INVITING THE SEASONAL DARKNESS

Photo by Georgianna Lane via Pintrest/Etsy

I moved back to the midwest mid-May of 2019 and was so thrilled that the Universe had lined up this major life transition with such fabulous weather to welcome me home from California to Ohio. It made it really easy to think that somehow the weather would stay like this so I wouldn’t have to endure a Cleveland winter, the first in five years. To be honest, I’d been secretly bracing for impact and dreading the idea of bone-chilling cold, dreary grey skies, enormous snow banks and gross, slushy roads. 

I’m reminded of the Universal Law of Correspondence which says,

“As above, so below. As within, so without.”

As things happen inside of us, they also are reflected outside of us, and vice versa. It’s interesting to me to see that my resistance was focused on the WORST parts of what I remember about a proper winter here, rather than the opposite. If I dread the winter, the Universe is going to conjure reasons for me to dread winter. On one hand, it’s sometimes human nature, particularly in those whom have experienced trauma, to do a constant, unconscious safety sweep from our lizard brain that easily highlights all the weak points in our chances to survive. Translation: Your brain shows you the dangers in order to protect you. Naturally, though, that’s where my teacher called EASE shows up to guide me down another possible path.

If ease is our nature, it begs the question, where’s the ease in winter? How can I invite the seasonal darkness in and make friends with it? How can I…*gasp*...even become lovers with it?

Hmmmmmmm….

Becoming a lover to the darkness...now we’re talking. This is something my inner sacred rebel is totally turned on by and eager to explore in it’s inherent revolutionary, rebellious nature. 

In the same way that the cafe I write this piece in repels me because of its dark floors, walls and furniture in the summer, it now invites me in with its cozy, chill vibes and late hours when it gets so dark so early. There’s a time and a season for everything.

So what is the season of winter for? And how can I make this season really, really work for me, not just let it happen to me? It’s the core difference between enduring something and thriving in it. Do I want winter to happen AT me like a scary, enveloping, wintry blizzard that brings a whole city to its knees? Or do I want winter to happen FOR me like a cozy corner of my bedroom adorned with twinkle lights, clean-burning candles, a cozy cup of my favorite tea, soft, sensual music playing and my pen flying gently across the pages of my journal filled with inspired reflections and soul nourishing inner world explorations? 

Which would you choose? 

I was reminded by a soul sister of mine, Ashley Burnett, of the Danish word, “Hygge” (pronounced “Hoo-ga”). According to Oxford dictionary…

“Hygge” is a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.

This, my friend, is my new intention for this winter season. 

Inviting the seasonal darkness in amidst candlelight just feels so yummy to me! All my senses love this idea. My heart is genuinely excited to “challenge” myself to make this winter feel as hygge as possible. 

In the same way that while the trees and plants don’t have any external colors or leaves on them, they might look dead on the outside, but they’re anything but! 

According to mnn.com (Mother Nature Network), “Trees go through a process similar to hibernation called dormancy, and that's what keeps them alive during the winter. Dormancy is like hibernation in that everything within the plant slows down. Metabolism, energy consumption, growth and so on. The first part of dormancy is when trees lose their leaves. They don't make food in the winter, so they have no use for masses of leaves that would require energy to maintain. The tree isn't making any new food for energy. It's similar to hibernation, since most animals who hibernate store food as fat, and then use it to run their essential systems during the winter, rather than grow any more. The tree's metabolism also slows down during dormancy, and this is part of why cell growth is impeded. Since it has to conserve the food it has stored, it's best if the tree uses it up slowly and only for essential functions.”

Fascinating!

“As above, so below” inherently implies that there are systems that kick into gear for us, too, during the winter months. Through the slowing down and more sleep that our bodies naturally want, there is repairing of cells, sending of nourishment to places that were highly active during the sun-drenched months and releasing what no longer serves us. 

