in confidently holding and protecting my own energy, and meditation takes the top spot. I also find protection through journaling my feelings so that I am clear on what my experience actually is, and I especially find big protection through gentle body practices like Qi Gong or Tai Chi, both of which help to create space for energy renewal and retrieval. I will often repeat to myself, “It’s their journey, not mine.” I honor their experience, but I don’t take ownership of it. I hope this helps.

If you have any question pop into your awareness please send it my way. No rules. Let’s be curious together.

Thanks for joining me in this space again and again. I love you.