Is It Time to Start Unpacking?


October 11, 2016

“The more you empty out the sweat, words, art, ideas, and love,” it began, “the freer and lighter you’ll become.”

Isn’t that the truth.

It was one of my favorite things to do. A buddy acupressure session with my soul sister, deep into the steps, and so very open to whatever wisdom was meant to come around the things weighing heavy on my heart.

There’s been a heaviness to my life this last year.

To my body, with the extra weight and exhaustion of adrenal fatigue after grief. To my business, with the uncertainty of just how to plant my feet inside a new body of work that tugs deeply at my heart. To my relationship, with the navigating of co-habitation and stark differences. To my finances, still recovering from taking my feet off the wall when healing asked me to trust more deeply than I knew I could.

There’s been a heaviness to everything.

It built up slowly over time… not just these past two years of loss and grief and healing the anxiety of the aftermath. But over the last decade of my life. A decade filled with the toxic and unhealthy relationships. With many, many moves from home to home, state to state, every year. The ups and downs that comes with running a business. With the uncertainty. The fear. The anxiety. And all the deep, heartbreaking losses.

And yet, even with all this heaviness, there’s an enormous amount of expansion and alignment all around me. I can feel it in my bones.

The last decade the Universe gave me so many opportunities to grow into who I’m here to be. Painful, challenging, and beautiful opportunities. And in the last two years, it kicked me up to advanced life skills to clarify the work I’m here to do. I walked through hell in order to find peace and joy and purpose so deep I know that I’m nothing short of unstoppable.

When things get hard, we tend to close.
To hold tight from fear and pain.
To go inward, hiding inside ourselves.
Standing strong behind that inner wall.

If ever I had a go-to coping mechanism, stuffing would be it. For so many years of my life I chose to be “strong,” assuming that strength meant “holding it all together, all the damn time.” Stuffing down my feelings, truths, and desires. And you know what? I was strong. I held it together through some really hard times… but it never served me. And today me and my body pay the price of that “strength.”

True strength involves tears and heartache. It involves not having all the answers, all the damn time. It requires breakdowns to break through. True strength is made inside the moments that we fall to pieces… the moments that we’re certain we won’t survive another day. The moments where we question everything and everyone. It requires a level of trust and faith that’s, quite frankly, incredibly challenging to lean into.

My work right now is about unpacking.

Writing the stories that went untold. Healing the wounds that left marks on my heart. Creating from all that unused inspiration. Speaking the words that need to be said, in each and every moment. Feeling and moving years of unmet emotions. Sweating out the toxins from all the years of stress and unhealthy habits.

Every single day.
As much as I possibly can.
Feeling lighter and lighter as I go.

And I invite you to tune into your own body. Where are you feeling a heaviness that’s weighted from years of stuffing, avoiding, or closing down? Where are there words, creations, truths, or ideas that need to be unpacked? Toxins that need sweat to find release? Feelings that have remained unmet for far too long?

It might be time for you to start unpacking too.



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