Nature has rhythms and cycles just like us. Instead of enacting resistance which actually tires and exhausts us (and is the killer of creative energy, too), we can embrace the slowness and inwardness that winter invites us NATURALLY to do. It’s literally too cold to go running around like we do in July in most places in the Northern Hemisphere right now. It takes MORE energy to keep at the pace we do in the spring/summer months because we’re literally not designed to do that year round. We end up getting sick as a very savvy mechanism by our bodies to slow our asses DOWN to rest, repair, sleep longer, detox and eat warming foods. But hear me when I say…

WE DO NOT NEED TO GET SICK IN ORDER TO SLOW DOWN. We can choose it. We can embrace it. We can welcome it. We can...dare is say...LOVE IT. The seasonal darkness can be our guide instead of a hindrance. We can invite it closer and cozy up to it and Netflix and chill with it. Know what I’m saying?

We can say no to some of the holiday parties and only say yes to the ones that induce genuine thrill in our hearts to go to.

We can let ourselves have zero plans on a Sunday and sleep, rest, gift ourselves orgasms, color, draw something, slow dance with ourselves, watch three movies, instead of packing in the rest of our to do lists.

We can look forward to an evening of trying out a new slow cooker recipe just for the literal joy and wonder of it instead of eating out for the third or fourth time this week.

There are so many ways to choose slowness, softness and coziness in the in between moments of our lives instead of blowing past this very precious side of ourselves that truly needs this space to breathe and integrate 2019.

Another one of my intentions for this winter is to intentionally close out energetic loops that might be sneakily still open from the breakup earlier this year, among other relationships that came to a natural shift, junction or closure. Where is my energy leaking to them unreciprocated? Where do I still hold on to how it might’ve been? Where am I judging myself in how I handled the curveballs that came my way this year? Zip, tie, disconnect, forgive, love myself and let...it...go.

My invitation to you is to embrace the energies of this season. 

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to take ANY of 2019 with me that’s not meant to come with me. It’s been one of the hardest, most intense, fortifying years of my LIFE without an ounce of exaggeration. 

I’m taking my lessons, my inner core strength, my reignited desires, endless creativity and the TRUTH of who I am AND LEAVING THE REST! 

But guess what? Most of that leaving behind happens naturally during our sleep and slowness and naps and inward reflection time. Just as we release extra weight in our sleep, this applies to the emotional, energetic, and spiritual weight, too. I’m gonna make more room for this. I *really* hope you do, too.

As we invite the seasonal darkness to be our cozy friend this year, pick a word for this winter season that induces a feeling of exactly how you want to feel this winter. 

My word is HYGGE. What is yours?

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Start your week with EASE in mind

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EASE AIN'T ALWAYS EASY

Ease gets written off as fluffy and not to be taken seriously. Like a “nice to have” or a luxury.

The thing about questing for ease in a world built for the opposite (the very definition and essence of “Courage of Ease”) is that…

Choosing ease inherently goes against the grain of the very fabric of LIFE as a modern day human living in modern day society.

The minute we turn in the direction of ease, there can be this inertia that activates. Maybe it’s resistance from friends, criticism of self, disruption of your status quo reality...see where I’m goin’ with this?

It’s not that choosing ease means “oh shit, things are gonna get hard now.” It just means that for certain choices, certain shifts, certain decisions will inherently bring up your stuff and likely the stuff of those around you.

Therefore, ease ain’t always easy. But it’s always WORTH IT. Wanna know how I know this for CERTAIN in my bones?!

Because you’re worth it.

You’re alive. You breathe air. You made it thus far. You chose to be you for yet another day.

Even when the stuff comes up, just remember how COURAGEOUS you are by choosing to let your life be easier than ever before. It may not be easy right off the bat, but ease ain’t easy until...it is.

Keep at it, love. You deserve it.

This is #courageofease.

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Start your week with EASE in mind

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I LET YOU LOVE MY SHELL: A Poem

Why do I do this?

Leave myself in the dust.

Why do I do this?

Leave my desires unmet.

Why do I do this?

Accommodate you always over me.

The scale tips towards codependence

No matter how hard i try

To stay aware of my learned nature

To sacrifice me for your wellbeing

Safety measures overworking

Over-amplified in the background

Hyper-vigilance running my systems

Self-sacrificing who I am for who you are

Why do I do this?

Disregard my truth for your comfort.

Why do I do this?

Fitting in with you to avoid abandonment.

Why do I do this?

