A bladder loved.

 

My bladder still leaks. Sometimes I am so used to it and then I attend a wedding in my hot little red dress and start to jump on the dance floor and with the warm release remember that I have holes. Leaks. Places that no longer work as they once did. I have to keep stopping and padding. I jump less and feel slight embarrassment with each trip to the bathroom.

So, it leaks. I'm working on it. I don't believe I will live with this forever. I do love the irony that bladder issues have to do with holding, with fear of letting go. So mine just lets go a lot since emotionally I am a master holder!

The pain from Interstitial Cystitis is mostly gone. Holy shit. I'll type that again. The pain is mostly gone. Today was the first day I've had a flare up in months. Months. This part of me working better than it has in so many years. I can have sex with ease and fun. My body can move and flow. It feels a bit like a rebirth for this part of my body, this feminine squishy loved place.

I feel sexy. I feel open. I feel my yes.

(Please grab that mantra for yourself.)

***

The pain was the crazy gift. I love my bladder. I have deep respect for all it does and even for what it can no longer do.

I understand that when I am 'off' like today it is a reminder that I am heading towards a new place. And that I must drink water even though I don't like to pee often.

It is my gentle nudge that I must start to create the nest for the new.

This loved bladder of mine allows me to feel present. To not run away.

Being present means not always being strong. It means feeling tired (like I am today) or scared. It is understanding the fears so we can move through. Each time new space is coming in our lives, something happens. It is in the listening that we are able to move through.

You can be strong later. In the present you need to feel it to move through it.

***

We have been talking about feeling in Making Space for Surrender. Feeling what you are fighting against rather than numbing it or silencing it. Feeling it so it can become a guide towards what you want. Feeling it so you can find a way to what you need.

So tonight I am going to put on my yoga pants and make mug after mug of steaming red raspberry leaf tea. I'm going to make a huge pot of chicken corn chowder (recipe will be in Holiday Joy Up). I'm going to clear out a few corners that have piled up with stuff.

***

On the last full moon I tried to release silence. Held the word inked on paper onto the red flames of the fire. But truly I suck at release. I don't like it if I'm being honest. But I wrote it down as though that word needed to jump out to the paper.

I thought it meant that I needed to find ways to talk more about how I am feeling.

What I've realized in the last few weeks is that I am actually releasing the fear of silence and opening to the softness of what I adore.

I use words. Typed on this old computer. Words unspoken are how I process. How I share. How I guide. How I teach.

For now I am not the girl in the therapist's chair. I write. I write to breathe. I write to move through. I write to feel.

And in the silence of my writing I find home, find love, find truth, find you, find longing, find peace.

***

A bladder loved. I had to feel the pain to find the love. And so...

***

A new prompt for those of you keeping your vision books. Find that intuitive beauty resting inside your lovely eyes, and play.

She's...

As you lose your feathers.

I taught myself how to truly live in abundance through feathers. I tell the story in my vision book workshops and I will guide the community of The August Joy Up (yes, joy up is coming, its coming!!!) in learning to understand abundance this way. For now, I'll just say feathers became my thing. Quickly I was finding feathers where there never was a bird and my life started to switch from one of lack and complaining into one of abundance and gratitude.

As a highly sensitive person I tend to wear very few things, like only 4 of the shirts in the drawer and lots of leggings and yoga pants. I find a pair of earrings and wear them every day. I find a favorite shirt and I'll have it made in black and gray and white. I crave comfort and familiarity when dressing.

During my early practice with feathers I found these gorgeous, long earrings with feathers in my color story on Etsy. They were reiki blessed and held my favorite color stones. I wore them every day. They loved me. We had a love affair. They were soft and I really never felt them but always could glance the chains and stones hanging right by my chin and neck.

In Seattle this past April I was sitting in a gorgeous French Restaurant with Persephone. We had just taught at Feast Retreat and we were having a quick meal to celebrate our time and to give me a chance to sit in a city I had left 14 years ago.

I took off my coat and brushed my hair out of my face and on one side there was no feather. I looked in my coat, on the floor. Gone.

 I felt for a moment, frozen. Persephone knew how much those earrings meant to me, how attached to 'things' I can get. We kept looking for a bit and then sat down and ordered a drink.

"OK, so what are you releasing?" Persephone asks.

I think I probably threw my head on the counter and moaned. Damn. OK. Perfect.

I can't remember what I said, if anything good at all. But the truth was that I was releasing so much.

During the retreat Liz gave me full permission to show up as my highly sensitive self. To take time away when I needed it. To truly honor my needs. I didn't think I would be able to do it but once I got there I felt such deep permission, the kind that I give others but rarely receive. One day I even went to lay down and fell asleep before lunch. I never nap, let alone in a place outside of my home.

I released being afraid of getting my needs met while around others.

I had only a very short time in Seattle, the city where I lived for 3 1/2 years from 21-24. When I was there I was inside of a lot of struggle. I had huge body image challenges, I was in and out of jobs that didn't fullfill me, I was a struggling actor, I felt so distant from myself as a woman, from my sexuality, from being seen. There were decisions I made there that I had been holding onto with regret. There was a loss of self that I could never piece into the forgiveness that I have for myself now.

Being back in the city, as this woman who has journeyed, done the work, hacked joy, fallen in love with life, being there in that moment, as this me, was healing. Because I was ready.

I released regret, old stored pain and the fear of forgiveness. And I forgave myself.

I think about someone walking down the streets of Seattle and finding this feather earring. Finding a symbol of my release. Or maybe a bird will pick it up and add it to a nest they are making. I imagine that the earring's story did not end when it fell from my ear but simply moved into the chapter titled, The Release.

Losing my feathers, molting, this is what happens when we start to fly, to soar, to grow.

Let’s shed one fear, like a bird loses a feather in flight, by stating it, naming it and letting it flow off of us as though we are birds in flight, knowing that once it drops it will become a magical gift of release…

And the person who finds your feather, she is just learning about magic. 

***

Follow up:: I contacted the woman who made me the earrings so long ago and she is creating a whole new pair of them for me. I don't know what they'll look like but my heart is happy.

***

Community Grace starts Wednesday. Are you ready???

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In just a few days the workshop series at The Loft in Rhode Island will be launched. Get ready for serious feather releasing magic.