Forgetting my ways to fit in with yours.

Chameleon effect in full force

Being who you need me to be

As code for love on highest

When code for love on lowest...actually.

Love isn’t love when I let you love my shell

Love is love when I bare all of me and a choice made from there

Forgive me for robbing you of the chance

To love the fullest, rawest, brightest me

Why do I do this?

Because I haven’t loved me yet.

Why do I do this?

Because the learned model was corrupt from the beginning

Why do I do this?

Because I get to be the one to break this endless, painful cycle. 

The more I see, the more I know.

The more I know, the more I learn.

The more I learn, the more I see.

The more I see, the more I heal.

In my power I go with you hopefully by my side

Not blaming you for the sudden switch

Inviting you to meet your power side by side

On we go or on we don’t.

I hope we can choose each other from this new space

I hope we get to know each other here

And if we don’t, my love, thank you

Thank you for being the exact mirror I needed to see the real me.

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START YOUR WEEK WITH EASE IN MIND

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LOST CHILDREN FOUND: A Poem

All the words and not heard

Silence falls upon me

Conditioned quiet like a brick on my face

All the things to say and no one to hear

Listen they do as an obligation 

Courteous “uh huhs” with no understanding 

Yelling into a black hole

Forming words that no one receives

Energy flails through the wind with nowhere to land 

Off I go to far off lands sick of the deduced silence 

“There must be some who hear me”

Find them I must with my sanity barely strung 

That thread, just one thread left 

Tears soaking it’s fibers in desperation

Of a place I must let find me

Find it I do and find them I must

The post-awakening lost children

Finding their way against all odds 

The misunderstood and lonely

The writhing effects of “have you lost your mind?”

The soulful “rejects” of a dying paradigm 

Those relentlessly awoken to more

Those who can’t unsee what they see

Those transcending what’s possible 

Lead by intuition

To corners of the world 

To heal, to love, to reveaL

And find each other we do

Sanity restored in a new model and context 

Soothing balm for the string of acidic deaths

Fill and fill and fill the tanks

With connections fueled by universal supply 

Resounding resonance residing inside 

The lost children found each other 

The lost children found themselves

The lost children found their voices

New becomes steady

Steady becomes integral

Integral becomes innate 

Innate, then becomes...required beyond the bubble

Back into the hornet's nest we go where

Enveloping unconsciousness still reigns strong

Except for the few 

Into the fire the light blooms bright

Destruction at hand, irritation a constant

Presence and presence and presence demanded 

My words matter and drip in potent truth

I will be heard amidst your depth of discomfort 

The tension is my new comfort and home

Willing I am to relentlessly love you

Beyond your addictions and hidden selves

I call you forward to fly with the hornets 

The hornets protect the hidden den

Of despair and pain and unresolved traumas 

Hiding in my light is a feat unbearable 

You may not hear me but I know you’re listening 

Your soul soaking each vibration into your being

To remember for a time when spirit calls on you 

The time is ticking, the pressure rising

You get to be right or you get to be free

You get to soak in my presence or loathe my absence

The choice is yours 

Tick tock tick tock

Heaven on earth awaits 

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START YOUR WEEK WITH EASE IN MIND

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GRACE MEETS SEXUALITY

When I sit down to write these pieces, sometimes they morph or shape-shift into something different entirely. 

The first run of this piece on “Grace” was shaped by inspiration to give examples of how grace shows up in the everyday, practical sense. I wrote 1.5 examples (I know, impressive lol) and then the intuitive feed paused. I said to myself, “Hmm, okay. Well, it’ll come through when it comes through.”

Now I sit at my computer very typically for pre-full moon energies at 2:17am on a very early Saturday morning and I’m realizing, “Oh, of course. Why would I fill in the blanks on how grace shows up when each person can do that for themselves in such unique and different ways than me.”

So instead, I feel called to share a beautiful, intimate way grace is blessing me at this point on my journey.

Firstly, let’s do our best to define grace. In doing some research, the most beautiful and true-in-my-bones definition I found was in Webster's New World College Dictionary. It includes this theological definition of grace:

GRACE: "The unmerited love and favor of God toward human beings."

(As always, if the word “God” doesn’t resonate for you, insert whatever name/word that suits you best.)

What I love, love, love about grace is that it's a gift. It's an unmerited gift. 

Meaning, you don't have to DO anything or BE anything to receive it. It's given as a gift of love from the Divine just for being the truest version of you that you know yourself to be in any given moment. It shows up just because the Divine wants to love on you. How precious is that?

Part of my post-breakup-life is the continual embracing of, let’s call it, lesson #31 (you can read the 30 other lessons in my 3-part “Moving On” blog series for context).

LESSON #31: Put all your cards on the table right off the bat so people have a fighting chance to love the real you. 

In the last month of my relationship, I realized how many metaphorical cards I was holding to my chest about who I was, what I wanted in life and desires I had. In a last stitch effort to magically make space for all the other parts of myself I hid from myself and him, I put all my cards on the table so to speak. Honestly, though, it was too late. 

It was an absolute brutal realization. If I’m being honest, I still had 60% of my cards to my chest at the end of a nearly 3 year relationship. That literally means that I only let 40% OF MYSELF be seen, known and loved in that relationship. W. T. F. Ouch. 

Several of those cards related to my sexuality. 

It wasn’t for lack of voicing some of my sexual desires that the cards were still clutched to my chest. At the time, when I voiced my desires, things like wanting to have a sacred, sexual, intimate partnership with a woman alongside my primary partnership, I was met with resistance in the form of (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Okay, you can go experience that, but we’ll have to break up first. You can go do that and then we’ll figure things out from there.” It was said in a tone that hoped I would get it out of my system and then we’d be good. Given that this knowing within me related to my sexual attraction to women has been living inside me since I was about twelve years old, this wasn’t just a phase. 

To be clear, he was just mirroring back to me my own resistance. 

As long as he was a no to it, I could be, too. It’s a convenient strategy, frankly, that kept my desires far away at bay somewhere out there. At the time, it gave me someone to point the finger at (even if only in my own head) that he won’t let me have what I want. But the truth was, I was so NOT prepared to let myself have what I wanted. You might be thinking, why would you want to be a “no” to your own desire(s)? 

Well, because it scared the f*** out of me. Still does. 

To have what you want can be a scary thing. 

To have what you want when it lies outside of societal conventions can be a scary thing. 

To have what you want when it lies outside of societal conventions when you’re terrified of unearthing this deeply buried part of yourself in partnership with someone you adore and don’t want to live without just to have this desire play out (not to mention what friends and family might think)...was a scary, scary thing. 

*breathing*

Full transparency: I keep getting paralyzing pulses from my body to delete this whole thing. Freeze response. Trauma showing itself. Internalized homophobia. Internalized wrongness for liking women. I rationalize with myself, “I can just write it and never share it.” This is kinda a big deal for me at this moment on my journey. Taking it slow. Trusting this process. Thanks for being with me so far.

Phew. Okay. Yes. Grace. 

This is grace in motion. 

Just continuing to type these words is grace in motion.

Loving myself amidst the resistance to speaking my truth is grace in motion.

Recently, after a very rough summer emotionally relating to my body after gaining weight through my grieving process, I shifted the “spotlight” of my focus off the scale and onto what really mattered most to me: Pleasure, fluidity and increased range of movement in my body, particularly in my hips, lower back and womb space. 

It’s not lost on me that as I’m embracing fluidity in my sacral chakra, I’m also embracing, here with you, my sexual fluidity. 

You literally can’t make this stuff up. As above, so below. As within, so without. GRACE. 

I’ve felt called to open up about my sexuality with my community not so much as a “coming out” (although I suppose it is that, too), but more so to shake up some stale, outdated, void-of-the-feminine paradigms around our sexual expression, around letting it be easy, around letting grace pour deep into our cells. To embody permission to find more ease by embracing more of who we are - in our relationships to ourselves, our bodies, our truths. 

And wouldn’t you know it, grace keeps showing up to show me how possible my desires are. I’ve been the one pumping the brakes.

But what if that’s okay? GRACE.

What if I’m perfectly on time for me and my truth? GRACE.

What if my sexual desires and expression are not meant to fit into anyone’s boxes or labels? GRACE.

What if my sexual desires shift, grow and evolve as effortlessly and as rapidly as I shift as a spiritual being having a human experience? GRACE.

Extending myself the olive branch that are these possibilities, these questions, these moments of acceptance, is...grace. 

When I allow myself to be exactly where I am as who I am, this is the Divine loving me through me. 

I embody grace every time I accept that I’m in the in between…that I’m different than I was trained to be...

…that I’m way too friggin’ vast of a human to limit myself for a false sense of safety amidst other people’s beliefs and constructs for what I’m allowed to be. THAT’S GRACE.

It’s time to be brave. It’s time to embrace more of ourselves. It’s time to bring truths out into the light. It’s time to release, be with, transform the traumas we carry like suitcases, all while the Divine wants to pour light and love through us like the sacred vessels we are.

And when I say “it’s time,” I mean you get to choose your time. As you embrace even the slightest idea of sharing YOUR truths, listen...listen closely to your timing, to your safety, to your knowings. 

Sharing these truths with you as a white, cis-gendered woman living in the United States of America looks very different (and very privileged) than it would someone of a different skin color, gender expression and/or sexual expression living in other corners of the world. Heck, its likely different for many on the very street I live on.

When I say “it’s time,” it merely means that there is a collective opening for these conversations. Maybe it’s with a trusted friend or sibling. Maybe it’s to your journal. Maybe it’s with your partner. Maybe it’s quietly out loud to yourself in the mirror. Either way, these conversations are happening everywhere if you take the time to look one layer deeper.

There are so many queer people all over the world that have made me SO BRAVE in owning my own expressions and truths. I’ve looked to them for inspiration. I’ve had countless moments where I say to myself, “How in the WORLD do they be THAT themselves out loud every damn day?” Seriously, though! I envy their freedom. I marvel at their creativity. I revere their courage to go first in their own ways. Them being themselves shows me that I can, too. GRACE. 

You never know how you’re impacting someone else by speaking up with your truths.

I may be the first of “my kind” (whatever that means to you) that has ever shared her truths like this publicly. It’s likely not, but hey, the point is that you never know. You literally never know how you’re impacting other humans with your soulful truths. GRACE. 

I get 1-3+ messages each week from people of all ages and walks of life thanking me for the words I share, the messages I communicate, the permission I give to let it be easy and the stories I tell from breakups to body love to healing my relationship with money, family, sexuality, etc. Every single time, I tear up in gratitude. Had they not paused to share those couple sentences of how my work impacted them, I literally would never know!

G R A C E !

If there is one thing that I experience as some of the PUREST GRACE there is, it is being a vessel for sacred messages like these. I feel so on purpose. I feel so linked up with God/Divine/Universe. It's as if God and me are holding hands and walking down the street together in an effortless conversation (also one of my favorite experiences of grace). I have no doubts. I have no hesitations. I’m just...me. And you. Here. Together. With truth, ease and love as our common ground. G R A C E.

I’m not sure where exactly I got the idea that my sexuality lived outside the bounds of the grace of the Divine, but given that its a very core part of who I authentically am, I no longer deem it necessary to separate it away from my identity, my being and my truth. That method of safety served me well for a long time. I’ve outgrown it now. And so, I welcome my evolution into more of who I am. 

Hi. My name is Krystal and I am sexually fluid. I welcome all of me here. I welcome all of you, too. 

I love you. 

SACRED self-care questions for reflection:

How can I extend grace to myself today? 

Where am I exploring my identity, sexuality and/or authenticity?

How has grace shown up for me recently?

What parts of myself do I hide away? 

How can I try to integrate/welcome more of me to the table of my life?

What desires do I know are there but keep getting shoved to the back burner?

How can I embrace ease in my sex life?

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Start your week with EASE in mind

(and get first dibs on my newest blogs and word art!)

Receive ultra practical ease and self-care tips, soulful word art, inspired beauty and a channeled ease note each Monday for the Easy Mondays Love Letter by joining me below!

NAVIGATING OVERWHELM

A lot of times people say they’re overwhelmed because they spend their days managing chaos. 

Chaos has become normal.

Not just once in awhile, but like...every day. 

Most people don’t see it as chaos though. They say something along the lines of, “Well, it’s just the way it is” or “It’s out of my control.”

Can you relate?

And listen, sometimes it is out of your control (like newborn feeding schedules). Most times, though, it’s NOT.

We can do better and guess what? It can be easier than you think. 

To do better, though, we need to know better - in the form of other possibilities in how to think and relate to overwhelm.

This is not going to be a full-on, comprehensive undertaking on overwhelm. However, I do hope that this walkthrough will be simplifying and very helpful as you allow yourself to seek and implement more ease in your everyday life.

From my perspective as someone who teaches ease, I watch people run around in a hurried haze each day half on their phone, half driving, half already in the meeting they’re late to prepping the excuse they’ll say, half in the dentist chair for that appointment later today, half picking up their kids late, half eating their sandwich they started three hours ago...noticing any issues with my math here? How can six halves of you be in six different places all at once?? 

There’s only one you and multi-tasking isn’t actually a thing. #markmywords

Even as I write this very article on navigating overwhelm, all of a sudden there’s a long string of church bells going off, several dogs parking (including one right next to me), music playing and ambulance whirring nearby and my heart rate is rising in a very natural irritation. It suddenly got very loud out of nowhere and my nervous system is getting activated in the direction of overwhelm. If you’re wired for overwhelm as a norm, there is no shortage of triggers to induce that state in this modern day world. #forreal

So this is where we start to look at things differently (and naturally, as I write this sentence, the bells just stopped, no more dogs barking, quiet streets, phewwwww, breath anddddd….it’s already working. Okay, here we go...)

This article is going to be split into four, brief sections. 

Why sections? Because if you’re used to overwhelm as a norm, some clear-cut structure is gonna pierce right through that hazy, fuzzy, cloudy norm. 

Why brief? Because making this easy and workable for you in your life is what I’m after here. My intention is to make this process as rinse-and-repeatable as possible until looking for ease in a moment of overwhelm becomes your NEW norm.

Sections AKA “Your New Routine”: 

1. NAME IT: What is happening here?

2. GROUND IT: Can I feel my feet?

3. FLIP IT: What else is possible?

4. FIND IT: Where’s the ease?

First, we’ll start with definitions.

OVERWHELM: According to lexico.com, the definition of overwhelm includes the following:

• Bury or drown beneath a huge mass

• Have a strong emotional effect on

• Defeat completely

Welp, no wonder being overwhelmed feels so crappy! Geez louise! 

CHAOS: According to lexico.com, the definition of chaos includes the following:

• Complete disorder and confusion

• The property of a complex system whose behavior is so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.

That second one intrigues me.

Where in your life do things feel unpredictable based on a great sensitivity to small changes in external conditions? 

This “new routine” that I’m going to walk you through will help you, if you so choose it, take your power back from the external condition shifts that tend to throw you into chaos, turmoil, frustration and/or overwhelm.

Let’s do this, my friend!

Let’s find where the ease in hiding as you’re navigating overwhelm.

For this walkthrough, I’m going to use an example that happened TODAY (literally like 7 hours ago as I’m writing this) to illustrate how to use this new routine helped save me from a possible downward emotional spiral. 

THE SCENARIO: I drive my car to the nearest bank and pulls up to ATM #1. ATM #1 has a blank, white screen and is unresponsive. Cool. I reverse her car and pulls into ATM #2 two lanes over. How convenient! I put my card in the atm and put pin in. I get my cash out of my wallet that I want to deposit. I press the deposit button on the screen which is followed by a notice saying, “This transaction cannot be processed at this time.” Ummm, okkkk. That’s annoying. I pull to the front of the bank to see if there’s an atm inside the doors and after watching a guy try to go in, I gather that try #3 is a no-go.

I pause, take a breath and say, “Okay, what else is possible?” I pull up my phone and see that there’s an ATM up the street inside the Giant Eagle (grocery store). Giant Eagle on a Sunday...woof. Okay, not optimal, but with my schedule tomorrow the way it is, it’s still easiest to head there to deposit my money.

Feeling slightly irritated at the extra steps required to do one simple thing, I drive to the store, park my car, go inside and find a long line at the bank store front. I say to God/Universe, “How easy can it be to deposit my money and be on my way within five minutes?” Looking at the line, it’s an unlikely request but I request it anyway and therefore, expect it to happen. I get in line to wait my turn.

A guy comes walking towards the line talking very loudly on his phone and gets in line two people behind me. Within the five minutes we’re all in line, we now know all the details of the drama of the last 24 hours of how the girl he was interested in was spotted by a friend of his last night hanging out with his brother. On and on and on he goes telling her he just wants her to be happy while he’s obviously feeling slighted by the whole thing. The longer he’s in line, the louder he gets. The louder he gets, the more I start to lose my presence and patience. 

And here we go:

1. NAME IT: What is happening here?

I ask myself, “Okay, Krystal. What’s happening here?” In being honest with myself, this line and this guy is frustrating the living bejeezus out of me and I just want to deposit my money and get the heck outta here. He’s being so loud and I don’t want to be here anymore. 

NAME IT: Frustration. Irritation. Overwhelm. Impatience. Anger.

2. GROUND IT: Can I feel my feet?

I close my eyes. I take a breath. Innnnnnn….outttttt…...ahhh. Okay. I ask myself, “Can I feel my feet?” Yes, I can feel my feet. Cool. Progress. 

The question “Can I feel my feet?” serves two purposes: 

• It is a pattern interrupt to what’s happening in that moment of overwhelm (it gives you something else to focus on) 

• It helps ground you by moving your focus to your feet making contact with the earth because all good next steps came from grounded decision making

GROUND IT: Can I feel my feet? Yes? Proceed. No? Take another breath and keep focusing on the sensation on your feet until you can feel the floor beneath you.

3. FLIP IT: What else is possible?

Now that I’m grounded, I sincerely ask myself, “What else is possible here? I wanted to get in and out of here in five minutes and it’s going on ten minutes now. I must be missing something. What else is possible?” I just let the question linger in the air. 

FLIP IT: With sincerity and presence, I ask, “What else is possible?”

4. FIND IT: Where’s the ease?

Within seconds of grounding myself and asking what else is possible (not exaggerating, literal seconds...it happened that fast), an ATM appears 15 feet right in front of me as if the Gods opened a magical golden portal. It occurs to me that I came inside this store to use the ATM, not the teller! Why am I even in line? I can just walk up to the ATM, deposit my money and leave! E A S E. Where’s the ease? It’s at the friggin’ ATM, that’s where.

FIND IT: Walk out of long line, deposit money into ATM, go on my merry way. 

Word to the wise: When ease shows its self, it may be difficult to not burst into laughter at just how easy your moment just got (and that likely it was there the whole time). LOL!

Circling back to the overwhelm and chaos piece of this conversation, in this example, I found myself in a moment of conjuring more overwhelm by being overwhelmed. I attracted more chaos to me (dude on the phone broadcasting his drama all over everyone within earshot) by being in a chaotic, ungrounded, irritated state of mind. 

Naming what was happening, grounding myself, opening myself up to another possibility and then finding said possibility is what turned it all back to EASE.

I mean, seriously, how much easier does it get than an ATM being right in front of your face as you stand there huffing and puffing in frustration?! It’s HILARIOUS when you really can see it. I’m literally giggling over here. 

MY INVITATION: Use this new routine this coming week. Put it to the test. Then, share your answer to the question below in the comments, “How did ease show up for me while navigating overwhelm?”

REMINDER #1: Finding ease takes practice.

All of your daily overwhelm isn’t going to disappear overnight by doing this one time. It’s in using this new routine over and over and over again until it becomes second nature that will allow the overwhelm to dissolve and ease and flow to take its place. And yes, that is possible. I live it every day. <3 

REMINDER #2: Let it be easy. 

I love you. You’ve got this. The sooner you divorce yourself from overwhelm as a norm, the sooner we get to receive those treasured gifts that live inside you (which are now buried under overwhelm). If ever there was a time that we need you in your own natural rhythms and truth, it’s now. This work is worth it. It gets easier and easier. Keep going. 

START YOUR WEEK WITH EASE IN MIND

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